Homily 26: The Author and the Ignorant (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." Matt. 27:40b

The crowd revealed in their ranting a great ignorance about who the Son of God was and what He was meant to do. They were still looking for the all-conquering king, not the humble man of sorrows. The Messiah was still wrapped up in their conventional notions about power, yet they didn't know what true power really was. The power to break Sin was unfolding before their eyes, but they would not, could not see it.

Their ignorance is still our ignorance. We only think that we understand the Divine mind, the implications of the Atonement, the moving of the Holy Spirit. It is a well established fact (verified again and again throughout Scripture) that the precise spot where we think we understand it all is the precise spot where God seeks to confound us. Wherever we think that we have sight without God, He brings His horror and great darkness upon us. Immediately we think that He is being cruel, which reveals our ignorance even further, for in truth He is saving us from ourselves.

It has been said that human existence is a story "written by the finger of God." If that is true, and I believe that it is, then there is one thing that we must completely settle in our hearts and minds: God is the Author, and we are not. We do not decide how the story goes. We do not get to decide who the hero is or what their heroism will be. We are not privy to the plot, nor do we get to pick and choose our place in the tale. As God etches out our story in fiery ink on parchments of stone, we can either submit to His authorship or submit to our own ignorance and all of the confusion that it will bring.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011