Afterwords -- nearness
"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." (Ephesians 2:13)
"Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them." (Luke 4:40)
February 9, 2024
Dear friends,
Many of us at one time felt like we did not need a Savior, since we believed that basically we weren't really that bad, or even "lost" in any desperate sense. But one moment's awareness of the holiness of God -- see Isaiah 6, for example -- dispels that illusion, and we go to pieces and see ourselves as "undone," in Isaiah's words (Isa 6:5 KJV; other translations have "ruined, destroyed, doomed"). In the Gospel of Luke chapter 5 we see a self-confident fisherman (Simon Peter), being convicted by our Lord's powerful blessing toward him. He falls at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8) Surely, every true Christian knows something of what Isaiah and Simon felt.
But what if we are overwhelmed with the thought that we are too bad? We might feel our case is different or exceptional or too depraved in God's sight. Or that we have sinned away his grace. We may see ourselves undone, without any hope of restoration. We may think that our Lord Jesus, learning how horrible we really are, now stands at a distance from us in his infinite holiness. Once we thought we were not bad enough to need such forgiveness, but now, we see ourselves as too bad to receive God's mercy and grace. This is strange reasoning, as we again think in terms of our own merit, rather than of the boundless mercy and grace of God. In this case we are still looking at ourselves.
I've been reading the Gospel of Luke and have been impressed with Jesus' hands-on ministry even to those with extreme conditions. Luke says, "...he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them." (Luke 4:40) Jesus did not stand off at a distance, but rather drew near as the God-sent Healer. And in this fifth chapter we are presented with four extreme cases where Jesus came very near to sinners. He restores four different people: Simon (Peter), an unnamed leper, an unnamed paralytic, and the tax-collector, Levi (Matthew).
Each case was different. Simon sinned with his somewhat respectable unbelief. (After all, he was an experienced fisherman. But it was unbelief, still.) The leper was living, but not really living, as a social outcast and pariah. (Nobody wanted to be close to him.) The paralytic was unable to do much of anything for himself. (But some friends gave help.) And Matthew (and his circle of secular friends) were caught up in compromise and materialism. So, the four we see in this chapter were either unbelieving, unclean, unable, or ungodly, or maybe, all of the above. What a mix of sad cases! But our Lord did not steer away from any of them but met them in their need. And to each he gave a word of encouragement: "Do not be afraid... I am willing... Your sins are forgiven you... Follow me."
The summary is here: "Jesus answered them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.'” (Luke 5:31-32) A good physician does not move away from sickness, but toward it. Jesus did not come to craft a corporate health policy, or to diagnose us from a distance. He came personally to meet each individual at their point of need. Hands on. Christ stands near to us as God's heaven-sent Healer. You do not have to cross some great gulf to reach him, he already did that.
Do you think you are a special or unusual case? Do you think that somehow, you've surprised Jesus with an ailment or condition he didn't know about? Do you think your sin is greater than his grace? Now is the time to look to him, and to call upon him. If you look to Jesus rather than to yourself, you will find him near, very near, and ready to restore you. As Martin Luther once said, "When I look at myself, I don't see how I can be saved. But when I look at Christ, I don't see how I can be lost."
READING...
-- "There are those, thank God, who burn as shining lights in the congregation, and who do not cease all the days of their lives to drink deeply from the cup of grace." -- Abraham Kuyper, showing why continued spiritual growth is needed at every stage in our lives. Read "From Strength to Strength" here.
-- "Both Christianity and modernity make global claims. Both are necessarily missionary faiths, because they claim to give the true understanding of the human situation, valid for all peoples at all times." (Lesslie Newbigin)
-- "Bother! ... Hang spring cleaning!" (Mole, in The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, 1908) I'm reading this children's classic with some friends. About fifty artists thus far have illustrated this book, E. H. Shepard (1931) and Arthur Rackham (1940) being the best known. Here are some modern illustrations by Chris Dunn.
WATCHING AND LISTENING...
-- J. I. Packer's Knowing God (audiobook), and this week, chapter 13 on "The Grace of God" was especially good.
-- Two excellent sermons from Ephesians 2 on "The Miracle of the Church," part 1 and part 2.
-- We have really enjoyed watching The Repair Shop.
-- Nature updates: the robins have returned to our yard; and during a recent walk we watched a pair of red-tailed hawks circling over Hethwood. Our neighborhood in Prices Fork, however, seems to be owned by red-shouldered hawks. (And crows, who like to call out the presence of the hawks, much to the appreciation of the other birds.)
FINAL QUOTE.
"Christ promises forgiveness of sins: But what is that to those who, since they do not know the law of nature, do not know that they have sinned? Who will take medicine unless he know he is in the grip of disease? Moral relativity is the enemy we have to overcome before we tackle Atheism." (C. S. Lewis, letter to Don Giovanni Calabria, in The Question of God.)
That's it for this week!
Sandy
Image credit: drawing above, of Christ healing the leper, is by Rembrandt (1606--1669); photo below of our cat, who sometimes joins me for morning Bible reading. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
