Psalm 119:49-72; Deut. 9:13-21; Heb. 3:12-19; John 2:23-3:15
Moses recalls the episode that threatened the future of the community, the making of the golden calf. They could not wait for him to return and in their impatience they persuaded Aaron to do their bidding. If he was to continue as priest then they needed him to do something useful. It is always a temptation to be useful, to please and appease the people whom we serve. It is also that thing which will quickly destroy our usefulness to the Lord. Moses reminds them that the only reason they still exist is his intercession on their behalf. The Lord was prepared to utterly destroy them and begin again with Moses as He had done with Noah and his family and Moses begged the Lord to have mercy on them. Leaders should always be prepared to intercede on behalf of the people they lead, not join the chorus of those assigning blame.
Many believed in Jesus during this first Passover of His ministry but He didn’t entrust Himself to them. That has always intrigued me. They apparently believed the wrong things for the wrong reasons. Nicodemus comes as a representative of the Pharisees. He states that “we” know you are a teacher come from God. There has clearly been a bit of discussion about Him and they don’t come during the day but rather at night when the crowds aren’t there to hear this conversation. Nicodemus wants to get to know Jesus a bit better, what are His thoughts on some things perhaps but Jesus steals the ball and takes the conversational initiative away. Nicodemus must have walked away from this encounter with his head spinning wondering what in the world Jesus had been talking about in being born again, born from above, born of the Spirit. How could Jesus say that he, a teacher of the Jews, would not see the kingdom of God. Surely he would indeed see it when the king, Messiah, came, but Jesus wasn’t speaking of earthly kingdoms. The good news is that Nicodemus hung in there even when the rest of his party rejected Jesus, and I believe he did see the kingdom of God.
Can God entrust Himself to us? He seems to make a lot of mistakes in this regard, always trusting the wrong people, like me. The writer here makes the point that God’s people tend to be disobedient and because we are we are unable to enter the rest He promises for our souls. We harden our hearts along the way based on our expectations for Him and for our lives. We are easily disappointed in God when His plans and ours diverge. We end up being like our ancestral forebears, all the way back to the Garden, believing there is something good out there but God is not the good because He has kept something from us. Do we believe God is good? We need a God who is both good and great if we are to remain faithful. Does the cross answer that question definitively for you?
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
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