Jesus at a traffic light
We read the world in light of our most impressive experiences—well, I do. When I’m in the mood to think that the world isn’t worth saving (myself included—myself especially!) I turn to bitter experiences, past and present, to prove my point to myself and I extrapolate from there. The entire human enterprise becomes sour—a royal waste of time.
Take this couple that’s old enough to know better, that God’s been good to over the years; a couple that resolutely refuses to have anythingto do with me or mine despite my/our pleading for reconciliation. The details don’t matter but the grounds for this rift are trivial and are no more “all their fault” than they are ours. The matter could be settled, immediately, if they had the will for it but instead they refuse to receive emails, answers calls, respond to invitations to family celebrations, agree to meetings, accept apologies and so forth. I’m an acquired taste and I know it so if the problem lay only with me—that is, if I were the only one they treated this way I’d soul-search even more than I do but they treat their own children the same way.
Now all that’s not just sad—it’s tragic! What adds tragedy to tragedy is that from time to time they both teach/preach about the reconciling Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who offers forgiveness to the repentant and who died and lives to destroy sinful fragmentation. On top of all that, they somehow justify their hypocrisy and make their great evil appear right in their own eyes. I say they “somehow” justify it because I’ve asked time without number why it is that this can’t be settled as brothers/sisters and they refused to say. “Don’t want to talk about it!”
We can all tell such stories and may ourselves be part of such stories—they’re not hard to come by. You see and hear of them anywhere you go and if I myself am a part of one that only makes my point sharper.
The human enterprise is a waste of time and effort!
By now I’ve convinced you that I’m lancing an inner boil and that what this piece is about is someone spewing the sour bile out of his bitter, twisted little mind. I don’t deny that that is part of this existential mix but I can’t confess that it's my dominant thought at the moment. My dominant thought at the moment is the astonishing character and the long, long patience of God!
I was driving to the grocery shop earlier this morning to get some sandwich material for our little gathering this evening and I was thinking of the above and more. I had the sinking feeling that comes over me when I survey the world (with myself as part of it) and how little we care about the higher life. I thought to myself that God was wasting his time!
But then at a traffic light Jesus (so to speak) climbed into the passenger seat. He looked at me in that gentle but intense way of his and,without ever speaking a word, asked me: “Now what was that you were saying?”
I thought for a moment of denying that I was thinking such a thing but I knew that wouldn’t work. I thought of rehearsing all of the above and reminding him that he knew from start to finish the depths that we humans have sunk to and the universal nature of our selfishness and corruption. I simply said: “Well, you know how we are!”
“Yes, I do,” he said, simply by his presence and without a word, “and your point is…?”
I was about to say, “My point is that we’re not worth bothering with—not even the best of us!” but I knew what he would say; besides I noticed the scars in his hands and thought they were/are his most profound denial that people are a waste of time. His wordless presence said humans (including the two people I mentioned and me) are worth living and dying for. When he got out of the car at the shop and he walked off into the crowd he looked back and again, without a word, he wanted to know, "D'you get my message?" and I nodded yes and murmured, "For now, but..." His final look said, "Oh, don't worry, I'll always be around to tell it to you again."
It doesn’t seem to matter to him whether we want him or not—he wants us! How we respond to him matters supremely to him, of course, but only because he has already committed himself to us and we can’t have life without our receiving him. In light of the fact that countless millions of us have never shown any interest in him I find it astonishing that he has always been interested in us. [It’s at this point the difference between the human Jesus and me leaves me speechless.]
And it’s the good news of his refusal to despise us that draws those of us who hear it to him and reminds us that what he feels toward some of us he feels toward all of us.
There’s more to be said about this matter (like what God will make of us before he’s done) but I have enough for now to mull over and rejoice in, enough to dismantle my well constructed arguments that the human race isn’t worth the bullet that would shoot it. Human unworthiness is real but so is God’s commitment to us.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.