THE WORD 4 ev 1

Today’s Reading: Matthew 19 (click here for link)

Perhaps you remember how God appeared to his people upon Mount Sinai some 3500 years ago. That was his great theophany (which means appearance) of God, for the first time revealing himself to his people. It was a day of lightning and thunder and fire on the mountain. But it was also a day of darkness. God veiled himself in the darkness of a cloud. The interesting thing about this picture is that despite the fact that the people were literally in the presence of God, God was hidden from them. The closer they drew to him, the deeper they came into darkness. Exodus 20:21 says that “the people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.”

The paradoxical aspect of this picture intrigues me. The Paradox being that Scripture normally describes God as being in unapproachable light, yet often God hides himself from us, even in darkness. Luther would call this the “hidden God.” He would say that often when we are closest to God, he hides his presence from us. When what we want from him is light and clarity, he sometimes gives only darkness. This is especially the case for those of us on the spiritual path. Think about it this way: When one would normally expect that a closer relationship with God would grant certainty and clear vision for our often dark lives, it is usually the reverse. The closer we come to God, it more often means the more we leave everything that we control (or try to control) about our lives behind. We come to depend more on God. That is a scary experience. Thus walking by faith can at times seem like walking in the dark.

Now I know that in past posts we have touched on the hidden God as it concerns the existence of evil in the world. The question being, Why does God allow bad things to happen? Certainly, the answer to such things lies with the hidden God. Why? is generally always a mystery when it concerns the will of God. However, today I want talk about things on a more personal level. I want to talk about CONTROL. In our text, Jesus encounters a rich young man who cannot give up the riches he owns in order to follow his Lord. How do we interpret this and apply it to our lives?

This issues here are faith and control. Faith means giving up control and giving it to God. But doing so is like walking in the dark. When we are in control of our lives, life is easy in the sense that there are certain decisions we don’t have to worry about. For example, I don’t think any of us would argue with the fact that TV has become in many ways too sexually inappropriate for society’s own good. Adultery, homosexuality, lewd behavior and conversation all are common place in the plots of almost any TV show. Now what do we do as Christians? We all know what the Scripture says, “Thou shall not commit adultery.” “Flee sexual immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18). So what do we do? There are many questions to answer. Do I need to change the channel from this TV show that I watch weekly which now, all of a sudden, has inappropriate sexual content? If I am faithful to my spouse, does watching such things really matter? Does innuendo matter? What if I am by myself? All of a sudden, things get complicated. I now have to decide what is faithful to God in this situation. When I’m in control of my life, this is not so much of a problem. It’s easy. I can control what’s good and bad in the situation. I can figure out a good excuse for such behavior. But when I walk by faith I must discern God’s will in the matter.

Yet, discerning God’s will, that’s very much a struggle; a struggle in the dark. God does not always spell everything out for us. He simply wants us to walk righteously before him. The difficult thing is that the path can seem shrouded in darkness. Life just gets more complicated the closer we come to God.

So what about that rich young man? Well… I think too often we judge him too harshly. We assume that since he wasn’t able to give up his stuff to follow Jesus he must not have been saved. However if that is the case, then we all have a very big problem indeed, because we are all in the same boat as that young man. Walking by faith and giving control of our lives to God was not easy then and is not easy for us now.

The Psalms say, “Thy word is a lamb unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Indeed, our Lord is the light of the world. But notice it doesn’t say “spotlight.” Faith means that more often than not we will not have the certainty that we so often desire. There won’t always be a spotlight on the clear and certain answer. When darkness seems to prevail, there won’t always be the quick miracle to rescue us. Faith takes more strength than that. Faith means trusting that God is in the darkness. Faith means we understand that we are spiritually blind and therefore must put out our hands to Jesus and let him lead the way. That is scary. But by faith we know and trust that he will never leave us nor forsake us. We can only pray that that rich young man continued to struggle with such things the rest of his life as he slowly learned to give up control of his life and draw closer to God, even when all his instincts told him to stay out of the darkness.

Thanks for exploring this paradox with me. Have a great day.

Pastor Aaron