The Short (and off) Cut of "Creative" Thinking

As I continue to read the Scriptures, I marvel more and more at their depth... and as I've been reading lately in John's Gospel, I note how blunt and honest Jesus is about people not understanding. People just don't get it - they see but do not see, they do not understand, they refuse to hear the Word.

Which is, of course, utterly sad. There is such depth and wonder in the Word. I was looking ahead to Maundy Thursday and noted the following: Christ takes off his outer garment, wraps a towel around Himself, and thus, with that towel cleans the disciples. How incarnational is that! Though He was in form God, though He had on a spotless outer garment (that perhaps even shone with unbridled glory not too long before), He lowers Himself, becomes Man, and with His own Body cleanses us of sin.

Peter doesn't get it - Jesus tells him, you'll understand. Indeed, we understand the entirely of the Scriptures in light of Christ's death and resurrection - it all, always drives towards that one magnificent and wondrous truth - that Christ Jesus dies to atone for the sins of the world and rises to defeat death. Always drives to that.

But here is the problem. Too often we, instead of waiting for understanding, are tempted to the short cut of creative thinking. We want to create a theology... if you call it theology that is quick, simple, and has no depth. And thus, we make it all about ourselves. It's just about service. It's just about morality. It's just about "love" - where the one teaching on "love" doesn't even recognize or ponder the highest and greatest act of love - the Crucifixion.

We want things simple instead of deep, but when dealing with the things of God, you are dealing the mysteries of the ages - not simply pithy statements that a person can look at on the back of the book cover and say, "Oh, I better shell out a few bucks for this".

All false doctrine jumps the gun - it doesn't want to ponder the mystery of the Incarnation and Salvation... and it always misses the point - and the point is Christ Jesus for you.