If you think about it a moment, there appears to be a huge disproportion between who Jesus seemed to have been and His impact on humanity and human history. Jesus was born in near poverty under “curious” circumstances to obscure parents in a backwater corner of the Roman Empire. He lived some 33 years and, except briefly when he was a very young child, never traveled more than 100 miles from where he was born, lived a very ordinary, very private life for 30 of His 33 years, and in His 3 years of public life, never really got much attention beyond that 100 mile radius from His birthplace. How did this seemingly insignificant man become a central figure in the past nearly 2000 years of human history?!
The starting place for the answer to this question lies in us, we human beings. Can we, for a few moments, honestly take a look at ourselves? We human beings are pretty wretched! It hurts to admit it … it hurts to write it ... but at the bottom line, it is true. How do I mean that?
In community, we like to think of ourselves as pretty good, as civilized. Consider, though. If there are “savage” tribes, like the Huarani of Ecuador, who almost revenge-killed themselves into extinction, “civilization” has it Tojos, Maos, Pol Pots, Kims, Idi Amins, Stalins, Hitlers and Napoleons (not an exhaustive list!) who were indiscriminate and far larger-scale killers. Lest societies who lack monsters of their ilk start to feeling smug, every society has its own battles in its midst, against crime and fraud. Accomplishments, such as the medical advances that save lives or the computers such as those on which this is being written and will be read, are more pleasant to contemplate, but human history is a tale replete with human-caused darkness!
When it comes to individuals, humans still don't come off looking very good. Each of the monsters listed above was an individual man, and the henchmen and henchwomen who helped them were likewise individual men and women, hundreds of thousands (millions?) of them. Similarly, crime is committed by individual men and women, acting alone and acting in concert with others. And lest “decent” people think they are OK, if you haven't murdered or beat the @#$% out of anyone, have you ever hated some one, and/or wished you could beat up some one? If you didn't steal or bilk some one of their life savings, is your life one of envy, or centered around acquiring and having material things? If you haven't played mattress polo with every woman or man who caught your fancy, what about your fantasy life?
From whence do these monsters – the world-infamous, the petty, and the mental – come? Jesus, and Jeremiah before Him, put their fingers squarely on the answer to this query:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 19:9, ESV
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. Matthew 15:19, ESV
The problem, our problem, is deep in the human heart (our hearts!), the soul, the very nature and core of man and woman.
Looking at mankind from another direction, from God's perspective, our problem is worse still (stick with me, I am getting to the point)! You see, God is good. Not merely in a good-better-best relative sense of the word, but truly, essentially, absolutely good. To be and dwell in God's presence, one must similarly be truly good. And therein is the problem every human being has. However law-abiding and pleasant we may be, relatively, each of us falls short of being truly good. Not only that, but we are powerless to make ourselves good. The word that describes what we do and what our problem is, the word that no one likes to hear, is “sin”.
What we could not do, God did and offers us, in the person and work of Jesus. Putting it simply, Jesus lived a sinless life, yet took the punishment for sin. Because of Who He is (the subject for the next meditation), He paid the price, not just for one person, but for any and all who acknowledge their need and believe in Him and what He did.
That is life-changing good news! That is society-changing good news! That is a truly BIG DEAL!
No comments:
Post a Comment