Psalm 72; Jer. 3:6-18; Rom. 1:26-2:11; John 5:1-18
The Lord accuses both Israel and Judah of apostasy and, surprisingly, finds Israel more righteous than Judah in spite of the fact that Israel is continuing to chase after other gods. His accusation against Judah is that they have returned to Him only in pretense, they have taken His Name as vanity. The accusation could be that they have forsaken relationship in favor of religion, they are treating the practice of the faith as magic to entice Him to do their bidding by virtue of their outward observance of His commands. Is that attitude present in western Christianity today? In His accusation here there is still the promise of blessing if they will return to Him, but it will not be all who participate in this blessing, the Lord will choose from among them those who will rebuild the nation.
Jesus does an incredible sign, healing a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years. He had been lying by this pool all that time and in that time had never had a single person there to help him into the pool when it was disturbed and therefore healing was possible. Now is the time for healing, the healer has come. Why does Jesus ask him the question if he wants to be healed? Would he even be in this place if he didn’t? The religious leaders who now use this occasion to question Jesus’ religious bona fides have surely passed this man numerous times and have seen him there for these many years and yet they now see him well, carrying his mat (a no-no on the Sabbath) and they do not give glory to God and come to Jesus, but question Him as a law-breaker. Their religion is a pretense, not done in order to see God but to be respected and admired for their righteousness.
So are we judged by faith or by works? The answer is “yes.” Works reveal faith. Obedience to God’s commands is evidence of faith. In the Great Commission, Jesus tells us to teach disciples to obey everything He commanded. If we don’t have evidence of the Spirit working in a person, real transformation of life and thought, how could we say that they truly believe? I accepted that money makes the world go round and that it is important to life a long time ago and therefore I now insist that it be paid to me on a regular basis for my work. Paul says that God expects us to recognize that believing, having faith in him, will have measurable effects on our lives. We should think and live differently if we believe in the God of the Bible and in the end it is easier to measure our faith by the witness of our lives.
( A little rant is in order today. The Episcopal Lectionary skips verses 26 and 27 of the 1st chapter of Romans that have to do with sexual immorality related to homosexuality. When you go day by day in the lectionary it is not so easy to see, we are still in chapter 1 so yesterday’s lesson was whatever it was and today’s seems to be a continuation but it isn’t. We skip about in Jeremiah a bit but why here in the Epistle? Why should we have skipped these two verses? Clearly an agenda is at work to avoid the teaching on sexuality so that we become indifferent to such things. It is an inexcusable breach of faith to have partitioned the readings in this way. Those who trust the church to guide them through Scripture have been betrayed by their leaders when they do things like this.)
Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God!
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