Wisdom
When dining out, salad bars and buffet tables offer a wide variety of items from which to choose. That goes for Chinese restaurants too. You pay one price and then you are permitted to eat as much as you please. People like the variety and value for the food they can choose for themselves.
Can you imagine a salad bar with only lettuce and tomato? Can you imagine a buffet table with only two or three entrees? There was a time when Ford Motor Company was getting started and offered customers the shiny new automobiles in the only color available, which was black. Automobiles today come in all the colors of the rainbow. People like choices, variety, having alternatives from which they can choose. To offer only two items at a salad bar or three entrees at a buffet, even one color for an automobile wouldn’t be good for business.
Human beings have the capacity for selecting many things in life which suits their personality and abilities, choosing likes and dislikes, including friendships on Facebook or religious preferences. When Joshua was addressing the Israelites, he told them “choose this day whom you will serve” and listed the many other deities in Canaan that were popular. But then he stressed his preference: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). He alone was the God of salvation.
St. Paul would write the Ephesians in Asia Minor to “look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise” (Ephesians 5:15). While “variety” may be “the spice of life” so to speak, there were really only one course to follow for the Christian believer, and that was to seek God’s wisdom and guidance in all things. He had given Israel the Ten Commandments, but any true believer knew that keeping their commands and ordinances, laws and regulations perfectly was impossible. All the temple sacrifices repeated over and over and over and over again only pointed to the ultimate atoning sacrifice God Himself would have to fulfill. He had promised a Savior long ago to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15), who sinned and caused all creation to go tumbling down, awaiting redemption.
In the “fullness of time,” Paul wrote, “God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under law, to redeem those who were under law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). God Himself, Immanuel, “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14) came, taking on our flesh and blood, and being sinless yet possessing human characteristics, like getting hungry or tired, feeling pain and joy, Jesus ministered to the people, fulfilling the law’s demands and eventually atoning for the sins of the whole world by being put to death on a cross by His opponents, who wanted the choice of fending for themselves.
When Jesus preached to the multitudes, He made it clear that there was only one way into God’s kingdom and that was to be “born again of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). Some felt they were good enough as they were and didn’t want to change. That was not the wise way to live. Others felt the need to repent and look to the Lord for mercy, which He happily gave them, by His Gospel of grace, in Baptism, and His Supper, teaching them that He was God’s Word of true wisdom.
Today there is religious variety, choices and variables to select, but as far as Jesus was concerned, He spoke of Himself as “the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6:51). No choices, variety, substitutes, or variables. It’s Jesus or nothing. He’s the only nourishment necessary to preserve a person’s immortal soul. Wise souls are refreshed with His sustenance now and always.