A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
As I meditate upon the events which took place at this time of year two millennia ago, I am struck with the freshness of the message. I never cease to be amazed at the uniqueness of our Lord. Although he was the consummate and representative man for all men, and although he faced everything every man has had to face, there were areas of his life that cause me to scratch my head and ask questions. Fortunately, the asking of those questions often results in a perspective upon the uniqueness of Christ and the challenge that uniqueness presents to the corporate Body of Christ.
There were experiences in his life that are very ‘telling’ as to what separated him from the rest of us. I was reading through the gospels recently and came upon a specific character trait that I thought was interesting. Jesus had times when he was obsessed. In Luke 12:49-50 Jesus said, “49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened?(pained) till it be accomplished! He had a fire to send and a baptism to be baptized with and he could hardly wait until he could get it done. The fire he hoped to send was a cleansing and a purging of the earth by the spreading of God’s Word and the baptism of an old rugged cross was the means of the accomplishment.
When you pause to think about that statement, it is quite unusual that he had the thought, much less obsessed about it. Of course, this was the same person, who made it acceptable to lust. Yes, I said acceptable to lust. “And he said unto them, ‘With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer’:” (Luke 22:15, KJV). An alternate word for ‘desire’ is ‘lust’. “With lust I have lusted to eat this Passover with you…” Of course this is not to say that Jesus approached the Passover with the same enthusiasm as a glutton might salivate over lamb chops and mint jelly.
Apparently, spiritual lust properly motivated can be not only acceptable but also preferable. To have one’s deepest desire to be for God’s glory and to desire for it so much that it lies at the root of all you do and all you are was the essence of who Jesus was and should be the goal of every believer. The obvious cry of ‘thirst’ from Jesus on the cross carries with it the interpretation of a physical body needing water. While this is certainly true, might it not be possible that in the midst of that physical cry was also the cry of One, who was thirsting for the streams of living water? Jesus desired from the depths of his being that he could return to the glory he shared with the Father before the foundation of the world (John 17.5), and that his select ones could share in that same glory (v. 24).
Interestingly, the process through which Jesus would see all this accomplished would be through his own suffering. How or why would such a process be necessary? James and John made the request to be one on his right and one on his left. Jesus asked them if they could be ‘baptized’ with his baptism. They responded in the affirmative. He granted the baptism and, however, left the promotions to the Father. There is never a cross without a crown. There is never a victory without a battle. Jesus desired from the depths of his being to spread a fire of God’s word across the earth. He wanted to kindle a fire that would never go out. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that in bringing many SONS to glory…the Captain of salvation would be made perfect through suffering. Thus, if the Captain achieves his Magnificent Obsession through suffering, then, we, like James and John, will have our own baptism. I, too, ‘lust’. But my lust is more often than not for those things which I believe will make my life a little easier. My ‘pained’ desire is that I might sit on the right or the left of my Lord. I think I may have spent much of my life trying to get Jesus to do something for me he never was willing to do, because he wanted my desires to be salted with fire. So, my prayer is that I will have such a longing in my heart for the will of God that I can hardly wait to get started in the process. I pray that my very being will drip with desire to both see and be with the risen and eternal Christ in all his glory. Frankly, in my weakened and very human state, I’m not up to much in the way of suffering but I believe God is able to help me and each of us to take one step at a time.
Kathi and I have four wonderful grandchildren. Each of them is special in his/her own way. Marshall, our oldest, is quite the athlete, excelling in running and basketball. Hayley, is the premiere little girl of all time. Her imagination and childlikeness is something to be envied. I challenge almost anyone to work as hard as she plays. For her it’s a fulltime job. Lucas is a very handsome young man and an excellent athlete and student in his own right. He, much like his mother, cannot stand to get any grade lower than an ‘A’.
Gabriel is a very special young boy. He is a member of the Doodlebug club. This club is a very exclusive one. There are only two members. The main requirement is that you have to have a mother who calls you by placing “Doodlebug” at the end of your first name. I have the privilege of being President of this club by virtue of my age. My mother referred to me as “Davey Doodlebug”. Now this was when I was very young. So don’t get any bright ideas of addressing me by that name unless you have a death wish. Our daughter Stacye, never knew I had such a name, but when Gabe was born, she began to call him “Gabey Doodlebug”. Gabe and I are alike in more ways than our nicknames. Neither of us likes school much and asking us to sit quietly for long periods of time is a little bit unrealistic. We both can dream really big dreams and our vision of what we want to be and the things we want to accomplish is often clouded by pesky little life details such as: clean your room, take a bath or study your spelling and take out the trash. Gabe and I both try very hard to do what is expected of us but we are very sensitive and we can notice a cramp in the leg of a fly on the wall fifty yards away. Because of that we can get distracted easily. We eventually get to where we’re going. We just take a more circuitous route than some.
