What Jesus Has Done For Us (ft. Ravi Zacharias)Sample

Day Two: Jesus Makes it Possible for Us to Understand

As a young lad, I remember reading a story about Sir Isaac Newton that left a profound impression on me. He had worked for hours on his scientific inquiries into the very core of the physical universe exhaustedly laboring by candlelight. By his side over the weeks sat his beloved dog.

On one occasion when Newton left the room for a moment, the dog jumped up to follow him and inadvertently bumped into the side of the desk, knocking over the candle and setting the papers ablaze. All that seminal work was reduced in moments to a pile of ashes.

When Newton returned to his study to see what remained of his work, his heart was broken beyond repair. Rescuing what little was left of the room, he sat down and wept with his face in his hands. Gently stroking the dog, he said, “You will never, never know what you have done.”

Even if it were possible for the dog to grasp that something tragic had happened, it was impossible for the creature to know the kind of tragedy, not just the degree of what had been done.

By analogy, that kind of essential distance is what makes our situation so manifestly impossible. Living in an evil world makes it much easier for me to understand my own wickedness than to think the crystal-clear terms of perfect purity. In his biography of Mother Teresa, Christopher Hitchens set out as his goal to find something that would mar her character. He said of Mother Teresa, “She is the great white whale for the atheist in me.” So he had to play Ahab and bleed her.

How revealing that is of human nature. We resent the indictment purity brings. Is it any wonder that we cannot understand God? This gap is not only one of morality; it is one of capacity. It is easier for me to think in terms of time than for me to think in terms of eternity. How can I ever explain the dwelling of a perfect Being in eternity when by being is so locked into imperfection and time? How can I understand the supernatural when I am so bound by the natural?

Jesus came to remind us that we who are bound to the temporal subsist without life’s blueprint. Though we continue to exist, we miss life for what it was meant to be. He wants us to see what it means to live through the lens of the eternal. That takes place when He makes our lives His home. There, He has promised to bless us. (pp. 36-37)