Monday, March 30, 2009

Oh yes, the truth hurts.

Nobody likes a righteous man. Nobody likes hearing a truth that hurts. Mostly, we just like basking in our sinfulness and being contented to be left alone. I for one, don't like to be told that I'm wrong. Whenever someone tries to do that, my defences go up and I think of a million reasons why I could be right. But I forget that for every valid reason I have for being right, there is an equally valid reason for the other party to be right.

I was deeply disturbed when I saw this piece of news. Indeed, righteousness is being overpowered by the voice of secularism. We ought to pray harder in these times, and also bear in mind that the next time someone tries to correct us for our wrongdoings, we should take a moment to ponder on it before springing up in arms immediately.

Humility. Yes, that cliche, overrated word. But when put into the context of Jesus and how men's stubbornness led to His death, it suddenly made perfect sense to me.

For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, "Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades.

Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training.

He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father.

Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."

Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls.

- Wisdom 2: 1,12-22

Posted by Jo at 11:22 PM