“Christ is crutch for wimps” she snorted, looking straight at my dead tired eyes.
I had just entered the nicely lit vacation condo overlooking the ocean to find both friends and family enjoying wine and cheese.
They welcomed me in from my long trans-pacific flight with a glass of wine and a plate of food. It was a welcome relief to the airplane food I had subsided on the past 14 hours.
One friend had just told the newbie in the group about my missions trip in SE Asia.
She continued, “As a psychiatrist of 10,000 years (hyperbole added) I can only say with my ‘expert’ opinion that religion is for the weak of mind.”
Having just arrived, and knowing her view to be the minority in the room, I opted for a shower and another glass of wine over that baited debate.
After all, she was the guest in my family’s vacation condo.
“In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking Him among themselves saying, ‘He saved other; He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!’” Mark 15:31 – 32
Mock Christianity
In the passage, the religious leaders admitted to knowing about Christ’s miracles and therefore His power and used it to mock Him not being able to save Himself – saying that they’d believe only if He could save Himself.
As Christians, we will be mocked for our beliefs no differently than Christ was mocked. People will demand proof to why we believe what we believe. But, what evidence would be enough?
Christ did save others, but people did not believe Him.
Christ rose from the dead. This is the most controversial and highly studied event in all of history – yet no other explanation can be given…
Still, the religious leaders of the time did not believe in spite of all the evidence.
Don’t Mock Back
History is replete with mocker’s turning their lives into a mockery of their own making and it’s to their own folly that they fall.
But those who know the truth of Christ also understand His restraint. He could have come off the cross to save Himself from the pain and agony, the mocking and insults. But, in doing, He would not have won the war against evil.
When people are mocking you, let them. Overtime, their mocking will be drown out by the truth you live. We are called to a different war and a higher ground – we are called to love.
