From Captivity to Promise
by Michael Phillips
Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21
Saint Francis de Sales said, “He who complains, sins.”[1] The Book of Numbers is a catalogue of complaints by the wilderness generation against God and the leaders God appointed. They had so much to be thankful for, had experienced the blessings of God first-hand and yet constantly murmured, grumbled, and complained. God’s response was often swift and angry, yet with a willingness to show compassion when they confessed their sins. Eventually, however, God’s infinite patience was stretched to the breaking point and that generation was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. The wilderness generation would perish for their constant complaints while a new generation would inherit the Promised Land – a generation who believed God and did not complain against God’s bountiful blessings or the challenges before them.
An anonymous author gives sage advice in saying: “Glance at the problems, but gaze at Jesus.”[2] In other words, so long as we are fixated on the problem we become the problem. We are bitten by the fiery serpents of murmuring, grumbling, and complaining. By looking at the limits of our own resources (what we don’t have) we fail to act wonderfully anticipating God’s ability to shine out – but by looking to Christ, we find all we need to do all God asks of us. This lesson recurs often in Scripture, which should make us sit up and take notice.
God’s honest desire is for everyone to share in the blessings of the Realm of Heaven – a heaven that is not somewhere out there, but present here and now, and waits to be made visible and available to us by the Spirit of God. We are told we must believe. The word ‘believe’ in the Greek means to trust in and rely on. Why have we been called to believe if not to show others a witness of trust and reliance in the face of common human struggles and trials? Again, our trust and reliance isn’t focused on problems while we wait for a better place than here, but focused on God to make everything that’s here a better place for everyone.
Three things bear repeating. First, if you find yourself complaining, you find yourself sinning (that’s a hard lesson for any and all of us to learn). Second, the compassion of God may be infinite so long as we confess our sins, but the patience of God with those who constantly murmur and complain is apparently limited. Finally, if we’re forever checking the limits of our resources and abilities, whether it’s the size of the giants we have to slay, the number of people on hand to do our mission, or the amount of cash on hand to fund it, we are likely going to fail to move forward in faith – which is to say, we are going to fail to step up and do whatever God might be asking of us. If, however, we gaze upon the Christ who has called us here, together, to share in the work of our common ministry of outreach for the purpose of reconciliation, we will discover we have more than enough to do all God may ask of us as the body of Christ in our time.
The trouble is that we share the same tendency for doubt as our ancestors in that wilderness generation. Yet we must remember that we also share the Spirit of the Living God and the blessings of the household of faith into which we have been called. Christ’s answer to Nicodemus asks us which mindset we’re going to follow as we follow him – the tendency to doubt and fear, focusing on the problem, or the gift of the Spirit that allows us to fix our gaze upon Christ in the midst of life’s toughest circumstances – finding the presence of God in the darkness.
· Dr. Tyler Thompson tells a story about a man who was referred to a psychiatrist because he believed himself to be dead. The psychiatrist interviewed the patient and confirmed that the man honestly believed he was dead. The psychiatrist instructed the patient, saying, “Every hour on the hour, repeat ten times, ‘Dead men don’t bleed.’”
A month later having strictly followed these instructions the patient returned to the psychiatrist. “Say it for me,” said the doctor.
The patient duly chanted, “Dead men don’t bleed.”
The psychiatrist said, “Hold out your hand.” He then took a needle, pricked the man’s finger, and squeezed out a drop of blood. “Now what do you think?”
The patient stared at the drop of blood at the tip of his finger and answered, “Well, what do you know – dead men[3] do bleed!”
Some folks have mind sets or attitudes that prevent them from gazing upon Christ rather than their problems (or even worse, the problems they see in others) – ‘Webb Garrison describes such folks as having “concrete minds…all mixed up and permanently set.”[4] The wilderness generation was focused on what they didn’t have, yet, the Scripture says their clothes and shoes never wore out. They ate manna and complained about it. They drank water from a rock and still it wasn’t good enough. They had God in the midst of them and they knew it – they saw it with their own eyes, they heard it with their own ears, and still what came from their lips for forty years was constant griping and complaining about what they didn’t have. They didn’t have the God they wanted. They didn’t have the leaders they wanted. They didn’t have the things they wanted. They were bitten by the fiery serpents of doubt and faith instead of relying on the provisions of their God. The harder the times, the tougher the circumstances, the more we need the mentality of that anonymous sage who said, “Glance at the problem, but gaze at Christ. The more often we lift Christ up, the more often we will find ourselves moving from the captivity of circumstances toward the promises of God – away from our tendency to murmur and complain and toward our spiritual capacity to trust in and rely upon a God who has always been faithful. There is enough to go around. The question is, are there enough to spread it around by lifting up Christ?
(Comments to Michael at mykhal@sbcglobal.net)