Eyes cast downward

The women told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened. Luke 24:10-12

Okay, I will not belabor the lack of respect the men followers showed the women followers which demonstrates a set cultural frame of mind regardless of to whom God choses to reveal His truth. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the Jewish Mishna that reads, “From women let not evidence be accepted because of the levity and temerity of their sex.”

Rather perhaps these followers were too set in the cultural frame of mind that there is only one way to be set free, by the sword.  They were looking for an earthly rule for their Messiah.  For earthly salvation from the oppressors.  For Christ to descend from the cross with a victorious shout and a triumphant legion of angels with blazing weapons.  And a final resolution to all of life’s woes and struggles.  For them, Christ’s last utterance of, “It is finished,” did not signal the destruction of spiritual bondage.  Rather it was the end of their limited frame of reality and material aspirations.  

And whenever Jesus spoke of His imminent death and resurrection, it didn’t fit into their understanding, it was not a color in their visible spectrum, so they ignored it.  They were too caught up with their spinning webs to even notice His sure hand threading the warp and woof of eternity.

I too have my frame of reality set, often limited by hopes too small, gratification too instant, priorities too local.  I too often look to political systems or crafted alliances or an unsavory mixture of elbow grease and a little bit of luck.  

John Bunyan captured this frame of reality in Pilgrim’s Progress when the Interpreter led them to a room where a man sat with his eyes cast downward and a rake in his hand with which he anxiously drew towards himself the straws and small sticks which lay scattered upon the floor and though a person overhead held out a celestial crown and offered to exchange it for the rake, this deluded man would neither look up nor listen to the interesting proposal. “This,” said the Interpreter,“is a correct representation of a worldly man and the rake in his hand is intended to denote his carnal mind for whereas he prefers raking up the small sticks and dirty straws which are scattered over the ground to attending the person who calls from above and offers him a celestial diadem. It is to show that divine things are too often accounted either fabulous or unimportant and that earthly things have such a bewitching power with the human heart as to carry it completely away from God.

Not Peter.  Once again this simple fisherman plunges into the fray, momentarily unbound by small sticks and dirty straws.  What if reality is much bigger and broader and more glorious than we could ever conceive?  The door had been kicked open, the curtain ripped down, and eternity had arrived.  

Well might we marvel.  Stand back and be amazed.