Bad news will expose your Belief System

Matthew 14:13-21

How one reacts when receiving bad news will often tell us a lot about a person and their belief system, let us look to Jesus as He is receiving news about a mans death.  Jesus refers to Him as the greatest man ever born in Matthew 11:11, and when he was in prison he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  “And Jesus answer them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’  Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Today, Jesus is told that Herod has beheaded John and John’s disciples have taken his body and buried it.  Not only was John the forerunner of Christ, he was Jesus’ cousin, so how does Jesus react to this horrible news; we are told by Matthew that he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
Often we forget that Jesus took on humanity; God became a man.  My teacher and friend T.W. Hunt and his daughter Melana, tell the fictional story of a two dimensional world and a person like you and me being sent to share with them.  His name in the story is Jim and the person he is going to see is a two dimensional man named Maphis.  The angel in the story gives Jim this insight: “The Angel” “Jim, God has selected you for an unusual assignment.  I have been sent to take you to another world vastly different from your own.  Are you willing to learn to think in very different terms about reality?” (Jim)  I think now I would believe anything you said, what are you talking about?” (The Angel)  “You are familiar only with three-dimensional space, even though time is also a fourth dimension.  However, I’m going to take you to a world with only two spatial dimensions, different from anything you have ever imagined.  You will perceive that world as a flat disk and the living beings on it also as flat.” 
Can you imagine the question that Jim had of the angel, and yet the angel assured Jim that God would provide all his needs, and that God would allow Maphis to hear Jim in his own language and that Jim would hear him in his.  T.W. tells us about the many problems Jim will have for Maphis will look at Jim as a supernatural being.  Jim finds very quickly that communication with Maphis is going to be trying and extremely difficult.  Maphis’ two-dimensional world has no understanding of deep, he could only by faith in Jim and what Jim had done grasp the reality of a three dimensional man.  But our Creator took on flesh and became one of us, born of a virgin whose Father was the Holy Spirit, and so Jesus came into a world controlled by sin, but was not contaminated by sin, for sin is passed on by the father.  Yes, Jesus had emotions, he got hungry, He bled and He healed just like you and me. 
Jim, in T.W. and Melana story, came to the understanding that he would have to come to the lower dimension, for the lower cannot go to the higher.  That is what Jesus has done for you and me.  And yet in this time of loss of a friend, a close relative, the crowds found Him and He had compassion on them and healed their sick.  But evening came and it was a desolate place and Jesus’ disciples want Jesus to sent them away so they could get food, but the Lord ask if there was food and was told only five loaves and two fish.  Jesus said, “Bring them here to me.”  He ordered the crowd to sit down and He blessed the food and they all ate and were satisfied.  And this is the God we serve, after all had eaten, about 5000 men and their families, they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces that were left over.  You and I often get hung-up with a God who is beyond our understanding of higher dimensions.  Or as T.W. states; “Or perhaps the divine unity exists in a spiritual reality beyond any imaginable physical dimensions.   We are dominated presently by physical thinking.  Our kind of existence within our spatial limitations severely curtails our vocabulary.”
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice