16 Dec 2015
He made the blind see again, the lame walk; he cleansed
lepers, made the deaf hear, raised the dead, and proclaimed good news to the
poor. How strange it is, then, for Jesus
to think others might take “offense” at him.
I mean, we usually “take offense” against somebody who aggravates us—not
against somebody who’s doing good things for us.
But maybe Jesus knew that—as good as his miracles were—eventually
he would let people down. He knew that
peoples’ expectations of him would make him (and his gospel) something to take
offense at.
Yesterday, I heard of a man’s daughter and granddaughter who’d
been killed in an accident just before Thanksgiving. And just a couple years ago, his wife died of
cancer. Now, he’s a Catholic. But he
might take offense at the proclamation of the “good news;” he might take
offense at the idea that God is all-powerful and good.
And what about friends and neighbors who’ve been
disillusioned by the Church, or by some of the clergy, or by Catholics who don’t
practice what they preach. They might take offense at the mention
of Jesus—the leader of a bunch of “hypocrites,” they might say.
Jesus did many wonderful signs: he made the blind see, the
deaf hear; he raised the dead. But one
miracle he could not do was to soften the human heart. He could not keep people from expecting him
to be a “miracle worker.” And we do that
today: someone gets cancer, and we expect a miracle of healing. A marriage is falling apart, and we expect a
miracle to make everything okay again.
The values of society are falling apart, and we expect a miracle of God to
set everything right.
Jesus knew people
would “take offense” at him . . . not for the good he does, but for the expected good he does not do.
As we approach this last week of Advent—this season of
waiting and anticipation—it’s good to recall that the Messiah came not as a political
and military leader, but as a weak and helpless infant. And in a week’s time, we’ll be celebrating
the fact that God did not give
humanity what it expected in a
Messiah, but rather, what humanity needed
in a Messiah.
“Blessed are those who don’t take offense” at Jesus. Blessed are those who see what God is doing, regardless of their
expectations.
No comments:
Post a Comment