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What people often forget is that if Jesus created the world (see Genesis 1:1; John 1:3; Colossians 1:15-17), not only are miracles possible, but miracles are actual, because the biggest miracle has already happened-making something out of nothing. What’s harder: for Jesus to take water and turn it into wine or for Jesus to take a handful of nothing and make water? It’s a lot harder to make water out of nothing than to make wine out of water.
The evidence of modern cosmology points toward a supernatural Creator. And if you’ve got a God who can make something out of nothing, then the other miracles of the Bible would be like child’s play for him.
God’s plans will override those of the swindlers Micah describes. And that sounds only fair, doesn’t it? In fact, we get a certain sense of satisfaction when we read about the just deserts coming to these terrible individuals. It goes without saying that we can identify with the swindled, or at least that we stand with them in our righteous disgust over the injustice they are experiencing.
Pastor and author Bill Hybels points out in a sermon that each of us is born with closed fingers. He goes on to describe ways in which that grasping response stays with us until finally, in death, we relax our grip. That sounds pretty consistent with Micah’s oppressors. But Hybels is talking about you and me.
When we get to the Gospels, we see Jesus responding to peoples’ greed and oppression in a different manner than the judgment described in Micah 2:1-5. Hybels envisions a scene between Jesus and a certain swindler named Zacchaeus (see Lk 19:1-10):
Zacchaeus was a clutcher … until he had dinner with Jesus …
Here is what I imagine Jesus might have said over dinner: “Hey, Zacchaeus. What your heart yearns for will never be satisfied by that which you are hanging on to so tightly. Your heart was meant to be in deep communion with God and in loving community with other people in the Family of God. You have walked away from that kind of communion and are settling for something far less. You are settling for trying to meet the needs of your heart by clutching stuff.”
I think Jesus might have gone on, “You know what I am going to do for you? In the not too distant future, I am going to open up my hands and they are going to receive steel spikes so that guys like you with hands like yours can be changed. I am going to be so generous to you, Zacchaeus. I am going to take your sin and greed and lack of love and I am going to pay for it on the cross and present salvation to you as a gift.
“And I won’t stop there. I am going to adopt you into my family. I am going to answer your prayers. I am going to give you strength through the storms of life. And I am going to give you heaven on top of all.”
At a certain point in the conversation, I think the enormity of Jesus’ generosity melted Zacchaeus and something changed on the inside. Zacchaeus emerges with his voice trembling with excitement and newfound conviction …
When your heart gets transformed by generous grace, your hands have a way of opening up.
Maybe it isn’t so hard after all to see ourselves on the negative side of justice, at least some of the time. None of us looks forward to comeuppance, but “Come to me, … and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28) sounds inviting.
Think About It
What weighs most heavily on you?
Are you ready to let it go?
Are you willing, like Zacchaeus, to allow your life to be transformed?
Pray About It
Lord, transform my life by your power and presence. Help me to fully realize the extent of Jesus’ gifts to me.
In the cross and in the resurrection, God wins. God has won the war, though the battles continue. He has sent his grace, his unstoppable intent to pour out mercy and kindness, to the human race like food flowing into famine and water into parched mouths.
When Jesus died on the cross, the clash between the political powers of earth and the dark power of the demonic and the brilliant power of God came to a decisive climax. The light went out for three hours, the body of the author of life slumped against the rough wood. Perhaps Satan laughed, then cowered. The curtain of the temple was torn open as a sign, as if this High Priest had stepped up to the Holy of Holies, the presence of God, and ripped open an entryway that would forever make a relationship with God only as far away as the words “I believe. I do believe.”
But God is also continuing to save us. The battles still rage on, though the outcome is certain. Writing from prison, the apostle Paul said, “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” and then, to make sure that people with broken legs didn’t try to run too soon, added, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil. 2:12-13; italics mine). He also wrote, “The message of the cross if foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” ( 1 Cor.1:18; italics mine). The process of salvation is God’s faithful, constant work of educating us and shaping us and cleansing us: “I will save you from all your uncleanness” (Ezek.36:29). That means that the wisest person is the one who says, “I am unclean, I can’t get the dirt off, I can’t heal myself. God, please do what only you can.”
And with Jesus’ last cry, redemptive history reached a watershed. The apostle John added that Jesus said, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30). Jesus had fulfilled God’s plan that the Father had “purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment-to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph 1:9-10). Stewardship theologian A. C. Conrad comments:
When, in the far reaches of the past, God planned the creation of the world and man, he did so in connection with his Son, the revealed oikonomos, or steward … It is evident in this passage [in Eph 1:9-10] and others that the entire plan of the ages and scheme of redemption was in the mind of God in the far distant past … The essence and heart of God’s purpose is revealed in the redemptive work of Christ. [The kinship between God and humanity] is established in the presence of his Son upon the earth and fully sealed through his sacrificial death upon the cross.
In his death Jesus became the great high priest, fulfilling all the requirements of the old law, interceding between God and humans “once for all when he offered himself” (Heb 7:27). Says stewardship theologian T. A. Kantonen (1900-1993):
He is the High Priest who laid down his life on the altar of the Cross to redeem us from sin and death. He defines the central purpose of his mission thus: “[The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many]” [Mt 20:28]. Redemption presupposes that man is a sinner and as such he is cut off from the power to carry out the tasks growing out of that son ship.
Kantonen goes on to explain the ramifications of Jesus’ redemptive work for stewardship:
Those who accept the gospel of forgiveness in faith receive the power to become not only God’s trustees but also his children. The motive for their action is grateful love; the more livingly we know him who loved us and gave himself for us the more completely we give ourselves to him. And because genuine love is “[not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth]” (1Jn 3:18), we shoulder the responsibilities of Christian stewardship.
In the death of Christ on the cross, not only humanity, but indeed all creation is set free from bondage (see Ro 8:20-23); Christ’s redemptive work establishes his victory over all the powers in this world opposed to his purposes. These are at work in individual sinners and in the world’s systems to produce injustice, lawlessness, cruelty, faithlessness, greed, jealousy and death. God is liberating his people by redeeming them and his creation from individual sins and from the dominion of darkness (see Col 1:19-20).
Think About It
How was the passion of Jesus a part of God’s plan even before creation?
In what ways was Jesus a steward?
What is your response to Jesus’ redemptive and liberating work?
Pray About It
Lord, thank you for your perfect plan for the world and for me.
Let’s delve into the empowering aspect of God’s life (his dunamis power). let’s explore what it is; how we get it; and, how we learn to depend on it.
Last month we explored what I believe is the most important thing we can do as believers. And that’s to learn to love Him. Only if we love Him can we then love those God has put in our lives.
We examined the First Commandment and what it means to “love” Him. We found that the verb “to love” used in Matthew 22:23 is the verb agapao, which means “what we are totally given over to,” what we relinquish our lives to and what we put first in our lives. When we learn to love God like this, not only will God’s Love come forth from our hearts, but also His wisdom and His power will be shown in our lives. This is what it means to “exchange lives” with Him. We give Him ours (our own thought, emotions and desires); He then gives us His (His Love, wisdom and power). In other words, we give Him our hurts, our anger, our insecurities, our resentments, our doubts, our guilt, and so forth; and in exchange, He gives us His Life.
God’s supernatural power is a part of that Life. It’s what enables us to be sanctified, to become partakers of Christ’s Life, and what empowers us to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. Let’s delve into the empowering aspect of God’s Life (His dunamis power). Let’s explore what it is; how we get it; and, how we learn to depend upon it.
God Is the Source of All Power
Hebrews 1:3 tells us that God upholds all things by the Word of His power. Think about what this is really saying. God sustains everything in the universe by His hand of power. In other words, all He has to do is speak His will and His power will then accomplish it (Psalm 33:9). For example, He formed the mountains by His power. He divided the seas by His power. He divided the light from the darkness by His power (Genesis 1:4). He created man by His power (Genesis 1:26). And He will quicken the dead and call them to life by His power (Romans 4:17).
The source of all power, therefore, is God. It’s His saving power, His pardoning power (Matthew 9:6), His infinite power (Matthew 28:18), His power over nature (Luke 8:24), and His life-giving power (John 17:2; John 10:10). Romans 13:1 tells us, “For there is no power but of God.” He is the One who places rulers in positions of power, and He is the One who controls our lives and our destinies by His power.
Remember Abraham and Sarah? God promised them a son (Genesis 17:16– 19). According to the laws of nature, it was completely impossible for them to conceive. Yet the Lord said to them, “Is anything too hard for Me? At the time appointed I will return unto thee and Sarah shall have a son” (Genesis 18:14). Something totally impossible was about to be made possible by the power of God (Luke 1:37). And of course, Sara ended up conceiving and bringing forth a son who would play a major role in God’s plan for mankind.
Scripturally there are hundreds of examples of God’s power in action. We immediately think of His mighty acts such as the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21–23), the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:16–18), and the ten plagues of Egypt. These are fabulous examples of God’s power that shape and fashion history. This type of divine power is true all the way through the Scriptures and it’s true in our lives as well.
What is amazing is that if we believe in Him, He promises to instill a small portion of that same immense power in our hearts (Deuteronomy 8:18). And through that power, He gives us the ability to execute the impossible. Christianity is simply the manifestation of divine power in the presence of human weakness.
What Is God’s Supernatural Power?
What exactly is God’s supernatural power and how does it manifest itself in our lives?
God’s divine power was manifested in the Old Testament by miraculous deeds. A special and sometimes temporary anointing often accompanied these miracles, for example, as with Moses, Samson, Elijah, Elisha, and so on. Today we read about the incredible outpouring of the Spirit and the miracles that are happening in China, Africa, and other countries.
The second aspect of God’s divine power is called “the power of Christ’s resurrection”: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death” (Philippians 3:10). This power is given to every believer by the Holy Spirit at his new birth—it is part of the Life of God that He has instilled and sealed in our hearts. Consequently this supernatural power resides in every Christian, but it requires a submitted and sanctified life in order to partake of it. Just like God’s Love, it can be quenched and blocked by emotional and “fleshly” choices.
Paul prayed for the saints at Ephesus to know this kind of resurrection power: “That the eyes of your understanding [may] be enlightened; that ye may know [1] what is the hope of His calling, and [2] what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and [3] what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe” (Ephesians 1:18–19).
The “hope of His calling” (our inheritance in Christ) and “the riches of His inheritance” (our future blessings in the kingdom) are linked here with the “exceeding greatness of His power.” God’s challenge to all of us is that we must learn to partake of, rely upon, and be controlled by the exceeding greatness of His power. And, by so doing, we’ll not only apprehend the hope of His calling, but also the riches of His future inheritance.
The Purpose of God’s Supernatural Power
The purpose of God’s power in our lives is to come alongside us and help us learn three things: 1) how to be sanctified, 2) how to partake of Christ’s Life, and 3) how to become those overcomers (faithful ones) who bear righteous fruit. Sanctification leads to partaking, partaking to overcoming, and overcoming to inheriting. God’s resurrection power accomplishes all three of these things. His power not only gives us a new spirit when we are born again, His power also produces a transformed life through the sanctification process (1 Peter 1:5).
God not only teaches us how to live through His Word, He also gives us the power to live through His Spirit. “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of who the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:14–16).
What good is knowing God’s will, if we don’t have the power to perform it? His power enables us to do what His Word demands.
The Holy Spirit is the enabler, the executor, and the implementer of God’s will being accomplished in our lives. Our responsibility is simply to make the choice to let Him do so! It’s really a partnership. We offer our bodies as a “living sacrifice,” God then fills us with His Spirit and accomplishes His will through us (Romans 12:1–2).
Christ is the perfect example of the manifestation of God’s power. He lived His entire life depending upon this power. The Holy Spirit empowered Him to do all His miraculous acts and, of course, the Resurrection was the supreme manifestation of that power (Acts 2:24). The purpose of Christ’s incarnation was to nullify the power of the devil and to free those held in bondage (Hebrews 2:14).
The Lord first passed along this resurrection power to His disciples in order that they might accomplish the work He called them to do. “He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases . . . Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 9:1; 10:19). The power the disciples received is, again, called “the resurrection power of Christ.”
Christ then passed this same life-giving power on to us. This endowment took place at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon thousands of believers and bestowed upon them a new and divine power (Acts 2:1–4).
God Equips Believers with His Power
Personal union with Christ gives believers this same divine power (Hebrews 6:5). “According as His divine Power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue” (2 Peter 1:3). He imparts His resurrection power to each of us the moment we believe so that we, too, can overcome the enemy, proclaim the message of the gospel, produce the “fruit of the Spirit” and persevere to the end.
This saving power will deliver us from the power of sin, from the draw of the world, and from demonic attacks. It will protect us, preserve us, guard us, and keep us from falling. “God strengthens our soul with His strength” (Psalm 138:3). Our responsibility is to simply learn to walk by His Spirit of power, not by our flesh. A true disciple can only minister in the power of the Spirit, just as Jesus did (Luke 4:14).
The outworking of that power—the fruit that is produced—is the hallmark of a true disciple.
An Example: Christine
Let me give you a wonderful example. On one of our trips to Israel, there was a woman named Christine. She suffers from a debilitating disease that has stunted her growth. It’s a form of juvenile osteoporosis where the skeletal bones are unable to sustain weight. They constantly fracture and break. So, Christine is very small—she’s only about three feet tall—and she is permanently confined to a wheelchair. But, no matter. This incredible woman has been married for twenty-five years. She has been a missionary in India and has won several scholarships for her artwork, including one to the Louvre in Paris. She scuba dives, parasails, and is a gymnast who works out daily on the trampoline. No self-pity here. Just a striving to be all God wants her to be by His power!
When you talk to Christine, the light of Jesus absolutely exudes from her face, the joy of the Lord radiates from her eyes, and her enthusiasm about everything is contagious. She truly is a living example of Christ and His empowering. Others are not only drawn to her, they also want what she has. Here is a beautiful woman who not only has been born of the Spirit, but who is also depending upon God’s power for everything. Metaphorically speaking, she is “walking in the Spirit.”
A disciple is not just someone who has been born again, but someone who is a participant, a partaker, and a sharer of God’s resurrection power, like Christine. (1 Corinthians 9:12)
May the eyes of your understanding be enlightened so that you may know, what is the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance and what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe.
During the brief earthly ministry of Jesus, his disciples gained an accumulating picture of who Jesus of Nazareth really was. Plenty of evidence pointed to the fact that he was not just from Nazareth. He came from God’s place and with a divine mission, and it was getting more astounding all the time.
The statements Jesus made amounted to claims of deity. “I and the Father are one.” “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” “All that belongs to the Father is mine.” His opponents began considering murder because “not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”
Also, he used names of deity. “Before Abraham was born, I am” (which recalls the special name God used with Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”) Thomas fell at Jesus’ feet after he knew he had risen from the dead, exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” When people called Jesus “Lord,” it seemed to go well beyond the meaning of “master.” There was “Son of God” and “Son of Man,” both labels that expectant Jews knew identified the coming Messiah.
Jesus’ disciples strained to add up all the pieces of evidence in the immediacy of the events. Like a giant puzzle, the pieces came together, but it would take time for people to step back far enough from the puzzle and see the picture in the pieces.
What is the sum of it all? C. S. Lewis put it this way: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.”
What was Jesus trying to accomplish? The answer to that question is bound up in the person Jesus is. He was able to do what he did because of the person he is. He made an exodus for people, a way out of entanglements with self, the heavy gravity of sin, and the plots of the Evil One.
And he didn’t just try to pull it off. It all worked. He was there at the beginning when God said, let us make a universe, and then rested. He was there on the cross when he committed his spirit to his Father, but only after saying, “It is finished.” And the “it” was an agenda that from his inauguration he was uniquely capable of fulfilling, the salvation of the shattered human race.
This is what Christians since the earliest days have said about the person of Christ: First, he is clearly one person, not some dualistic oddity. But in that one person there are definitely two full and distinct natures. Jesus was truly human-not just a body with divinity replacing human nature. And he was truly divine-not just a prophet or even a super-prophet who was invested with an extraordinary measure of divine power.
How do we know this? First, because he demonstrated the unique attributes of deity. Power when wind and waves obeyed him and when he took a dead little girl by the hand and she woke up. Holiness, glory, and omniscience. “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (John 4:29).
Second, because he exercised the prerogatives of deity. He wielded authority in calling himself “the Lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8) and by saying astounding things such as “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). He forgave people their sins. Who but God can do that? Which is why, when Jesus told a paralytic man that he forgave his sins, Jesus’ opponents snarled, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ( Mark 2:7). They had no idea how right they were. Jesus said elsewhere that he would be involved in judgment. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory… he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:31-32). He solicited faith in himself: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 ). And, most remarkable of all, he let other people worship him: the disciples in the boat after he calmed the storm, and Mary in the garden after the resurrection, even in Bethlehem when the Magi came to worship him as a child.
Now what does “worship” in these contexts mean? In the boat Jesus’ disciples had no hymnals, no guitars, no offering plates. What they did have was themselves, and the ability to bow down or bend the knee in the presence of one they recognized as Lord supreme. They were compelled to do it. Bowing was as quick a response as when you squint or put your hand up when you step from a dark room out into the blazing sun. Later they must have pondered the significance of this impulse to worship a man they were following.
One of the most significant ways that we receive God’s generosity is through the gift of forgiveness. Jesus demonstrated the nature and extent of that forgiveness in this story. The woman sought Jesus because she recognized who he was, the Messiah. Church father Augustine (354-430) says that
she knew that he to whom she had come was able to make her whole; she approached then, not to the head of the Lord, but to his feet; and she who had walked long in evil, sought now the steps of uprightness. First she shed tears, the heart’s blood; and washed the Lord’s feet with the duty of confession. She wiped them with her hair, she kissed, she anointed them: she spake by her silence; she uttered not a word, but she manifested her devotion.
Simon, Jesus’ host, observed Jesus’ acceptance of the woman’s ministrations and thought that this proved Jesus was not a prophet. Ironically, Jesus read his thoughts. Augustine clarifies this passage:
Let now the Pharisee understand even by this, whether he was not able to see her sins, who could hear his thoughts. So then he put forth to the man a parable concerning two men, who owed to the same creditor. For he was desirous to heal the Pharisee also, that he might not eat bread at his house for nought; he hungered after him who was feeding him, he wished to reform him, to slay, to eat him, to pass him over into his own body.
So Jesus related to Simon the short parable, and Simon was forced to acknowledge that the one who has been forgiven most loves most. Jesus pointed out to Simon how little love he had shown for Jesus. He had not washed his feet, as was appropriate for an honored guest, nor had he anointed him, and he did not realize who Jesus was; he did not even acknowledge Jesus as a prophet. Moreover, Simon did not recognize that he was in need of a savior, that “there is no one righteous, not even one” (Ro 3:10). Augustine says,
O Pharisee, therefore dost thou love but little, because thou dost fondly think that but little is forgiven thee; not because little really is forgiven thee, but because thou thinkest that that which is forgiven is but little.
The woman, however, knew that she was a sinner, and she had faith that Jesus could forgive her. Even if Simon the Pharisee was a good, upstanding person with much less to forgive than the woman, this passage only serves to emphasize the fact that the Christian who begrudges God’s generosity to the outcast is in great need of forgiveness. It was the woman, not the “clean” Pharisee, who went away with Jesus’ forgiveness and Jesus’ blessing, “Go in peace” (Lk 7:50).
Think About It
How did the woman in the story know who Jesus was and what he could do for her?
If you heard Jesus was eating dinner at your neighbor’s house, how would you approach him?
Do you identify more with the woman in the story or the host?
Pray About It
Lord, I turn to you in repentance and faith. Forgive me, cleanse me and give me peace.
If you are looking for a set of values that will give dignity to your life, that will connect you with the life of God, and that will work at a practical level, you need not look any further than these: reverence and respect.
Reverence is what is supposed to happen in our hearts when we are exposed to the power and majesty of God. Reverence (Latin, reverentia) means awe. Wonder. Esteem. Even fear. Reverence is the prophet saying “Woe to me… I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). It is the newly-called disciple of Jesus saying “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). It is the submissive apostle saying: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” ( Romans 11:33).
The purpose of worship is for us to be awe-filled (different from aw-ful!) to the point that we are driven to submission to God. The main word for worship in the Greek New Testament means “to bend the knee.” So every act of worship: praise, prayer, offering, the reading and exposition of Scripture, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, are all most effective when they lead to awe. And that awe is not confined to a church building. We can, and must, stay bowed before God in the workplace, at school, in our families. Even a professional football quarterback may go down on one knee when he feels grateful to God for being able to his job well-even though the brief act of submission will bring derision and ridicule down on him. People just don’t get it. In our culture we like it when our leaders strut and brag. Reverence makes people uncomfortable.
And then we turn to the horizontal. Reverence (for God) leads to respect (for people).
The most important thing you can do for the people in your life-your family, your friends, your co-workers-is to treat them with respect. The reason we love is because we respect. We react to God’s greatness with reverence, and then we turn around and look at these amazing creatures God has made in his own image (in his own image!)-men and women, boys and girls-and we treat them with respect because they are made in God’s image. The alternative is unthinkable: to slap the image of God in the face is to slap God in the face.
One thing every person wants, is respect.
If we want people to grow-we will respect them. If we hope people will find security and confidence-we will respect them. If we long to see the people in our lives have a life-giving connection with God-we will respect them.
Respect is a choice we make. It does not come naturally to us. The easy thing is to use or abuse other people. After all, we’re busy, we have things to do, places to go, goals to achieve. How dare other people get in our way or make our lives complicated. The word “respect” literally means to take another look. “Re-spect”-to look again. That has to be intentional.
Given the coarseness of our culture, it is time to stop and take another look.
It is never too late for us to take another look. To say to God: give me a new vision of the people around me. Help me to see them as you see them.
It is the reason Jesus said the whole Law is summed up in one simple truth with two parts: “Love the Lord your God [reverence]… and love your neighbor as yourself [respect]” (Luke 10:27). Jesus said: “do this, and you will live.”
This does cost us a great deal. Looking at God with reverence takes away all our bragging rights (which we never had in the first place), and respecting people-taking another look-means our treatment of others will have to be more careful, more discerning, and more generous than we ever imagined.
He shouldn’t have gone out in the ice storm on that cold day in 1841 even for his own inauguration as President of the United States, and certainly not without hat or coat. And he shouldn’t have given a ponderous 8,495-word inaugural address that took almost two hours to deliver. But sixty-eight-year-old Henry Harrison did, developed pneumonia, and died a month later, holding the term of that office for the shortest span in history. He accomplished nothing of what he aspired to in his address.
I have often wondered what it must be like to be inaugurated into some high office, say, that of Prime Minister or President, and to know that you had a limited amount of time in which to accomplish something of significance.
The inauguration of a President of the United States, for instance, is an opportunity for a whole nation, and other nations of interest, to take an accounting of all the problems that need to be fixed and the new initiatives to be taken. How would you prevent being overwhelmed by all that needed attention? Wouldn’t high-minded words of lofty aspirations seem like so much wishful thinking?
Maybe that’s why some inaugurations have been extraordinarily simple, such as Thomas Jefferson’s talk before a few close friends indoors before he retired to Conrad’s Tavern to eat his dinner alone. Or the party at the White House at Andrew Jackson’s big day with common folks breaking crystal, muddying the carpets, and spitting tobacco juice on the floor.
George Washington’s first inaugural address focused simply on two things: his own inadequacies for the task of presidential office and the importance of acknowledging the providence of God and the necessity of God’s guidance for the future. His second inaugural address was just 135 words long and took two minutes to deliver.
One has to be careful what one promises to accomplish. Which makes Jesus’ promises of what he would accomplish-salvation for human beings-stunning.
If christos, meaning Anointed One (messhiach, Messiah, in Hebrew), is an office of sorts, what was Jesus claiming to accomplish when he let people conclude that he was exactly that Anointed One?
The human race knew that he was coming. He simply had to, being the kind of God that he is. He is good, and he is great. He must have some escape route for us, some healing power for our misery.
To hear that “God became flesh” is at once one of the most shocking claims you will ever hear, and one of the most obvious. We knew that he was coming because he is a saving kind of God.
[Exerpt from Putting the Pieces Back Together: How Real Life and Real Faith Connect. Click for More.]
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