This lesson from Proverbs follows on yesterday’s reading
about simplicity. The first four verses
sound as though they have been ripped from Job which is also wisdom literature.
They are quite similar to the words God
spoke in answer to Job’s complaint.
Their purpose is to set us in our proper place, that there are things we
cannot know or understand. We need to
have great humility before the Lord of all creation and begin at that
place. We chose the path of disobedience
in order to know things and we aren’t able to put that genie back in the
bottle. We want knowledge and we believe
we have it, it makes us arrogant before Him in the belief that we can reason
with God. We don’t know enough to reason
well, we reason like children when we reason with God. The animals mentioned in the second part of
the reading are simple in that they are natural and unaffected and in their
simplicity there is dignity and power.
We are given the Holy Spirit to remind us that we are naturally sinful
and we are called to righteousness. That
is enough to cause us to walk in humility before our God.
As you read this passage from the Gospel keep in mind that
the Jewish leaders aren’t in the palace with Pilate, they remained outside lest
they be defiled by contact with the Gentiles and disqualified from celebrating
Passover. The conversations they have
with him require scene changes, someone has to go out to them to talk with
them. The conversation between Pilate
and Jesus doesn’t involve them, they can’t hear His answers. Jesus speaks of His kingdom when He speaks to
Pilate but Pilate cannot understand what Jesus is talking about. This conversation is similar to Jesus’
meeting with Nicodemus. Jesus speaks of
truth and those who are of truth and Pilate, a worldly man of power, can only
respond with “What is truth?” He is
attempting to reason with God and finds only an enigma in Jesus’ words. He does have enough sense to know that there
is no guilt in Jesus, he did make one right judgment.
Paul says, I had it all according to religion but in Jesus I
realized that I had nothing worth having, nothing to truly offer God. What he saw in Jesus so far surpasses anything
he had done, anything he had accomplished, that it is worthless in
comparison. Paul surely recalled the voice
from heaven, “I am Jesus” again and again whenever he was tempted to
pride. He remembered that for all he had
gotten in knowledge it hadn’t led him to wisdom and truth because it hadn’t led
him to Jesus. Do we have that attitude
towards all that we know? If it doesn’t
give us greater knowledge of Jesus is it worth having at all?
Blessed be the LORD!
For he has heard the voice of my pleas for
mercy.
The LORD is my
strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.
The LORD is the
strength of his people;
he is the saving refuge of his anointed.
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