Featured Article - Edition 10

1 that makes it work
By Lucy Rip

Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. That evening the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said, “That isn’t necessary—you feed them.” “But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish!” they answered.  “Bring them here,” he said. Then he told the people to sit down on the grass. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples, who distributed it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers. About 5,000 men were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children!

Matthew 14:14-21

I’m sure most people have read that passage before. The question is: what do you think about it? It is fact; the recounting of something really happened and could happen again today? Or is it a story, a twisting of facts to make a point?

You will find that there are people on both sides of the fence on this one. Most people who believe is it true, will be children because children haven’t encountered logical and ratio’s yet. They are the ones who will wholeheartedly and unhesitatingly believe that it is possible. The others will be mostly those who have left childhood innocence behind them and discovered the vast volume of information available to us to help us figure out what is really true and what is not.

I was listening to U2 yesterday and in City of Blinding Lights, Bono sings the following words:
The more you see the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then than I do now

To me this is the perfect illustration of the information age we find ourselves in. The more there is to read, to explore, to discover, the more confused and lost we can get. That is of course, unless you have something you are certain of, something you know to be true and that you can measure all other information against.

I recently got married and in the last few weeks of living with my new husband I have discovered a number of things that I knew, but didn’t really know, if you know what I mean! One of these is his love for the National Geographic and History Channels. His favourite shows are ones about evolution and the bible.

I don’t know if anyone remembers when the Da Vinci Code came out? There was suddenly a whole host of programs being aired about the Judas Gospel, the fact that Mary Magdalene and Jesus had a child, and the various other theories raised in Dan Brown’s book. When I saw the adverts for these programs, the message that was portrayed was one which said “Watch this show and you WILL have the answers to all these questions.” But when I actually sat down to watch them, I found that every single one failed to come to a conclusion.

I found this incredibly irritating. The adverts in particular planted a seed of doubt (more like a young sampling actually) about the authenticity of who Jesus was, with a few well chosen sound bites from academics. Having done that, absolutely no conclusion was reached on the theory in question, leaving me with a whole host of half truths and snippets of information to mull over.

Controversial bible theories aside, what about the shows that are scientifically based? My husband is incredibly interested in evolution and as I have learnt recently, there is no shortage of programs about that on DSTV either! Initially my response to these programs was one of fear and defensiveness because I didn’t want my faith to be undermined by what I watched. Nor did I want these shows to plant seeds of doubt in the mind of my husband. But I realized pretty quickly that sitting in defensive and stony silence whenever we watched one of these is not a solution either.

I am a firm believer in the fact that science and faith complement each other. In my mind, science is the way through which God reveals the majesty of his creation to us. In addition, there are incredibly smart people out there who have been gifted by God to be able to unlock these mysteries. Somewhere along the line I had become one of those people who felt that I had to blindly accept what the bible told me and steadfastly refuse to entertain other paths of thought. I had become narrow minded and it shocked me.

Then I stumbled across a quote by C.S.Lewis which reads, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” That completely flipped my thought processes upside down.
I realized, firstly, that Jesus does not want mindless followers. He does not want us to give up our minds and stop thinking when we give our lives to him. What we do need to do though is to remember what Jesus has taught us, take what we know to be the truth and measure everything else against that.

While it cannot be denied that most of the shows and programs on TV are produced by a secular world, that tries to deny Jesus’ place, that does not necessarily mean they have no value. I am not saying we should now accept everything we hear or are told. What I am suggesting is that we ground ourselves firmly in the truth and filter what we see and hear through that. Some of it will turn out to be utter rubbish, but who knows what God will reveal to you if you are open to it?

The bottom line is that there is a truth about everything. Jesus says in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth and the light.” Whether you believe it or not, that doesn’t affect the value of the truth. We need to view the world through the eyes of faith, looking for the lessons Jesus is teaching us, seeking out his guidance, using what we learn to deepen our trust in him.
To get back to the story of the 5000… is it true? Did it really happen? Well, if you look at it from a purely logical and mathematical view, then no it absolutely did not happen! It’s impossible. But if you look at it through the eyes of faith, through the knowledge that Jesus, the man who was central in the story, has endowed with the power of God – then suddenly it is quite plausible. The powerful number here is not the 5 loaves or the 2 fish. It is the ONE man who multiplied them.

In the City of Blinding Lights, Bono goes on to say:
Time… time
Won’t leave me as I am
But time won’t take the boy out of this man

We all grow up. Learning and expanding our minds is an important and exciting part of all that. But don’t let knowledge rob you of faith, rather use knowledge to learn more about the truth. Observe the world through the Son of Man, not only because you know the truth that he is risen, but because everything else looks different as a result.