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Saturday, July 3, 2010

Where is God - part 1

Where Is God When I Am Hurt?

He was a child of the desert. Leathery face. Tanned skin. Clothing of animal skins. What he owned fit in a pouch. His walls were the mountains and his ceiling the stars.

But not anymore. His frontier is walled out, his horizon hidden. The stars are memories. The fresh air is all but forgotten. And the stench of the dungeon relentlessly reminds the child of the desert that he is now a captive of the king.

In anyone’s book, John the Baptist deserves better treatment than this. After all, isn’t he the forerunner of the Christ? Isn’t he a relative of the Messiah? At the very least, isn’t his the courageous voice of repentance?

But most recently that voice, instead of opening the door of renewal, has opened the door to his own prison cell.

John’s problems began when he called a king on the carpet. On a trip to Rome, King Herod succumbed to the enticements of his brother’s wife, Herodias. Deciding Herodias was better off married to him, Herod divorced his wife and brought his sister-in-law home. The gossip columnists were fascinated, but John the Baptist was infuriated. He pounced on Herod like a desert scorpion, denouncing the marriage for what it was---adultery.

Herod might have let him get away with it. But not Herodias. This steamy seductress wasn’t about to have her social climbing exposed. She told Herod to have John pulled off the speaking circuit and thrown into the dungeon. Herod hemmed and hawed until she whispered and wooed. Then Herod gave in. But that wasn’t enough for this mistress. She had her daughter strut before the king and his generals at a stag party. Herod, who was as easily duped as he was aroused, promised to do anything for the pretty young thing in the G-string. [you know what goes on... John's head on a silver platter.]

After all, what’s more important - to save face or to save the neck of an eccentric prophet?

The story reeks with inequity.
John dies because Herod lusts.
The good is murdered while the bad smirk.
A man of God is killed while a man of passion is winking at his niece.

Is this how God rewards his anointed? Is this how he honors his faithful? Is this how God crowns his chosen? With a dark dungeon and a shiny blade?

The inconsistency was more than John could take. Even before Herod reached his verdict, John was asking his questions. His concerns were outnumbered only by the number of times he paced his cell asking them. When he had a chance to get a message to Jesus, his inquiry was one of despair: “When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”Note what motivated John’s question. It was not just the dungeon or even death. It was the problem of unmet expectations - the fact that John was in deep trouble and Jesus was conducting business as usual. Is this what messiahs do when trouble comes? Is this what God does when his followers are in a bind?

Jesus’ silence was enough to chisel a leak into the dam of John’s belief. “Are you the one? Or have I been following the wrong Lord?”

Had the Bible been written by a public relations agency, they would have eliminated that verse. It’s not good PR strategy to admit that one of the cabinet members has doubts about the president. You don’t let stories like that get out if you are trying to present a unified front.

But the Scriptures weren’t written by personality agents; they were inspired by an eternal God who knew that every disciple from then on would spend time in the dungeon of doubt. Though the circumstances have changed, the questions haven’t. They are asked anytime the faithful suffer the consequences of the faithless. Anytime a person takes a step in the right direction, only to have his/her feet knocked out from under him/her, anytime a person does a good deed but suffers evil results, anytime a person takes a stand, only to end up flat on his face . . . the questions fall like rain:

“If God is so good, why do I hurt so bad?”
“If God is really there, why am I here?”
“What did I do to deserve this?”
“Did God slip up this time?”
“Why are the righteous persecuted?”

Does God sometimes sit on his hands? Does God sometimes choose to do nothing? Does God sometimes opt for silence even when I’m screaming my loudest?

Disappointment demands a change in command. When we don’t agree with the One who calls the shots, our reaction is often the same as John’s. “Is he the right one for this job?” Or, as John put it, “Are you the one? Should we look for another?”

John couldn’t believe that anything less than his release would be for the best interest of all involved, In his opinion, it was time to exercise some justice and get some action. But the One who had the power was “sitting on his hands.”

I can’t believe that God would sit in silence while a missionary is kicked out of a foreign country or a Christian loses a promotion because of his beliefs or a faithful wife is abused by an unbelieving husband. These are just three of many items that have made their way onto my prayer list - all prayers that seem to have gone unanswered.

Rule of thumb: Clouds of doubt are created when the warm, moist air of our expectations meets the cold air of God’s silence.

If you’ve heard the silence of God, if you’ve been left standing in the dungeon of doubt, then don’t put this book down until you read the next chapter. You may learn, as John did, that the problem is not as much in God’s silence as it is in your ability to hear. “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”

This was Jesus’ answer to John’s agonized query from the dungeon of doubt: “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

But before you study what Jesus said, note a couple of things he didn’t say.

First, He didn’t get angry. He didn’t throw up his hands in disgust. He didn’t scream, “What in the world do I have to do for John? I’ve already become flesh! I’ve already been sinless for three decades. I let him baptize me. What else does he want? Go and tell that ungrateful locust eater I am shocked at his disbelief”

He could have done that, (I would have done that.)But Jesus didn’t. Underline that fact: God has never turned away the questions of a sincere searcher. Not Job’s nor Abraham’s nor Moses’ nor John’s nor Thomas’s nor Max’s nor yours.

But note also that Jesus didn’t save John. The One who had walked on water could have easily walked on Herod’s head, but he didn’t. The One who cast out the demons had the power to nuke the king’s castle, but he didn’t. No battle plan. No SWAT teams, No flashing swords. Just a message - a kingdom message. “Tell John that everything is going as planned. The kingdom is being inaugurated.”

Jesus’ words are much more than a statement from Isaiah. They are the description of a heavenly kingdom being established.

A unique kingdom. An invisible kingdom. A kingdom with three distinct traits.

to be continue.....