It seems to me that God is more rigorous and even, at times, severe, in His dealings with us than we would like to admit or accept. What is even more disturbing to us is that God appears to us to be much less consistent and much more mystifying than we would like to acknowledge.
We appreciate God more when we feel we can prescribe His thoughts and ways until they coincide with our own. We are more comfortable with God when to us He seems more adaptable to this or that carefully developed, politically correct notion.
We feel we can then place the tough issues of life and the church in the category of being settled and finalized, so that when we encounter any deviation from that settled position, it will be obvious to us how we should think and act. This is not the worst description of what's often behind what we call "orthodoxy."
We like to worship gods whom we have determined are in the business of making us feel good; who protect our peace of mind; who cure, comfort, and cater to us. We like a god who lives to shield us from having to deal with any thing disturbing or different.
When you think about it, whether or not we worship God is often based on whether we approve of, or can in fact appreciate and identify with, His thought and behavior.
As part of this way of looking at God and truth, we sometimes seem to be convinced that when any given view point is divisive, it must be wrong. It is intriguing to note when it was, and in which specific and general setting, that Jesus, the "Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6), said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34, NIV).
Looking at all this, we can well ask, Was God ever more mystifying to us than when He became a man at the Incarnation? Did He ever act in a more surprising, unexpected way? Was there ever a moment when God so entirely confounded what we humans were predicting and bargaining on?
Born with nowhere to lay His head. Reposed in a donkey's feeding trough, wrapped in borrowed rags, which were bound about His tiny body by a peas ant mother who was, of all things, a virgin!
And then, at virtually every significant step, He countered the expectations of His closest followers, who even when He was ascending . . . ascending? . . . held onto Him still insisting, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6, NIV). And finally, quite understandably, being killed as a danger to the faith and established structures and cultures of the nations; thus adding to His resume one more massive offense the offense of the Cross.
And the Incarnation itself was only part of the catch! No more sacrifices for sin, no more lambs or priestly ministries in the temple, and no more temple! No more Levitical or ceremonial systems. In other words, no more of that which had been central to the faith and practice of the faithful for centuries. It seemed it was time for the orthodox to act and to stand up to be counted as proponents of the faith of their fathers. So the orthodox ended up putting God to death.
This matter of God's involvement or guidance among us, of what the actual will and way of God are in a given situation, is a difficult issue to tackle. It is difficult because no matter which side of the line one stands on in a given situation, he or she is subject to the same questions about the validity of their position versus that of their counterpart.
Gil Valentine's penetrating article, "A Slice of History," is a fine example of our classic struggle to understand and follow the way God is leading in His movements on this planet. The players in this "slice" are classic characters, as is the issue of orthodoxy versus innovation, as are the complexities of the struggle, as are the ways they play out, as is the frustrating, knotted up impasse Dr. Valentine describes, as are the feelings that storm through the discussion, while the quiet, confident, hand of God is omnipresent through out.
