Friday, April 17, 2015

17 April 2015 - the god fight



And all day long, both at the temple and in their homes,
they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus.

Jesus, help us to proclaim your name all day long. Help us to be more like your Apostles who "left the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name." Really? How can this be? When circumstances beat us up even a little we don't usually rejoice. The Apostles rejoice after being flogged for your sake LORD. They don't enjoy the pain any more than we do. But they do rejoice that your share your mission with them. They know that you yourself are flogged for our sake. Even this participation in your pain serves to remind them of your love for them. 

May all of our suffering remind us of what you suffer for us. May this reminder of your love help impel us to share you with others. May this love impel us to proclaim your name at home and in the temple no matter what anyone says or thinks.

We often find a lack of receptivity. But not always. Sometimes, when we risk talking about you, we find someone who will prudently give us a fair hearing just like Gamaliel. These are people who have heard that hyper of various movements are won't just go off and follow the next new thing. They know that the world is filled with empty promises which are too good to be true. But they recognize that not every endeavor is always "of human origin". They see those sorts of movements gradually exhaust and destroy themselves. But Gamaliel knows that God does work in history. If people acknowledge that possibility it gives God room to reveal himself.

But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them;
you may even find yourselves fighting against God.”

Gamaliel hears a message that is almost too good to be true and does not dismiss it because of that. He sees these Apostles imprisoned and beaten and he does not dismiss it just because worldly success doesn't look like that. Instead, behind the suffering of the Apostles, Gamaliel witnesses what is in fact your own grace sustaining them, Jesus.

We begin to see that suffering and persecution have no power to stop God's mission.

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom should I fear?
The LORD is my life’s refuge;
of whom should I be afraid?

This is true in big sufferings like floggings and even in the small and daily sufferings of circumstance that we experience when we follow you.

Honestly, when it is too good we have the tendency to get confused.

Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off
to make him king

You do care about the bread we need and the sickness we face. But you do not ultimately come just to address those problems. You have even more for us than this. You want to heal our souls even more than our bodies. You want to feed us with the bread from heaven even more than earthly bread. As we make these our priority we reveal to the world that the movement we follow does come from God and that it cannot be destroyed. We are no longer alone. God himself fights for us.

For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will lift me high upon a rock.

No comments:

Post a Comment