Please stop. Please stop doing and start being.
I am a person who believes the Bible is the word of God. The words the authors of the various books of the Bible have written are words that are God breathed. When the apostle Paul, for example, wrote a letter to a church or a group of churches, I am sure members of the church excitedly received such a letter from the apostle and gathered around to hear it read. As they listened, I am also sure that they, knowing these were the words of Paul, equally believed these were the very words of God to them.
Our God has worked in history. The Bible does not give us mythical stories about creation or human life, failure and rescue. When God called Abraham, he called a real person to leave his home and family and travel to a new land. When God spoke to Moses, there really was a burning bush that was not consumed. God really did rescue the descendants of Abraham from their slavery in Egypt. A real person was born in Bethlehem, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit of a virgin mother. Jesus really did die on a cross. Jesus really did rise from the dead and ascended to heaven.
Some of these historical facts, in which God has acted in our world, are easier to believe than others. Some require an act of faith, others are demonstrably provable historically. Not any of these historical facts, however, tell us anything about God of themselves. The fact that the descendants of Abraham escaped slavery in Egypt is a historical fact. What makes us believe that this was God’s gracious rescue of his chosen people is not the event itself but rather what God says about the event. In the Bible God tells us what this event means. Likewise, the crucifixion of Jesus is, on its own, simply an historical fact. What makes us believe that this one crucifixion, among the thousands of the time, provides the unique act of reconciliation between a holy God and a sinful people, is what God says in the Bible about this one crucifixion. Our God has acted in history and has explained to us what and why He has done what He has done. The facts of history mean that what God has done is real. What God says about those facts of history gives meaning to them.
We are so often told by well-meaning preachers that here are the facts of history, here are the facts of what God has done, therefore, this is what we must do. Many a preacher, looking at the book of Amos, for example, will tell us that God’s people, who had been rescued from slavery, were now enslaving others. God’s people, who had been shown the richness of God’s mercy, were now oppressing the poor to gain worldly riches. Then the application is given, telling us what to do. We must fight against slavery. We must work to improve the conditions of the poor among us. Fighting slavery and helping the poor are indeed very good things to be doing, but such an application of Amos misses what God says about these historical facts.
We miss what God says because we are so focused on doing and not being. So focused on action rather than listening to God.
The message of Amos is not about anti-slavery or alms for the poor. It is a message that even God’s own people are so desperately corrupt and wicked that they cannot rescue themselves from this nature. They need a Saviour who can do for them what they cannot do for themselves. The book of Amos points forward to this Saviour. When a person comes to know this Saviour our whole perspective on life changes. We become a different person. We no longer live, but Christ lives in us.
The problem is that our preachers keep telling us what we must do as though, somehow, having received the grace of God, we can now operate independently from it. No, we can’t. Having received the grace of God in Christ does not mean we are now capable of putting an end to slavery and poverty. Yes, the grace of God will raise our compassion and should stir us to work hard to end such scourges on human life and dignity. But more important than our work, is our being. You and I cannot solve the problems of the world. The poor you will always have with you. What we can, and must, do is point people to Christ who is God’s gracious gift to us to rescue us from this body of death.
What do we say to the cancer patient who has been told there is nothing more that can be done medically for them? Do we come in and try to do something the medical profession has been unable to do? Well, frankly, yes. We will pray for the miracle, but sometimes that is just cruel. We have to stop trying to do something and just be someone. That someone is the person who knows the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. There may be no solution after all medical interventions. People die every day. None of us can expect to get out of this life alive (unless the Lord comes first). We will all die. There is nothing we can do about it. But there is something we can be about it. We can be that person who knows the grace of God and that in Christ is the solution to life.
We need to stop doing stuff as though it depends on us to solve the world’s problems. We should fight against injustice and poverty and search for cancer curers, but we do it, not for the sake of those solutions in themselves. We do it in Christ. We strive to be there for people as though Christ is there, Christ who has done it all. Bringing justice and health to a hurting world, to hurting people, is to bring Christ into our midst. We should stop trying to solve the world’s problems. Christ has already done that. The best we can offer to the world is to be in Christ and bring Him into this broken and divided world.
