Sunday Leftovers (3/25/07)

All men thirst for God. They know they are thirsty — that they need something to satisfy their deepest desires — but they know not that their thirst is for God. This leads them to drink all manner of worthless and detrimental water. In Finding God in Unexpected Places, Philip Yancey recounts the following story that reinforces this truth:

John S. Dunne tells of early Spanish sailors who reached the continent of South America after an arduous voyage. The caravel sailed into the headwaters of the Amazon, an expanse of water so wide the sailors presumed it to be a continuation of the Atlantic Ocean. It never occurred to them to drink the water, since they expected it to be saline, and as a result some of these sailors died of thirst. That scene of men dying of thirst even as their shops floated on the world's largest source of fresh water has become for me a metaphor for our age. Some people starve to death while all around them manna rots.

So it was for the Israelites alive at the time of Christ. The leaders were indignant over His claims to deity and authority, and the people were alternately interested in Him for His miraculous works, and disinterested in Him because of His hard sayings.

It's not all that different in our own day. Anger by some, superficial curiosity from others, and disinterested boredom from still others. And the great (magnanimous) irony in all this is that He still offered (and offers) salvation to any who might come. "If anyone is thirsty, let him come and drink" (Jn. 7:37). In Christ there is sufficient, overflowing grace upon grace (Jn. 1:16) for all who might trust in Him.