Losing Sight of Reason

(John 7:14-24)
Did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches? There's an interesting perspective on how this came about. The Roman empire is credited in part for the first major road system. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. The width of the chariot was driven primarily by the width of a horse's behind.

Well, there's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's ass. (For this article see http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html).

So how does this relate to John 7. The Jewish people, particularly the leaders, had lost sight of why the law was put in place. The law was intended in part to set them apart, but to also show them their sin (i.e., their inability to fulfill the law). The scripture pointed toward the Christ who would fulfill the law and provide the way of redemption from their sin and restoration of the intended relationship with God. But, they had become so blinded by the rules of the law that they missed the point. Jesus confronts them in John 7 (NLT).

22 But you work on the Sabbath, too, when you obey Moses’ law of circumcision. (Actually, this tradition of circumcision began with the patriarchs, long before the law of Moses.) 23 For if the correct time for circumcising your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it so as not to break the law of Moses. So why should you be angry with me for healing a man on the Sabbath?

God's desire for the Jewish people was that they be set apart to ultimately point nations to him. Circumcision was a sign of that "setting apart" -- a covenant. Yet the symbol became the goal. Keeping the law became the goal. Tradition became the goal. By their traditions, it was okay to perform circumcision on the Sabbath. Yet, when Jesus healed someone they became angry.

Has tradition gotten in our way of doing what is right? Jesus criticized them and issued this rebuke (v24):

Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.

Jesus is calling us to do what's right.The church today is constantly battling tradition versus change. I agree there may be a delicate slope of becoming so much like the world that we're not set apart. But our methods must take into account that there are trends in what interest people Jesus lived in the world and among the people -- yet he was not of the world and he was set apart. If we stay in old methods because they have inadvertently become the goal, we will lose sight of our mission and fail to reach the world around us. New song styles, new technology, and other trends can help us to direct people toward Jesus. When you're weighing the decision, do what's right.