Don’t you just hate how some
things that used to be free now cost money? Back in the day, when I wanted to
upgrade my cell phone I simply had to renew my 2-year contract and my upgraded
phone was free. I used to be able to access lots of Biblical resources online
for free. Now I have to pay for them. Don’t get me started on television
programming. I remember when television was free, and yes, it was black and
white. I remember that. But even when it was in color and I could use a “clicker”
to change channels, it was free. Now I have to pay for it.
There are some things that are
currently free that I wish I had to pay for. Criticism and the judgment of
others is something I wish was only available if I paid for it. Think about it.
“Hmmm. Today I feel like hearing what I have done wrong or how my thinking is
grouped in with an entire segment of people that must be going to hell in a
handbasket. Let me pay this person $19.95 plus tax for 5 minutes of their
critical, judgmental opinions.” But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back
up.
One of my favorite shows that I
now have to pay for if I want to watch live is a show I get teased about
watching;
Naked and Afraid. Laugh if
you want to, but it really captures my interest. In this reality show created
in 2013, 2 complete strangers, typically a man and a woman, are left in an
extreme environment somewhere on the globe, without food or water, and completely
naked. They are provided with rough cross-body satchels with only one survival
item each, such as a machete or a fire starter, a personal camera to create a
diary when the camera crew is not around, and a map. Each episode follows the
adventurers as they attempt to survive for 21 days. They usually build a
shelter first, then find a water source. Next, they realize they have to find
food for sustenance, all the while attempting to get along in spite of each
other’s differences of options and abilities, working together with the
knowledge that the only prize, in the end, is their pride and sense of
accomplishment. Since the only other choice is to lose face and “tap out,”
competitors quickly get to know one another and their surroundings and hope
that their instincts, survival skills, and intestinal fortitude serve them well
to the bitter end. All of them are naked and many are afraid.
Lest you think it’s the “naked”
in Naked and Afraid that invites me
to watch the show, now in its 11th season, all private parts are
pixilated so that you see nothing but a blur. There is nothing remotely erotic
about living in a secluded rainforest, jungle, or desert and having to survive.
Their focus is braving the elements, foraging for food, hoping to be able to
build a fire and boil their water and stay strong enough and healthy enough to
make it to the end of the challenge. The only thing on the contestant’s minds
is how to escape, how to make it, how to survive. I always wonder as I watch, “Could
I do this? Would I have what it takes to make it for 21 days?” I also have to
admit that I am often quite critical of the men and women who, after feeling
thirsty by the end of day 1 “tap out” and go home. It is surprising to me how
many give up so early in the challenge. Maybe they just need a warm shower and
a soft bed.
Several years ago, as a
teambuilding exercise, my group at work went to an Escape Room in Denver. An Escape
Room is a game in which a team of players has a limited time to cooperatively
discover clues, solve puzzles, and accomplish tasks in one or more themed rooms
in order to progress and complete their mission and “escape” the room. Our
group was in a fictional submarine and had to work to escape in order to
survive. While I found it to be fun and I would do it again in a group,
personally, I did not feel like my brain worked well in that stressful
situation. If I were to have to do this in a very small group of people, like 2
or 3, I would have to say that I’m not smart enough to solve an Escape Room.
So often we find ourselves
trapped in an escape room or left alone in an extreme environment, situations,
and periods of our lives where we feel trapped, naked, and afraid, either
because our mindset has locked us in there or other’s criticism and judgment
have isolated us there and we find ourselves trying to survive without the
skills and provisions we think we need. The judgment and criticism of others
that claim to be well-meaning, can fully paralyze us, leaving us feeling naked
and afraid, ashamed of who we are and what we have done or feel we cannot do.
Think for a moment about a time that you have felt criticized or shamed by
someone, maybe someone who felt they needed to “teach you a lesson.” Maybe it
was a time when you didn’t need someone else to judge you, you were doing a
perfectly adequate job yourself. Did you feel isolated in a jungle of despair?
Did you feel like you lacked the tools to survive in the environment you were
trapped in? Did the end seem so far out of reach like a puzzle too difficult to
solve? Did you feel exposed to others and the elements and you just wanted to
curl up into the fetal position?
There is a story in the New
Testament of the Bible written by John where many people had gathered together
to be taught by Jesus and some of the pious, religious teachers of the day brought
“a woman who had been caught in the act of committing adultery and made her
stand in the middle of everyone.” Think about how she must have felt, naked and
afraid, obviously guilty with no way out, no defense, and wondering how she
will survive. The Pharisees, as these teachers were called, not only intended
to judge this woman, but wanted to trap Jesus as well by asking him this
question, “Doesn’t Moses’ law command us to stone to death a woman like this?
Tell us, what do you say we should do with her?” Their very words placed Jesus
in an Escape Room, a riddle of sorts, that they wanted Him to answer, but they
thought there was no escape.
The next scene in this story has
left us wondering what it is Jesus was actually doing and leads us to draw some
conclusions that are very profound. You see, Jesus, instead of immediately
answering verbally, “simply bent down and wrote in the dust with his finger.”
What did he write? Imagine, for a moment, it was the names of those
teachers. Why did that make them so angry, as the story tells us, for they kept
insisting that he give them an answer? John tells us that Jesus got up, looked
at them, and said, “Let’s have the man who has never had a sinful desire throw
the first stone at her.” Wow! OK. Who goes first? He then knelt back down
and continued writing. Could it be that now, next to each of the names of those
who were trying to trap both He and the woman, He was writing the names of
women they had committed adultery with? Whatever it was that He wrote, combined
with the single sentence He spoke, each of “her accusers slowly left the crowd
one at a time, beginning with the oldest to the youngest, with a convicted
conscience.”
If that isn’t dramatic enough for
John to end the story there, he continues and what happens next defies the
intent of those looking to trap both the woman and Jesus and ultimately
provides all of us with the keys to escape the traps of our lives. It is the
answer to surviving naked and afraid in a wilderness of guilt and shame. Here
is what John tells us in his grand conclusion to this story. He says that Jesus
was left alone with the woman still standing there in front of Him and He stood
back up and said to her, “Dear woman, where are your accusers? Is there no one
here to condemn you?” The woman looked around, as you and I would probably do,
and replied, “I see no one, Lord.” Friends, hear the very next words of Jesus,
spoken not only for this woman but for us today. “Then I certainly don’t
condemn you either. Go, and from now on, be free from a life of sin.” (John
8:2-11 The Passion Translation)
I have to be honest, as I
listened to this story again this morning I was reminded that far too often I
find myself being critical and judgmental. There is something about my nature
that I feel the self-righteous need to catch people in their worst moments and
point them out. I find it necessary to expose the ways they don’t think and act
just like I do. Is that in your nature too? It was in the nature of the
Pharisees. But notice that it is not in Jesus’ nature. It is not part of the
divine nature of God. Friends, I am reminded today that God’s nature is grace
in our worst moments. If anyone was qualified to condemn this woman, it was the
perfect, holy, Son of God. But His nature is grace.
I have heard the word grace
defined as “getting that which we do not deserve.” It is the love of God lavished
upon us, poured out on us because He wants us to feel it, not because of
anything we have done to deserve or earn it or because of anything we have not
done, and therefore, deserve it. Grace is given freely by God to us out of His
reckless love for us, guilty sinners, just like the woman in the story. It is
Jesus’ lack of condemnation towards us that exemplifies God’s reckless love
towards us. Condemnation was never Jesus’ posture towards people. Not Zacchaeus,
not Judas, not the corrupt priests, not the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees,
not the woman caught in the act of adultery, not the Samaritan woman living
with a man who was not her husband, not the man on the cross next to him, not
even those who called for his impalement OR those who actually impaled him. NO
ONE. In fact, Jesus took the condemnation meant for us upon Himself and died
for us.
He absolutely did condemn
the actions, though, of some of these, particularly those of the scribes
and Pharisees and the changing of money in the temple. But calling out actions
for what they are is not the same as condemning people. Just several chapters
before John’s story about the lack of a condemning attitude in Jesus, John
tells us some foundational truths about the nature of God and His Son, Jesus.
In John 3:17 TPT he says “God did not send His Son into the world to judge and
condemn the world, but to be its Savior and rescue it!” Jesus’ posture towards
the world, meaning the people in the world, has always been grace. Grace is the
great escape available to us who are naked and afraid.
Notice how much Jesus desired for
the woman to experience God’s love and grace. She didn’t ask for help. She didn’t
defend her actions. She didn’t make excuses or blame someone else. Jesus
defended her without her asking. Friends, Jesus sees each of us as worthy of
defense, worthy of hope, worthy of prevailing over the extreme conditions that
we feel we have been dropped into, naked and afraid. Jesus wants us to know that
rather than developing bitterness, anger, rage, fear, shame, and harming the
condition of our heart and soul, our future can be more than we can imagine.
So here is the dilemma we are
facing. We don’t have to pay to hear judgment or criticism. It’s available to
us for free. We don’t have to go search it out. It comes to us. It comes to us
in our own mind, through our own self-talk; “I’m not smart enough to solve an
Escape Room.” It also comes to us from other self-righteous individuals who
think it’s their right to belittle others who think differently than they do,
who act differently than they do, who make choices differently than they do. So
many are speaking to us without the love and grace of God. The dilemma is that
you and I are not listening to Jesus closely enough. We aren’t paying attention
to what Jesus is doing closely enough. We are waiting for His words and
ignoring what He is writing in the sand. We are listening to the voices in our
heads, the voices on social media, the voices of our neighbors, our family
members, our friends, but we aren’t listening to Jesus. I’m so guilty of this.
In some ways, I have succeeded in my quest to become more like my Savior in
2020. However, in that process I have exposed so many more ways I am not like
Jesus at all. He is the key to my escape. He is the key to your escape and
survival. A few chapters after this story John record’s Jesus’ words in regards
to this when Jesus says “I am the Way, I am the Truth, and I am the Life. No
one comes next to the Father except through union with me. To
know me is to know my Father too.” (John 14:6 TPT)
What Jesus told the woman, and
what He wants to tell you and me today, is this, “Go, and from now on, be free
from a life of sin.” He is the way of escape. He is everything you need to
survive the rainforests of life. Romans 8:1 TPT says “So now the case is
closed. There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who
are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One.” My goal is to pay
closer attention to Jesus and less attention to the judgmental critics around
me. What is He saying to me? How is he trying to offer my grace? Am I standing
there naked and afraid to receive it or am I believing that He is the key to
escape?
Thanks for reading,
