Shortcuts and Scripture (Part I of II)
As Jesus grew from a baby to a young boy, He came to understand and believe that He was God’s Son, the Messiah. I can imagine that His father and mother begin to teach Him about His birth and all that surrounded that heavenly event as soon as Jesus was old enough to comprehend it all. And being faithful Jews, Joseph and Mary taught the scriptures at an early age to their first-born child, Jesus.
As our Lord studied God’s Word, written on the sacred scrolls, there must have come a terrible, terrible moment when Jesus read, and understood for the first time, what He, the Messiah, would have to endure: Isaiah 53:3-9, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows . . . smitten by God and afflicted . . . He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities . . . He was oppressed and afflicted . . . like a lamb being led to the slaughter . . . He was cut off from the land of the living . . . and made His grave with the wicked.
Can’t you see His strong young hands tremble? His keen eyes fill with tears? His young heart pound? I see Him running off to the hills or kneeling in the carpenter shop.
This must have been the Lord’s first Gethsemane and I can see Him looking up to heaven and praying, “Oh, Father, is this true? Oh, Father, isn’t there some other way than the shame and pain way?” But then I can also see Jesus saying, “Nevertheless Father, not My will, but Your will be done.”
Christians tend to forget that Jesus was man as well as God. And as man, the natural reaction to a difficult and painful road is to take a shortcut and avoid the difficulties and pain. When we are at our emotional lowest, we tend to take shortcuts, usually resulting in bad decisions. When evil temptations are pulling on us, sometimes we take shortcuts, usually followed by regrets.
Our Lord was encouraged to take shortcuts by none other than Satan himself. Remember when Peter forbade Jesus to go to Jerusalem and die on the cross? Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan!” — meaning “No shortcuts Satan!”
At Gethsemane, the night of our Lord’s arrest and judicial murder, Jesus sweat drops of blood as Satan tried his best to frighten Christ from accomplishing His holy mission and to take a shortcut, any shortcut, that would undercut the cross. It was like Satan was speaking to the soul of Jesus saying, “Do you mean to tell me that selfish old God wants you to die on a cross? Surely not! This cannot be the will of a loving God!”
Many times, once we have accepted a difficult challenge and made a great commitment, there comes the temptation to forsake the cause. Once we have made a commitment to be God’s true servant, there comes the temptation to compromise and to settle for something less than God’s best, to take shortcuts.
Next time: The powerful response of Jesus to accepting less than God’s will, to taking spiritual shortcuts, considered, in the conclusion to “Shortcuts and Scripture.”