There is one very good reason why our modern witness is missing the accounts of the work and wonders of Jesus, so prevalent in the Gospel accounts. It is not "very good" in that it is a legitimate reason or in that we should be proud of ourselves for having obtained it; it is "very good" only in the sense that it thoroughly and undeniably accounts for the trouble at hand. That reason is this:
Most of us don't know what Jesus is doing any more.
The disciples, those men responsible for the content of the Gospels, devoted their lives to Jesus. They followed Him around. They weren't about to miss anything that He was doing. When there was wind that Jesus was doing such-and-such a thing at some place, the disciples were there. They saw it with their own eyes.
Even the people in Jesus's day wanted to be where the action was. How many of the Gospel stories include the phrase, "_____ heard that Jesus was passing by," as justification for someone being there at all? When the people heard that Jesus was near, they went out to see Him. When they heard of His wonders, they ran out to see with their own eyes. When they heard the crowds, they joined them.
This is no longer the case. Most of us don't go running into the streets. We don't go running halfway around the world or even across town. We hear rumors, of course, but we're not there to see them, nor do we think that we need to be.
We catch glimpses of God as He passes us by, rather than pursuing Him with all we've got, and that severely limits what we know of Him. In fact, with a faith that waits for God to show Himself, what we're often left with is blinks and blurs, mere movements of motion that sweep through in moments, leaving us to say, "Wait. Was that Him?"
Most of what we give credit to Jesus for, which is very little, is kind of a guess on our part. Or at best, a hope.
We hope that was Him.
But we kind of missed it.
We just assume that if something happens in our lives that is consistent with what we believe God desires or how we believe God loves, then it must have been God who did it. We give Him credit, but we can't really say for sure what it's like to see Him in action. We simply weren't watching. We simply weren't looking. We simply weren't pursuing Him the way that the disciples did; our eyes are not open to the work and the wonder of Jesus any more.
No wonder He's missing from our witness.
There are, of course, a few reasons for this. There are some things that our faith has gotten wrong that have set us up for s new blindness, that have taken away our vision to see Jesus in the world - have taken away our heart to see Him. More on that, tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment