John 8: I was blind but now I see!

Have you ever talked to someone who just refused to listen to your side of an issue. No matter what you said, no matter how solid your case, they just were unwilling to see your perspective. My husband, my children, my students... usually they are the people closest to us who refuse to concede to our views. In Jesus day, the pharisees must have frustrated him to no end. No matter how hard he tried to explain to them who he was, the son of God, the Jews could not and would not reprocess the dusty doctrine of their forefathers in order to see the words of old in a new light.

Using the Jew's own sacred words to reveal himself to the Pharisees, Jesus struggled to secure their acceptance of his professed identity. In John 8:17-19, Jesus reminds the pharisees, "In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true; I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me."

"Where is your Father?" they challenge him.

The words Jesus utters next nearly lead to his arrest. He accuses them, "You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you would know my Father also."

The Jews are appalled by Jesus and what they perceive as blasphemy, and when they continue to doubt him, Jesus warns the Jews, "You will die in your sins." Unless they resolved to believe that he was sent by the Father, Jesus charged the Pharisees, they would never truly know his Father.

Next, Jesus calls out the Pharisees for planning to kill him. In John 8:39-40, Jesus again uses the Old Testament to support his words, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I hear from God; this is not what Abraham did."

The familiarity Jesus claims to have with the prophet Abraham does not help his case. In fact, the Jews condemn Jesus even more for his references to their sainted hero. When Jesus advises, "If any one keeps my word, he will never see death," John 8:51, the Jews are right on him, ready and willing to take Jesus down. How dare he claim everlasting life when even Abraham, who knew the Father, died in the end.  But Jesus goes even further and states that he existed long before Abraham and that Abraham was present to see him in all his glory as the son of the Father, and that Abraham rejoiced in him. The Jews are certain at this point that Jesus is possessed with the devil. Consequently, as heated arguments sometimes lead to anger and anger can lead to violence; the Jews began throwing rocks at Jesus believing him to be a heretic. Jesus retreats, however, understanding that the minds of these men are closed.

Opening up a mind to new truths is very difficult, especially when generation upon generation of families and people have always believed a certain way. I am also guilty of standing my ground on more than one occasion, in fact, the older I get the more I find myself clinging to old truths that I rationalize are more right and more God centered than those of today's culture. As the Jews in the temple, I lack tolerance for what appears to me as ungodly. If Jesus were to return in flesh and challenge my views on some of my guarded convictions, would I be just as stubborn? This chapter of John confronts us with our own narrow-mindedness, our own spiritual blindness. Years ago I read the Joshua series. These novels written by the author Joseph Girzone characterize Jesus, returning to live among us, as a man who calls himself Joshua. Joshua travels to various communities and lives among the people. He arrives in places in need of a spiritual revival, places where because of cultural, social, and family struggles, the people have closed their minds to the living Word of God. If Joshua appears on my doorstep, would I accept him, his views? It is a series worth rereading especially in this season of Lent. God's word is alive, we must remember. It is not meant to gather dust or to function only in strict and refined circumstances. It breathes, it exists, it is present, new, and everlasting.

The message of John 8, therefore, is this. If we choose to stay tied and chained to the past, then the life God has planned for us will not be realized. "He who is of God hears the words of God," John 8:47.

Wait for God's Timing in all Things

"Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast."

"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die like fire and powder..."

"...Be patient, for the world is broad and wide."
                                 
                                 Friar Laurence from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

When a message presents itself in threes, it isn't a coincidence, God is speaking to us. Today I received the message of "delaying gratification" three times. First, in a radio broadcast, second, in an email, and 3rd, from my husband. 

This morning during my commute to work I heard the ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley on WORD FM, a nationally broadcast Christian radio network. The topic of Dr. Stanley's scripture message today was "God's Promise to Provide." One point that Stanley made clear to listeners is that all we need to do is ask God, and  believe that our request has already been granted. He emphasized that once asked, however, we should leave our need in God's hands. We must restrain ourselves from interfering with God's time sequence for fulfilling that need. Like a child who lays his broken toy on his parent's lap and then runs back to play without concern, knowing with certainty that the toy will be fixed, so we must believe God will provide. When we lack the will-power to delay our gratification, Stanley warns of the missed opportunities God has planned for us while we wait. We may risk, for instance, not meeting a significant person or traveling to an inspiring location, all because we were too impatient to wait for God's timing. Also, if we fail to leave our needs in God's hands and rush to satisfy them before God's perfect timing, we may do more harm to a situation or hurt people in our rush to self-satisfy.

This obvious message of restraint and will-power from Dr. Stanley was revealed to me again in an email. Luminosity, a brain research center, shared the results of a behavioral study initiated by psychologist Walter Mischel on the power of delayed gratification called "The Marshmallow Experiment." In the 1960's, Mischel, a professor at Stanford University, conducted his scientific study on hundreds of children from ages four to five. In his experiment he brought each child into a private room, sat them down and placed a marshmallow in front of them. He told each child that he was leaving the room and they could eat the marshmallow if they desired, but if they could wait until he returned (approximately 15 minutes), they would receive a second marshmallow as a reward if the first one was not eaten - one treat now, or two treats later. 70% of the children in the study could not wait for the reward and ate the first marshmallow while only 30% had the desired will-power. Fourteen years later, as these children were studied into high school and college, it became obvious that the children who delayed gratification in the Marshmallow Experiment were the same groups that scored significantly higher in school and on SAT's. Forty years later, the study once again analyzed the people in the experiment. The same group of 30% proved to have maintained their self-control throughout their lives resulting in deeper friendships and increased levels of income in comparison to the marshmallow eaters! These masters of will-power have realized one of life's most powerful pieces of wisdom, delaying gratification leads to success. As Dr. Stanley explained, if we can just wait for God's timing, a whole wonderful world opens up as part of the journey.

The message repeated itself a third time during a dinner conversation with my husband. He shared with me an interesting story he had heard on NPR (National Public Radio). It was concerning the rapidly changing world we live in today. The story compared Julius Caesar's travel time in miles per hour to that of George Washington's travel time. Several thousand years later it took George Washington just as long to travel from one place to another as it took Julius Caesar to travel the same distance in his day. However, in just the last one hundred and fifty years, travel time has increased to beyond the sound barrier capacity, to lightening speed. The "need for speed" in our culture is undeniable. We want instant gratification, not only in  commuting from one place to another, but in everything. This is the mindset of our culture, fast cash, fast food, fast weight-loss, fast shopping, fast energy, fast delivery, fast entertainment, etc. We want everything at our fingertips. I recently heard a report that the wave of the impending future is that companies will be placing computers in all of their electronic products so that the consumer can operate all of their home devices from their phones. This technology will allow us to command our coffee pots, our washing machines, our cars, our curling irons, our sprinkler systems, anything with a computer chip from our phones or iPads.

 Many of us are caught in the web of keeping up with every new technological advancement. For instance, I barely learned how to use my first iPhone before I  bought into the propaganda advertising all the bells and whistles on Apple's most recent new device. When will this consumer (consumption- yum, yum!) greed ever end? The more money companies make selling us their products, the more they spend trying to sell us more and more, mesmerizing us into believing that our desires can be satiated through their merchandise. "Buy now and you will be instantly gratified!"

Three very clear messages were revealed to me today, and all three were distinctly connected. I believe in divine revelations. Is God warning me, society, all of us? If humanity expects to continue to survive on this earth, we must learn to be satisfied, to wait on all things in the Lord's time. God has a reason for the season he chooses to provide. Titus 2:11-12 states, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age." If we believe in the inspired words of St. Paul to Titus in the New Testament, we must realize that more often our desires and needs are of this earthly world; they do not help us grow closer to God or lead us to heaven.

In Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence warned Romeo 3 times of his impatience, "Wisely and slow, they stumble who run fast; violent delights have violent ends; be patient for the world is broad and wide." Will our necessity for immediate gratification in all things "die like fire and powder" as the Friar's lines in Shakespeare warn? Will we meet the same demise as Romeo and Juliet? Shakespeare may well have been making a prophetic statement about society then as well as now. Our need for having immediate satisfaction is unquenchable. Our urgency to have our needs met "now" may, as Shakespeare most insightfully understood, soon prove to be our fatal end.

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him," 1 John 2:15