In the community we have more than one hospice and when it was time to
decide which service my family needed, a nursing home employee took it upon
herself to guide me toward hospice ‘A’. Ultimately I chose a the other hospice,
but a few days later I watched the hospice ‘A’ nurse walking the halls of the
nursing home. She was overly friendly to patients and visitors alike and after
she walked away one of the elderly residents, who was not easily impressed, quipped,
“She’s just looking for candidates”. I
had to laugh and couldn’t help but wonder if people have similar feelings
toward believers when we’re looking for people who are in need of salvation.
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I’m sure of it. I was entering Grand Junction on the I-70 business loop one day of the early 1970’s when a giant billboard way up the road caught my eye (and I know I‘ve told you this story before, a couple times.) There stood a giant Jesus against a dark tan backdrop. Now, any public display of Jesus catches my eye, because I believe the culture itself should be (and eventually will be) a natural and autonomous public display of Jesus. But in the meantime, stuff like this billboard piques my curiosity for how sincere the display might be. And this billboard was holding my attention because I could see there were few words on it. Words can deliver really specific meaning. So I hold them suspect. Not guilty before tried. But tried before believed. And the closer I approached this billboard, the more impressed I was becoming. You can tell when words are delivering titles and addresses from when they’re just saying something. I mean, the layout is just different. Before I could read it, I could tell there was no church name or address on it. I forget what the message said; that was 37 or 38 years ago. But I never forgot that it was put there to say something about Jesus, because it didn’t say anything about anything else, well, almost. You had to get within a block of it before you could read in small print in the lower right hand corner, “Presbyterian Churches,” or something to that effect, but every bit that obscurely displayed. Although this was a bit of a let down, I was still impressed.
-----Because, otherwise, it always seems that somebody’s church, or somebody’s mission organization, or somebody’s Bible college, or somebody’s theology, or somebody’s denominational affiliation, or even somebody’s personal ideas are always as prominently displayed as are any aspects or characteristics of Jesus. And often it is even like Jesus is the advertisement for the church or mission organization or Bible college or such. Especially for the ideas.
-----But you know, I think we can overlook that, somewhat. I think we must, a bit. Because if you really dig down to the heart of things, right down to what distinguishes the jot from the tittle, truth and reality are what they are, and everyone else (except God and Jesus) can only perceive them. And that every one of us has an imperfect ability to perceive means every one of us conceives a truth and reality not completely true or real. We are forgiven even of this, if we confess. So, what I or anyone else says about Jesus isn’t going to be exactly right on with what Jesus can say about Jesus. Then we really should let people know when we express conclusions of what the Bible says that it is us who say them, not necessarily the Bible. It is like putting a reference in a lower corner of the billboard, rather than advertising ourselves with a bold title line written across Jesus’ face.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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