We know of moles as “burrowing insectivores…with tiny eyes, concealed ears and soft fur”, Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary – Tenth Edition, p. 749.
We also know of espionage moles as planted agents of a government in another government’s intelligence system. Aldrich Ames served as such until his arrest in 1992 as a Soviet mole. The intention is to secure information that another government wants kept secret. Even corporations have moles, seeking information from competitors in their fields of endeavor—purely for the financial profit involved. Those moles who serve as spies can be motivated by political conscience, money, sex or a sense of perverted adventure—being involved in treasonous activities while creating a sense of political loyalty. Jesus came into history in Bethlehem, Judea, after many Psalms and prophecies predicted his arrival. But he always served as God’s Visible Spokesman, never in an undercover role, with an illegal purpose or to establish a secret organization for only a few initiated into its mysteries. End Part I
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After spending 40 years in church ministries, this writer faced his first case of clinical depression. I puzzled over it for some time, perplexed by teaching my friend God’s Word: how could Gospel truth penetrate his mind? We finally created a joke about it. “Where did that knothole go, brother? RIGHT INTO YOUR BRAIN!” Then we’d laugh and try again. Consider four lessons I learned from my friend Parker.
One, mental and emotional conditions can limit the effectiveness of God’s Word, but they cannot eliminate that effectiveness. Even Parker, after doubting as I taught, lost his doubts when he prayed. The Holy Spirit’s insights into his condition reached him where the vessel of clay failed. Two, if we have questions, perplexities OR doubts—any problem relating to God in Christ:
I would look at Parker’s Bible—marked with comments, as I’m in the habit of doing. Well read in Scripture, he didn’t allow his personal shortcomings to prevent reading his Bible—as many with his condition do. Three, we can ignore or delay implementing God’s Presence in our life:
For, ignoring him while we occupy ourselves with our projects and goals won’t eliminate God. HE’S OUT THERE, beyond this life, awaiting each of us. He didn’t ask our permission to exist, and our refusal to think about him won’t keep him from BEING THERE, at our last breath. Four, prepare ahead for your rendezvous with God. That eliminates last-minute repentance. It became clear in the last weeks that Parker would die. He feared talking to his wife Millie about it. I had her to come in the room and asked if she had given thought to Parker’s death. To his relief, she had…and would prefer his death to his continued suffering. THEN, as I looked at her, huge tears formed in and dropped from her eyes—and I knew what it cost her to say that. That’s where Millie taught me a lesson: love willingly accepts pain if it benefits a loved one. Love is like that. In summary, I baptized both of them—in their bathtub, no less, immersing them for the forgiveness of their sins. Honestly, it meant more to Parker to have her baptized, but that’s another story…. In Christ’s Last Public Week of Ministry, multiple believers offered him the tribute of spices as a final gesture of appreciation. Read the stories in John 12:1-11, 19:38-41 and Luke 24:1-8. Mary used very expensive nard, Joseph and Nicodemus folded 75 pounds of spices into the Master’s burial shroud and Magdalene and friends wondered who would move the stone to allow their access to the body. All these accounts prove how foolish the Jewish leaders were when saying they wanted to prevent theft of the body by Christ’s disciples Matthew 27:62-66.
None of the believers had any sense of Christ’s inevitable resurrection. None had any desire to storm the grave site and steal the body. And, as the women proved, none intrigued a way to secretly enter the private garden, elude the Roman soldiers, roll the stone from the entrance, enter and spirit the corpse away. They instead wondered who could be found to “roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb” Mark 16:3. What purpose would stealing the body have? Would preaching a dead Jesus prove he could grant everlasting life? Would a corpse prove effective when his life had failed believers? Worse still, would they secrete the corpse in another private graveyard where they could go and worship the dead? (That would be appropriate to Roman Catholic theology. They have as little regard for the resurrected Christ as they have a fixation on the dead Jesus.) More tomorrow. Note: this week’s blogs on resurrection theme.
Judy and I remember still, with the couple two months before, to the day. Then to celebrate the vows taken 50 years before; two months later to mourn the loss of a precious wife, mother, relative and friend. Laughter before, tears that day. Pleasure before, bereavement that day. When will we ever learn: NEVER trust life for security and serenity? It never fails to ambush us at the most inopportune time. When we’re most vulnerable, but don’t know it. When we least expect it, for anticipating better things. Secular scientists assure us of their unrelenting search for humanity’s nativity. And where do they look? In the muck of dirt, in the slime of seas. Which is fine if we’re a peanut or potato/or for even the genesis of the human body. But not OUR GENESIS! We, made in the Image of God, defy the death that carries the body away to the grave or the crematoria, to the depths of the sea, or to a cleft in the mountains. We don’t have to WANT to die to PREPARE to die. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live if living means serving Christ. Just as there’s nothing wrong with desiring death if, in death, we enter Christ’s presence Philippians 1:20-26. The frailties of an aging mind and body may create a desire to die; while retaining strength of both in aging may urge desire to live—but only to serve Jesus, not to add years, fame, wealth or reputation. After all, no one in Paradise will be impressed when we arrive at 100 years old. Multiplied numbers of them lived 800-900 years before dying Genesis 5. Genesis 2 tells us what we once were…innocent children of God. Romans 8 tells what we now are…forgiven children of God. Revelation 21-22 tell us what we are yet to be…glorified children of God. We have enough success here to assure us of what life can be. We endure enough defeat here to remind us what life often is. But thank God, through the Grace of Jesus Christ, we’re yet to become victoriously eternal. Neither adversity nor pain is final, then; nor defeat and death; nor bereavement and loss. Those imposters lie. God’s people, rescued from sin by Christ’s forgiveness, from weakness by Christ’s strength, from mortality by Christ’s immortality, experience forever and ever success, rewards and ecstasy. |
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