God's foolishness and man's wisdom

God's foolishness and man's wisdom

Mario D'Couto 

  When I had seen the movie, "Karol" I was in particular taken up by a dialogue from the movie which goes thus, "The foolishness of God is better than the wisdom of human origin."

   It is interesting to see how Jesus tackled those issues where He was tested. In fact, we might just say that His whole life was a test. Right from the experience in the desert to His death on the Cross, He was tested. In this article, we shall see how He did those things. There are 3 instances that come to my mind in this regard, 

1) When the woman was caught in adultery, it was done on purpose to trap Jesus. But it is very interesting to see the way Jesus handles the issue. The Gospels tell us that Jesus was writing something on the ground when the Pharisees had brought her to Him. What was He writing? We do not know. But according to some scripture scholars, they are of the opinion that Jesus had already anticipated the issue and probably Jesus may have been writing her sins, not so much to condemn her but to forgive her. It is no wonder that Jesus handles it so beautifully when He asks, "He who is without sin let him cast the first stone" to which everybody leaves. The Pharisees thought that they could trap Jesus but God's wisdom is far superior that there are no words to describe it nor can it be understood. In fact God is Wisdom itself, as it is written so beautifully in the book of Isaiah, "My thoughts and My ways are higher than yours" (Isaiah 55:9)

2) The second instance is found in Mt 21: 23 - 26, Mk 11:27 - 33 and Lk 20: 1-8, where the Pharisees ask Jesus about where He got the authority to do what He does. Jesus replies back with a counter question to which they could not answer because they were trapped. This only goes to show that God is far superior. This is beautifully illustrated in the book of Job where God replies back to Job's complain as is seen in Job 38 - 41.

3) Finally, the last instance is during the condemnation of Jesus before His crucifixion. Blessed Mary of Agreda describes the events of this incident very vividly in her book, 'The Mystical City of God,' in which she writes about how the Pharisees and the Scribes, instigated by the wrath of Satan, try to instigate Jesus in acknowledging Himself to be the Messiah. This is how she explains it,

"They again asked Him to tell them, whether He was the Christ (Lk 22:1) that is, the Anointed. Just as it was in the case of all the previous questions, so this was put with the malicious determination not to listen or to admit the truth, but to calumniate and fabricate a charge against Him. But the Lord, being perfectly willing to die for the truth, denied it not; at the same time He did not wish to confess it in such a way that if the Pharisees chose to yield even to the least kindly feeling, they would be able to trace up the mystery hidden in His words; but if they had no such feeling, then should it become clear through their answer, that the evil which they imputed to Him was the result of their wicked intention and by not in His answer. He therefore said to them: 'If I tell you that I am He whom you ask, you will not believe what I say; and if i shall ask you, you will not answer nor release Me. But I tell you that the Son of Man, after this, shall seat Himself at the right hand of the power of God' (Lk 22:67) The priest answered, 'Then thou art the Son of God?' and the Lord replied, 'You say that I am.' This was as if He said: you have made a very correct inference, that I am the Son of God; for My works, My doctrines and your scriptures, as well as what you are now doing with Me, testify to the fact, that I am the Christ, the One promised in the law."      

   Thus, we see how God's wisdom works. St. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, "God purposely chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful' (1 Corinthians 1:27), If ever we thought that we don't have what it takes to be with God we should only keep in mind  the following examples: Abraham was old, Jacob was insecure, Leah was unattractive, Joseph was abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was poor, Samson was codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had an affair and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal, Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was a widow, John the Baptist was eccentric, Peter was impulsive and hot tempered, Martha worried a lot, the Samaritan woman had many failed marriages, Zaccheus was unpopular, Thomas had doubts, Paul had poor health and Timothy was timid. That is quite a variety of misfits! Yet God used each of them in His service. That is God's wisdom! We will never be able to understand with our finite human understanding. It is only through the eyes of faith will we be able to make sense of the daily events in life i.e. from God's perspective.    

Popular posts from this blog

In the world yet not of the world

Image
  IN THE WORLD YET NOT OF THE WORLD MARIO D’COUTO           Being in the world and yet not of it is something that can be a struggle, at least for me and what I mean by that is in as much as we desire to be good and to do good, God is not going to put a glass jar over us and say that just because we choose to love Him and follow Him more closely, that He is going to shield us from the temptations of this world. To make things clear though, this is not to say that the world in itself is bad or evil nor are the things found in the world either but how we deal with it is what will make us or break us. We all have responsibilities and important things that need our attention. If we are not careful though, our hearts and minds can be consumed with the task of keeping them afloat. Rather than centering ourselves in Christ and letting the other elements of our lives take their rightful place around that center, we can end up shifting our attention fr...
Read more

The Gift of Life

  THE GIFT OF LIFE  Mario D’Couto  The above video may seem to put human existence in a rather pessimistic way as if to say that our lives did not really matter and while no doubt there is some element of truth in it, I still feel that if lived well, there is meaning and purpose to our lives and that none of our lives is some sort of haphazard creation.  As I celebrate my gift of life tomorrow, I suddenly began to think that if we compare ourselves to the vastness of the universe and everything else that exists in it, we may perhaps be nothing more than a tiny dot floating on the surface of the earth and yet in as much as such a thing may appear insignificant, the One who created everything chooses to have a personal relationship with that tiny dot, that is, ourselves. This is something truly uplifting, which gives meaning and purpose to our lives and our existence. At the same time, it is also a reminder for us to stay grounded especially in those moments when w...
Read more

Are you creative?

Image
  ARE YOU CREATIVE? Mario D’Couto                         Can you imagine a world without creativity? What would the world look like if there was no creativity? Well, for all we can expect, it would be pretty boring and dull. There would be no speech, no songs, no tools, no ideas such as love, freedom or democracy. It would be an existence so mechanical and impoverished that none of us would want to be a part of.             To achieve the kind of world we consider human, some people had to dare to break the thrall of tradition. Next, they had to find ways of recording those new ideas or procedures that improved on what went on before. Finally, they had to find ways of transmitting the new knowledge to the generation to come. Those who were involved in this process we call creative. What we call culture or those parts of our selves that we internalized from the social...
Read more