Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, special ones.

Whereas one of Becki’s great nieces will be married today in Ephrata, Washington, we’re planning to head out soon in that direction.

If I were to compose an original this morning, I think I would feature Joseph of Arimathea. I think he’s my kind of guy—a worthy role model. In my devotion journal, I listed out five positive points concerning him. If you wanted to hear them, I guess I could pass them on. I accept VISA and MASTERCARD. Kidding.

Blessings on whatever you’re up to today. Just do your best to make what you’re up to blessing worthy.

Love, Dad/Ray.

I remember as a kid my enjoyment of playing tricks on my older brother, younger sister, or anyone else, for that matter, catching them by surprise, and scaring them. And I confess that I still have some of that mischief left in me. Why would I mention that here? Well, I have a good hunch that God also quite enjoys scaring the starch out of human beings—at least momentarily. It’s not just for the purpose of triggering the emotion of fear. Nor is it just in play. But it is part of His positive dealings with men to get their attention and shock them out of the bondage of their world-bound narrow-mindedness. Here is an example where these angels of the Lord scare the daylights (about the same as starch) out of these very nice and well-meaning ladies by making a sudden bright and dramatic appearance in the dim light of the early morning—wearing their best lightning costumes. It certainly was not what the ladies were expecting. But it certainly got their attention.

What’s more, I also have a feeling that God quite enjoys asking shocking questions of humans that He knows they are not going to answer. The angels asked such a question here—“WHY do you look for the living among the dead?” Wow! Talk about a provocative question! It was the kind of question that took them totally by surprise and would no doubt cause some marvelous reflection for each of them for the rest of their lives as they would lay meditating and pondering in bed at night. But if one of them had the presence of mind to answer the angels, they may have presented a question of their own like, “Give us a break—WHY would you angels ask such a thing? Have you made a mistake? We came here looking for a person’s body that we know was very much dead. And we’re looking for a dead man right where we know a dead man is supposed to be.” I think God was smiling. He enjoys presenting hard surprising questions. He likes the shock treatment of the unexpected to shock us into facing His Sovereign Majesty.

WHY?—a very good question indeed—one that should be applied to a lot of areas of our lives. WHY is my family in confusion? WHY is our marriage sick? WHY is my life so spiritually weak? WHY am I not hungry for God’s Word? WHY do we have Holy Communion and Baptisms? WHY does God love us? WHY is it so hard to love other people? This kind of WHY questioning can be very good if it causes us to think carefully, go to God for answers, and submit to His Lordship. Why not?