“Jesus Our Wisdom”
Proverbs 8:1-4
Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud: “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man.”
How do you find wisdom? If you pay attention to cartoons and jokes, they’ll give you one answer. If you want wisdom, you must climb tall mountains, you must visit temples and religious leaders far, far away. You might even have to become a nun or a monk and live in seclusion, meditating all the time!
There is some truth to this. In many of the religions of the world, wisdom is hard to find. You really do have to do a lot of work to get wisdom. Most people don’t have the time or the energy. “I’ll have to do it in my next life,” they think.
But that’s not how the Lord is. He is like the picture of wisdom in today’s reading. He doesn’t sit at home and wait for us. Instead, He goes looking for us. He stretches out His hand and calls to us. If He can find us at the crossroads, that’s where He’ll be. If we are at the city gates, He’ll look for us there. God has no pride and no shame. He wants us—and He wants us now.
Why in the world would God care about us that much? We know it’s not because of anything wonderful in ourselves. After all, looking inside, what do we see? A mess of foolishness and trouble and mistakes, that’s what. A fool in need of wisdom. A sinner in need of a Savior.
And that’s exactly what we have—because the God we have is wisdom, and He is love. He comes looking for us—even becomes a human being in order to reach us—because that is what His heart is like. He wants us, and He will lay down His life to have us. Forget about “taking his stand at the crossroads,” as wisdom does in the passage—Jesus goes beyond that and lays down His life on a cross right outside the walls of Jerusalem. He suffers, dies, and rises from the dead—not far away in secret, but right in front of all the fools and sinners in the world—the people He loves so desperately, the people who are you and me.
This is our wisdom, Jesus our Savior. This is “Christ crucified … to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23b, 24).
WE PRAY:
Lord Jesus, be my wisdom, and help me to trust in You.
Amen.
Written by Dr. Kari Vo.
Reflection Questions:
1. When you need wisdom, where do you seek it and how?
2. Why does our faith look like foolishness to others?
3. When have you seen God’s way turn out to be truly wise in your own life?
Today’s Bible in a Year Reading:
Psalms 139-141; John 17