Jesus foretells His death and resurrection on several occasions. His disciples try to understand what He means, but they just don't get it. Consequently, His crucifixion leaves them in emotional turmoil, ping-ponging between confusion, grief, and sheer terror, literally running for their lives.
Some of you are in the same position, although you'd never admit it. Those emotions are for weak, spineless people, and you don't do weak and spineless.
You oughta cut yourselves some slack.
If you read this blog regularly, you've seen every one of your cherished notions about Christianity repeatedly challenged and trampled in the dust. You've used disgust to mask your confusion, barely-suppressed rage to mask your grief, and full-scale defiance to mask your terror.
Like I said, you oughta cut yourselves some slack, be okay with the emotions you're experiencing, and give yourselves space to consider and evaluate without reacting. You've put yourselves under such pressure to stifle these "weak, spineless" emotions that your reactions are inevitably violent. If you're on board with Jesus' teachings at all, you know that violence -- whether physical or emotional -- just gets you into more trouble.
It's a vicious cycle now, the relationship you have with this blog. You come to see what's being said, you leave in a state of boiling fury, and you act out in immature and often violent ways when the pressure becomes too great.
How do you get out of this one?
After Jesus was buried, Mary Magdalene found out.
"Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, 'They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.'" (John 20:1-2)
Talk about adding insult to injury!
"But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' She said to them, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.' Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?' Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.'" (John 20:11-15)
Supposing him to be the gardener.
Who do you suppose is speaking to you when you read this blog? Is it Jesus? Or is it just some servant, someone you pointedly ignore, who screws things up whenever something huge is at stake?
How do you know?
"Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good." (I Thessalonians 5:20-21)
How do you "test everything"?
I John 4:1-3 talks about one way. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already."
Does that mean that everyone who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is right about every other doctrinal point?
You can't ask another person. We're all sinners, living in a sinful world full of people who won't cop to their own fallen nature -- or that of their idols. Consequently, they have no clue what's in the Bible, but they can quote their favorite talk show host from memory. As John says in verse 5, "They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them." When you seek human truth over God's truth, you're just another guru chaser, just another idol worshiper.
Maybe you've asked God whether you can trust what you read here, but the silence is deafening. You're praying. He's not answering. What's missing?
We all need nourishment. If we can't take it in, we die. If you're not getting spiritual nourishment, maybe it's because you are literally unable to take it in.
How do you reverse that?
If you've been driven to read the Bible by my constant harping on biblical literacy, you know. If not, hello!?! Jesus speaks right to us from the pages of the Bible. Where have you been?
Let's leave your excuses aside for a moment, and see what Jesus says about your inability to absorb spiritual nourishment.
"Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within, 'Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything'? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:5-12)
Because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.
That means you can't be casual and halfhearted about praying this prayer and making this request. That means your life depends on whether or not you receive the Holy Spirit -- no joke. If you want the Holy Spirit, you have to keep asking God to fill you with it. You have to be relentless about it. There's no other way.
Maybe you know enough Bible to understand all that, but the Spirit still eludes you. Jesus explains why in John 3:8, "The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit." (New Living Translation)
If the Spirit just goes where it wants, why do you have to be so relentless about asking for it? What is that, just another rule to follow?
Again, it's instructive to think about how we behave when we're crazy in love with someone. Not to put too fine a point on it, we want them ... All. The. Time. If you think that equates with sex on the brain, you're right. If you think that cheapens your relationship with God, think again: "'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church," Paul reminds us in Ephesians 5:31-32.
When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you have God with you all the time. Yes, the Spirit comes and goes. Through trials and suffering, we're emptied, and we have to ask to be filled again and again.
But I digress.
If God is with you all the time, you can test everyone and everything that claims to be from God. You get better at figuring out the answers through more prayer, and greater biblical literacy.
"[W]hy are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?"
Who said that?
"Jesus said to her, 'Mary.' She turned and said to him in Aramaic, 'Rabboni!' (which means Teacher)." (John 20:16)
How do any of us know? How did Mary know?
Because Jesus -- her Creator, her Healer, her Teacher, and her King -- told her.
Here's The Isaacs with "No Shortage".
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