“Like
a crane or a swallow, so I chattered; I mourned like a dove. My eyes fail
from looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me!” Isaiah 38:14
The
story is told of a pastor at his new appointment who was standing in his study on
the first Sunday of his appointment. As the congregation waited for the
service to begin, the pastor did not come out. An usher went to the
pastor’s study to advise him that it was time to start but found the pastor
staring out the window of the study. When the usher told the pastor it
was time to start, the pastor slowly turned and the usher noticed tears
streaming down the pastor’s face.
“Are
you ill, pastor?” The pastor replied, “No. I was just looking out
the window into the alley at these poor, dirty children playing.” The
usher, with his head lowered, quietly said, “I know what you mean, but soon
enough you will get used to it.” The pastor stated, “I know I will get
used to it. That’s why I am crying.”
There
are always appropriate times to “look upward” especially when it feels as
though our world is crumbling around us, just as Israel must have noticed as
their homeland was disintegrating and all seemed lost. We “look upward”
when we cannot find any other means to address the many problems we face almost
daily. And yet there are often those times when we become so
self-absorbed with our own problems that we forget there are always others
whose problems, real problems, make our own problems seem more like blessings;
but because we see it so often, we just become “used to it” so that the real
problems our neighbors face become unnoticeable. We still see, but we do
not comprehend.
A
dear friend asked recently if I thought I was truly prepared for what may be
revealed if I asked. I thought of the story I share with you and could
not help but to wonder if maybe I had already “seen” what the Lord revealed to
me but did not notice because the call and claim of our Lord on my life did not
look like what I had expected (or desired). Or maybe I was just too
wrapped up in my own life and my own petty problems to notice.
We
must not forget Jesus’ claim on Isaiah’s prophecy: “The Spirit of the
Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the
poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to
the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who
are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke
4:18,19). Now that our Lord has long ascended to the Throne of Grace,
we have been blessed by the power of the Holy Spirit to claim His mission as
our own, as the mission of the Church not to comfort the comfortable or to give
sight to those who already think they see! It is time for the Church
(that’s you and me!) to gain a new perspective and open her eyes to the real
world, the real problems our neighbors face each day because Jesus’ claim on
Isaiah’s prophecy is Jesus’ very definition and vision for His Body – the
Church.
Blessings,
Michael
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