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What Was Jesus Thinking?

When Jesus fed the five thousand men, (plus thousands of women and children?) was he demonstrating his own body broken? In Matthew 14, this miracle comes soon after Jesus hears of John's beheading. Jesus knew, intellectually, that John's mission was to herald the Messiah. Jesus knew himself to be Messiah. When Jesus heard of John's death, he withdrew "to a lonely place to be alone." What was he thinking? Did it strike him with emotional force that his own death was just around the corner? Was he contemplating his own humiliating demise?

As a human being, Jesus learned as we learn. We know some kinds of information because others have told us. At the equator, the circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles. If someone returns from a trip around the world and spends hours telling us of the dress of the little girls in a Thai village, describing their hike on the Great Wall of China, and how they watched Inuit people hunt whales, we posses a second level of knowledge. We've gotten a feel for the vastness of the earth, just by how long it takes to tell the tales.  We learn, best, of course, by our own experience.

Was Jesus, confronted with John's death, pulled into that second level of understanding? A vicarious anticipation of his own humiliation and death? I was struck this morning, upon imagining the image of the bread, multiplied and broken, that Jesus was symbolically acting out his own death. Not only the breaking of the bread, but the feeding of thousands by that brokenness. I'm guessing, being God as well as one of us, he knew exactly what he was doing. I wonder what he was thinking and feeling.

Jesus, thank you for experiencing this life so we can experience your life.

 

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Think

Since September, 2005, when we got a bread machine, we’ve enjoyed
baking our own wonderfully fragrant whole wheat bread. They looked just like
store-bought, except where the stirring paddle tore the bottom. Not such a big
deal, really, the slices in the middle of the loaf just had a V-shaped piece
missing, but still.

The process takes two hours and twenty-five minutes. At one
hour and thirty minutes, after the mixing and a few minutes of rising, the stirrer
briefly shapes the loaf. At that point, its work is done.

Last Tuesday, my husband, hearing the eight-second burst of
activity, reached in, lifted the dough, and removed the paddle. What a
brilliant idea! I’d often heard the noise but it never occurred to me to remove
it. The three sixteenths inch shaft leaves a tiny hole. Thinking of that
solution took us three years.

Why do we tolerate minor irritations that could easily be solved
if we’d just stop and think? We usually look for God’s solutions for the bigger
trials, but maybe we let the faucet drip rather than figuring out how to
replace the washer. Or we keep tripping over the table in the hallway rather
than thinking about how to reorganize the furniture.

Maybe you’re completely on top of the irritating details of
your life, but for the rest of us, sometimes we just need to stop and think. God’s
solutions for the small irritants may be staring us in the face, waiting for us
to stop long enough to see them. They may be as obvious as removing the paddle
when its work is done.

Father, help us think. Open our eyes to your solutions, not
just for the big trials, but also for the small annoyances.    

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Flying High

As we approached downtown on our morning walk, a Canadian
goose landed on the top of the courthouse tower. 

“There’s a goose that’s been hanging out with pigeons,” I
said to my husband. We watched it fly away as we entered the parking deck where
he works. 

He smiled. “There’s your devotional for the day.” 

“Yeah, if the ones you hang with fly high, you will too.” I kissed
him and continued on my morning exercise. 

Like the goose, who has the wings to lift himself to that
high perch, we have the ability to reach the pinnacle of God’s plan for us. Having
never seen a goose perched on the tip of the tower, I’m guessing he’s seen
pigeons on that roof. We, too, have the ability to soar, but we need to hang
with those who model the behavior for us. We need the vision that others
provide. 

If we parent, we want to learn from patient, wise parents. If
we are meant to teach, we’ll want to observe how master teachers teach. If we
sense a call to evangelism, we’ll study the lives of those who’ve led many
people into relationship with Jesus. 

No one soars alone. We need others to teach us, mentor us,
and pray for us. Only then can we reach the peak of God’s plan.

Father, please provide those who will show us how to reach
for your heights.

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