10 January 2011

10 January 2011

Psalm 1, 2, 3; Isa. 40:12-23; Eph. 1:1-14; Mark 1:1-13

Isaiah asks us to consider the Lord compared to all else. In order to help us along Isaiah gives us some perspective from which to begin the comparison, He created all things and was before all things. The prophet invites us to consider the questions, “Who taught Him wisdom, justice and knowledge?” Those questions open great vistas of thought to us as we see that we are, in comparison, insignificant. How could we hope to reason with such a God? How could we hope to have relationship with such a God as this? Submission seems to be the only answer here. Does rebellion against Him make any sense at all? Creation is the place where the story begins in many ways but Isaiah understands that creation is only the beginning of us, not the beginning of God and that reality makes a great deal of difference. He is the only eternal and He is not changed and does not change. If we would orient our lives to true north for all of our days, we would set our eyes on Him.

John knew that the purpose of his life was not found within himself. He wasn’t the point of it all, the one who was to come after him was the point. His ministry was focused on preparing a people to receive the one who was to come and in so doing he didn’t focus on them. His message of preparation was incredibly simple, repent. He didn’t give sermons on how to be a better father or how to improve your life, he preached only a message of repentance, getting your life in order to meet a holy God. Do we understand our lives in the same way John did? His only concern was the spiritual life of his hearers and not their physical and material well-being. Do we have a passion for holiness? We are preparing for the eventuality John proclaimed, the Lord coming in judgment. We know that in Jesus we have confidence to stand before the throne but can we do so without excessive shame? What was Jesus’ first action after His baptism, denial of material comforts.

The beginning of the book of Ephesians is an amazing theological and doxological ode. Paul makes incredible theological statements in these few verses and does so in the form of praise, exactly the way theology should be done. If our knowledge of God doesn’t lead to praise of God we got it wrong. Like Isaiah, Paul is humbled by his knowledge of God and he allows that humility to become praise for the reality that God became flesh and dwelt among us in order to save us out of love for us. The doctrine of election, God’s sovereign choice of us for salvation, isn’t a prideful thing, it is the most humbling doctrine imaginable and it recognizes what Isaiah pointed to, that God’s wisdom and ours aren’t the same. There is much that is unknowable to us and so we rest in God’s wisdom and His sovereignty. Sorting it all out is His job and not ours and in the end we find that place of rest for our souls in Jesus.

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree

planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.