“How long is one lap around Churchill Downs?” “What’s the average rainfall in Marion County?” “How much snow do you get here?” “Why is Kentucky called ‘The Bluegrass State’?” “When was the Ark built?” — referring, of course, to the Ark Encounter in Williamstown.
Lori and I had friends from Oklahoma visiting us recently. They had planned the trip to Kentucky for months, arriving with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of people seeing something for the first time. And yet, to many — if not most — of their questions, I responded, feeling every bit the inept tour guide, with the same deflating answer: “I don’t know.”
Their questions reminded me of how much I don’t know about the very place I live. Familiarity is not the same as knowledge. It’s a reminder of how accustomed we grow to our environment and how easily we miss the mystery hidden in the seemingly commonplace. It’s why other detectives are sometimes assigned to reexamine a cold case — fresh eyes sometimes identify missing clues or overlooked suspects that familiarity had rendered invisible. It’s why it’s wise to have others proofread something we write: we see what’s supposed to be there; they see the typo.
Wonder starts with questions — simple, unhurried ones, like “I wonder why?” Children are far better at this than adults, much to the annoyance of adults, which is precisely why children eventually learn that it’s safer not to ask. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, curiosity gets socialized out of us. We trade wonder for efficiency.
Jesus never made that trade. He never lost the initiative to ask questions, and he looked far beyond people’s comfortable assumptions. Remarkably, Jesus asked no fewer than 307 questions in the Gospels. “What about you? Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15). “What are you looking for?” (John 1:38). “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “Why are you anxious?” (Matthew 6:27). “Who touched my clothes?” (Mark 5:30). “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” (Luke 10:26).
Even on the way to the cross, the questions didn’t stop. He asked the weeping women of Jerusalem, “If people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:31). And from the cross itself came the most searching cry in all of human history: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
He didn’t stop asking questions after the resurrection, either. To two confused disciples on the Emmaus road: “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” (Luke 24:17). “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26). To the gathered disciples: “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?” (Luke 24:38). And almost tenderly: “Have you anything here to eat?” (Luke 24:41). To Peter, three times over: “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?” (John 21:15–17). To John: “What is that to you?” (John 21:22).
Jesus may not ask me what the pitch of my roof is, or how often I cut my grass, but he likely has other questions for me. Questions like: “Where are you investing the life I gave you?” Or, “When you saw the hungry stranger, what did you do?”Perhaps, “Do you trust me — not just in the easy seasons, but in the dry ones?” Maybe even, “You say you follow me. Are you willing to follow me anywhere I tell you to go?” These are not questions designed to shame. They are the questions of a Savior who knows us better than we know ourselves, and who asks because he wants us to wrestle honestly with the truth.
I may not know the answers. But I know the Savior. And so I follow — in the words of Anselm of Canterbury, “with a faith that seeks understanding.”