Watching the news this past week as been unbelievable - seeing people by the hundreds of thousands line up for over 24 hours just to walk by the body of Pope John Paul II. Hearing of pilgrims, from all walks of life, from all over the globe, heading for the Vatican to see a corpse - is amazing.
Watching the people bow down to him - hearing them call him "holy father" - made me feel empty, almost like seeing a god be worshiped and praised.
The scene in Acts 14 came to mind. In Lystra a crippled man is healed. The crowd wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas. Their response? "Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing the good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God . . ."
I live in a place that worships men as well. Statues, tributes and paintings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are everywhere. These men are worshiped - defied to the point that if you do not believe that Smith was a true prophet, you are not considered saved - regardless of how you feel about Jesus!
I know Pope John Paul was a good man - who did a lot of good. (See Mike Cope's blog for a great discussion on this point!) But - he did nothing that deserves being worshiped! No man does!
Let's be careful to confine our worship to the true and living God!
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