The Clouds in the Distance

Good morning and welcome to another week of church here at the Bridge. I am glad that we can be joined together this morning. I used to think it was funny how adults would talk about the weather. In all honesty its amazing how we often resort to talking about it in conversations. I sometimes wonder if it stems from the agrarian culture that our country is rooted in. Think about it. Almost everyone used to grow their own food in some capacity. From the farmer to the back yard garden the weather would dictate so much of our lives. Today though we don’t have those challenges in fact we spend more time trying to change the weather in our homes to make us more comfortable.

Inevitably though discussions about the weather lead to discussion about the weather man!

The Weatherman

How many of you have been guilty of saying this or something like it?

The Weatherman is the job that you can be wrong more than your right and keep your job.

I am guilty of it. As i am sure that many of us are.

Yet, i got thinking about that this week after I read this mornings passage. I started thinking about how often is the weatherman actually wrong.

I am going to admit this morning that as much as i love to joke about it. The Weather man is right more than we would like to admit.

Now i know what your thinking. No their not. They get it wrong all the time. The problem is that we think about this in terms of the extended forecast instead of the immediate forecast. WE see a week out and there is a snow storm or rain coming. Than as the week goes on we come to find that it changes and we planned around a storm that isn’t going to happen. Or even in the immediate forecast something shifts and the storm misses where you are at.

My personal favorite that I have experienced in living in the Midwest along the I-70 corridor is the shift of weather. It happened in Kansas City, Terre Haute, Here in Bloomington. The weather forecast would depend on which part of the city you lived in. Kansas City you could see snow storms coming but you always had to ask. Is that for the north or south side of the city?

Terre Haute, it was the exact same thing. There could be severe storms that roll across the southern half of the city but travel north a couple miles and nothing.

Even here in Bloomington I can remember multiple times having conversations with Dustin about them getting a storm and we saw nothing up here at the church.

The point is that the weather is fickle and the weather man does their best but the only time that we notice that they miss is when the storms do or don’t come. We forget how many days they predicted its going to be sunny and the temperature are accurate. In fact they are right more than they are wrong but when they are wrong its a big deal.

There you go we just spent several minutes as adults talking about the weather.

THe best part is even Jesus wasn’t immune to talking about the weather.

Luke 12:54–56 NIV

54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?

The Clouds in the Distance

When it comes time for us to predict the weather, it is easy to see the clouds in the distance and know whats coming. We see the dark clouds and we instantly say. The rain is coming. This reminded me of one summer growing up we went to Colorado to go camping. I can remember what seemed like everyday while we were there we would be sitting at the camp site and we would look up at the sky in the distance and you could see the dark clouds and you knew the rain was coming. Sure enough a short time later it would rain for a little bit and than the storm would blow through and you could in turn see it off in the distance moving away. We knew when the rain was coming. Yet, sometimes when we see the clouds in the distance we don’t realize what is happening.

WE see rain and often we hear that idea and we think of the trouble that comes with the rain. We think of the difficulties that rain can bring. Rain can cancel our plans for the day, it can cause damage and floods. The rain is seen as a hardship. It brings fear it brings pain and we look to cry out because that is the way that we interpret the clouds in the distance. We see the storm as pain.

We look at the sky and we see rain. WE know what its going to do. We know how it might affect us but sometimes we miss what the rain really means.

One of the great challenges we face today is that everyone always thinks that Jesus was always nice. I mean Jesus was always love wasn’t he.

Hypocrites!

Jesus gets pretty blunt here. He calls out the crowd for what he sees. Jesus doesn’t shy away from speaking the truth in the moment to the people around him. Think about this for a moment. The crowd knows who Jesus is. They are there listening to him speak. They have heard the stories. Many of them i bet had seen the miracles. They had seen the lame walk. The Blind see. The teachings of Jesus and yet they sit there and they can see the clouds in the distance and they can’t recognize that the rain is coming. They don’t see Jesus and what the message he is sharing.

It makes you wonder if they were willingly being ignorant to the message that Jesus was bringing that day. They didn’t want to see the truth that was coming right before them. They could see the clouds. They knew how to read the clouds yet they didn’t want to honor what it meant for them.

Jesus was challenging them that they could see the message he was bringing and the call to be something more and yet they resisted. The crowd was not just unaware of who Jesus was and what he was saying. No, they were choosing to not see the evidence that was right in front of them. They were being willfully ignorant to everything that was before them.

Truth was right there in front of them. Truth was speaking to them. Yet, they choose to not believe in the very message of the truth that was right there in front of them.

It Saddens me to think that here were people who literally had Jesus right there in front of him and they still would not recognize him. I hope that I am never that bind to the message of the truth.

How do we interpret the Signs?

That is the challenge this morning is to learn to recognize the truth that is in front of us.

I talked earlier about how when we see the storm we often will go to the negative. The rains coming are seen as pain and suffering.

What if i told you we could see the storm as also the chance at life.

The rains bring life.

One of the most amazing things to me when we have consistent rain is how green everything becomes. It is lush and glorious when it rains often enough to bring life to all the plants around us. In fact, it reminds us of how important water is to us. The Farmer needs it to grow his crops. We need it to drink and to live. The rain comes and it brings life. It can be seen as a good thing only when we are ready to see it that way.

It reminds me of how this crowd had Jesus right in front of them but they couldn’t see Jesus for who he was. They couldn’t see Jesus as the bringer of life, and recognize the Kingdom of God and the presences of God amongst them. They couldn’t interpret the signs right in front of them.

So how do we do this.

Prayer

Scriptures

Spirit

We are called to pray when it comes to the things of this world. We need to be always seeking what God wants from us next. He forget that he often will guide and direct us on a regular basis and we need to be constantly seeking him through prayer. Asking God to show us what he has for us.

The Scriptures also can guide us. This crowd had access to the Law and the other prophets and they knew the scriptures and did not want to recognize the signs of who Jesus was and why he was there. We can’t fall prey to the same problems.

We also need to rely on the SPirit to guide us in discerning what the guidance is. THis goes back to that idea that we may see the rain one way and fail to recognize it for what it might actually be.

The Clouds in the Distance

The Clouds can come in. The winds may blow in. The Weather changes. Life changes. We face this reality everyday. However, we can see the movements of life if we are paying attention for them. We can recognize how the Spirit is leading and move with it. WE can open ourselves to what God is doing. We can’t fall prey to the dangers of having Jesus right in front of us though and choosing to ignore the signs. We have to always be ready to step forward in faith to trust in him to rely on him and give him everything as we look to the sky and see the clouds knowing the rain is coming but we see that Jesus is with us that the rain may bring pain or it may bring life but as long as we are living for him then we can be confident that he has us in the storm.