I sometimes wonder how Jesus did it. As I look around I see
so much that is just wrong. There are so many people whose lives are just
busted. They're not working right. And as a result, there are
so many whose lives qualify as 'a wasted life'. There is so much that they
could be, but they aren't, and if things continue as they have, they never will
be. As I look at that, it gets me down. I find it so incredibly sad.
I have found myself wondering, 'How did Jesus do it?' He
lived in the same messed up world that I do. He saw, to a much greater degree
than I can, the ugliness of a once-beautiful creation. He saw the wasted lives
and what that meant. How did He manage to keep on going in the face of all of
that? Why didn't He just give up?
As I considered this, I remembered that time when He cried
over a city full of people whose lives were being wasted, people to whom He
had come to rescue them from all of that, people who rejected Him and people He
condemned to their foolishness. It makes sense that He cried. I really do
understand that. But then I thought, 'What did He do after that?' I figured
that answering that question could be very helpful for me. So, I looked it up.
And he entered the temple and began
to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be
a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” And he was teaching
daily in the temple. (Luke 19.45ff.)
Well, what He didn't do was stop. He didn't give up. And I
found that so very helpful. He kept at it.
For one thing, He confronted the false teachers who were
doing such damage to people's lives. And He did that quite violently, flipping
tables and swinging a whip in the Temple. And then, He kept on teaching. He did
that even though He knew that they weren't getting it and that most of them
wouldn't get it. That, after all, was why He had been crying over them. And I
found that helpful too.
So, this is what I've taken away from all of this. It's good
and right for me to weep over the many who could live a life worth living but
don't. It's okay for me to
weep.
But as I do that, I also need to keep at it, just like Jesus
did. There are those who need to be confronted. And while I may not flip a
bunch of tables somewhere, I do need to express the anger I feel at those who
deserve it. I'm not good at that. It's something I have to learn. But I think
that seeing more and more clearly the damage that these modern false teachers
cause in the lives of those many - I think that that will help me to feel free to express my
anger. I just hope that I will be able to express it wisely, like Jesus did.
And then, Jesus just kept on teaching - even though. And I
need to do the same - even though. I can't help but think that Jesus' attitude
in this was that the little dent He made when He taught in the Temple would be
followed up by the dents that others after Him would make. I want to make a
dent. Actually, I want to make a crater. But I will be content if I can add my
dent to the dents that others have made, and to do that in the hope that others
will follow and add their dents until it actually becomes a crater - a
multitude of lives changed so that they might lead lives that are not at all
wasted.
I think that this is what kept Jesus going in the face of
such ugliness, and I hope that it will keep me going.
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