day 1011: Ridicule

"And then they ridiculed Him"

Here in Silicon Valley, where I live, we get used to bold and broad statements when someone is pitching a new business or raising money.  These kinds of words get strung together all the time: Revolutionary, First, End-to-End, World-Class, Platform, Answer, etc.  And believe me, if you have ever sat in any of these demos or presentations you have heard them all used over and over.  Sometimes the claims can be so bold and so audacious that the entrepreneur will get ridiculed and heckled in front of the audience.  But, that is the way of innovation and doing something no one else has ever done before.  Many an innovator and inventor has been ridiculed only to later be praised for being able to see something that no one else could.  Being first brings out the hecklers and the naysayers.  Even inside of our businesses we ridicule new ideas and we are only lucky if that great mind sticks around with us after they have been shot down over and over.  The question we need to ask ourselves is, " Are we building and sustaining cultures that encourage the hecklers and those who ridicule first, or are we fighting against the trend and ensuring that great ideas, new thoughts, innovative ways, and sparks of creativity can come forward and be positively recognized?"

Jesus was not afraid of ridicule.  He ministered for three years and while we don't have an hour by hour account of His life (imagine how cool it would be if we did) we know enough that wherever He went there were those who followed Him to heckle and ridicule.  In the account of the healing of Jairus' daughter Talitha He was ridiculed for saying that Talitha was only sleeping and was not dead.  What I get from this is that Jesus was modeling for us that when we believe in something that we and others might not be able to see and we speak into these beliefs that we can expect, and should be ready,  to be ridiculed, or at the least challenged and scoffed upon.  It just comes with the territory.  So what to do today, when someone challenges us for defending the truth and the facts, or for standing up for someone else who is being demeaned or belittled, or for turning in early while everyone else goes out on the town?  Well, let's remember that this ridicule is so far less and below from what our Lord suffered that we can take it and live with it and know that He, the only One that truly matters, knows the choices that we made.

Reference: Mark 5:40 (New Living Testament)