16 September 2010
Psalm 70, 71; Job 28:1-28; Acts 16:25-40; John 12:27-36a
I know that my congregation will laugh at this but here goes. When I read this passage and see the question where is wisdom to be found I think of Genesis 3. What the author of Job says is that the earth replies, we don’t know but we have heard of it. The conclusion is “Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve search for wisdom, the knowledge of good and evil, in fruit because the serpent has reassured Eve that death will not be the result of disobedience, they need not fear the Lord, He won’t do what He said. We are often doing that today in the church when we deny the reality of eternal judgment. When we understand that judgment and death are realities we have the proper fear of the Lord and then we can come to Him for wisdom. It was that truth that Job came to understand, the power and might of God, and the wisdom of God that transcends the correlative theology of good for good, evil for evil. There is more to God and His ways than observable cause and effect.
The crowd did understand that when Jesus spoke of being lifted up He was speaking of His death. How did that fit within the context of the glorification of the Son of Man? Like Nicodemus and others we see the paradox of Jesus prior to His resurrection as the insoluble riddle, the enigma no one could understand. The wisdom of God, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, is folly to man and yet it transcends the wisdom of man and makes that wisdom folly. We think an earthly throne is glory and yet Jesus reveals God’s glory not on a throne but on a cross and in the suffering that precedes it. Do we have the mind of Christ that seeks the glory of God in all things?
In the very moment that the jailer believes to be his undoing and will certainly lead to his death for dereliction of duty he finds life. God set Paul and Silas free along with the other prisoners but no one left. Paul and Silas were in prison and yet praising God when all this happened. I don’t often react to suffering, especially when it seems unjust to me, by praising God but these men did. They understood suffering to be part of the package because Jesus had promised that we would be scorned by the world just as He had been. Here we see God using the circumstances to bring a family to faith in Him in Philippi. The church grew even with Paul in prison. Who can know the mind of the Lord?
Let all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation
say evermore, ‘God is great!’
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