WATCHWORD:
So to pacify the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned over to the Romans soldiers to be crucified. Mark 15:15
Meditation:
Jesus Touched Him!
He looked back to the cross and realized that Jesus was now looking at him. Him! He was not mistaken. Their eyes met for a powerful moment. Jesus was not accusing him. No, it was as if he was recognizing Barabbas and accepting him… as his friend? Yes, but more than that. There was something else in that look, that glance. What was it? There was kindness in it, a warmth to it, maybe acceptance. No, it was more than that. It was as if Jesus was reaching out and touching him. From the cross, Jesus touched him! A Life for Barabbas, Chapter 5, The Encounter.
One morning I had just finished reading a devotional, when I found myself thinking about a question or maybe it was the Holy Spirit challenging me. Still a question: Do we shape biblical fact to fit our comfort, or maybe our fictional life? Or, perhaps, we leave it all to the Lord?
That question came out of a conversation I had with a friend explaining the storyline of one of my earlier books, A Life for Barabbas, where I used Biblical fact on which to build the fictional story. In Barabbas, a real Biblical character, who had a notorious reputation, deserved or not, was, in effect, saved from crucifixion by Jesus.
The Bible does not tell us what happened to this man after he was released from prison, but I tried to imagine what might have happened if, driven by his own inner honesty, sought to find out why he was saved and why had a good man died in his place? Using researched Biblical fact, and some apocryphal story history, I created a later life for Barabbas as a hero of the Christian community at a time when Rome eventually destroyed Jerusalem and slaughtered a million Jews. In the end he becomes a martyr.
I’m often been drawn back to that story and wondered if I live my life by interpreting or shaping biblical truths to fit my comfort, my own ‘fictional’ life? Do we question our own behaviors with, What does God really want me to do? Or are we searching for a way to ‘pass by on the other side’ and still not actually avoid the ‘going and doing likewise’. Or a time when I convince myself that God has called me to this or that, and in my pride I feel a certain smugness.
One time during the course of an excellent discussion in our men’s Bible study, I was challenged by the question; Did I see my writing as a mission that God had given me. I started to say yes, but, then I was drawn up short. How do I answer that? Who inpires what I write? Me? Ah, the Lord knows that’s not so. That makes me, what?, a scribe? Yes, a much more comfortable role.
I’m not smart enough nor theologically gifted to further analyze this question. I leave that with you. Are you following the Lord because you think you’re following the Lord, or are you following the Lord because you have given it fully and completely to Him? Tough question, worthy of our thoughts, our prayers, our serious consideration.
What about you? We go through 24 hours a day of this life of ours, and maybe we think we are following the Lord, without truly giving it all to Him, and letting Him lead the way. Thomas Merton captures that thought in his morning prayer, which will close out this Watchword. Amen.
Prayer from Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
