Cause to Pause

In John 3:27-28 Jesus had begun His ministry and was baptizing people. John the Baptist was also baptizing people, just in a different location…and John’s baptism was different-by his own admission.
Some of John’s disciples freaked out because here was this new preacher and “everybody was going to see Him”. John’s first response is very interesting. “No one can receive anything unless it was given to him from heaven”. Kind of sounds like one of Jesus’ parables. This is one of those sentences in the Bible that I think the Holy Spirit throws in there just to make us do a double take and think. I am sure that what John said had to do with his disciples at the time, but it also has a much deeper meaning for all of us. When John said that “no one can receive anything unless is comes from heaven”, does that mean the good as well as the bad? It is easy to recognize the blessings in our lives as coming from heaven (easier still to forget that is where they came from). But should we also recognize the challenges? John said “no one can receive anything”. Did he really mean anything? Or do I get to say “that is taking this verse out of context” and not consider that the difficulties in life, while not sent by God to punish, are allowed by God for a host of reasons we may not know. That is a thought worth pondering as it may force me to change the way I look at life.

The other great part of this section is the second sentence in John’s response. John was in effect saying “You guys know I am not the Christ. I am not the One we have been waiting for. In fact, you have told other people this same thing. You should be rejoicing that He is here!” John’s was consistent in his ministry. It was always to point people to Jesus and let it go from there. He was clear in it. He was focused on it. And he did not allow himself to be caught up in distractions. May it ever be so.

On Sunday, there was another church shooting. This one in a 500 member church in Knoxville. This is a developing story at blog time, so you may need to check the link. We may not agree on some major points of doctrine, but this is a tragedy nonetheless.

There was two things I found interesting in a quote near the bottom of the article by one of the church members:

“This kind of incident could have happened in “any church on this street. … It could be in any school. … All the more reason we have to take care of those people … because this is the potential result.”
The people he referred to that “we need to take care of” were the shooters. That is grace and compassion. Can’t say I would have felt the same way directly after the incident.
The other telling point in this quote is the thought that “it could happen in any church…or school” etc. You can’t 100% prevent things like this from happening. Bad guys will always find a way to do evil. But news stories like this should make us all rethink our emergency response protocol. A couple of 6′4″ former bouncers who “got saved” and are now walking around campus during services with walkie-talkies and t-shirts that say “Cracking heads for Jesus” just won’t do.

Well, I finally signed up for a Facebook account. Like I didn’t have enough to stay on top of. There has got to be a lesson in there somewhere. I had obviously heard about it, but my contention has always been that I don’t spend enough time talking to the friends I have and can see, why do I need more? Plus, there is something disturbing in the sign-up process when it says “You have 0 friends”.

The more I think of it, the more I wonder if that film Wall-E isn’t somehow prophetic. People sitting around, looking at screens, communicating with each other, instead of just turning and talking face to face.

Ok, enough of the bashing of Facebook. I’ll keep an open mind, give it a reasonable amount of time and effort, and see what happens. If two months go by and I still have “0 friends” I’ll probably be sad though.