Good figs and bad figs. There are so many wrinkles in God’s plan to reverse our fallen state through the children of Abraham. Anticipating Judah’s exile, Jeremiah says there will be two groups of people, each of which he likens to a basket of figs. One basket “had very good figs, like first-ripe figs” (Jeremiah 24:2). These “figs” will be taken away into exile in Babylon, where Yahweh will “build them up and not tear them down; … plant them and not pluck them up” (Jeremiah 24:6). These figs will be given “a heart to know that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7).

The other basket “had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten” (Jeremiah 24:2). These “figs” will remain behind in Jerusalem or seek refuge in Egypt, where their evil ways will provoke the utter destruction of the city, making them “a horror, an evil thing, to all the kingdoms of the earth—a disgrace, a byword, a taunt, and a curse…” (Jeremiah 24:9–10).

Objects of wrath and objects of mercy. These two baskets of figs, one good and one bad, become illustrations of the point that Paul makes in Romans 9:6, “not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants.” The principle that some are “objects of mercy” and some are “objects of wrath” cuts through the middle of the most favored people in the biblical storyline (Romans 9:22,23). The point is that nobody enjoys entitlement by virtue of pedigree. All of us depend upon a mercy that spares us the condemnation we deserve. All of us require God’s gracious gift of a heart that responds in love to God’s own loving heart.

The determinative issue on our part is whether, like the “objects of wrath,” we think we are sufficiently good that we don’t need God’s mercy; or whether, like the “objects of mercy,” we know we ought to receive wrath, but gratefully discover we’ve been given the grace to ask for mercy through the cross of Christ. That’s really all we need to know about the whys and wherefores of the mystery of howGod draws some into his work of new creation, and does not do so with others. In your mercy, Lord…

The light of the world and faux-light. One more wrinkle in God’s redemptive plan is the way the coming of the Light of the World, Jesus, exposes faux-light for the darkness it is.

Through the story of the healing of the man born blind in John 9, the religious leaders’ spiritual blindness becomes increasingly evident. So preoccupied with extra-scriptural scruples regarding sabbath-keeping are they (there is no law against healing on the sabbath in Torah!), that they fail to “see” the wonder of Jesus’s gift of light to the blind man.

But there is also a more subtle faux-light: the disciples need to understand the blind man’s state in the first place. They suppose there has to be a direct, mechanical, tit-for-tat correlation between this man’s plight and sin. Either he sinned, they presume to think, or his parents sinned. The disciples don’t seem to grasp that sin is not that simple. There lies a powerful dominion of darkness beyond blithe answers and quick fixes. Jesus tosses aside their shallow supposition: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (John 9:3). What is happening before their very eyes is God at work, bringing back into the world the radiant glory that departed when our original parents said, “Yes,” to the serpent rather than to their Maker. Jesus, the Light of the World, is turning back the darkness that descended that sad day.

The next time something bad happens to you, I pray that your first thought is not, “What unconfessed sin in my life brought this on?”, but rather, “Lord, help me to ‘see’ what you wish to do here, and how I can be a part of it. And, if part of that is confession, here goes… Let your kingdom come! Amen!!”

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Andrey Mironov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons