Ted Dekker’s “A.D.33” is a fictional story of what life may have been like for people who met Jesus and experienced first-hand what His redemptive work was all about and how it defied all expectations. Jesus, even for those who followed Him, was not the messiah the people expected to get.
The hope was that God would send a king in the line of David to rescue them from Roman rule and reestablish the kingdom of David, a kingdom that would have no end. The expectation was that God’s anointed one would free them and make them a great people again.
They did not get what they had hoped and longed for, what they expected for a thousand years. Instead, they got a poor, homeless, wandering teacher who pointed out the errors in their established teachings, who called out their lack of love for others and their lip service only to God. They got a ‘drunkard and a glutton’, a ‘friend of sinners’, and a threat to their limited power.
How disappointing. A build up of expectation for a thousand years and God sent Jesus. The rulers and teachers of the Law knew where Jesus came from. They could not deny the miracles or the authority he taught with, but they could deny Him. The could reject the gift God chose to send because it was not what they asked for or wanted.
This brings me to a very important point that we must all understand if we don’t want to end up as the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, rejecting the greatest gift that has ever been given.
One cannot enjoy what is given if one expects what is not.
We are often NOT grateful for a gift given to us, but rather we are grateful because it is a gift we have asked for or desire. We tie our gratitude to the expectation rather than to the gift giver. Remember back to Christmas as a child. All the gifts you received one year were meaningless because you didn’t get the one thing you had asked to get for months before. Your joy was sapped because the gifts did not meet your expectations.
The great Christian song writer Rich Mullins had a song called “Verge of a Miracle”. I believe what he is saying in that song is we live in depression and desperation NOT because God isn’t there to help us have joy and meaning in life, but because our expectation is for something other than what he offers.
It may seem like I am saying to be happy, you must lower your expectations. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that with God, we must REMOVE all expectations. We should not expect less, but rather expect nothing. When we have no boundaries on what we want from God, we will find that He is already there waiting to give us something far greater than we could have ever asked for or even thought to ask for. But trust me. It will not be like anything you expect either.
Let God give what he chooses to give, how he chooses to give and when he chooses to give. And just be ready to experience it when he does.
Stay away from idols,
Pastor Rob