7 July 2014 - reconnect

7 July 2014 - reconnect

We are accustomed to feeling a disconnect from bible times.  We read of amazing things happening.

She said to herself, “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.”
Jesus turned around and saw her, and said,
“Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.”
And from that hour the woman was cured.

And perhaps we do not see those same things happening around us.  But why?  Jesus tells his disciples that they will do greater works than even his own (cf. 14:12).  He tells us that his disciples will be known by the miraculous signs that accompany those who believe (cf. Mar. 16:17).  Paul puts this into practice with proclamations which "were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God." 

These works are not just for a past generation.  They are for ours as well.

Generation after generation praises your works
and proclaims your might.
They speak of the splendor of your glorious majesty
and tell of your wondrous works. 

So why do we stop discoursing about the power of his terrible deeds in our own time?  Why does his greatness become something abstract and lifeless?  When we try to spread his fame and sing of his justice, why does it sound like it has so little to do with our own times?  The LORD is not different.  He is the same LORD in whom there is no shadow of change (cf. Jam. 1:17).

The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.

We are afraid of the Holy Spirit.  Welcoming the Holy Spirit is playing with fire.  It is to welcome a force entirely beyond our ability to control.  He may choose to do things that make us uncomfortable.  He may reach out to people that we would neglect.  And at other times he might not reach out when we would.

“Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.”
And they ridiculed him.

Even with the Holy Spirit we encounter situations where the world looks like it is proceeding as it did before Jesus, as it has gone on in many places since then.  It ridicules the apparent powerlessness of God.  But if God allows this girl to experience that which the world considers death it is only so that the Holy Spirit can demonstrate that the game has changed.

When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand,
and the little girl arose.
And news of this spread throughout all that land.

But we have to be willing to accept the ridicule.  We have to be willing to seem powerless even while we believe that God's power is absolute.  We have to be able to see the appearance of a world that goes on as it has, to see suffering, dying, and death, and to not let this change our expectations of Jesus.  We must not let it change the expectations we have for the power of his Holy Spirit in us.

But our expectations have been muddled.  So let us listen to the LORD as he draws us back.

I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.

Here in the desert God has more direct access to our hearts.  Here the world's insistence on its own finality begins to fade.  Here we no longer look to the world and its solutions, its "baal" but we begin to trust in the LORD as our "husband".  Our bond to him is revealed to be forever, our bond to the world transitory and passing.

I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.