Questions, questions, questions,...

“Papa, why Jesus died?” My daughter, with all her 4 year old curiosity and innocence asked me with a serious sounding voice while I was driving her to school one day. Usually such questions arise when she sees a cross on a church building. She knows Jesus died on a cross and for some reason she thinks Jesus died on all the crosses on all the churches! She would say, “Papa, look at that cross, that’s were Jesus died”. Once my wife tried to explain to her [in vain], “Look, that’s not where Jesus died, that’s just another cross like the one where Jesus actually died once”. "Mommy, but... but.. but Jesus died on the cross".

Anyways, when she asked “why Jesus died”, my quick answer was “to save us” (my learned answer). “But WHHHHHYYYYYY?” she blurted out the tougher one in a much louder voice. Now I thought she is really serious and I felt glad about it. As her Dad, I always look for opportunities to tell her about God in general and Jesus in particular (Secretly thinking that I can make her love Jesus in a very early age!). Here, I thought this is the best opportunity to explain to her the reason for Jesus’s death. It’s quite hard for a 32 year old guy to think like 4 year old. In my mind, I tried to simplify my answer the best I can but still wasn’t satisfied. Then I immediately thought it may not still make sense to her, so let me try something different, I said, “though He died, He woke up on the third day!”. While trying to take a breath of relief after giving my ‘smart’ answer, here comes the next question, “But, why did bad people kill Him?”. Ah… I said, “because they didn’t like Him”. “Jesus was good right?”. “YES”, “Then, why bad people kill good people?”. She continued mercilessly. She kept on asking so many questions without waiting for my hard worked answers.

At this point, I realized one thing (a huge thing): My answers are irrelevant to her! She is not so much interested in hearing my theologically formulated, politically-correct answers; rather she is interested only in asking a whole lot of questions. All she wants is my acknowledgment to her questions, not necessarily the right answers. That’s the way she get in touch with a lot of realities in life: by asking questions! A lot of them!

Asking questions without any apology is the sweet, essential characteristic of childhood. We all have asked several questions to our parents, most of them inconvenient and uncomfortable. But that’s how we learned. What if our parents would have ignored such questions? What if they have discouraged us from asking questions? It would have certainly impacted our personality. To be honest, I just don’t have answers to all my daughter’s questions. Not so much that I don’t know the answer, but I don’t know how to explain to her in a way that it is comprehensible to her. But I will certainly still encourage her to ask more and I make sure she is comfortable to ask me any questions. It is a matter of intimacy in a relationship and it also contributes to the development of a creative mind.

As we all grew older, somewhere along the line as we evolved into a more sophisticated, tamed beings, we (tragically) stopped asking questions. We stopped exploring. We learned to suppress our curiosity. We learned to keep quite while still struggling inside. And we called it ‘maturity’.

When Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”, He meant something. His kingdom is of the innocent. His kingdom is of the ones who ask questions. He promoted challenging questions. He satisfied the curiosity of Thomas in a fascinating way. He Himself asked tough questions. He answered them as well. He also left some unanswered.

When did Christian life become pursuing answers, instead of pursuing questions? When did we lose our innocence in asking questions? Why are we in a hurry to make everything so predictable and answerable? Isn’t the “Mystery” (Christ in you) supposed to be a mystery, always?

In mystery, there are more questions than answers and it is absolutely alright. Finding the treasures hidden in Christ involves asking the tough, uncomfortable questions. If we are not asking, there are only two reasons for it: 1. we are acting as if we know all the answers. 2. we are fearful.

Religion (the 'unquestionable' authority), never ever promotes asking questions. They are afraid of them. But Jesus is not. He welcomes our questions. He acknowledges it. He loves it! Religion suppresses it. It oppresses the questioners. Because it act as find-all-answers-encyclopedia. (Remember Pharisees of Jesus' time. They were the people who 'knew' everything)

I left the church(religion) wounded emotionally and spiritually. The reason for my leaving was nothing but asking some questions. Now, thankfully Jesus is healing those wounds. Though I physically left church couple of years ago I never left it from my heart until recently. Now, within me, I am done with it. I am not talking about the church Jesus is building, which He said the gates of hell will not prevail against. I am saying, I left the ruined, enterprised, institutionalized, people ruling, buildings of caged ‘animals’. Such buildings give me an awkward, insensitive, motionless feeling and I hate that. There is no room for mystery. There is no unpredictability. There is no wild abandon. Nothing. But bunch of well-domesticated, lifeless, ‘all knowing’ hypocrites.

I want to reclaim childlike faith. That is the desire of my heart. I find it difficult, challenging and often times risky. I am nowhere near! As the thoughts comes into my mind about abandoning everything, all my comforts for pursuing this , it sends a shiver through my body. Career? Money? Others expectations? Secured future? Home?

"and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him."

Aaah....

"Jesus, How is this possible?"

"You have a bad card"

“You have a bad card, Sir”. When I heard that from the local Sam’s club cashier, I was busy emptying the shopping cart into the conveyor belt at the checkout counter. Without hiding the shock on my face I turned and asked in disbelief, “What?”. He said, “Your membership card is bad, the computer is not accepting it”. It was on a Saturday, I spent almost 2 hours going around the store picking up all the stuff as per the list given by my wife. To me, that 2 hours spent was very precious because I took it out of my time with kids at home. As I stood there, the cashier re-swiped the card and made sure what he saw on the screen was right. As we continued the conversation the line behind me started piling up and all he wanted to do was to get rid of me. The manager of the store came by seeing the ‘commotion’ and took my card to his computer and returned with a dull face, came very close to me and told, “There was a problem with your card in another Sam’s club, you need to go there and dispute with them to take the block out. We have no much detail here” and he gave me the card back with a “sorry” at the end and that ended my 2 hours effort in vain.

I entered the store 2 hours earlier as a ‘proud member since 2001’ and spent some valuable time picking up the stuff needed at home for the next 2 weeks; but now I am leaving the store empty handed, disappointed, humiliated and angry. As I was driving home my helplessness on the situation was so evident in my emotions afterward. It didn’t matter how much stuff I had in my cart; it didn’t matter how much time I spent filling the cart; it didn’t matter how desperately we needed diapers at home for my 2 year old son; it didn’t matter anything to the store. All they cared was a ‘right’ card.

This incident reminded me of the ‘religious works’ we try to do in an assumption that we have the right ‘card’ in our wallet. It is so easy to get busy filling up cart, earning points, running around, abandoning time with loved ones, totally forgetting the fact that all these matters only if we have the right card - Jesus - in us.

Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' That’s exactly what the cashier told me, ‘depart, we don’t recognize you as a member’.

Do we know Him and does He know us, is the only thing what matters and nothing else! Whatever we accomplish in the energy of our flesh during our lifetime here on earth will have no value in the final analysis. The saddest thing is that if we wait till the time of 'check-out' it will be too late. It doesn’t matter how much sacrifice it may involve, or how great our enthusiasm or our sincerity in doing it. It is so easy to fall into the trap of busyness in the name of evangelism, mission, charity and church activities, but if it is not Christ who is accomplishing it through us, it is all nothing but ‘filthy rags’.

Major Ian Thomas once said:

As far as God is concerned, Christ is the preacher, Christ is the missionary, Christ is the Christian Worker, Christ is the witnessing Christian. Only what He is and what He does is righteousness - and what He is and what He does is released through you only by your attitude of dependence. This is called faith - and “whatsoever is not of faith is sin”

As I have tried desperately in the past to duplicate His work, I lost contentment in life and always looked for some 'work' to fill up my emptiness. I became workaholic and used the works I do to hide my true self from others. I could never be honest and authentic in my personality as I was trying to 'please God' and earn points.

The Major went on saying this:

This is the curse of Christendom! This is what paralyzes the activity of the church of Jesus Christ on earth today! In defiance of God’s Word, God’s mind, God’s will, and God’s judgement, men everywhere are prepared to dedicate to God what God condemns – the energy of the flesh!

I could accomplish nothing in my energy; If I could, why would the God of the universe stepped out of eternity, came down to live in me? What is the significance of his indwelling? Let's learn to being held by Him, lets not wiggle as He tries to hold us securely in His hands, lets not try to grasp the mysteries of godliness with our high IQ, education and training. Is living as a mere branch too simple for us? Are we too sophisticated and educated that we came to a point that we could do the works of God with our education, technology and planning?

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him - Colossians 2:6. We received Him by faith and we want to continue to live in Him by faith and thats pretty the Christian life is all about. It is supposedly simple, easy and light and may be thats the reason Jesus instructed us to learn something from the little children.