On Widows & Orphans

In this week’s article, I want to return to some questions raised earlier. In the article, “But Won’t The Know We are Christians By Our Love?”, we ended with three questions for further exploration. The first related to the story of the Good Samaritan. Having examined that, we are now ready for the second question – “Doesn’t Scripture say that true religion is about caring for widows and orphans? “

Indeed, James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

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A Father Celebrates

Because I want this exploration of loving and hating like God to be practical, not just  theoretical, I am going to take this week’s article in a different direction, and reflect on recent events in my life.

In the last 5 months I have given both of my daughters in marriage. I have known that these days were coming since the girls were little. In anticipation of this time, I have observed many other Fathers-of-the-Bride, both in popular culture, and in real-life, and concluded that my expected role was to keep the cost to an absolute minimum. From offering their daughters money to elope, to insisting that they only look on the sale rack for their wedding gown, it seems that the driving principle for the Father-of-the-Bride must always be, “spend as little as possible.” I even had one Father-of-the-Bride tell me, “You can get out of this pretty reasonably if you can avoid feeding the guests.” The logic seems to be that weddings are un-necessarily expensive, and that the success of the union is unrelated to the cost of the wedding. So, since it won’t affect the longevity of the union we should spend as little as possible. And this has bothered me, because I don’t think it reflects God’s heart.
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Shhh! It’s a Secret

Looking at Jesus’ example, we were surprised to see that, after healing a leper, He tells the man to keep it quiet. This seems very odd. Our instincts are to broadcast our good deeds.  Yet Jesus is telling this guy to keep His deeds a secret. And not just here. Time and again, Jesus suppresses information that would seem helpful to those around Him.

Consider other examples:

• Jesus is asked to go heal a sick, 12 year old girl, but before He arrives, she dies. He kicks everybody out except Peter, James, and John. After resurrecting the girl, He gave “strict orders that no one should know about this” (Mark 5:43; Luke 8:56).
• In spite of Jesus’ strict instructions about the above incident, the news spreads throughout the land (Matthew 9:26). Two blind men come, seeking healing. He grants their request, but sternly warns them that no one should know about this. Nevertheless, they spread the news throughout the land (Matthew 9:30-31).
• Again, in Mark 7, Jesus tries to keep a low profile (v. 24), but a Gentile woman comes, wanting Him to cast demons out of her daughter. Jesus resists, but because of the woman’s persistence, He casts out the demons.
• This is followed by a deaf man being brought to Jesus (Mark 7:32). Rather than making a public spectacle, He took him aside, healed him privately. Again, He gave orders not to tell anyone, but “the more He ordered them, the more widely they proclaimed it” (Mark 7:36).

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