Tuesday, February 20
Knowing God
Narrative Lectionary Daily Devotions written by Daniel D. Maurer from Clergy Stuff.
I'm naturally a skeptical person. I like to believe that I'm an intellectual and I rationally take in the information as it's presented and make my own decisions.
But let's get real.
Believing in God isn't exactly a rational act. All the evidence would seem to suggest that God does not exist. For all the suffering we see daily, as well as the fact that we're destroying our planet would guide the most rational thinker to the conclusion that we're out here on our own.
Still, I believe. Why? Is it some leftover from my own emotional need to believe that there is some guiding force in the universe? Maybe it's just nostalgia, a remnant from my childhood, and I simply find belief more comfortable that non-belief.
Maybe.
But I'm more convinced by the fact of the only thing that makes Christianity unique among world religions: the cross. "I have not come on my own," Jesus proclaimed. For me, this is what knowing God is all about—knowing this person, Jesus of Nazareth, one who lived and died to encompass the whole human experience. In seeing Christ's witness of courage, I believe. Or, at the very least, I want to believe. And I want to know God.
Narrative Lectionary Text: John 7:25-31
Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, ‘Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.’ Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, ‘You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.’ Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many in the crowd believed in him and were saying, ‘When the Messiah comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?’