How quickly the day changed! It started with the hometown boy given the chance to read in church. The old ladies oohed and ahed as Jesus stood and read a well-known passage from scripture. "How nice to see Jesus here with us this morning!" said one. "He's always here!" said the other, wanting but not saying, "If you came all the time you'd see Him here too!" Then when Jesus added His own commentary, "Today this scripture has been filled in your hearing." Jesus' way of saying, "We're making history here with MY having read this passage. It was then they said, "Wait, isn't this Joseph's son? The carpenter's little helper? And He's saying God's Spirit is upon Him?" Jesus adds further weight on them when He speaks of the day when they would say to Him, "Physician heal thyself" and "Why don't you do the same things here that you've been doing in other places?" AND, Jesus goes on to say that there had been times when God chose not Jews, but Gentiles, to bless. The widow blessed during the famine was not a Jew nor was the leper healed a Jew. That was enough to upset the people. They went from "Ooh, such a sweet boy," to, "What did He say??" And it was enough to drive the congregation out of the church, past the parking lot and to the outskirts of town to a cliff where they planned to throw Him off.
Yesterday's scripture passage was on love. Love in the church. What we just read is a reality in the church. We'll see it again in Paul's life. He himself was a persecutor of believers and later as a believer himself was killed on more than one occasion in the church by church people. Driven to the point of harm, no, past it, to the point of wanting to kill, the people who should be modeling love as a standard for living. Several times I have heard the term "blows" as in "we almost came to blows" by church people to describe feelings of anger towards another believer. And here is the Son of the Living God, almost killed before His time by the people He came to save. Thankfully, in this passage, Jesus just walks through the middle of them and went on with His ministry, but He came close to being finished by people who should be all about helping others. Not three years later, He would not walk away.
Again the question, where is the love? Where is the love that we as believers should have towards each other? Why are we so easily offended and divided by things that should not matter? Why are we so quick to say we are willing to come to blows against others? Have we forgotten that Jesus said to turn the other cheek and to love our enemies? Did Jesus not leave us with a new commandment that we should love one another? And this on top of the greatest commandment of loving God with all we have and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Friends, we have a lot of work to do.
PRAYER: God of love and mercy, show Your mercy to us when we show little or no love towards You or Yours; and grant that we as the church can start to truly love as we should. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
