Jesus Showed up Too Late
--
And I’m kind of mad about it
I used to sit in church and hear stories about “the children of Israel” and their trek through the wilderness to the Promised Land, a land “flowing with milk and honey” and full of giant clusters of grapes. And giants.
Pretty tempting for people who had been making their own bricks in the heat of Egypt as slaves.
If you skim over their difficulties (enemies, hunger, thirst, snakebites), it all looks so simple in hindsight:
Hey, guys! Don’t worry! It will be worth it.
You already got out of slavery in Egypt, and THAT looked super impossible.
WHY do you keep questioning God?
Did you NOTICE the Red Sea open and let you walk through on dry land? I mean, that’s…pretty amazing, right?
I would never do what THEY did. I would BELIEVE God.
I was smug in my little Sunday dress, thumbing through the hymnal to alleviate boredom.
My church had all the answers, they were always right (and so were my parents), and so I was also right.
Those heathens out there in the “world”, though — they were going to hell. And good riddance, too! Not a moment too soon. [I was a little bitchy Karen]
But if I had BEEN there in the desert, thirsty, eating the dust of thousands of other sandals and cattle and sheep, would I have been any different?
When Joseph was rotting in an Egyptian prison, having fended off the advances of a woman in a position of power over him, did he ever just yell at God in his cell at night?
I want to know. Because I have yelled to God. I have screamed and cried and raged.
Now, having left the “safe” certainty of fundamentalism, I’m free to believe however I like.
And I still believe in God.
However.
I am not a fan of waiting.
Jesus had friends, Martha and Mary and Lazarus.
While he was out of town, Lazarus got very sick, and so they sent word to Jesus. NOT just because he was a friend who needed to say goodbye…
