Thought for Today
Genesis 4:6 The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen?
Psalm 2:1 Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?
Matthew 6:28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
Luke 6:41 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?
That simple question “Why?” appears between 282 – 562 times in the Bible, depending on the translation read. Every parent since Adam and Eve knows that at certain ages children can ask that question more times than that before noon.
Some time soon after learning to talk, children begin a relentless campaign of “Why?” Sometimes the issues are simple, sometimes complex. Sometimes the question can be answered with a simple “Because I said so!” Even young children understand that as an answer to why they can’t have cake for breakfast . . . sometimes.
Many parents, however, at some point find themselves trying to answer why the sky is blue. Those parents, even the ones who are not scientists or engineers, find themselves trying to explain optics, refraction and why light sometimes behaves as a wave and sometimes as a particle . . . at least at some level. Few of us get the point of our child’s real puzzlement. The child merely wants to know why the sky cannot be the same color as that child’s favorite dinosaur on the television. Why can’t everything be some varying shade of purple or whatever color that dinosaur presents?
Tuesday was Epiphany. Sunday will be the First Sunday after Epiphany. On my liturgical calendar it is also noted as Baptism of Christ. The New Testament reading will be Matthew’s rendering of that baptism. Every time that passage occurs in our liturgical cycle, I come up against the same question, “Why?” Not why it is in the cycle, why did Jesus get baptized? We’ll talk about that Sunday.
The “Why?” question is integral to the whole topic of epiphanies in the Bible. Essentially, epiphanies are revelations. On Tuesday, I offered the definition of an epiphany, in part, ““Epiphany (Gr. epiphaneia, ‘manifestation) In general, an appearance of the divine. . .” (Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, pg. 91) Somewhere between Genesis and Revelation, appearances of the divine went from constant to rare, from walking with God in the Garden to being blinded on the road to Damascus. Now, epiphanies are occasions for celebratory liturgical holidays.
Why? Why the change? Have we become so desensitized, so numb to the miracle of God’s Creation that we need to be struck blind by the appearance of the divine? Why does the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, the awesomeness of a rose, or the laughter of a young child no longer strike us as the appearance of the divine?
As I read the devotional this morning in These Days and noticed the theme for this week, “God’s Lavish Love,” I was immediately reminded of John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” My first thought was “Why?” Why does God love the world?
Look around. Listen to the news. Read the newspapers. Listen to folks talk. Does the world in which we live sound like the kind of place the Creator of Creation would love? Is ours a world reflective of "Luke 10:27 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself?"
Yet, the reality is that God indeed has lavished love on the world and on all of us. God did send Jesus. God did not send Jesus to condemn the world, but to save the world (John 3:17)
Some time, somewhere along the way, much of our world has lost sight of God’s love. In the endless quest for more . . .more money, more stuff, more more, we stopped asking ourselves “Why?”
Maybe in these days and weeks following Epiphany we can think more about the “Why?” of it all. Ponder on the epiphanies in the Bible, God’s appearance in creation. Ask ourselves why God sent Jesus, why Jesus blinded Paul on that road to Damascus. Maybe we can also stop to treasure the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, the awesomeness of a rose, or the laughter of a young child. God is still appearing among us.
Stay safe, look for God among us, trust God,
Pastor Ray