John 20:8 NIV
Finally the other disciple, who had reached
the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.
What Did You Just See?
When I was young, maybe five years old, I heard on
our porch a loud stomping and a male voice calling out, “Ho, Ho, Ho!” I was in shock. It was night time and Christmas Eve and the
thought that Santa Claus was actually tramping around on our porch was
astounding to me. Was it possible that
Santa Claus was out there? Had he come
to my home? What did this mean? I stood there dumbfounded in front of the
door trying to decide if I would go outside and see if it was him. I must have looked over at my mom to see what
she thought. Was it safe to go out on
the porch? What should I do? Finally I opened the door and there before me
was a brand new tricycle. I was
astonished. So it was true! Santa Claus did exist and he left me the
grandest of all presents. How could I
ever have doubted Santa Claus? Of course
I later discovered that it was my dad who made all the noise, left the tricycle
on the porch and slipped in the house through the back door but in my childhood,
seeing was believing for me!
There is a moment when you stand in the gap between
belief and disbelief, when you are not certain of what you just saw or
heard. It could be good news like that you
were “lucky caller number ten” or that your cancer is gone. It could be something dreadfully horrible
like that a close friend just died in a car accident or that you have been let
go from your job of twenty years. You
cannot anticipate such moments. They
come like a bolt of lightning and shatter whatever comfortable plans you had
for the day or the week or your life. You
have seen pictures of people who stand in dumbfounded shock with their eyes
blinking wildly as they try to process what just happened. Maybe you have been like that. Your boyfriend just asked you to marry
him. Your dad just handed you the keys
to a new car. Your mother just told you
she was divorcing your father. Most of
your days are pretty normal but then all of a sudden it isn’t normal. It is shocking.
The account of Jacob found in the Bible is just that
sort of matter. He was fleeing for his
life. Jacob had just tricked his dad
into giving him the blessing intended for his twin brother and now that older
brother was plotting his murder back at home.
Exhausted from his panicked flight, Jacob found a boulder and put his
head down on it as if it were a cushy pillow and fell asleep. Jacob could not have predicted what happened
that night.
Like all of us each and every night, Jacob had a
dream. Most of our dreams we never remember
when we get up out of bed. Some keep us
thinking for a while. Most are
completely forgettable. Jacob had a dream
that made its way into the Bible. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway
resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God
were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said:
"I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I
will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the
earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to
the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
I am with you and will watch over you
wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you
until I have done what I have promised you." (Genesis 28:12-15 NIV)
Jacob was so convinced that he had just met God in
His sleep that he created a monument to honor the Lord and named the place
where he was, “House of God”. Jacob even made a vow at the spot to give God a
tenth of all he gained if the Lord took care of him and brought him back to his
father’s house. Most of us never give
much thought to our dreams and rarely do even the most ardent of Christians
think their dreams are sent to them by God.
Dreams are just too chaotic, too bizarre to take seriously. Yet Jacob believed his dream was a God moment;
that the Lord met with Him that night, the actual and real Lord.
If you had the exact same dream, would you have taken
it seriously? Would you have worshiped
the Lord as soon as you climbed out of bed?
Would you have been convinced God had spoken directly to you? Don’t misrepresent what happened with Jacob. It was in the end just a dream. It was no less a dream than you might have
had, seeing yourself standing in front of a group without any pants or meeting
in some restaurant with a long gone relative or having a raccoon talk to you on
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It
was a dream but Jacob knew it was not just something that sprang up from his
own unconscious; it was from beyond him, it was God coming to him within his
heart.
It is hard to believe that God is really real and
that He speaks to people like you and me.
Great intellects like Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan insist God does not
exist. You have friends and neighbors that
pay no attention to God. People you
respect ignore Him. The popular movies
do not mention Him or include God in the plot lines. Even “deep and meaningful” song lyrics have
no place for God in them. The
anticipation of God making His way into the normal day you have is nearly
dead. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we
have lost our way and don’t know how we can get back to our place of real life
with God.
What do you make of this casually mentioned moment in
the Apostle Paul’s normal life? He was
on one of his missionary trips and needed to know where he and his companions
should go after they left the region of Galatia, just north of Paul’s
hometown. The book of Acts has an
interesting comment on this. Paul
and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia,
having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of
Asia. (Acts 16:6 NIV) How did
Paul know the Holy Spirit did not want him and his partners in the province of
Asia? We aren’t told! It is not clear how God got this across to
them. It could have been through a dream
or a prophet or a sign of some sort or just an impression they had that God was
directing them. What we do know though
is that Paul and the others all were prepared for God to guide them and ready
to believe He was. This is no small
matter, believing that God can and does direct your steps. It is in fact for many an insurmountable
barrier. They do not accept this to be
so and live without any thought given to what God wants them to do.
Imagine what it would be like if you took seriously
Jesus’ statement in John 15: 5. "I am the vine; you are the branches.
If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you
can do nothing. (NIV) The “if”
of this proclamation indicates that you may or may not remain in Him. That is completely up to you. No one including God will force you to remain
connected to Christ. You can cut
yourself off from Him like an angry daughter who refuses to talk with her
parents. A famous porn star who has been
in the news recently has for twenty years refused to have anything to do with
either of her parents. You can do that,
ignoring Christ and making no effort at being connected to Him. But the consequence of that is that you can do
nothing. You don’t matter, what you do,
how you think, what you accomplish does not matter. You go nowhere, do nothing, make nothing of
your life. That is an option that you
can take and many are completely satisfied doing this. They are thoroughly disconnected from Christ
and happy living that way.
To be connected to Christ, you must pay attention to
Him. Look for Him to guide you. Ask Him to direct you. Listen for Him to speak to you. There are a thousand different ways Christ
can show you something and make your life matter. Who can know what it will be next? Was Moses expecting a burning bush? Did David expect the high priest of Israel to
come to his house? Could Elijah have
anticipated the small still voice? Was Nathaniel
prepared for someone from Nazareth to be the Messiah? God does not announce His presence with
trumpets and does not shake you out of your sleep to get you to notice
Him. He will come to you at any moment
with any sort of way of getting through to you that He chooses. One thing though is clear. If you do not keep your mind on Christ and
set your heart on being directed by Him, nothing you do will matter. That is certain.
Don’t be embarrassed that you haven’t been paying
attention to Christ. Admit it. Start over.
Pray and ask the Lord to guide you, to show you what to do next. Perhaps you are lost and don’t know how to
find your way. Turn to Christ and ask Him
what to do. He will guide you. Somehow, you will know what to do and it will
be the Lord who will make it clear. Just
like the sparrow knows somehow where to look for food, Christ will direct you
too. You must trust Him though to guide
you perfectly and as you follow Him, everything you do will matter, whether it
is how you make your bed or the way you respond at a board meeting or what you
say to your kids at home. With Christ in
you directing your life, you are no ordinary mortal; you have all the glory of
God living through you!
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