The Answer Is...

We played a pretty tough game of bible Jeopardy here after worship not long ago. One of the things that makes Jeopardy different from other game shows, is Alex gives the answer first. It is up to the contestant to provide the question.

Contestant: “I’ll take New Testament for 200”

Alex: “Jesus said this would not add one day to your life.”

Contestant: “What is worrying?"

Yes, I am proud to say I put some points on the board for our team with that answer.

That’s what we all want; to have the right answer. Some of us smart alecks think we have them all, while others aren’t so sure. Kids doing their homework look for the right answers, though some don’t like to take much time.

I’m not a teacher anymore. Well, I do still substitute at the high school on occasion and one of the things that frustrated me most when I had my own classroom still happens all the time.

This is what I see: an assignment is given to read a section from the textbook and answer the questions that follow. But a lot of kids don’t read the text. They go straight to the questions, then skim through the passage searching for the line that looks like it has something to do with the question. Then, they’ll copy down that line as their answer.

If they don’t find a likely match right away, they give up and say it’s too hard. The slightly more persistent ones will at least tell me that they can’t find the answer. First, I’ll ask if they’ve read their assignment, and since they haven’t, my advice usually ends up being to go back and read it before they ask again for help.

You just won’t get the whole meaning by picking out a word here or a line there, yet isn’t that exactly what we do with our bibles a lot of the time? When I read the daily devotions from Christ In Our Home, I’ll admit I am lazy. I usually will read just the verse or two that’s quoted. But sometimes when I read the devotion, I wonder what inspired the author to write what they did. When I go back and read the verses in context, sometimes that helps. Other times, I’ll read it and wonder how in the world they ever came up with the devotion they did. We came away with entirely different understandings from the same words.

We all like to knock the Pharisees, don’t we? They were so sure they had all the answers that they tried to trick Jesus with their questions. Well, they had everything they needed to know right there in the holy scriptures, so how could they lose? They would have run the board in bible Jeopardy and walked away with all the money.

But Jesus came along and changed the game. Or maybe we should say he did away with the game. This new baby brought into the world some pretty radical stuff. God as a helpless infant? Unthinkable. Born to an unmarried peasant girl? Outrageous! And things just get crazier after he grows up.

We might think we know everything about Advent already. The story has been told to us so many times, we are tempted to let our minds skip ahead. We are tempted to fill in the blanks because we already know all the answers. We've seen this 20, 40, 60, 80 or more times!

But the word Advent means “coming.” So let’s wait. Let’s go back and read the stories again. Let’s keep our hearts and minds open to see what God reveals to us. We just might see something new we didn't see before. Maybe something we never imagined. Something new, like a baby.