Grace & Efren

But he passed through the midst of them and went away

Luke 4:30

This the last line of the gospel for today. To sum up everything before this, Jesus basically walked into town and pissed the town off by essentially saying “change your unhealthy ways.” He even talked about their heritage and how they got screwed because they didn’t change. They then chased him to the edge of town which happened to be a cliff, wanting to chuck him down it. Then… ‘he passed through the midst of them and went away.’ Quite harsh.

Being told that you suck is never an easy thing to take. When someone with an outside perspective lays out the truth, I can’t help but get defensive. After all, they’re talking directly about me, my thinking, and my rationale for doing things (or not doing things). I really do want to throw this truth-telling person off a cliff for cracking my ego.

But I have to realize that truth will always find a way. No matter if I throw this person off a cliff or not, it doesn’t change the fact that this person was right. So truth, like Jesus in this gospel, passed through the crowd and went away. You can’t kill the truth, or worse yet, hide it. Especially after it’s been said. But it will eventually be back somehow, and it may not be so nice when it does.

So when truth comes back into town, I gotta put the armour on my skin, and off of my heart, and not the other way around.