God offers message of hope, truth, love

The latest Spider-Man movie has a character who says, “People, they need to believe. And nowadays, they’ll believe anything.” It was not Peter Parker’s line, but it stuck.

I think it’s true — about people needing to believe. As if we instinctually recognize the need for something “other” than ourselves. A place in the Psalms says that God “remembered that they were but flesh, A breath that passes and does not return.” We’re flimsy folk when it comes down to it.

The Spider-Man quote continues, “And nowadays, they’ll believe anything.” An apt catch-all. Anything leaves nothing out. It means don’t surprised by what 21st century people believe.

There is a startling passage in the Bible where God declares, “They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns that can hold no water.” A broken cistern belief is useless.

Jesus recognized this. He saw the crowds and “felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.” Distressed and dispirited people then — and now. Hoping the cistern holds.

He explained in a parable, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep.”

Jesus is saying He has a deep personal interest in the distressed and dispirited — enough to lay down His life for them. Because according to the Book that’s what it took for God to forgive the world’s broken cistern litter and offer eternal, living water in Jesus’ name.

Some might toss this in the “believe anything” drawer. But for me it is a message of hope and truth and encouragement and strength. A message — and a Someone — I can genuinely believe in.