Dear Trekker,
Contemporary erudite critic, George Will, quotes T.S. Eliot, “Success is relative… it is what we make of the mess we’ve made of things.” True indeed! But success is also dependent on the outside help we request! British scholar, Alister McGrath, in his biography on C.S. Lewis… A Life, cites about Eliot, “Eliot (converted to Christ as an adult, like Lewis) found in Christianity a principle of order and stability located outside the human self, which allowed him a secure vantage point from which to engage with the world” (italics mine).
Has it not always been this way? Refusing and forgetting the Creator and Redeemer of man’s suffering, and then left to his own selfish and anarchistic devices, man always makes a mess of things. We “miss the mark,” a literal definition of sin! From Watts to Ferguson, to loss of hope to depression, we cannot manage alone! We have forgotten our greatest outside help, God himself!
Nowhere is this lasting, irrevocable condition more pronounced and described more fully than in the story of the Good Shepherd. (Trekker, before moving on, pick up your favorite Bible version and read John 9:39-10:18). The setting for this fascinating narrative, this intriguing metaphor illustrating God’s availability for the asking, is the healing of a young man, blind from birth! What an illustration of the universal condition of man… blind from birth! The blind man saw, believed and worshipped… a good recipe for modern man! Jesus said, “I have come into the world to give sight to those who are spiritually blind and to show those who think they see, that they are blind.”
Jesus launches then into story! Stories trump apologetics often, even as mercy trumps judgment! “Anyone refusing to walk through the gate into a sheep fold, who sneaks over the wall, must surely be a thief” (John 10:1). Jesus says we are all thieves when we want success in life (i.e. climbing over the wall) without walking through the gateway provided! (Is not this why Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me?” John 14:6.)
Yes, success is relative to “doing life” the Jesus way! Jesus, the Son of God, became a mere man to sharpen the need for judgment in the world. When we encounter Jesus, we pass judgment on ourselves, inevitably. If one sees nothing to admire, to desire, to love, to live for in Jesus, one condemns himself. If he sees in Jesus awe, wonder, someone to receive and respond to, something to grasp, a pearl for possession, such a person is on the way to God and abundant life (John 10:10). The more man messes up, the more knowledge he has about the universe and everything, the more he stands ignorant and condemned. He does not recognize the good before him.
When Jesus narrates to his disciples the parable of the Good Shepherd, he says, “I am the door.” Through Him and Him alone, men find God, gain access to God and have a reference point to escape the mess and morass of life created when God is not in the picture! Jesus is the new, living Way (Hebrews 10:20)! By telling this parable, Jesus opens the way to God. He shows that God is not a stranger and certainly not the enemy. We are introduced to God… Jesus becomes the door making entrance to fellowship with God possible for all.
Fellowship with God the Creator and Redeemer is phrased in the story as “going in and coming out” (10:30). Such is security and safety, for sheep and for citizens. When citizens can come and go within or outside their country, without fear, there is peace and security. A leader of a nation is one who can bring citizens out and lead them (Numbers 27:17). Once individual men discover who God is (and this occurs through Christ alone) and what He is like, a sense of safety and security, a reference point outside of self, enters into one’s life. If we receive Him, fear and worries dissipate. Life becomes abundant!
In the story of the Good Shepherd, we have this amazing wrap-up statement, “My purpose (in being born, teaching, dying and rising again) is to give life in all its fullness.” Here again, knowledge of the Greek language is helpful and so intriguing personally as I seek to understand Scripture. Abundant life is overflowing life, more than enough, a surplus to enjoy and give away to others. It is the artesian well of water springing up into real life which Jesus spoke of in John 7:37-38!
William Barclay tells of a Roman soldier said to have approached Julius Caesar with a request to commit suicide. “Man,” Caesar said, “were you ever really alive?” Are we really alive without Christ? Without His abundant Presence in the life of His Spirit, we are not! Life without Him is a spiritless existence. Why suicides? Failure to appropriate, to ask, to find, to experience fulfilling grace…is it not true? Oh how I admired Robin Williams. What a bright shooting star! Alas…he apparently was unable to aggregate to himself the joy, humor and zest in living that he brought to others.
Trekker, only in Jesus Christ can people become one! The only possible unity for people the world over is in common son-ship with God. Let’s be sons of God, growing in knowledge of Him, and living out the Good News in our world. That’s all we can do…and if we ask, we will receive!
Your friend,
Jim Meredith
