I find myself searching for inspiration in my walk with Christ all of the time. Something seems wrong to me about Christianity being a grind. Anywho, many of you might be wondering where the inspiration for the types of service in which we are going to participate in the WWYR come from .
They come from Matthew 11:2-6. This is how it reads:
“When John heard in prison, what the Messiah was doing, sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’
Jesus replied, “Go back, and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
I’ve read this scripture dozens of times, but not until recently has it clicked to me how odd the question is that John the Baptist asks.
John was Jesus’ cousin. His mother helped convince Mary that Jesus was special. John once said he wasn’t even good enough to untie Jesus’ sandals. John heard the voice of God and saw the Holy Spirit descend like a dove on to Jesus. Exactly what wasn’t clear about Jesus to him?!?
Yet, John was having a crisis of faith. I suppose he had expected something different with the Messiah, just like everyone else, and that his plans did not include languishing in the prison of a two bit monarch.
Jesus, when replying to him, could have alluded to all of the things I said a couple of paragraphs up and came right out and said “Hey, of course I am. You know I am.” He didn’t. Instead, he gave a very short reply that repeats the same answers - “Look at the results. Who else could do this?”
I got to thinking about this and I believe that if Jesus was convinced that John would understand who he was based on those things he mentioned above, then why shouldn’t I be convinced that the world would see Jesus was who he was if the same things still happened?
I can’t physically make blind people see or lame people walk. But, in a sense, I can help those that are spiritually blind see God. I can bring life to people who are spiritually dead.
So, every event in the WWYR will be focused on one of six things: Helping the blind see, the lame walk, the diseased be purified, the dead raised, the deaf hearing, and the Good News being preached to the poor.
Below I have listed the activities we are doing and the testimony I hope we will make.
To finish, I find Jesus’ last statement in those verses crazy! “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” Jesus stirs things up. He challenges people. Are walking with Christ will do the thing.
June 24th
1. Community Picnic and Charity BBQ
- We thought that if we were going to volunteer, it would be cooler to have the community help us pick the things to volunteer for rather than choose it ourselves. So, we are having a free concert along with free hot drinks and bbq for the community at Parramatta.
Taking a cue from aboriginals who left red ochre handprints on caves in west Sydney over the generations, the community will be given an opportunity to place a red hand print on 4 different banners that we have provided with different genre’s of volunteering. Each handprint translates into us doing 5 minutes of volunteer work in that genre.
We hope to show Christ is two ways here - if in a different kind of way than expected. First, we would are focusing on the lame walking. Christians are often seen as people who don’t walk what they talk and who are too busy fighting with each other to help others. This is not a correct image of Christ. We want to show the world that we are willing to walk what we talk. So, in a sense, we are “the lame” that are walking.
Another conception the world has of us is that we don’t listen to them and are preachy in response. This is an opportunity for us to listen to what other people are saying. Jesus often healed people without any recorded sermonizing and often asked people how he could serve them (I.e. “What would you have me do?”). This is because he came to serve - no to be served. So, in this way we are also “the deaf” that are showing that we hear.
2. Tuesday the 26th - Flood Relief on the Central Coast
Eli and Evan have arranged for us to help with varying flood relief work on the CC. The purpose of this is to restore life to those who were hurt by the flood. Creation certainly has “groaned” as of late, and the upheavals show the effect of sin on the world. I pray that we will show another aspect of the spiritual world. That God cares and restores things.
3. Wednesday the 27th - Handing out food in the city.
We are helping a bible study start up at Wynyard for the poor. We plan to give out food - but also stop and listen, and then give out bible verses. Too often, the poor get physical food, but get none of the spiritual variety - we want to combat this. This obviously targets the poor hearing the Good News.
4. Friday 29th - Red Nose Selling Day & Retro Prom
We have volunteered to help sell Red Nose’s to benefit kids with SIDS on that Friday before the Retro Prom. This one is rather simple. We can’t raise the dead physically - but we can help prevent death by SIDS and show that we care that sin has brought death into the world.
The Retro Prom is really just a bit of fun. We are going to have a party that travels through the decades! As far as Matt. 11, I’d say it’s good for the blind to see that Christ is fun!
5. Saturday the 30th - City Wide Scavenger Hunt & Devo on the Opera House Steps
The City Wide Scavenger Hunt is just good fun. However, we always have spiritual scavenger hunt tasks such as “Buy someone a cup of coffee.” or “Help someone.” or “Find out someone’s story.”. Besides from helping “the blind” see by helping us see the spiritual opportunities God provides us in every day life, you can bet that all six testimonies will appear in some form or another on the scavenger hunt list.
This event is followed by a devo on the opera house steps. We hope that people around will hear and see God while we are doing this (It has happened in the past! - We once had an entire primary school grade of like 70 kids make their teachers stop and listen to us sing a couple of songs and then they erupted in clapping at the end. It was a tad embarrassing. J ) and that they will know that Jesus is who he says he is!
6. Sunday the 1st - Harbour Bridge Prayer Walk
We want to help “the deaf” hear through our silence in bringing their concerns to God.
7. During the 2nd week - volunteer for NAPCAN
NAPCAN is the National Association of Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect and we’ve volunteered to help stuff envelopes with material about National Child Protection Week. In this, we are hoping to prevent physical and emotional “lameness” by helping inform people about child protection. We are hoping to help restore proper function to parents. We are also helping purify those diseased with hurting their children.
8. During the 1st week - Park Clean-up in Blacktown
This one is fairly self explanatory. Romans tells us that nature testifies about God. I’m not exactly a Greenie - but I do think helping provide a bit of nature for people to be surrounded by is good testimony and helps “the blind” see. Our dedication to cleaning up messes also shows how Christ purifies things.
9. Monday the 2nd - Cookie Making & Office Visiting
We wanted to bring the hard working people in the church something delicious to help them combat that Monday funk. It seems simple, but we hope this will show others in the work place that Christians care for each other and look after each other. As far as Matt. 11 goes - we are looking to bring a little “life” into the drudge of facing another week of work.
Footnote: As I stated above, people will get to volunteer us at the charity picnic for things, so, we have purposefully left the 2nd week a bit blank to adjust
