November 11, 2013

My reading this week took me further through the Gospels and some wonderful substance in the Lord’s Word.  I read through Matthew 23 – 26, Mark 13 – 14, Luke 20 – 22, and John 13 – 17.

Near the end of Jesus’s ministry, as he was being betrayed by one of His own and arrested into the hands of the Romans (as puppets to the Jewish religious elite), we see some behaviors exhibited by His closest friends that provides a bit of a glimpse into how we can act at times as well.  We can see how their expectations, assumptions, desires, etc., trumped their ability to see the bigger picture.

Let’s have a look at a couple passages to set the stage … we jump in right after Jesus had shared the Passover meal with the apostles, then Jesus went to Gethsemane to pray and confront the reality of what was upon Him in laying down His life on the cross.  As He completes His contemplation in the garden, Peter, James and John were present when Judas Iscariot, accompanied by an armed mob and soldiers / guards, comes up to Jesus to betray Jesus into the hands of the authorities.

Matthew 26:55-56

Jesus said to the mob, “Why do you come with swords and clubs to arrest me like a criminal? Day after day I sat and taught in the temple, and you didn’t arrest me.  But all this happened, so that what the prophets wrote would come true.”  All of Jesus' disciples left him and ran away.

Mark 14:48-52

Jesus said to the mob, “Why do you come with swords and clubs to arrest me like a criminal?  Day after day I was with you and taught in the temple, and you didn’t arrest me. But what the Scriptures say must come true.”  All of Jesus' disciples ran off and left him.  One of them was a young man who was wearing only a linen cloth. And when the men grabbed him, he left the cloth behind and ran away naked.

Jesus’s disciples abandoned Him straight away.  The second the heat began to increase, they split.  What followed was Jesus’s brutal scourging and crucifixion at the hands of the Romans but spurned on by the Jewish religious leaders.  When we read the accounts of what happened later, we see that Jesus’s closest friends became distraught when they realized what was occurring to Jesus before and on the cross.

Why their behavior?  When we read the Gospels, it’s easy for us to see (of course we have the benefit of 2,000 years of hindsight) that Jesus let His apostles know what was coming.  But for whatever reason, it’s clear from those texts as well as the accounts at and after His arrest, brutal beating and ultimate execution, that the apostles expected something very different.  What was it, and how does it relate to us?

What the apostles were expecting was for Jesus to establish an earthly kingdom, to turn rule of Israel away from the Romans and to restore God’s chosen people to their rightful place in humanity.  What they got was quite different.  Really different … especially as they watched their “King” being arrested and killed.  Everything they believed in, everything they thought was coming together for the past three years, all their dreams were dashed almost immediately.  Let’s set aside for now the “why” … how they could possibly have missed what Jesus had been telling them.  He made it clear to all of us Monday morning Bible quarterbacks that He was going to establish a heavenly kingdom for those of us who call Him Lord and eventually return to establish an earthly kingdom as well.  The apostles missed that.

They were understandably upset.  They were naturally fearful.  Like us … they had their frame of reference for their lives crushed, but to what end?  To what end, indeed!

What they saw as defeat, Jesus recognized as victory.  What they saw was their hopes shattered, Jesus knew was a promise fulfilled.  They experienced their loss because of a narrow view of life, Jesus saw it as opening wide the avenue for eternal salvation.   The story didn’t end with Jesus’s death.  It hasn’t ended at all … He suffered, died and was buried (as one of the old Catholic creeds goes) BUT came back to life and was resurrected.  We have to be careful to see the whole story.  In the same way, Jesus’s disciples ultimately did, to great gain for Christendom.  But in the meantime, they were panic-stricken.

So it goes with us, when our expectations aren’t met.  We don’t get a job we want.  Our team loses.  Friends disappoint or betray us.  We lose a friend or family member at a young age to a surprise disease.  Bad things happen to good people.  It doesn’t make sense.  It hurts.   It wasn’t supposed to happen.

However, those defeats (to us) are no less victories to Him.  They are promises fulfilled.  They are mechanisms for opening the avenue to salvation for those yet to enjoy it.

God always finishes what He starts.  He’s always at work bringing the entirety of His creation closer and closer to His intended state of being.  It’s always good.  You’ve heard me say it before, but He sees the end of time from the beginning of time.  It’s all one point on the timeline to him, whereas we need to look at the line with the arrows on either side.  God knows the details of every life, of every heart.  He is constantly orchestrating the details of every life, bringing it together for the “good of those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose.”  (Romans 8:28b, NKJV)

So, our hope needs to come from awareness that God is never absent, He’s always ever-present.  You’re always on His mind.  So am I.  So is everyone he created.  He can do that because He’s God.

Even when things don’t go our way, they always go His way.  And, despite the credit we (over) give ourselves for knowing what’s best, we never do and never can.  Just like how the apostles’ disappointment was over something not totally complete, the same is the case with us when things don’t go our way.  We have to trust that God is still at work, that He has something bigger and better in mind.  It doesn’t mean that things will always get better for us in human, earthly, temporal terms.   We’re not promised that.  But we ARE promised that it will get better in God’s heavenly, eternal terms.  And given that this time we spend on earth is merely a speck of time compared to our infinite time in heaven someday, we should draw comfort from that fact.

When things aren’t going our way, let’s ask the Lord in our prayer time to remind us that He is still at work, that He is busy bringing His creation into the perfected state He intended from the beginning.  Let’s ask Him to comfort us with this knowledge … and eventually, the very same promise that the apostles didn’t see at first … Jesus’s salvation by His death and resurrection and the eternal blessing it brings, will carry us through whatever we have to deal with.  Praise God that He is that caring and loving and is constantly at work preparing to show us just how much.

Have a blessed week in the Lord!

MR