Why Not a King Now? (Lent 30-2018)

People can be really impatient, rushing headlong into bad decisions, even ones made to achieve what seems good on the surface. The wise person knows that other people cannot be a means to an end. Jesus as an earthly king with a food-multiplying ministry? People tried to do that, but anyone used as a means to an end is just a tool in the hands of a mob. Jesus is bigger than that.

John 6:14 After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

Impatience, rushing to the end without the necessary preparation, was every bit as wrong-headed in Jesus’ day as it is in ours.

Why Not a King Now? Because God had a perfect Kingdom in mind achieved with a cross for a throne and a crown made of thorns.

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In the long view, things of this earth will someday disappear, however what is eternal, by definition, will not. It lasts forever. What is earthly will die and decay. What is spiritual and heavenly will be released from bonds of clay and rise.

Short-term satisfaction is no substitute for long-term preservation.

In the movie Life of Pi which we’ve been using for Pi and Chi, Asking and Answering Questions Why for Lent 2018, just when Pi thinks he and Richard Parker (the Bengal tiger) are going to die, his lifeboat lands on an island filled with meerkats and lush greenery. Ponds of clear water. Enough to sustain life for both Pi and Richard Parker. Then, night falls and reveals the illusion of life corrected by the death of night.

ADULT PI: Don’t you see, the island was carnivorous.
WRITER: Carnivorous? Like… a Venus flytrap?
ADULT PI: Yes, the whole island-the plants, the water in those pools, the very ground itself…Years ago, some poor fellow just like me must have found himself stranded on that island…. And like me he thought he might stay there forever…I saw how my life would end if I stayed on that island. Alone and forgotten. I had to go back to the world, or die trying.

Food for thought:

Pi found enough food for himself and Richard Parker in the daytime to stockpile in the boat to continue the journey to the end. In what ways, looking back over your life, can you see that God provided what you needed at the time to persevere?
God can calm the storm or calm the person; change the circumstances or change the individual; and He can reveal what is temporary to achieve what is eternal. What is our role?
Knowing the difference between what is temporary and what is eternal is the subject of much of the Letter to the Hebrews. In chapter 7 Jesus is considered a King-Priest in the “order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 7:11-25) with a forever status. Why would Jesus fulfill that description?
Particularly in Hebrews 9 and 10, the contrast between earthly and heavenly could not be more striking (Hebrews 9:23-28) verse 24 “For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.”
How can the illusion of perfection in earthly life lead us to making bad decisions? The people of Jesus’ day wanted to make him an earthly king by force. How did it look right to them? But how would that have been a bad decision?

Join me tomorrow for Why Can’t We See the Whole Picture?

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page. Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

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Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.