Good Monday morning! The first Monday of 2011 is here for us. That might sound a bit threatening if you don't like Mondays, sort of like an old nemesis has returned for no good reason. Eeek! Monday is here; run for your lives! Sorry, but like most years we will have to face around 52 Mondays again this year. Hey, maybe Jesus will return for us this year and we will be saved from some Mondays! I don't think that preventing a few Mondays would be our Lord's primary purpose, but I wouldn't stand here on Earth arguing if He said, "Come up here!" sometime this year. We get all of the seven days each week; like it or not, there is no picking among the days. I like the story of a man, often called the rich young ruler, who came to Jesus asking what he had to do to enter Heaven.
And behold, a man came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to him, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Matt 19:16-22 ESV
First the man asks for something to accomplish, one good deed that will assure him of entry into Heaven. That would be nice wouldn't it? At least as long as Jesus didn't say something like, "Go to Jupiter and bring back a bit of dust from the fourth layer of the Reblyong Frulalaffle. Place the dust in the center dish of the church offering plate!" For much of our human history a trip to Jupiter wasn't even in the realm of possibility. Even now we might be able to send one or two astronauts on a lengthy journey to gather just a bit of... what? A Rebly whosis? The man may have wanted something that he could just do and have over with, and then the rest of his life would be his to enjoy. We might fall into the same trap. Another trap is the lifetime accomplishment that some seek. If Jesus had told the man to enter a monastery and keep silent for thirty years, the man might well have tried that. Jesus then tells the man to keep the commandments.
Now the man probably knew the commandments, as a Hebrew adult he had very likely heard all ten commandments a million times growing up. Yet he wants a reduction in his sentence in a manner of speaking and asks, "Which ones?" Jesus then gives the man a break and only mentions some of the commandments. The man, whether we believe him or not, then gives a little sigh of relief and tells Jesus that he is good on those. But he must have sensed something still missing because he continues, "What do I still lack?" Jesus then gives the man a good deed that he could certainly perform. The man got his wish! He wanted an accomplishment that he could put on his resume to show God on the Judgment Day, and Jesus gave it to him... along with a little humor. Jesus started with, "If you would be perfect..." That is the answer the man really sought - how to be perfect.
Unfortunately for the man, the gospel records that he went away troubled in his heart, "for he had great possessions." Jesus gave him the perfection to-do list and the man couldn't do it. The humor comes in trying to be perfect. In another place, Jesus tells the people to be perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect. The trouble is that perfection is beyond our reach, no matter how many good deeds we do. Even in trying to do good deeds to attain perfection, we find that doing good deeds for our own perfection is a selfish reason. The Pharisees had a lengthy list of rules added onto the Law of Moses to help the people reach for that perfection, and no group received more chewing out from Jesus! The man Saul was the super-Pharisee, keeping all the law and the sundry rules, zealously persecuting the early Christ-ones, and Jesus grabbed him on the road to Damascus and chewed him out but good, "Why are you persecuting me?" For a man to spend his life doing what he thought was right for God, and then be brought up short by that same God and asked why he was hurting his God would have been quite ego busting. Saul and the wealthy man both met Jesus and each of the men found out that he did not know the path to salvation.
We never hear about the wealthy man again in the Bible, but Saul became Paul the apostle and we owe a 'thank you!' to him for the great letters. God used Paul to give us a whole lot of love.
Why love? Because God's love is what we need, not our own perfection. The clay cannot become a pot on its own; it needs the potter. The imperfect cannot perfect itself; we need God to perfect us through His Son, Jesus Christ, and His Holy Spirit. The Law tells us what is wrong with each of us, but gives us no power to perfect ourselves. Many will come before God claiming all they have done for Jesus without reading the stories in God's own Word. Nicodemus asked what he must do to be saved, and didn't understand the answer Jesus gave him. The man with great possessions asked what he had to do to enter Heaven and couldn't perform the action required of him. Saul thought he knew the answer to both questions, and couldn't have been more wrong. As the ministers have told us for years: It isn't what you do for Jesus that can make you good, but the Jesus you must come to know who can make you good.
Have a great new year in Christ!
Bucky
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