A brilliant young speaker was our preacher this Sunday. To a dazed and startled congregation, he skillfully narrated the tale of the legendary Reverend Jim Jones who was charismatic enough to lead his own cultic church and convince thousands to leave their jobs and daily lives and follow him and live in a small, secluded hermit community around him. A man who was dynamic enough and psychotic enough to persuade almost a thousand unfortunate devotees to commit mass suicide through cyanide poisoning. A deranged monster of a man. And what was it that attracted so many to him? The fact that in an unfeeling, uncaring world, he and his cult seemed to care for them. "What's wrong with the world?" our speaker boomed from the pulpit. And it prompted me to think. What IS wrong with us?
I think we as a race, have evolved to such a level that we no longer know what is important to us. There is today a painful scarcity of that rarest of all commodities - Love. When was the last time you said "I love you" to someone? Think about it. Spouses, parents, friends, sweethearts....all of us....we hesitate to say "I love you". Why? And even when we do so, what do we really mean? Do we mean, "I love you because it is convenient, painless and necessary for me", or do we mean, "I love you in spite of everything because I can't help it"?
In a world that teaches us to grab, wear blinkers, climb over fallen comrades and fight our way to the top, where is the space for Love? It's a 'dog-eat-dog' world and it's every man for himself. Parents push children to over-achieve when they should be allowing them space to blossom on their own; children focus on their own dreams and force their parents to fade into the background. Husbands don't think they need to tell their wives everyday that they appreciate them; Wives breed resentment because they believe they are being taken advantage of. Even friends use each other and move on when they are done. Really, where is the Love?
Since childhood, I have done my best to avoid movies like 'The Passion of the Christ' because I could never reconcile myself to the fact that God sent His only Son to die so painfully a criminal's death, for my ruddy sake! It just seems so amazingly unfair to me. With every painful, dragging step as He carries the cross to Golgotha, with every crack of the thorny whip on His shattered and furrowed back and with every blow of the hammer on His bloodied, nailed wrists, I wince and tremble and ineveitably end up blubbering into my neighbour's sleeve. I did that at 7 and at 30, I continue to do it. However, there is one big reason why I keep watching these movies.....for just one scene that will always remain before my eyes - the courtyard scene with Peter and Jesus.
Jesus has been dragged to the High Priest's courtyard and flogged within an inch of His life through the customary 39 lashes. Peter is lurking in the background trying to sneak a look or maybe garner some information on what awaits His Lord. By the light of the bonfire there, a woman recognises Peter. He waves her away hoping no one has heard her. To his great dismay though, soon many more identify him. "Weren't you with the Nazarene?" they ask. "Weren't you part of his entourage too?" "We know you, we saw you with him...", they badger Peter. Trapped and cornered, he chooses the smartest way out. Thrice he utters the same lie - "No, no, leave me alone. I tell you I do not know the man!" At the 3rd utterance, the cock crows (as Jesus once predicted it would) loud and clear. Shaken by his betrayal, Peter looks up, only to gaze directly into the eyes of an exhausted Jesus who meets his look from across the courtyard. Unable to bear that look, Peter flees the place.
I have often wondered what it was that Peter saw in Jesus' eyes that night. What was it that caused him so much grief and shame and later toughened him up so much as to become the rock on which the church was built and even unto a martyr's death? Was it disappointment? Couldn't be. Jesus knew this was coming. Bitterness? Sorrow? Pain? Tears? After much deliberation, I can only conclude that to effect such a reaction from Peter, the expression in Jesus' eyes, could have been only one thing - Love.
To be betrayed by all you knew and healed and fed and cared about, to be deserted by your closest friends, to be at death's door with no one who loves you enough by your side, to lie there bleeding and friendless and dying.....and to still be able to convey with just one look all your heart's passion for someone...now THAT is Love. Where is that Love in our world today?
Admit it. All of us are starved for love and affection in some way or the other. The old beggar at the beach deserted by his family, the young software techie making a lonely living faraway from home, the silent suburban housewife wishing her husband would come home early, the little orphan child hoping someone would adopt her, the widowed woman with kids wondering if someone will ever love her again, the aging single man desperate for just one woman to love him as he is......face it...we all need Love.
God's love is of course available to all of us. But there is one conditional clause. God's love can reach people only via media other people. If you like me are wondering today what's wrong with the world, then stand up and do your part. Go home and love your family. Go out and show someone you care. Little by little, one person at a time, we can heal the world.
Afraid you'll get hurt if you do love somebody genuinely and with all you've got? Honestly speaking, you probably will. You can't love someone without emotionally investing yourself in them. But then again, think of Jesus, (the Son of God who ought to have been sitting by His Father's side, reigning in royal majesty), rolling around in His own blood, torn and battered because of you, and still saying, "I love you so much". Maybe that will help.
A Blessed Easter to you friend.....
"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. " - 1 John 4:9-12
I think we as a race, have evolved to such a level that we no longer know what is important to us. There is today a painful scarcity of that rarest of all commodities - Love. When was the last time you said "I love you" to someone? Think about it. Spouses, parents, friends, sweethearts....all of us....we hesitate to say "I love you". Why? And even when we do so, what do we really mean? Do we mean, "I love you because it is convenient, painless and necessary for me", or do we mean, "I love you in spite of everything because I can't help it"?
In a world that teaches us to grab, wear blinkers, climb over fallen comrades and fight our way to the top, where is the space for Love? It's a 'dog-eat-dog' world and it's every man for himself. Parents push children to over-achieve when they should be allowing them space to blossom on their own; children focus on their own dreams and force their parents to fade into the background. Husbands don't think they need to tell their wives everyday that they appreciate them; Wives breed resentment because they believe they are being taken advantage of. Even friends use each other and move on when they are done. Really, where is the Love?
Since childhood, I have done my best to avoid movies like 'The Passion of the Christ' because I could never reconcile myself to the fact that God sent His only Son to die so painfully a criminal's death, for my ruddy sake! It just seems so amazingly unfair to me. With every painful, dragging step as He carries the cross to Golgotha, with every crack of the thorny whip on His shattered and furrowed back and with every blow of the hammer on His bloodied, nailed wrists, I wince and tremble and ineveitably end up blubbering into my neighbour's sleeve. I did that at 7 and at 30, I continue to do it. However, there is one big reason why I keep watching these movies.....for just one scene that will always remain before my eyes - the courtyard scene with Peter and Jesus.
Jesus has been dragged to the High Priest's courtyard and flogged within an inch of His life through the customary 39 lashes. Peter is lurking in the background trying to sneak a look or maybe garner some information on what awaits His Lord. By the light of the bonfire there, a woman recognises Peter. He waves her away hoping no one has heard her. To his great dismay though, soon many more identify him. "Weren't you with the Nazarene?" they ask. "Weren't you part of his entourage too?" "We know you, we saw you with him...", they badger Peter. Trapped and cornered, he chooses the smartest way out. Thrice he utters the same lie - "No, no, leave me alone. I tell you I do not know the man!" At the 3rd utterance, the cock crows (as Jesus once predicted it would) loud and clear. Shaken by his betrayal, Peter looks up, only to gaze directly into the eyes of an exhausted Jesus who meets his look from across the courtyard. Unable to bear that look, Peter flees the place.
I have often wondered what it was that Peter saw in Jesus' eyes that night. What was it that caused him so much grief and shame and later toughened him up so much as to become the rock on which the church was built and even unto a martyr's death? Was it disappointment? Couldn't be. Jesus knew this was coming. Bitterness? Sorrow? Pain? Tears? After much deliberation, I can only conclude that to effect such a reaction from Peter, the expression in Jesus' eyes, could have been only one thing - Love.
To be betrayed by all you knew and healed and fed and cared about, to be deserted by your closest friends, to be at death's door with no one who loves you enough by your side, to lie there bleeding and friendless and dying.....and to still be able to convey with just one look all your heart's passion for someone...now THAT is Love. Where is that Love in our world today?
Admit it. All of us are starved for love and affection in some way or the other. The old beggar at the beach deserted by his family, the young software techie making a lonely living faraway from home, the silent suburban housewife wishing her husband would come home early, the little orphan child hoping someone would adopt her, the widowed woman with kids wondering if someone will ever love her again, the aging single man desperate for just one woman to love him as he is......face it...we all need Love.
God's love is of course available to all of us. But there is one conditional clause. God's love can reach people only via media other people. If you like me are wondering today what's wrong with the world, then stand up and do your part. Go home and love your family. Go out and show someone you care. Little by little, one person at a time, we can heal the world.
Afraid you'll get hurt if you do love somebody genuinely and with all you've got? Honestly speaking, you probably will. You can't love someone without emotionally investing yourself in them. But then again, think of Jesus, (the Son of God who ought to have been sitting by His Father's side, reigning in royal majesty), rolling around in His own blood, torn and battered because of you, and still saying, "I love you so much". Maybe that will help.
A Blessed Easter to you friend.....
"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. " - 1 John 4:9-12
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