When we attended church in Earlimart, we used to have verse quoting contests kind of like Spelling Bees. We would line up two teams facing each other, and quote scriptures back and forth. When you misquoted a verse, or couldn't think of another scripture that had not yet been quoted that night, you had to sit down. I was almost always the last one standing.
I really liked the attention and admiration that came my way from that skill. It also encouraged me to read the scriptures and learn them. I noticed, though, that whoever was in the front of the lines usually quickly quoted the most familiar ones. One of the favorites was "Jesus wept." That's the shortest verse in the Good Old Book. No one was ever asked to explain why Jesus was publicly crying. I would have probably been in trouble had I been put on the spot to explain that.
Because someone else always got the shortest verse, I decided I would learn the longest verse in the Bible. I found that in the book of Esther, Chapter 8, Verse 9: "Then were the king's scribes called at that time in the third month, that is, the month Sivan, on the three and twentieth day thereof; and it was written according to all that Mordecai commanded unto the Jews, and to the lieutenants, and the deputies and rulers of the provinces which are from India unto Ethiopia, an hundred twenty and seven provinces, unto every province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language, and to the Jews according to their writing, and according to their language."
Wow! That is a mouthful, huh? Everyone's eyes glaze over... Some begin to frown slightly... Others begin to smile, amused... You hear a few chuckles throughout the little crowd...
After I won a couple of Bible Bees, I became famous in our little group. Just like in Spelling Bees at school, whichever team captain won the coin toss to make the first choice... had the greatest chance of winning the game, because they could choose the best verse quoter, which was usually not the pastor, but me.
Sounds like I'm Bragging, big time, doesn't it? Absolutely, I am bragging, even though I didn't brag out loud back in those days. I would just smile quietly and look down at my feet as if I were shy. Or gracious. Or something nice. Inside, though, what I was thinking was filled with pride... and if you read the Bible, you know what pride goeth before: A Big Fat Fall.
It sure is a good thing the Lord is loving and merciful, and brings us along to know Him better as time goes by. I thought I was a fast learner in those days, but looking back, I see it took me a long time to learn the most important things.
The most important idea in the Bible is hinted in those two verses quoted above. The idea is that God created people, loved them, wanted their love in return, but gave them a choice to Love Him or Not. People chose to love themselves. Thus began the great battle against the evil one who wants people to worship the Self. God's answer was to raise up a people through Abraham's descendants who would write down His words and preserve His laws until the time He would send His Son to take on Himself the punishment for the sins of all mankind who would believe in Him.
So "Jesus wept..."
That shows God loving people even though we've all sinned. Jesus was at the tomb of Lazarus who had been dead four days. He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. Why was He crying? Someone right there said it: "Behold how He loved him!" And that's exactly why all the rest of us who love Him will live again after we die.
Esther 8:9 is the turning point in the story of a Jewish girl who became a queen in the Persian Empire while the Jews were in captivity of their enemies. Someone had made a plot to destroy all the Jews, but God would not let the children of Abraham that He had preserved for hundreds of years as His people be destroyed, so He raised up Mordecai, the uncle of Queen Esther, and wrote a document to permit the Jews to defend themselves.
That shows God giving His people power to preserve the ancestral line through which Jesus came into the world, as had been prophesied that He would.
This war between good and evil has raged throughout my life. I've been full of Pride and then had Big Fat Falls. I've read the Bible through, more than once, following a plan to do it in a year. The results was good in that I exposed myself to the Word of God, but less than good that I viewed my Self as having done a good thing, and patted my Self on the back even if no other Self noticed.
Late in life, a couple of years ago, I started through the Bible again, but this time I decided I would read just a little every day, and really think about it. It has been a wonderful, humbling experience. I was amazed at the "nuggets" I found in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. I don't know how many times I wrote in accompanying journal, "I wonder..." I didn't feel I had to have the answer right then. I just let it simmer, like bean soup. Amazing it was, how God turned His Light into my dark corners.
I'm so glad God loved us so much He wept...
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