April 26, 2009

Question from Above

(Please purchase your own copy of Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith.)

What are spiritual questions? They are questions from above. Most questions people ask of Jesus are questions from below, such as the question about which of a woman’s seven husbands she will be married to in the resurrection. Jesus does not answer this question because it comes from a legalistic mind-set. It is a question from below.

Often Jesus responds by changing this question. In the case of the woman with seven husbands he says, “At the resurrection men and women do not marry . . . have you never read what God himself said to you: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’ He is God not of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:23-30).

We have to keep looking for the spiritual questions if we want spiritual answers.