I’m back!
It’s fall. I’m employed. I’m still broke. I’m kind of a senior.
These (except for being broke) are all new things that apply to me since the last time the I posted. That was way back there in April, back when I still believed that UGA’s football team had a prayer in 2010. Here’s to high hopes that didn’t pan out.
Regardless, back to the employment thing. I have a job now! It’s an odd job, but a job nonetheless. I take pictures of newspapers these days. When I’m not taking pictures of newspapers, I’m looking at microfilm of pictures of newspapers. It’s monotonous, but I don’t really mind it because I have lots of time with my iPod, so I can catch up on podcasts and audiobooks as I go. It’s been great, but two days ago I was floored by some scripture I heard in a sermon. The text was from John 5:
“So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk?’ Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.’ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.’”
John 5:10-17
In verses fifteen and sixteen the Jews persecute Jesus because He heals on the Sabbath.
Stop and think about that for a second. What exactly did He do on the Sabbath?
He healed somebody.
Who heals people? God.
Would I be out of line if I said that these Pharisees were mad at God for being God? I mean, think about it. This man has lay by this pool at Bethesda for 38 years. He’s been a patient man. He’s been a frustrated man. Every day when the pool would stir, he’d try his hardest to get there, to have just a little bit of hope that that would be the day his miracle would arrive. But he kept failing. And the people kept walking by.
They would see him every day and come to accept his position as normal, as the status quo. He’s crippled, sure, but that’s just who he is. It’s who he was, it’s who he is, and it’s who he’s going to be. Throw him a dollar every now and then but don’t worry about it. And when the pool would stir, he would have no one to help him into it. He wanted healing so badly that he’d struggle to try and get over, but he just wasn’t fast enough. First come first serve on the miracles, son. Work for it if you want it. That’s the way it is.
And then comes Jesus. Throws a monkey wrench into everything.
“Do you want to be healed?”
Jesus tells him to take up his bed and walk. On the Sabbath. This man knew just like everyone else that he wasn’t supposed to work on the Sabbath, but he also knew that this Man who had just healed him had some kind of authority and power. If He could heal a 38-year invalid, He could tell him to walk on the Sabbath.
This man honored God by obedience. He enjoyed the gift that Jesus gave him, the gift of mobility. And what did the Pharisees do? Rejoice? Far from it. Rather than enjoying seeing the power of God at work in Christ, they resented it and were furious that this Man, who was claiming equality with God, didn’t fit inside the box that they’d built for God to fit in.
Let’s get legal.
Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.
Exodus 35:2-3
I’m so confused as to where they’re finding that he can’t take the bed that he’s been lying on for 38 years home. If I had been lying on the same mat for 38 years because I couldn’t walk, it would not feel like work at all to pick that trash up, take it away, and go find somewhere to dance. That’s not work. That’s liberation. But the Pharisees didn’t see that. They had made rules for themselves. They were righteous because their pedometers said so. “If you take one more step than me, you deserve to be stoned! How dare you break the Torah?!” Except that it’s not in there. The Pharisees weren’t mad because Jesus broke God’s Torah. They were mad because He broke THEIR torah.
How do you rebuke a man for a miracle on the Sabbath? Isn’t God in control of miracles? Isn’t God in control of the Sabbath? So if there’s a miracle on the Sabbath, don’t you kind of have to think that God gave it the OK?
I was really quick to rebuke the Pharisees in my brain until I started thinking about it.
I do the exact same thing.
God has unstoppable power and immutable authority. Psalm 115 says that God does whatever He wishes. He can rock miracles on the Sabbath because He made the Sabbath. He wrote the law. As Jesus He kept the law. He fulfilled the law on the cross. And what do I do? Exactly what the Pharisees did. I make rules based on my self righteous morals that, in my mind, govern how God should act. If He doesn’t act by my rules, on my timetable, according to my requests, how often do I call foul? I’m quick to cry for justice and fairness, but I really shouldn’t be. The Gospel isn’t fair. Fair is God killing me and sentencing me to the conscious eternal torment in Hell right now, because that’s what the filth of my sin deserves. That’s fair. That’s justice.
So here I am, in my filth but for the atoning blood of Christ, and somehow I’ve come to the arrogant position of thinking I can tell God how He should treat me because “I deserve this” or “it’s not fair for You not to do this.”
Maybe it’s the fact that I live in a microwave, eHarmony, iTunes-already-on-my-iPod culture. I get to live in a world where everything is simple and all the work is taken out of it. Everything is available right in front of me (disclaimer: I DO NOT HAVE AN eHARMONY PROFILE). I can pop food in a microwave and it’s ready in 3 minutes. I can tell a computer I’m single and it’ll say, “Hey, meet her because she matches the checklist you filled out!” If I hear a song on the radio I want, I can buy it right then. I pick those three examples because they NAIL three cultural failings that have leaked into my life: Impatience, self-idolization, and impulsivity. I want something quickly and painlessly, exactly how I ordered it, just because I decided that I should have it. That is DISGUSTING.
I know God loves me and that He has a plan for me. His works are forever, His plans are forever, and He has plans for my hope and for my future. But that’s the key: they’re His plans. Not mine. His ways are above my ways. His thoughts are above my thoughts. When I see the power of God at work in others, I should rejoice in it. I should be happy because God is showing Himself generous and glorious in them. When something hasn’t quite arrived in my life yet, I need to just keep living and keep devoting myself to Jesus and His Gospel. If God wants something to happen, it’ll happen regardless of what is done to stop it. If He doesn’t want something to happen, no matter my amount of hard work, dedication, and tenacity, IT WON’T HAPPEN. I have to submit not just parts of my life, but all of it.
It’s not right for me to demand things be done by my timetable to my preferences. It’s idolatrous, and by my actions it’s saying that I should be God because I know how to do things better than He does.
I’m not God. I don’t want to be.
But I don’t want to be mad at God for being God either.
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