23 January 2011

23 January 2011

Psalm 63, 98; Isa. 47:1-15; Heb. 10:19-31; John 5:2-18

The nations of the earth rise and fall yet the Lord stands forever. Did the people of Babylon ever expect to come to nothing? They served a purpose in the Lord’s judgment on His people yet they did not pay Him homage or recognize Him and now He announces that their day is done and His judgment will come against them. Jonah longed to give this prophetic word against Nineveh but the time had not yet come and He was not chosen for that task. We need to be careful that we do not put our trust in things temporal but in the eternal and there is only One who is eternal.

Jesus asked the man a simple question, “Do you want to be healed?” The response was based in the man’s faith that he would be healed in the pool. The healer was present and speaking to him and, to his credit, he made a faith-based response to Jesus’ command to get up and take up his bed and walk and received a miraculous healing. The taking up of the bed and walking on the Sabbath was considered work under the Jewish interpretation of the law and Jesus commanded it so He was considered a law-breaker as well so the legalism police get involved in the investigation. Not only was He ignoring their law, He made the claim that it was His prerogative to do so because His Father was working until now as well, what God could do He could do also. It is easy to understand why the leaders were upset with Him. If a man today made similar statements we would be a bit perturbed as well, but if he were doing what Jesus did, I would hope we would pay more attention to that before we formed a judgment about him.

We have been given the Gospel, the Good News that God is not at enmity with creation in a general sense. Creation is at war with the creator by denying Him its worship and honor, denying His existence even. The Gospel tells us that in spite of that God continues to love the world and offers us a chance to change sides and to escape the judgment that He has announced from the start and to have eternal life with Him. If we choose to reject both God as creator and God the Son in His sacrifice for our sins, is that His fault? If I were in need of saving from a house fire and told the firemen who were there to rescue me that I had another idea about how that should work and rejected their offer would it be right to be upset with them when my way didn’t work? Our response to the Gospel is the most important decision we will ever make and it only begins with acceptance, the real work is the establishing of God’s kingdom in me, reorienting my life beginning at the level of understanding good and evil from God’s perspective and changing my will to desire His definition of good.

Because your steadfast love is better than life,

my lips will praise you.

So I will bless you as long as I live;

in your name I will lift up my hands.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,

and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,

when I remember you upon my bed,

and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

for you have been my help,

and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.