Jesus Just Doesn’t Make Sense
Jesus
just doesn’t make sense. And it’s
phenomenal! What person in their right
mind is more excited about finding any one thing when they have 99 perfectly
good equivalent things in their back pocket?
Or think of this another way. How
many of are unhappy to get a 99% on a test?
Absolutely we are content! Most
of us would be more than content to ride that 99% all the way to the bank (or
the report card as the case may be).
Now
don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a 99%. But at the same time, Jesus is telling us
that the joy of one person finding truth, repentance, forgiveness, and eternal
life in God is greater than the 99%.
That’s the amazing thing – and that’s actually what makes Jesus make
sense in the long run. We hear this
parable and think that the joy for the 1 lost one replaces the joy for the 99
(Or the coin and the rest of the woman’s wealth if we want to talk about the
next parable). But that’s not what Jesus
says. Jesus says there is more joy over
the 1 than over the 99. So there is
nothing saying that God isn’t still joyful over the 99 righteous people, but
the person who needs repentance and finds God through it receives a greater
amount of joy!
Of
course, what really makes this make sense is that in a strange twist of unusual
mathematics we must understand that all of us are the 1. There is no collective 99. In fact, there the group of the 99 isn’t even
real! Every last one of us is the 1
person who needs to repent.
When
we do repent, Jesus tells us that there is great joy in heaven. That’s really the amazing part of this
passage. Jesus sets up the comparison,
but there really isn’t anyone to whom we compare. We all need to repent, find forgiveness, and
know the joy of the 1 being found. That’s
when the truth really comes out.
Repellant
Okay,
before moving on I need to put something in my blog that I just found when
researching this passage in Warren Wiersbe’s Bible Exposition Commentary.
Isn’t it interesting that in the beginning of the parable we are told
that Jesus attracted sinners while the Pharisees apparently repelled them? I am wondering what that says about us as
people and churches, too. Are we
attracting sinners like Jesus or are we repelling them?
Faithful Father
So
we now move to the prodigal son story.
This is a great story on so many levels.
Today I’m feeling like focusing on the older son. How many times have I read this story and
felt that it was unjust because I put myself in the role of the oldest
son? How many times do I feel the pain
of the oldest son who seemingly does everything right and never gets the
party? The young son, who goes off and
immaturely squanders all that the father has given him, gets the party! How can that be right?
Look
at the father’s explanation to the older son.
The father says to the older son, “All that I have is already
yours.” The younger son has spent his
share of the inheritance. The father is
not welcoming back the younger son so as to redistribute the inheritance so
that the older son’s share is decreased.
The older son already has everything!
So
it is with us and God. Those who have
repented, allowed Christ to turn their life around, and are following God’s
ways already have access to the whole kingdom of God! There is no greater reward than what those
who follow Christ already have! So why
should anyone get upset about the celebration over someone coming to their
senses and repenting? Does our share of
heaven get smaller because more people come to Christ? Certainly not!
Again,
from the perspective of the world, Jesus doesn’t seem to make sense at
all. But we live in a world with finite
resources, finite time, and finite economies.
God lives in a world of infinities.
God’s promise to you and Gods promise to me are not in competition with
each other. In fact, God’s promise to me
is enhanced by God’s promise to you because now we can have unity because we
share in God’s promise together. That’s
God’s economics.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment