Genesis 18:32 - "Then [Abraham] said, 'Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.' [The LORD] answered, 'For the sake of ten I will not destroy [Sodom].'"
Do you ever wonder?
I wonder why some pleas seem to be heard by God more than other pleas. On this Tenth Day of Christmas, we hear Abraham pleading for Sodom to be spared if there are ten people who heed and trust the Lord. Abraham pleads. God listens. But ten cannot be found. So Sodom is destroyed.
Yesterday, I was almost brought to tears when I received the news from my car mechanic that the noise I heard in the right front of my car was not the engine or the suspension but it was a wobbling, loose tire. In sum, my kids and I drove 800 miles from Alabama to Tennessee and back to Alabama with a tire that had only been finger-tightened, by the place that only does my tires, right before we went on our two-day family visit. We were a horrible accident waiting to happen. Why didn't it happen? I wonder.
And this isn't even mentioning that, at the very beginning of our trip, when we left Alabama in the early morning, we were right next to a tractor trailer that blew a rear tire which threw debris that scraped the very back of our car. And as we barely were past the truck, the truck swerved with a hard turn, out of control, exactly where we'd just been. It was a horrible accident that almost happened. Why didn't it? I wonder.
I wonder about the divine order that sometimes seems so disorderly and random. Why did my dear friend get hit in his face through his windshield by a piece of metal that broke off from a tractor trailer going south on the interstate when he was going north with his wife a few years ago? Why did his disaster happen, and ours didn't happen twice, especially when we're all pleading with God for travel mercies and protection?
In the end, in the midst of all of our wondering about the divine order, I have to rest, you have to rest, and we all have to rest, that the most important plea has been heard. When Jesus used biblical-number-ten-power to stoop down, take on mortal flesh, and die for us on a cross, he was using his divine privilege to re-establish the most important divine order, that is, the restoration of order between God and people through the forgiveness of sins.
In other words, maybe there is a randomness to things that happen in the world with trucks and blown tires and loose tires and metal brake pieces, but there is a greater order so that when something random happens, we have peace because God. Yes, that's what I mean; we have peace because God. That's the miracle of Christmas: God! God with us. God for us. God before us. God behind us. God above us. God beneath us. God within us. Loving us. Holding us. Holding us up. Giving us a peace that is every bit as real but greater than the random thing that just hit us or our loved one.
Abraham pleaded for Sodom. That was good. Jesus Christ pleaded for us all. That was, and always will be, the best. Trust God, and you'll see.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
No comments:
Post a Comment