Read John 19:16-27.
I have also provided an audio recording of this passage to allow you to listen to the Word of God as you invite His Spirit to minister to you. Allow the scene to play out in your mind. What might the women, specifically the mother of Jesus, have seen and heard and felt as they stood at the foot of the cross of the Christ? How do you think Jesus felt toward them? How do you perceive their faith?
A few fun facts to get us started:
The gravitational pull of the earth is 9.8m/s-squared.
A tripod cannot wobble. It can fall over, but it cannot be unsteady as a four-legged stool or table can.
Ants are, proportionally speaking, stronger than you. They can carry 10-50 times their own body weight.
Here’s the thing about the facts above. They are true regardless of whether you believe me and regardless of whether you understand why. Your belief or disbelief does nothing to affect the fact.
And yet, we approach belief in God as though so much is riding on us. We look to God and think that His faithfulness is somehow dependent on our ability to have faith.
I do not intend to demean or belittle belief. It is huge. But what if we approach the Lord differently this time?
What if we don’t come with our hands clasped around the things we believe? What if we don’t look down to rifle through the faith we clutch? What if, instead, we come with arms reaching up like a child, looking to the One in whom we believe? What if we come with empty hands reaching for the hand of the One whose grip is sure (John 10:28-29)?
What if we don’t come demanding answers but, instead, we ask that His Spirit might build in us a faith beyond what we can comprehend.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, beheld the face of God in a way that no one else ever will. She looked into the puckered lips of her newborn, and she saw the mouth that had spoken the world into being. She wiped the blood that would be shed for us from the skinned knee of her toddler. He spoke His first, rambling words, and Mary heard the voice of God. She held the hands that hold the world.
God came down as a fragile child, and His mother watched Him grow into a Man.
What must it have been like? To be the girl who was blessed to believe all that the Lord had spoken to her (Luke 1:45)? To become the mother of God and to treasure up all those things in her heart (Luke 2:19)? To raise the Son of God, and to ponder all that she saw of Him (Luke 2:51)?
To stare into the face of God and find her faith not in the things she could explain or understand, but in the One that she beheld.
God is good, and He does good. God is faithful. He is near. He is holy. He is powerful. But His ways are not our ways, and sometimes we’re left wondering in His wake.
Sometimes we’re left reeling to sort through what we thought we knew.
Even Mary found herself weeping at the foot of the cross. She watched her beaten and battered Son die the most painful of deaths. She knew what she knew of her God, but I wonder if she wondered.
Sometimes our faith falters, and we wonder if the Faithful One has faltered too.
Hopefully, in those moments when we cannot make sense of our faith, we will remember to “be still and know that He is God” (Psalm 46:10). Hopefully, we will remember that He isn’t made secure by our faith. Hopefully, we will remember that He is all that He is regardless of what we believe.
Just like gravity. And tripods. And the strength of ants.
Might that give us the comfort we need to catch our breaths and sit in the questions with the Lord. Not demanding answers but seeking Him.
Because there is still this holy invitation to believe Him. And I wonder if maybe faith has gotten twisted somewhere along the way.
What if Mary’s faith wasn’t evident in her ability to understand the cross or even in her ability to accept it? What if her faith was most evident in the simple act of shifting her gaze up toward the One she knew and loved even in the midst of what she could not comprehend?
What if our faith isn’t our ability to conjure up the right feelings or recite the right facts? What if our faith is the simple act of lifting of our eyes up to Our God?
What if faith looks more like trust and less like understanding?
But we will only trust One that we know. We will only trust One who is faithful. And our Faithful Friend knows that.
And what if? What if He’s willing? What if the One who sees and knows and loves is willing to be seen and known and loved?
What if we come expectant—not searching for our faith but searching instead for the Faithful One?
What if, regardless of the mess or the beauty in which we find ourselves, we shift our eyes heavenward and believe?
Not because our faith is mighty—but because our God is.
You may also listen to the audio on iTunes.
How would you describe the difference between clinging to our own “faith” and resting in the faithfulness of God?
What have you personally seen or experienced of God that allows you to trust Him? How has His faithfulness built your faith?
When has your own faith faltered? How has it affected your relationship with the Lord?
Tell the Lord about the things you don’t understand. Don’t worry about figuring them out or explaining them away. Look up to your God in the midst of them just as Mary looked up to her Son on the cross. It wasn’t our faith that held Him there. It was our need. Fix your eyes on Him and let Him build your faith by His faithfulness. Sometimes we have to lay down our need to “figure it all out” in order to find real peace and rest in God.
Take out your “Seeking and Seeing” page and add your questions to the “Seeking” column. Remember, as we seek Him, we don’t demand explanations, we are looking to see His faithfulness in the midst of the questions. Keep coming back to this page and recording specific ways He meets you in the midst of this time.
