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What gives God the right to give certain advantages to some and not others? In light of God choosing what He wants to do, how can our choices matter? This encounter between Jesus and a desperate mother makes us ask these kinds of questions. We often bounce back and forth between thinking that our choices don't matter at all or thinking that our choices are the only thing that matter. Both of these are terrifying thoughts - either we have the power to run the universe or we have no reason to get out of bed in the morning. Either way, we end up paralyzed. But what if both could be true - "My choices matter, but I can't screw it up because God planned the whole thing." Jesus wants to teach us that through this encounter.
Jesus also wants to teach us about the apparent unfairness of God doing one good thing for some people but not for others. If we spend enough time talking to a believer who has been paralyzed, or who has suffered great loss, we might begin to reconsider what real blessing actually is. In this story, the Jews would have thought this woman to be the cursed one, and yet her deep desperation and dependence on Jesus reveal her to be the blessed one. We see that even though this woman wasn't to be the focal point of Jesus' mission, He does care about her, and He does honor her choices. Jesus commends her for not worrying too much about the plan, and just asking for what she needs today. He shows us that He will indeed save everyone who comes to Him in faith. He will answer everyone who calls on Him.
And His answer is possible because when He was in the Garden, asking His Father to change the plan, He got silence. And then He got more silence on the cross. He got "no" so we could get "yes." When speaking of the moment when the Father turned His back on the Son at the cross, G.K. Chesterton says, "God seemed for an instant to be an atheist." Jesus joined us in asking the question that so many of us have during trial, "Is there a God?" - but He did it so that we could know He is there for us, and to lead us to ask Him to make every sad thing come untrue.
Please join us on Sunday, 9/2 as we look at the Bible Story of Lazarus.
To hear the sermon on A Desperate Mother, please click on the link. |
