Mark 12:34
Football
can be an exciting sport to watch. I love it when the ball is on the one foot
line, it is fourth down and only a few seconds on the clock. Oh, by the way,
the score is tied. If they blow this play they almost became the Superbowl
champions. If they make it they become the Superbowl champs. They are so close,
and yet they aren’t there yet. No one in the stands or watching on TV decides
the game is over at this point and gets up to leave. There is too much riding on
those last few inches. In fact, nothing from the rest of the game even matters.
All the previous plays, the interceptions, the incredible runs, the field goals….
They don’t matter.
There
are lots of times in life when ‘almost’ can feel like absolute defeat. Forty
three miles of running can feel like nothing if the race was forty six miles
long. One class short of a degree can feel like failure. Two points short of
passing the MCAT means no medical school. One forgotten turn signal means no
driver’s license on your sixteenth birthday. One terrorist across the border
means thousands dead.
Jesus
concludes His interchange with the teacher of the law who has come to catch Him
so as to convict Him. His original motive for coming was evil. But something
happened in the process. This man gave a very insightful response to Jesus’
answer. While others were stuck on keeping a certain set of rules as a means to
God’s acceptance of them, this man got the role of love in the equation. If
love wasn’t first and foremost, nothing else mattered.
Jesus
responds to his wise answer by telling him that he is very close to the goal
line. Others might be running the wrong direction, or be only on the 50 yard
line, but he is at the one foot line. He is not there, but he is close.
If
you are falling off a cliff and you miss grabbing the branch by an inch, where
do you end up? That is right, the bottom. What if you miss it by a mile? It
makes no difference if it is by an inch or by a mile, both end up at the
bottom. In the final analysis, close isn’t any better than far away.
If
this man doesn’t take the last step toward Jesus, his fate will be just like
all the others who came to question Jesus.
So
many people today are “not far” from the kingdom. They exist around the
fringes, or they are in a congregation that sugarcoats or rationalizes away the
offensive parts of the Gospel. If we don’t hear about sin and its eternally bad
consequences, then we are missing an essential element of the Good News. If
Hell doesn’t exist, from what did Jesus save us? If sin isn’t so bad, then why
die on a Cross? If every behavior is acceptable, then why does Scripture call
us to be holy like God is holy? If we have all crossed the goal line, everyone
getting heaven, then why do we complain about injustice and inequity? None of
it matters. These few years here are nothing. Our choices are nothing.
But
sin does exist, and not too far from each one of us. We must admit its presence
and grasp the only solution in order to go the last foot.