There is a human tendency to focus on the ever changing weather, and not on the mountain standing firm within it. To see dead leaves on top of the water, rather than the solid river bed glistening below. To be stuck in a moment, an emotion, or fixated on trying to solve an unsolvable problem. To focus on the small details in the dirt, instead of the vast landscape that sweeps across the miles… a panoramic embrace that will take our breath away, giving us a new vision of Life.
The teacher is asked to solve a riddle that has no clear answer.* The doubting askers want to see him chase his tail. Surely, he’s quite used to this line of questioning by now. It’s an intimate one at that: Death and the afterlife, and the order of things after we’ve gone. Instead of a response in line with the question, Jesus changes the scope and focus. He opens the aperture of the heart, providing a wider lens of love and belonging.
As he points them beyond those who have gone before, he raises up Father Moses and the bush aflame with God. As they well knew, the bush was not burned away… and neither were their ancestors. This was a wider view of resurrection: No one is dead in the never ending embrace of the God of Life! This eternal and inclusive Love is far more expansive than a narrow gaze can capture.
I hear a call to look further upstream than where I’m staring, and see the eternal spring from which this great flowing comes. The sweeping cycle of lives, like waves moving in and out… ripples of the current forever moving not locked in time. Our heads rise up to see the breakers crashing all around, singing hosannas, and calling us to join their song.
*Luke 20:27-38, The Message (MSG)
–Jim Marsh, Jr., Bread of Life Church
