[Pearls Episode 138: Preparing for the Lord’s Day.]
On Sunday, we’ll hear these words from Jesus, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”
Jesus is clearly pointing to Himself.
It leads us to consider the question, why doesn’t Jesus just show up and fix the giant festering mess that is our modern world? Doesn’t He have CNN? Doesn’t He know what’s going on down here? Wouldn’t people “be persuaded” to get their act together if He were to descend from heaven?
And so we can entertain some hypotheticals. What if He just appeared in the sky?
- CNN would deny it and report that there was a weather disturbance due to climate change
- The non-CNN faction would be pretty amazed … for a while
- But what if Jesus wanted us to continue living our lives, while He looked on?
- How long would it take until things settled into business-as-usual?
What if Jesus made His return more personal, and showed up in each of our kitchens?
- CNN would report a mass-hallucination event, caused by climate change.
- For many it would be spiritually astounding … for a while.
- What would happen over time?
- What if Jesus expected us to go on living our lives and exercising our free will?
- What if He refused to solve all my problems to my satisfaction?
- What if Jesus mostly repeated the message of the Gospel – “repent and believe”?
- And after that – “take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow Me.”
- How long could I maintain a “super holy” act in His presence?
Those are cartoonish examples, but you get the idea.
Of course, all of this is pointing to the underlying spiritual paradigm that Jesus is with us, in our kitchen, at our workplace, in our car … everywhere we go. In fact, Jesus’ physical presence, if He were to show up in the flesh, would undermine His spiritual presence, which is why He told His disciples while on earth, “It is better that I depart.” The Church Fathers considered all this long ago. For example:
- St. Augustine: “It was necessary therefore that the form of the servant should he removed from their eyes; for so long as they looked upon that, they thought that Christ was no more than what they saw Him to be.”
- Pope St. Gregory the Great: “As if He said plainly, If I withdraw not My body from your eyes, I cannot lead you to the understanding of the Invisible, through the Comforting Spirit.”
It seems akin to how deprivation of one of our senses heightens the others – if we can’t see, our hearing becomes more acute.
If we were to see Jesus physically before us, we would lose touch with His far greater spiritual reality in our soul.
This brings us to the great irony of these musings. If Jesus were to show up in the flesh, and we poured our heart out to Him, it is certain that what He would most desire to mend for us is not our exterior circumstances, but our interior. And then, Jesus, sitting before us in the flesh, would take our hand and ask if we would rather let Him depart so that He could come into our heart, spiritually.
This weekend we might take time to remind ourselves that Jesus is truly more present to us spiritually in our soul than if He were physically sitting in our kitchen. And then, we can tell Him all things we’d want to say if we were sitting together with a cup of coffee.
Blessings on your journey with Christ –
Steve and Karen Smith
Interior Life
Postcript: The wealthy man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31)
Jesus said to the Pharisees:
“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’
Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’
He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’
But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’
He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'”