Does it seem like commenting now on the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics is a bit late? I waited because James urges us to be slow to speak, slow to anger, and quick to listen.
I didn’t watch the ceremony myself, so I didn’t see first-hand the production that people were so grieved by and/or enraged about. But I don’t need to see it to think about what is going on.
First, if the powers of the first century mocked and spit on the Word incarnate—the Son of God in the person of Jesus Christ Himself—why would we expect people in our time to treat His Word and gifts any better? Revelation prophesied that evil would slay God’s witnesses and rejoice over their corpses for three and a half days (Rev. 11:7-10).
Second, people mocked Jesus because they were trying to convince themselves that they were in control and Jesus was not. If they could mock, spit on, beat, and crucify Jesus, then He could not possibly be God (Red pyramid thinking, see 1 Corinthians 1b). Nothing has changed. If people mock God, especially if people mock God and the Lord Jesus—their Redeemer, and His institutions that bring life—and He does nothing about it, then there is no need to be concerned with him, right? But people keep on mocking and taunting: “He saved others, He cannot save Himself.” I suspect this relentless taunting is evidence of the soul and the law of God written on our hearts. People really are unhappy and afraid and desperate, but don’t know what to do except to find ways to pretend that they are not. Those who insult God’s grace and truth are identifying themselves so we might notice and seek them out.
We are ambassadors of Christ in a world that is becoming ever more foreign but never more foreign than the world that crucified Jesus. So, we can see that insults are a cry for help, and what could be more wonderful than holding the disposition of Jesus who said from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”? God bless us to notice, seek out, and reach those who are so lost.