Confounding the experts

Splitting hairs. It's a religious propensity.

Is a man born gay or does he learn to be gay?
If illness comes to someone do we say that it serves them right, or that they are so good they don't deserve the pain?

Jesus was in the middle of just such an arguement with the religious teachers of the day as they walked by a man by the wayside. Clearly, this man knew the people strolling by and did not want to interrupt them. He was about to discover whether the societal guilt heaped upon him was valid or not. "Jesus", the teachers demanded, "who sinned that this man was born blind? The man's parents or did he?"

I can hear the taunts against the parents over the years about their supposed sin. I can also hear the well meaning friends of the blind man saying, this isn't your fault, your parent's sin caused your blindness.

I can also hear the mothers and fathers warning their children to stay far away from this sinful dirty man.

And then Jesus...

Jesus goes outside the argument to the reality. Practical, simple, powerful. Jesus used spit, dirt and a command to wash and be healed. All of which was unrequested by the man!

Then Jesus answers the argument: Don't connect circumstance with sin. The debate is irrelevant, he is just blind and this for the glory of God!

Jesus took a religious hairsplitting argument and shattered its power by ACTING.

Through all the rest of the story the man realizes that Jesus is outside and beyond the religious arguments, his parents' cowardice, and his neighbors' rrejection.

Jesus comes to find him, seeks him and the circle is fulfilled in relationship. Healed man and Jesus become one in the end.

Act, rather than have your argument finetuned.

Door

The drastic consequence of the Fall is that man erected a wall without a gate against God.

Jesus invaded our sphere, our safe place, and wanted us to see the immensity of the world/life we have tried to wall out. Then He has called to us - leave the walled in city, join the whole of life - through the gate I've built.

Come.

Reset

A sermon from Octoer 2008 was on confession as a spiritual discipline. The presenter had many good points, and they are available on the net if you wish to find them. But I came away with a slightly different take.

What is confession? Confession is a reset of your soul.

I like the PDA - personal digital assistant. I keep my calendars on them, games, documents, pictures. Just a little computer to me. Every once in a while something gets funky in the programming and it stalls. I have to push a little button and reboot the whole system so it goes back to the original programming to run properly.

Confession is a reset for your soul.

Confession is mainly to God. Life has standards, we know them through our conscience and the law. But we are not sure what the true standards are? Should they be set by society? If measured by society, then why do I sense a reason to be guilty?

Our internal standards were set by the Creator. We sense life should work like X, but Y turns out. Life is all bogged down by fragments of an ill lived life. Sin leaves fragments of failure internally. Those are things Satan latches onto, they are his. Do you want to leave them in your soul?

Jesus declared to a man born blind "You are forgiven" and released the sin frags from his soul. Then he declared "You are healed" and released the illness that no longer had a hold on the man's eyes. This man, once blind and sin stained was now "reset" to God and the world.

James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."