...To think outside the box. To step out of your comfort zone and take a glimpse at things Jesus says and does during this week that may seem irrational and baffling, and even seemingly unedifying.
Of course we all have the benefit of hindsight; we can see how His words and His actions resulted in displaying God's glory.
But put yourselves in the place of these men and women who walked the same ground Jesus did in the first century A.D.
But let's think back to what happened before Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem riding the foal of a donkey.
Let's go back to the time He raised a close friend from the dead. A man from Bethany who had two sisters who believed Jesus was more than a mere Rabbi.
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. (John 11:1-6)
Have you had a time when it seemed Jesus, in a sense, "stayed where he was two more days" although you needed His saving grace yesterday?
How do we, as Christians, deal with such baffling ways of God?
How do we come to terms with God's timing?
Is God just being capricious?
What would you tell a friend who asks you such questions?
Yes, Lazarus was raised from the dead after four days of being in the grave. Yes, God's glory was displayed ultimately. And yes, many believed on Jesus because of this. But what do you tell the sisters who are still waiting for Jesus to come and save them during days two and three as they grieve over their dead brother?
1 comment:
testing.
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