They say summer begins this month. Officially, that is. It seems that every year for the last several years, I see and hear people complaining about how “we went straight from winter to summer with no spring.” It’s easy to think like that on spring days when it’s in the 40s, and when we suddenly get a day in the high 70s. Our idea of spring is that it should be cool in the morning, sunny and in the 70s midday, and it should gently rain twice a week. Something like that. But has it ever really been like that?
Rainey said to me the other day, “It’s FREEZING outside!” It was maybe 50 degrees outside. I reminded her that if we had a 50 degree day in early January she would be rejoicing about how WARM it was outside. The point is, we have an expectation of how things SHOULD be, whether it is the weather or anything else.
First things first. It is spring. It is, no matter how disappointing it seems so far, it is warmer than winter and cooler than summer. Not ideal for planting, but still… Summer will get here, and it might not remind us of the summers of yesteryear, but it will be warmer than spring and fall. Things are more “normal” than we often think they are.
But there is still this idea of how things should be. We do have an ideal in mind, and I believe that is something God has placed in us. We react, viscerally, to many things we read about, see on the news, or experience. Not just because we don’t LIKE it, but because somehow, it doesn’t strike us as good or right. This is particularly true in cases of injustice. Have you seen the outrage over the jogger shot to death in Georgia? Practically no one knows the jogger, practically no one knows the shooter or his dad. Practically no one knows what happened start to finish. Yet we KNOW that an injustice has taken place. Whatever happened, this is not how it should be.
Where does this idea of how things “should be” come from? Where does our sense of justice, of right and wrong, come from? It is in us. It is a part of how we are made in the image of God. Ravi Zacharias, whom I have probably quoted more than any other preacher, is most well known for a few specific arguments he has crystallized. One is this: if you argue that God must not exist because if He did, evil would not exist, you are already assuming good and evil exist. If good and evil exist, then there must be a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. If there is such a moral law, there must also be a moral lawgiver, because where else would this idea come from? So the question actually ASSUMES the existence of God.
Likewise, we seem to know, inherently, that certain things are not only unpleasant, but bad. Things like poverty, oppression, sickness, and death. How interesting, how liberating it is to read of Jesus, who came to set free the captive, cast out oppressive devils, who became poor that we might be rich, who healed the sick and raised the dead! Do a word search on “compassion”. Every time Jesus is described as having compassion, He is about to reverse the situation. Compassion on the sick means healing. Compassion on the leaderless means teaching. Compassion on the possessed means deliverance. But Jesus Himself said “I only do what I see my Father in Heaven doing.” You see? In every case of compassion, He was also executing divine judgment on the situation. There was a clear case of “ought to be” in every sick, hungry, oppressed, and DEAD person He ministered to.
Jesus did miracles, not merely to show who He was, but to show God’s view of how things ought to be. And He has given us the mission and authority to continue that ministry. Now, more than ever, let us be about the Father’s business. It’s good news the world needs. Now, more than ever.
Blessings,
