Daily Scriptures March 24 2007 First Thoughts

Psalm 43; Jer. 23:11-14; Romans 9:1-18; John 6:60-71; Psalm 31

We are about to enter the Garden with Jesus as he walks to Jerusalem and faces the events of the cross. it is easy to get distracted from this event, walk past a garden that has yet to bloom again, that is smelling of old olive oil and decayed leaves. As I watch daffodils bloom and the grass green up, I am much more inclined to by pass the dark garden today and hurry to the empty tomb.

Jesus reminds us that many who were following him drifted away (John 6:65-66). His teaching was too difficult to understand. Some lost interest after awhile. Perhaps their families threatened to cut them off if they kept going. Perhaps other teachings were easier on their lifestyles and left room for other gods of their own making. Perhaps they had no one to encourage them to continue the difficult journey. Perhaps the journey got too treacherous, the death threats and all. Perhaps the grief of leaving everyone they cherished behind would be too much to ask, like Paul faced when his people rejected "The Way of Jesus" as the fulfillment of the promise to Israel (Romans 9).

By the time he reached the garden only 12 remained with him. But Jesus also reminds us that even those who entered the Garden would fall away - denying him with a kiss, or lie, or silence. Some scattered in fear, others gave up hope. But the truth Jesus tells us is this - our spirit may be willing but our flesh is weak. All the time. But it is only in the Spirit that we have life:

⁶³It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But among you there are some who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him.

Yet thanks be to God for God's great mercy - a mystery really. That even those of us who believe, who have said we are followers, or want to be, would betray Jesus - with our apathy, our prayerless lives, when we fear sharing Christ with others, when we stay in destructive lifestyles or make excuses for our inattentiveness to God's ways. When we betray Jesus by arguing with Him for control, for praying our own will over God's. When we judge others when they fall, without looking at our own lives critically before God. When all this is going on in our lives, God can still show mercy on us! Says Paul,

⁴What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! ¹⁵For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." ¹⁶So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.

We stand at the entrance of the Garden and have a choice - to enter it with Jesus, to stay and pray with Him, agonize with Him and he with us over the change of direction our lives must make, counting the cost of following him all the way to wholeness, or we will return home by the same path we came.

If we don't land in a ditch somewhere first. Even then, there is a hand waiting to pull us out.