To Joy (part 18)
Jesus said a lot of things that puzzled his disciples. And when they asked him for an explanation, it sometimes made things worse, because on his own admission he’d “been speaking figuratively,” John 16:25 – like calling himself the “bread of life” (6:35) and the “true vine” (15:1).
But at this stage in their lives they were like children needing stories and analogies in earthly terms to get spiritual, heavenly points across to them. Like my oldest granddaughter who has trouble grasping why God is important. And as yet she’s not ready to go to God herself for an answer, so I need an explanation that makes sense in her terms at this stage in her life too.
Somehow I had to get across the need for another dimension beyond this one, without calling it “God.” What came to mind was a cartoon she’d drawn when she was around ten years old. She called it “The Squidgy Alien,” an oblong creature like a flying saucer with three eyes and little thin legs, and the subject of the cartoon was questions the aliens had trouble answering. But when an answer dawns on them and the alien scratches his head and says, “I wonder…,” he has exactly ten seconds to live and that’s it, game over, and there he lies with his little thin legs in the air and all three eyes closed.
So I used her cartoon to create the same picture of our lives, that we too are living in a world that constantly puzzles us, but just when we’re wising up a bit and finding answers, we keel over and die. So what on earth is the point of this life, when even if we do wise up and get answers we can’t benefit from them?
Surely, then, there has to be another dimension in existence that set life up this way so we could learn by experience what works and what doesn’t in preparation for a world where we can benefit from what we’ve learnt. Because what is the point of life otherwise? We’re all just Squidgy Aliens.
But not Jesus’ disciples, because, he says, they can be in touch with this other dimension to get whatever answers they need (John 16:23) to make their joy complete (verse 24). And for joy to be complete it can’t be keeling over and dying with no hope of a future, can it?…(new series on Monday: “Why Jesus?…)
Buck To Basics 