Devotional 12-15-15

A man woke up weary one morning, as if he had not slept at all. He was greatly distressed over the turmoil of the world: wars, terrorism, exploitation, poverty, hunger, human trafficking…his heart ached and his mind was overwhelmed. He thought this morning he might find solace by reading the Bible rather than the newspaper. He had a Bible…didn’t he? He was sure he did. He got one when he was confirmed thirty years ago and he got one when he graduated high school. He thought he had kept one from a stay at a hotel (Thank you Gideons!) Finally after a lot of searching he found one at the bottom of a magazine basket. It was that hotel Bible. Then he remember his mother kept the other two as keepsakes. He flopped down in his chair, looked with disdain at yesterday’s newspaper, and opened the Bible. He happened to open his Bible to the book of Micah. This is what he read…..

“He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.   And he will be their peace.” Micah 5:4-5

He felt confused…then a little angry. “Jesus!” he yelled, “When are you going to get up and do this?” Jesus strolled in from the kitchen with a cup of coffee (free-trade, of course). “I’ve been doing it”, Jesus answered as he sipped his Hazelnut Mocha Crème Cappuccino. “I’ve been shepherding for nearly two thousand years. The problem is that the sheep keep straying. The sheep don’t want a shepherd or peace until you get scared. Otherwise you want to go your own way. You want power. You want control. You want gain, and you think the troubles of your neighbors and the troubles or those on the other side of the world are not your concern. You say you love me every time the question comes up, but you rarely take care of one another, except to the extent that it makes you feel good about yourself. You say I am your shepherd, but you neither follow me nor listen to my voice unless it suits you at the moment.”

The man didn’t much like being lumped together with everyone else. He was about to protest that but then a question came to mind: “Well why don’t you do the whole Second-coming thing already? Just wipe the planet, get on with the final judgment, and be done with it?”

“I think about that often. Dad and I talk about it every few days. The thing about the final judgement is…well, it’s final.” “So what?” the man replied. “They’ve have enough chances, haven’t they?”

Jesus smiled, “Why do you say ‘they’? You are one of them. We only made one humanity, you know. Sometime WE do think you have had enough chances. Some days I watch you and I feel that old complaint rise up in me:

“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

“Then one of you does something good, something right, something beautiful, and the whole decree goes out the window. However, if you really want a Micah kind of world, everyone who calls me Lord will have to act like that’s actually true.”

The man sat quietly for a moment and finally got the nerve to ask Jesus, “Is that really possible?” Jesus sighed and replied “All things are possible. The question is, will you follow me?”

Rev. Joe Hill