You Were There (1/13/07)
This brief exchange takes place in the midst of Jesus’ defense (or offensive) against the Pharisees and their accusations. Given that setting, it seems worthwhile to try and return to that moment if I can. I must keep in mind that, while recent studies have been focusing on the exchange between Jesus and those who rejected Him, the context also follows on the heals of a great work, and the Pharisees were not the only ones in the crowd with an opinion.
The woman who spoke up is a witness to the whole scene. She has seen the blind mute healed, heard him speaking. She has witnessed the power of God up close. She has heard the accusations of the Pharisees coming close after this event. Then, she has heard Jesus’ rebuttal of the Pharisaic pronouncement. What a contrast she has been privileged to see! On the one hand, she sees the official representatives of righteousness becoming angry and insulting because they have witnessed God’s goodness in action. On the other, she has seen God’s righteousness displayed in this Man, who, in the face of the wildest, most offensive accusations, remains calm, presenting a clear and simple defense of Himself. He has not, as yet, really laid into the Pharisees for what they are. He has simply pointed out how obviously incorrect their assumptions were.
In short, this woman has been given opportunity to compare the posing of those who wished to be thought authoritatively righteous with One Who is authoritatively righteous. Which one is the real thing is no difficult thing to discern! I think that, having seen the contrast, she must have felt it necessary to make clear that the voice of the Pharisees did not speak for the crowd. In a field of naysayers, she would affirm this Man, declaring a far better opinion.
Even so, there is a limit to her tenaciousness. She will not so directly oppose the Pharisees as to declare this Man to be Messiah. She cannot yet go that far. So, she blesses Jesus indirectly, blessing His mother instead.
New Thoughts (1/14/07-1/15/07)
I haven’t done this in awhile, but this feels like one of those occasions when I really need to revisit my paraphrasing of this brief passage.
It came about, while Jesus was speaking these things, that a woman in the crowd around Him spoke up. “The womb that bore You, the breasts that fed You; she whose womb and breasts they are must surely be fully satisfied in God.” Jesus responded, “Yes she is, for they are satisfied in God who both hear His word and obey them.”
The challenge here is in understanding the word menoun. This, as Strong’s explains, combines three words together, the first indicating agreement, the conceding of a point. The second indicates a conclusion to be drawn from the point, and the last emphasizes what is about to come. I would likely have just accepted the ‘on the contrary’ translation, except that I found the most variation amongst translations surrounded the understanding of this one word. Some would have it, “No, but rather.” Others, “Yes, but also.” Even in the dictionaries, there is this ambiguity of how it should be understood. Strong’s, having indicated the underlying construction, arrives at a meaning of, “Therefore, at least”. Thayer’s, however, considers it the introduction of a correction, which is certainly how many translations leave things.
It strikes me, though, that Jesus is not correcting this woman. Rather, I suspect He is doing as He so often does, drawing from the immediate circumstance to provide a lesson. He is not contrasting and correcting her understanding of blessing. He is expanding it. Yes, Mary was indeed blessed of God, fully satisfied in Him, but not for the joy of bearing this Man. The blessing was there because her bearing and raising of this Son was done in response to having heard God and obeyed.
We have recently seen a movie produced which seeks to present Mary to us as a real girl in a real situation. That is a good thing, I think, for we tend to have an idealized view of her, even outside the Catholic church. It is well to remember that, so far as those around her were concerned, she was simply a troubled teen who had broken the vows of betrothal and brought great shame on her family. She was lucky, in their estimation, not to have been put to death for her choices. However confident she was in God, however much she knew that they were wrong and she would be protected by the Father of her child, she was not carefree. She still had to deal with the family. She still had to deal with the neighbors. She still had to get through the difficulty of regaining Joseph’s trust.
Yet, Jesus agrees. She was and is blessed of God. Jesus agrees with this even while understanding what she had had to face, and even while understanding what she had yet to face. Remember what Simon had prophesied to her at the Temple when Jesus was brought that first time: “He will be a child appointed, a sign opposed, a sword to pierce even your own soul” (Lk 2:34-35).
I am struck, more and more of late that the promises of God are often bittersweet. Poor Mary! She has borne the Son of God in obedience to His command. She has willingly faced the rejection, the trials of her faith, the risk of being a single parent in a society that would never condone such a thing. She has said her, ‘let it be as You will,’ and as reward, she is told that all of that trial was as nothing. Before it’s over, her Child, this greatest of blessings from God, will be a sword that pierces her to the heart. Can you even begin to imagine the pain that must have been hers to watch the trial and crucifixion of her boy? I can’t. I can’t tell you how I would fair in a similar place.
I’ve had similar thoughts regarding Caleb. This man, having spied out the land of Promise, comes back with a glowing confidence, a tangible joy over the land God will deliver to His people. But, he faces a family and a nation that refuse God’s promise. In that moment, when Israel’s counsel is to walk away, Caleb receives the promise that wherever he sets his foot, it shall be his possession. Wow! That’s great! That’s prosperity, baby! What slips by us, though, is what came with that promise. It won’t happen until all of this generation, barring you and Joshua, are dead. Yeah, well they deserved it, for their obstinacy, right? What we forget is that ‘all of this generation,’ necessarily included all of Caleb’s family. ‘All of this generation,’ necessarily included all of Caleb’s friends and associates. Caught up in that net were those with whom he had celebrated on the edge of the Red Sea, when freedom from Egyptian slavery was suddenly a reality. Caught up in that net were all those who even then shared his awe at experiencing the visible presence of God in the camp. It would include those with whom he trained to fight, those he loved, those he was angered by, everybody. He would enter the land of promise, but he would enter amongst strangers.
In spite of this, Jesus agrees with that woman’s conclusion. Mary truly was blessed, fully satisfied in God. He explains why. It is not the joy of caring for Him that has blessed her. It is, in fact, no material thing at all. She is blessed, possessed of a happiness that comes of being joined with God, because she heard God and obeyed. That is the true measure of blessedness.
Our tendency is to measure God’s blessings in material ways. We thank Him for the food on our table at each meal, thank Him for clothing and housing, and for any number of other items we see around us. By such measure, we live in an embarrassment of blessing. Jesus was thankful at meal times as well. I find His thankfulness, however, focused on the fact of God’s Providence, God’s faithfulness. As for the food, well, Jesus was the one who declared, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me” (Jn 4:34). He kept it in perspective. I note that He did not reject invitations to come dine with those who could put on a dinner with style. He did not suffer from an absolute aversion to the pleasures of life. Neither are we called to such asceticism. God provides the pleasures of this life for our enjoyment, and shall we reject His gifts? Not at all! We just need to learn perspective. Those gifts are not the blessing. Our obedient submission to His will is the blessing.
Our blessing will be found in that place where we hear His truth, where we find ourselves able to understand His truth, and having heard with understanding, we are able to abide in that truth. I was reviewing my notes on Caleb last night, and was reminded again of this point. Many do not even hear what God is saying. When He declared His pleasure in His Son, many thought it was just the thunder. Among those who hear, I think it is too often that case that we just assume we know what He means. Isn’t that the same thing we see happening around Jesus so often? That woman He met at the well, for example, heard Him speak of living water. She heard His message just fine, but she assumed that He was speaking of fresh water, as compared to water from cisterns – living water from a natural spring. She heard, but she didn’t really understand.
When it comes to the project I have been doing around Caleb’s story, the words that came from God were of that nature. Many of them were understandable in a surface, somewhat obvious way. It was only as God made the meaning clear that I really began to lay hold of what He was meaning, rather than what He was saying. The meaning was not at odds with His words, of course. The meaning was just larger than my knowledge had allowed.
God’s blessing is found first in our ability to comprehend what He is saying to us. That woman at the well was not blessed in simply hearing about living water. It was when she was given to understand what Jesus was really saying to her that she was able to lay hold of the blessing. I have little doubt, although Scripture leaves us in the dark on the matter, that she also found herself blessed with the strength to abide in what she had learned. There was much in her past to repent of, just as there is with any one of us. In the revelation of Living Water, the time for repentance was proclaimed in her hearing. The instant change in her behavior is evidence, I think, that repentance, real and heartfelt, had come to her, and with it, the real and life-changing forgiveness that is God’s promise to the repentant sinner.
There is something I see happening in our day, though, which we need to be aware of, lest it creep into our own thinking. As Bishop Choate was teaching yesterday, the Scriptures tell us that children are a gift of the Lord, a reward, and the man who has many children is blessed (Ps 127:3-5). Now, his message had more to do with the purpose of the blessing than the reality of it, but it connects with something I read in relation to this passage. In Luke 23:29, Jesus says that the days are coming when people will count the childless as the ones most blessed. Now, that passage is part of a message regarding the horrors of the end times. Yet, it struck me that many today think in just such terms.
There is a generation out there that has, by and large, been trained to believe that having lots of children is irresponsible. There are many that think having children at all is a huge inconvenience. Look around the western world, and you see nation after nation that has entered into a period of population decline, at least as regards their ‘native’ populations. People have been trained to think that it is either unnecessary, aggravating or downright evil to have a family. Certainly, it’s a great responsibility to take on, and one that having been taken on cannot be put aside. But, God says it’s a blessing. What is it He says of the end? There is a curse upon those who declare good to be evil and evil, good. Surely this applies to those who look upon the blessings of a good and perfect God and declare them to be curses?
As a parent, it occurs to me that this blessing is, like God’s promises often seem to be, a bittersweet blessing. Like Mary, we are likely to go through times with these blessings that threaten to pierce our soul. These arrows in our quiver may cause us some pain. We may suffer some feather burns as we seek to aim and fire these arrows at their intended target. Some arrows may fit themselves to the bow better than others. There are ample opportunities in raising up children for us to experience a broken heart. I have no doubt that I gave my own parents more than enough occasions for such an experience. Yet, God declares me a blessing to my parents, and He declares my daughter a blessing to me. And, who am I to argue with Him? He has said it, and I must surely abide in it.
His blessing is, after all, not in the gifts received, and my daughter is surely a most precious gift. His blessing is in discovering in myself the ability to understand what He is teaching me, and to live it. That ability, it must be said, varies day by day. I know, however, that whatever variations I may experience, this ability is trending upwards. Day by day, I am drawn closer to my God. Day by day, He teaches me new things and reinforces old things. Precept upon precept He trains me and by His strength (and only by His strength) I am better able to abide in what He is training up in me.
Yes, I still have more than enough failings to keep me busy. I offer Him ample opportunity to improve upon my current state. Yet, when I am able to take the long view, I can see that He has indeed made great changes in who I am. Seeing that, I can be assured that greater changes are still to come, for He Who has begun this good work in me is surely faithful to complete it (Php 1:6), and it is He who is at work in me, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Php 2:13). Whom shall I fear?
