The ones who are and will be blessed are those who have gone
into exile in Babylon. They have chosen
the harder route but it is the Lord's will.
Some have remained behind and some have gone instead to Egypt. Their lives will be somewhat less bitter as
they compromise with the worldly leaders but ultimately the Lord will search
them out and they will suffer and not receive His blessing. The path to His future blessing lies in Babylon. Why, He does not say, but it is His will and
therefore any other path is the path of disobedience. Our little church feels like it is in a sort
of exile right now and I wonder what He is saying to us about staying the
course, accepting that this is His will for us at this time? We can scatter and go to Egypt or we can
continue to be together and seek His will for us as we live as exiles in this
place. Daniel and his companions became
a powerful witness in exile. The church
is sometimes more powerful as a witness as the church in exile than when it is
at the center.
This man was born blind and the disciples conclude that
there must have been sin somewhere for this to be the case. Were his parents sinful or was there some
sinful defect in this man himself? Jesus
says that this blindness was "that the works of God might be displayed in
him." The man is amazing in that he
deals with all this with incredible aplomb.
He seems to not be bitter about his situation and is willing to do
whatever Jesus asks of him. How many of
us would be willing to be born and live as a blind person for forty years that
the works of God might be displayed in us?
It is a lot to ask when the normal life span is seventy years to live
more than half of that in blindness. There
would have been the stigma of sin suggested by the disciples along with
forgoing many ordinary pleasures we take for granted. He, however, seems to be only thankful for
Jesus' healing.
Certainly this passage is difficult from the perspective of election
if you don't believe in such things. Paul
is clearly arguing that there are some who will not be saved, some who are
"vessels of wrath prepared for destruction." At the end of the day,
it is a mystery and Paul says, "Who are we to ask Him to give an
accounting and explanation of this mystery?" There is a humility in this position of
willingness to not know. It is
impossible for us to understand such things and arrogant to suggest that such a
situation would be gross injustice. We do
not know what is happening in the spiritual realm and how that plays itself out
on earth. All we can do is cling to
grace, cling to His mercy, His love for us that is equally inexplicable. Why should we be so blessed?
No comments:
Post a Comment