Offended by Jesus

Matthew 11:2-6 and Luke 7:28-23 give almost identical accounts of John the Baptist sending some of his disciples to ask Jesus if he really was the Messiah or if they should look for another. I never gave these passage much thought until I heard Bill Johnson speak about them, and what he said gave rise to all sorts of thoughts. I cannot take credit for the idea, but the uncensored meanderings are mine.

John the Baptist had seen the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove and a heavenly voice declare that he was the Son of God, and yet he needed reassurance that Jesus was in fact the prophesied Messiah. Jesus replied that he was healing the sick, the lame, the deaf, and that "Blessed are those who are not offended by me." What a strange thing to say. Bill pointed out that Isaiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would amongst other things bring freedom to the captives. And where was John? Stuck in prison. So if this Jesus really were the Messiah, why was he allowing his biggest fan to rot in prison? I imagine John, being human and probably not terribly enjoying his stay in prison, sent his disciples not only to find out if Jesus were really the Messiah, but also to gently remind him that "Hey, I'm stuck in here, and it's your job as the Messiah to get me out." Jesus reply was heartbreaking. "Blessed are you when you are not offended by me." In other words, "I'm not getting you out, but stand by your faith in me anyway."

Hard. Impossibly hard sometimes. I think about the times I've been offended by Jesus because he hasn't done what I want him to do. I hated him when my parents got divorced. I thought it really out of order that he would (seemingly) answer prayers for their reconciliation only to allow them to divorce again within a few months. At the time (I don't feel this way anymore) I thought it would have been easier for them to have died than to have hope restored and subsequently crushed. I was terribly offended when Will died. I could not have imagined better parents and more worthy people than the Stavs, and their life was ripped away from them. The prayers of hundreds of people were ignored, and it seemed even scorned. And though I didn't hate him, I boxed him up and put him on a shelf and said, "You must not care about these things, so I'm not going to talk to you anymore about them." And I ignored him until Macy got her hernia and I really needed him again. Then I prayed and prayed and prayed, and I went to someone who God has used to heal people from incurable diseases, and I felt what I now know was Macy's ovary retreat through the hernia back into place, and my heart lept and then fell again when the ovarry reappeared the next morning. And I told myself at that point that I was not going to be offended, if it killed me, because God is just too big for me to understand, and if I understood him he probably wouldn't be God anymore. And the night before Macy's surgery, as I prayed for comfort and peace and help, I came to that strange place that the Bible refers to as the "peace that goes beyond understanding" and realised that even though Jesus hadn't healed Macy, he does care about her, and he does love her, and he was very aware of my anxiety and pain, and that he wasn't going to fix it but he was going to be there with me through it, and that had to be enough.

I am sure that many more situations will arise though the course of my life where I could be offended by Jesus, by his inaction, by his seeming indifference, by his silence, by people who claim to follow him but who don't love. But blessed are those who are not offended by him. And so I pray that I will make the choice, every day, to not be offended, and to continue to hope for his Kingdom to come. To see him as perfection and to not allow my personal feelings and perceptions to cloud that truth or to box him into my own experience. We see now in part, but in the future we will see him fully, and all this muck will be removed, and that peace of God will become understanding.