In my life in the church I have met quite a few
“prophets.” Most of the grumpy ones
wouldn’t react like Jeremiah to the judgment of God. Jeremiah identified with God in the situation,
the people’s sin made it necessary for the Lord to bring judgment on them. They wouldn’t listen and they wouldn’t take
correction. Because they are in
everlasting covenant with Him, the only option to get their attention is
judgment. Jeremiah also, however,
identifies with the people as Moses did, their grief is his grief. He loves the people to whom he prophesies, he
doesn’t take rejection personally.
Prophets have to identify with both God and man in order to be true
prophets. Jesus served as prophet,
priest and king. In His prophetic role,
He announced judgment but identified deeply with us, completely, taking on our
sin at the cross. Too often, “prophets”
in the church today are angry with the church and see themselves as innocent
victims who simply share what the Lord has given them and then look upon
suffering in the church not with pity or love but a sense of superiority, or
they take the role of Jonah, despising God’s mercy on the people they
hate. True prophets are hard to find,
that’s the reason there haven’t been many of them.
The light of the world is the Torah. It is the first light that was created when
God said, “Let there be light.” That
light wasn’t the sun, moon and stars, those came later. That light made it possible to see from one
end of the earth to the other and it was lost in the sin of Adam, so say the
sages. The Jews taught that those who
followed Torah, who lived in obedience, restored that light to the world, it
defined righteousness and therefore righteousness, light, was overcoming
darkness when someone did a righteous act in accord with the Law. That is why David wrote, “Your word is a lamp
to my feet and a light to my path.”
(Psalm 119.105) When Jesus claims
to be the light of the world, He is claiming for Himself that He is the
incarnation of the Word of God, perfect righteousness. Can you imagine someone claiming that? It is easy to see why the leaders are
offended by Him but such a claim bids you to measure it as true or not. They are unwilling to even think about such
an idea as investigating the claim, it is rejected out of hand.
Paul tells the depth of Jesus’ love for us in that while we
were yet sinners and enemies of God He came and died for us. He came to expose the darkness by contrast to
His light and instead of streaming to the light, we preferred the darkness and
did our best to overcome and extinguish the light by putting Him on a cross,
not knowing that such was the plan of redemption. Through the Holy Spirit we are light-bearers
today (at least we are supposed to be) and we should, like Paul, rejoice in our
sufferings because they are intended to make us like Him who suffered and
died. Our attitude towards our enemies
is to be like His, love and willingness to suffer for them. Sometimes that is the way people see the
light, how we suffer and endure. Think
of the Roman centurion who had likely been part of the group gambling for
Jesus’ clothes and perhaps involved in His torment, looking up at the man on
the cross and saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
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