not sermon material.

So here are some of my more unconventional thoughts recently related to Biblical content.

Jonah- 3 days in a whale -
Holy Mackerel! ( ha.... ha.) I'm not one of those people who thinks that this was a parable or whatever. I believe it actually happened. That this poor dude actually was swallowed by, and 3 days later spat up by a whale.
Now, bear with me a moment on this one. Seriously, what in the WORLD was THAT like?!?!?! Hello? Would you say it pretty much had to stink like all get out... that's almost a given I would say. I dunno. what else? like, what did he sit on? what in the world is a whale's gut like? Not the Holiday Inn or even Howard Johnsons. Yes, the whole spiritual battle was going on, with the obedience issue, repentance/forgiveness etc., but physically, what in the WORLD did he really go through. Was it all slimy with intestinal mucous? Was he burned by digestive acids at all? I assume it was basically pitch black. So he's hearing weird gurgly noises, maybe, and not being able to see anything happening around him? How terrifying! God really knows how to get one's attention when He feels it is a matter of life and death for a city. I can't imagine NOT getting serious with God in this particular scenario.
But to give it a little more than passing thought can trip one out.
Just some thoughts.

Then last night I went to a worship service and a speaker mentioned the conversation Jesus had with the disciples in Matthew 16, when he asked them, "Who do YOU say I am?"
And the person was of course trying to get the congregation to think of our OWN answer to, who do YOU say I am? And I thought to myself, who IS He to me? And although the part I'm going to talk about here only offers the most incomplete answer imaginable to that question, None of us has the time for me to go into a more thorough answer. This is just the 'unconventional' segment, anyway.

You know how in the flash of a moment you can think of enough stuff to fill a weeks worth of daily blogging? Well that is kinda how this went.

In that moment, I thought of my attachment to physical things. I thought of my curtains, my house, my furniture, my dishes, clothes, the mangos in my fridge, you name it, all my worldy goods, and how unwilling I would be to voluntarily give those all up in a moment, to say, live in a cardboard box, and only have the clothes on your back from now on. I would consider that a painful sacrifice, a big step DOWN from my current standard of living. This of course answers for me the question posed in the Revival Hymn, "Is the world crucified to you, or does it fascinate you?" I am painfully aware of how not crucified it is to me still. But I digress.

Then I imagined this fictitious scene in heaven, in which God the Father, the Holy Spirit and Jesus are all sitting around a table, discussing the state of affairs some time ago, like, 2000 ish years ago. And They were broken in tears, that man was seperated from Them, that SOMEthing needed to be done to restore relationship. That They were devastated by the sin and how it created this chasm between God and His Beloved. And as They discussed (I know I'm really stretching here...) They knew that some ONE had to make an eternal sacrifice to pay the price for the sin of all. And they knew how it had to be done. And who stood up and volunteered? Jesus. He was the One who said, I'll go, I'll leave heaven, the angels, the glory, I'll go to that dirty filthy earth (which is great and all, I love creation, but in comparison to heaven... well...) and be spat upon and treated like the LEAST of any of them, even though I would be the greatest to ever be among them, to be unknown, small, weak, seperated and abused...
so that they can know Us, so that they can be my Bride.

What that says about Him and His character is kinda the point of the story. That He would volunteer to do the dirty work, of which Calvary certainly qualifies, if anything ever did. That He would stand in the gap for the unworthy ones (us). To quote Chris DuPre, "What kind of love made Him do that?"

And I looked at what I had just called a 'painful sacrifice' (what insult in comparison!) and how far far greater a condescension He made, to lay down heaven and all its glory in order to accomplish the Father's will, and how even the thought of giving up my home made me want to look desperately for a way to avoid it and high-tail'er - but HE didn't shrink from His task, He didn't cower or dodge the blows, He walked forward to it, even carrying his own cross.

There was no seeking or preservation of self in that walk.

Anyway, I don't know if that made any sense. But I'm not required to make sense here. I'm just sharing. :) If you don't like it, tough shnookies.

Isn't He amazing? How can we not love Him.