Daily Devotional – June 3, 2020

day and hump hour, right? You get past this hour and it's downhill for the rest of the day.

You get past this day, downhill for the rest of the week. Well, after a rather stormy start to the day, hopefully things will brighten up and dry out a little bit for the remainder of this midpoint of the first week of the month of June.

Well, my coffee friend was at it again this morning. I think he must have found a new cache of coffee memes or something, but here's today's little ditties.

First of all, he says, okay, he says, I got my coffee now. So go ahead. Ask me what day it is again.

And I promise no biting this time. I'm guessing the next one originated in a politician's office, a politician who loved coffee, you know, politicians with their incredible talent as spin masters.

He says this, he says, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say I'm a coffee addict. I prefer the term exceptionally coffee absorbent.

Yeah. Sounds very, very political. Okay. Well, now that I've had my coffee and am a semi -conscious, surely you've, uh, you've seen the video images on the news last few days, right?

But what do you see? What do you see? Angry mobs throwing bricks and bottles of frozen water and fireworks, selfish, greedy looters who are shattering storefront windows, plundering businesses, running off with arm loads of stolen merchandise, maybe even setting fire to the place when they're done.

Violent, cruel, cowards beating up on helpless people. Even those trying to help someone who needs, who was hurt and needs help or violent, cruel, uh, individuals who are just intent on inciting, inciting riot.

You see peaceful demonstrators marching for something. You saw, maybe you saw the, uh, images of the demonstrators who are all lying face down on the highway, hundreds of them face down on the highway with their hands behind the back in that reenacting that, uh, uh, restrained position of, uh,

George Floyd. Well, every crowd that I've seen has been, I think, comprised mostly of young people, younger than 30,

I'd guess. So in all these hundreds of protests all over the country, some peaceful, many anything but, what we can say is that in every case, scores of people have been led by someone or something to take to the streets.

And you hear a variety of reasons or goals or things that they want to see accomplished. Justice for George Floyd, end to police brutality, even the defunding of all police, um, an atonement for racism, the end of racism, an atonement for slavery, the ruin of wealthy corporations, and on and on we can go.

All right, so that's what we see on the surface. Do you see anything else?

What do you suppose, what do you suppose Jesus sees? Well, I think we have some insight from what he said to his closest followers in Matthew chapter nine, the last few verses of that chapter.

The exact details of this account are not altogether clear. Only that Jesus sees crowds of people.

But what he says and how he responds and what he does gives us some insight into how he perceives them, how he sees them.

So first, let's listen to how he describes the crowd. He says they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Another way of saying that, another translation puts it this way, they were distressed and dispirited or cast down.

But the key to the condition, their condition of being harassed and helpless is seen in the simile.

They are like sheep without a shepherd. Now remember what I said that all these hundreds and hundreds of people who have been taken to the streets in the last week, they are being led by something or someone.

There's some kind of a shepherd, but what kind is it? Well, the crowds that Jesus sees, this crowd that Jesus sees is a crowd that has no helpful authoritative guide who's going to lead them out of their plight and into a place of rest and peace and true freedom.

Instead, they were wearing themselves out, helplessly pursuing what they'll never find.

And I think about that when I see the crowds on the news. Regardless of what they're doing, legal or not, they are sheep without a shepherd, not a true shepherd.

Well, to be sure, they're following some kind of a leader. But which of their shepherds will lead them to the place of peace and rest and true freedom that their souls are longing for?

See, that's the question. All right, so listen to how Jesus describes the crowd, harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Now secondly, notice how he responds. The text says that he had compassion for them.

Why? Why did he have compassion for them? Because he saw their real need.

He saw what their true condition was. Now, I got to be honest,

I struggle applying this when I'm watching the news. I'm sure you do too. I have absolutely no compassion for those who are inciting others to violence.

And I don't think Jesus does either. You remember his approach to those hypocritical scribes and Pharisees who were leading people to destruction?

He had no compassion for those blind leaders of the blind.

And I have no compassion at all for the thugs who are beating up on and kicking and punching and hitting people who are trying to do the right thing, people who are trying to defend their property or defend and protect somebody else.

And I don't think Jesus has any compassion for those either. Where I struggle having compassion, and maybe you do too, is for the blind followers who've been sucked into something.

They're blind followers who are following the blind, leading them to a path of violence or a path of destruction or path of disillusionment and disappointment.

These people who are manipulated by evil shepherds. I think

I struggle with compassion here because I don't like what they say or maybe in some cases what they want.

Now, by the way, just to be clear, I don't have that struggle at all with those whose hearts are deeply troubled by what they saw in George Floyd's death.

And they're peaceably demonstrating for something, even if they really don't know what they want. They're just really distressed over what they saw in that video.

The thing is, I do know what they want. They want paradise restored.

I'm working on a pastor's page post that I'm going to put together maybe for next week about that very idea.

They're longing for paradise restored. But Jesus looks on them and he has compassion.

That's how he responds. He has compassion for them. But then I want you to look at what Jesus did about the crowd.

The text tells us that he proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and healed every disease and every affliction.

The second part of what Jesus did is really not something that we can do. Jesus miraculously made some of the individual personal problems completely disappear.

He healed their disease by his miraculous power. He took care of every affliction that they had.

I can't do that, and neither can you, and neither can the federal government, and neither can the state government, and so on and so forth.

I have to acknowledge that. That does not mean, by the way, that we don't take legitimate measures to help people.

Not at all. But we have to recognize that try as hard as we may. We're not

Jesus, and we can't perform his miracles and solve everybody's problems.

We can't restore paradise. But the first part of what Jesus did is what

I want to focus on. That, I think, is the key. He went everywhere proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

That was his real focus, the proclaiming of the gospel of the kingdom. Now why was he doing that with the crowds?

Why? Because the good news of the kingdom provides exactly what scattered shepherdless sheep need.

And that's why Jesus then instructed his disciples in this way. He said, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

To send them out to do what? The answer to that is found in another place where Jesus gave the same instruction.

Luke tells us in Luke chapter 10 that right after telling his disciples to pray like this,

Jesus sent them out two by two to go everywhere proclaiming, quote, that the kingdom of God has come near to you.

In other words, he sent them out to proclaim the good news of the kingdom. Why? Because that's what the crowd really needs.

So when you and I see the crowds, let's do the hard work of looking below the surface at what's going on, at the real needs, and then let's pray that the

Lord of the harvest will send laborers into that harvest field. This is a difficult thing.

It's really hard when you're angry and when your heart is in turmoil and troubled by what you see.

You want to lash out at those and just see those who are doing the violence and doing harm to other people.

That can be all you see. I want to encourage us to look a little deeper, look a little broader, look beyond all of this.

Even look at those who are doing the looting and the stealing of stuff as if they think they deserve it.

What do they really need? What is their heart really longing for? Is that pair of Nikes going to do the trick?

Is that big screen TV going to solve their problems? No. The real answer is the good news of the kingdom.

Pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers to deliver it. Let's look to the

Lord of the harvest and pray for his work in our country, in our cities, in these days of chaos and turmoil.

Our Father, we do pray today, you, the Lord of the harvest, send forth laborers into the harvest fields.

These crowds of people who are on display right in front of us are showing the deep longing of their heart for something that they're not going to get on the other side of that protest march.

They're looking for something that only Christ can provide. So I pray, send forth laborers to bring forth the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom.

May many come into that kingdom through Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.

Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your middle of the week day, and I trust