THEY MISSED THE BOAT!

No, this isn't about Noah, although the moral runs along the same line. No, this is about some people about whom I just read in John 8. They had been watching Jesus as He moved about helping and healing people and much like it would be today if in, let's say, Chicago, suddenly there was a man walking the shores of Lake Michigan, making blind people see and lame people walk and healing the myriads with cancer, they were asking a lot of questions. "Who is this man?" they were wondering.

You can imagine how it was. Jesus was the main topic of conversation, and rightly so, for surely their lives were being affected by His Words and His miracles. Who was this man?

Some said, "He is the Prophet." Others suggested, "He is the Christ." To me, it seems that if there was even the slightest possibility that this might be true, it should be eagerly checked out. But no, others put their two cents in and said, "How can the Christ come from Galilee? Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?"

It hit me tonight that these folk knew the Scriptures at least as it pertained to the coming of the Messiah. They were right on the mark...David's family, Bethlehem, the town where David lived. So close, but oh, so far!

They were stricken with His awesomeness..."no man ever spoke the way this man does," they said. But I wonder if anyone was moved and touched deeply enough to make them go to "the Internet" and see what they could find out about the birthplace of Jesus. How could you see such incredible miracles and hear such amazing words and not want to check it out?

I have an insatiable thirst for pursuing information that I hear. When a preacher tells a story about someone from history or even about a contemporary person, I can hardly wait to get home and check it out on the Internet. Sometimes it is because I just want to read as much about it as possible and sometimes I do it because I can hardly believe such an account could be true.

I'm pretty sure, given my personality, if I would have seen a man touching blind people and causing them to see, I would have been on a personal mission to see if this man could have possibly been from Bethlehem.

People can know the Scriptures and miss the boat, so to speak. Jesus repeatedly spoke of the Pharisees' inability to recognize what His presence in the world meant. They knew the prophecies but they could not discern the times. There were some folk who believed. I'm glad. I'm sad about those who were so close, but oh, so far because they just could not get up out of their recliners to investigate.