Someone once said,
“Good is something you do, not something you talk about.”
Choose Your Own Adventure
I don’t know if these books are still in print or if you can still get them. I haven’t seen them in a long time. But when I was a kid I loved to read “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. The authors wrote them in the second person and as you came to the end of a chapter, you, as the reader, got to choose what would happen next. That’s because the author had written you into the story.
You were playing an important role in the story as the chief investigator, or the secret agent, or something like that. And depending on the choice you made, the book told you what page to go to next in order to keep reading the story.
It was an incredible concept.. writing a story in a way in which the reader was invited into the story, invited to play an important role in the story, and invited to make choices that would determine the outcome of the story.
At the end of each chapter, it was your move! It was your decision. You got to be apart of the story and choosing what would happen next.
Fear of the Unknown
The exciting and almost addictive quality of a book like that is that it invites you into adventure. It invites you into uncertainty. It gives you the opportunity to step into the unknown and make choices that directly affect the outcome of the story.
This is all well and good when you’re reading a book, but not so much when it’s happening in real life.
What’s happened for a lot of us is that we’ve come to enjoy and expect some degree of certainty in our lives. We like being able to plan ahead. Many of us don’t have to worry about where our next meal is going to come from. Generally speaking, we know how things are going to go from one day to the next and this certainty has become something we count on, rely on, and depend on.
But then comes a year like 2020. A year filled with uncertainty and the unknown. And the uncertainty scares us! I get that! It scares me too sometimes.
The Invitation into Uncertainty
But let me ask you a question… if you have decided to follow Jesus, if you’ve accepted the invitation of Jesus when he said, “Come, follow me,” what if the invitation Jesus offered you wasn’t into certainty, but into uncertainty?
What if the invitation of Jesus is into a life of adventure, a life into uncharted territory, a life where you get to choose what happens next?
For some of you, those of you who like to be spontaneous and throw caution to the wind… this is exciting. Even fun!
But for so many of us, this doesn’t sound like a great adventure but a terrifying situation filled with the unknown.
Some Good News
Here’s the good news for those of us who have decided to follow Jesus…
We already know how the story ends. There is a sense in which the invitation of Jesus is into a life of absolute certainty in that your future is secure. Your eternity is set. You don’t have to worry about tomorrow because Jesus has said that everyone who puts their trust in His name will be saved.
But the invitation of Jesus is also into a life of uncertainty, a life of adventure, a life where you get to choose what happens next!
I think about the time when Jesus sent out 70 of his disciples in groups of 2 and told them, don’t take anything with you. Trust God to provide whatever you need. Just go and share the good news that the Kingdom of God is near!
I think about the time when Jesus called Peter out of the boat to walk with him on the water in the middle of the storm! Talk about an invitation into a life of uncertainty. Into a life of adventure!
And I think about all the times that Jesus was presented with an opportunity to make a difference in the life of another.
The Choice Before Jesus
Stories like this one in Mark 1.40-45.
A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said.
Some of you may know this… but having leprosy in that day and time, well it was like having COVID-19, only worse. It meant that you had to live in quarantine, not for 14 days but for the rest of your life. It meant that you could no longer see your family, your friends, your loved ones. And there were no false positives. No one was asymptomatic. And no one recovered. It was a death sentence.
This man, a man with no hope, came and knelt before Jesus, his only hope, begging to be healed. His one question to Jesus? Are you willing? I know you are able. Are you willing?
Here’s the choice before Jesus. He’s presented with an opportunity to make a difference in the life of another and he gets to choose how the story is going to end! What will Jesus do? What is Jesus willing to do?
Moved with Compassion
Mark says…
Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!”
Have you Ever Been Moved with Compassion?
Have you ever been moved with compassion? Have you ever been so affected by the circumstance of someone else that you were compelled to help? To intervene? To make a difference in their life in whatever way you could?
This is what happens here. Jesus enters into a moment of uncertainty. And Jesus is MOVED with COMPASSION.
He is compelled to loving action. He can’t keep walking. He can’t ignore the need. Jesus is moved. So he reaches out and touches this man who hasn’t felt the touch of another human being in who knows how long… his disease had made him an outcast. Untouchable.
Most people would see this man and they would keep on walking. But Jesus doesn’t see people the same way we see people. When Jesus saw people he saw something more than you and I tend to see. Not only did he see the person before him, he saw his pain, his problem, and his need.
Jesus had this ability to see what couldn’t be seen. And seeing this, he was moved to compassion.
Here’s my contention today. That every day you and I are presented with similar opportunities to make a difference in the life of someone else. To do good.
1943
In 1943, WWII was raging and the German army began to occupy parts of northern and central Italy. They began to round up Jews and send them to concentration camps. At the same time, a secret network was being put in place to hide Jews and help them escape.
During this time there was one man who was beloved in Italy as a national hero. Gino Bartali had won the Tour de France in 1938. He was like the Babe Ruth of his time and his generation. Most everyone in Italy adored him. But he was morally opposed to the Germans rounding up the Jews and sending them to concentration camps. And even though it meant risking his own life, his own family, he hid his friends who were Jews is his apartment. Not only that, he was a part of the secret network that worked to offer protection and safe passage to Jews and other endangered people.
His role was to serve as the courier. When he came upon a checkpoint the soldiers thought he was on a long training ride. Many times they would wave him on by because of who he was. Other times he would have to stop, but even then he would ask them not to touch his bike because it was perfectly set up for his training rides and his races. What they didn’t know was that inside the handlebars of his bike he was carrying photographs and counterfeit identity documents to and from a secret printing press. These would be used to help Jews escape and find their way to freedom and safety.
It was Gino Bartali who once said, “Good is something you do, not something you talk about.”
Today, he is honored in Israel as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and education centre in Jerusalem.
Are you willing?
Bartali understood that…
You may not have the opportunity to heal someone of leprosy today. You may not have the opportunity to be a part of a secret network that saves lives.
But, you and I do have an opportunity every day to see people the way Jesus sees people. To see their need. And then to do whatever we can to make a difference in the lives of others.
It’s the same question that was posed to Jesus that day that is posed to you and me. Are you willing?
Will you see that person the way the rest of the world sees that person, or will you see them like Jesus sees them. Will you see not just them, but their problem, their pain, their need?
And will you, like Jesus, choose to be moved with compassion in that moment for that person?
When you do… you accept the invitation to play an important role in someone else’s story. And your love for the person God has put before you has the opportunity to change how their story will go.
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