Are you Discovering too?
Facts Do Matter
The more I read in Medium, the more I see all sorts of curious folks poking at stuff and finding it poking them back, inspiring and bringing joy to lives, and ours as they share it.
Then I feel sad. The realization of how little we really prod and prove our surroundings for those stimuli is one reason.
But the main mind-bender is how much we have been handed down within our Christian heritage that gets thrown out.
Before you click me off, think of how often we hear stuff and never check the source. The oh-that-can’t-be-true syndrome hits and we go our merry way passing up the most profound, life-changing realities just because we think it can’t be true. Or somebody else says so…even lots of somebodies.
It got Christ crucified, you know.
“No prophet arises from Galilee,” the authorities of the day were heard to say to the one member of the group amongst them who had been to talk with Jesus, Nicodemus.*
All Nicodemus pointed out to the scoffers was that their law surely did not judge someone without giving them a hearing.*
We know from the prophet Micah**, then the gospel account, sure enough, the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem. That was the birthplace of Jesus. Later his family settled in Nazareth.
Oops. They thought they knew…
In that same chapter, we see his own brothers giving him publicity advice. Jesus was not interested.
Truth seekers. He was looking for them. Nicodemus had gone in search of truth to Jesus. By night, granted, but he went.
Before Jesus began teaching at the festival, many expressed doubt, and most said nothing because of the fear of the political-correction police. Sound familiar?
Then he spoke.
The spectators were now astonished at his learning. And healing.
Then he said it. “I know Him…” and “Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own.”*
The coming of the son of man, who for eons had been predicted to re-write our existence, came into our earthly reality and basically turned everything upside-down.
More later. The upside-down part has taken us further than we can imagine. I am just prodding and discovering how much! And after all these years.
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* the Gospel of John chapter 7, Nicodemus, also John 3. ** Micah 5:2
