“The wind blows where it will.” I’ve been increasingly attracted to how wild and unpredictable and free and dynamic Jesus is lately. How mysterious and gritty and creative. His behavior is that big abundant life he talks about. Not that our concepts are bad, but he’s just got too much love and life to fit neatly in them. He’s a poem not a definition. I just wonder if we don’t all think we know him better than we actually do, or that in trying to protect who he is we don’t sometimes end up missing or stifling who he is, that madly attractive guy. End up missing how he’s loving us because it doesn’t fit into the rock-hard concept we’ve kept in a very secure bunker. We need openness and presence to his mystery as much as we need orthodoxy. Those things need each other.
One way God is utterly predictable is in his relentless dedication to bringing Shalom in all he does. I recently learned that in Genesis, when God is coming into this formless void and darkness covering the face of the earth, creating the world, in the Hebrew he’s bringing shalom—that fullness of thriving relationally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, thriving in all sectors. And all of salvation history is simply him working with all he’s got to restore shalom. It’s a really profound glimpse into the heart of what he’s up to.
“Jesus went again into a synagogue, and there was a man there who had a withered hand. And they were watching him to see if he would cure him on the sabbath day, hoping for something to use against him. He said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Stand up in the middle!’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it against the law on the sabbath day to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to kill?’ But they said nothing. Then, grieved to find them so obstinate, he looked angrily round at them, and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out and his hand was better. The Pharisees went out and at once began to plot with the Herodians against him, discussing how to destroy him.” – Mark 3:1-6
