When God Doesn't Do The "Right Thing."

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” (Matthew 11:4-6)

Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: “ ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” (Matthew 26:31-32)

            In Sunday School yesterday, we watched a sermon by Andy Stanley that discussed the first passage. The second passage is one I have loved for a long time because the Greek includes an interesting word. The Greek word translated "fall away" is the same word from which we get the word "scandal." The same term can be translated  cause to sin, cause to fall into sin, offend, to fall away (from the faith), to go astray, to offend.  The same idea is in mind when Paul refers to "the stumbling stone" in Romans 9:32.and Peter in I Peter 2:8.

           As Pastor Stanley described the scene, John the Baptist was in prison and starting to wonder if maybe he'd been wrong. He sent Jesus a message about what He was, and was not doing. He was fulfilling prophecies. He was not fixing John's situation and he was not overthrowing the Romans. Both were things that John, as Jesus' cousin and a Jew had reason to expect. Both would have been good things, but Jesus wasn't cooperating.

     This is the sort of thing we all face on a daily basis. There are good things we think God ought to do. We can't understand why God doesn't do them. Some people ask it quite bluntly, "How can a good God allow bad things to happen to good people?" They usually assume that they are among the good people, and they may be right, to some extent. But God doesn't answer, and He doesn't do the good thing, and people trip and fall over God not doing what they know to be best. They are offended that God doesn't agree with them, doesn't act on their advice, does not submit to their judgment. After all, they're right. But...they aren't God. They do not know what God knows.

           What would have happened if Jesus had freed John? Given the sort of person King Herod was, it's hard to say, but slaughter comes to mind. All we can do is speculate. What would happen if God saw things our way? I think He does, more often than we notice, but the very fact that He can say "no," that He might say "no" galls us because when it comes down to it, His saying "no" means that He is God and we are not. We stumble over God being God. 

           All of this means that by definition, those who do not stumble over God being God, who are not offended by God not doing what we desire, expect or correctly view to be good are blessed because they have made peace with that boulder of truth against which we all kick, that God is God and we are not.