Disappointment With God

The account of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 shows how the risen Jesus appears among them in the midst of disappointment and hopelessness. Things didn't pan out the way they had hoped. There was nothing left for them to do but go home and wait for another messiah to come along.

But the stranger in their midst (they were kept from recognizing him) gently showed them that their hopes and dreams for their people had not been dashed, but in fact had been fulfilled in an unexpected way. And it's all there in the Scriptural narrative!!

And beginning with Moses and the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Jesus showed them that there was a different way to read and understand their Scriptures-- one that they weren't used to. This is perhaps a cue for us.

On several occasions Jesus said that the Scriptures in their entirety were about him. It's all too common to find Christians reading the Old Testament Scriptures as a collection of rules and regulations to appease God, while Jesus is merely tacked on at the end as a very nice man who shows us by example how to live our lives. In other words, many project themselves onto the pages of Scripture. Reading Scripture this way will always lead to despair and guilt.

The Old Testament must be read in light of Jesus, not of us. Jesus, not us, is the utmost and final interpreter of all Scripture. Anything in the OT must be read through the lens of Jesus. This is what the Emmaus disciples failed to do initially, but after Jesus showed them what the OT was REALLY about, their hearts swelled with rejoicing. Their disappointment with God was transformed into the beautiful realization that their hopes in Jesus were not in vain and that God did everything that He promised to do.

Now, I'm going to suggest that in many ways we've even misunderstood the New Testament. Many read the NT in the same way they read the OT by projecting themselves onto the pages, making the NT about them. They read the warnings and the promises of wrath as fully contingent on themselves and then begin to think that they're doomed. I've had a few people pull out a verse from, say, James, apply it directly to themselves, and then begin to think they're toast!

What I've tried to get people to see is that the Bible was not written to us. You and I and everyone living today are not the original audience. Scripture does not directly address us today, not only because it wasn't written to us, but also because it's not about us. It's about God as He is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. It's the narrative of how God freed humanity from the bondage of trying to effect its own salvation.

I'm just thinking out loud here. Thoughts?