The Lord announces the new creation with Jerusalem as the
centerpiece. So splendid will that new
creation be that the former things will not be remembered at all. Along with the new creation of heaven and
earth will be a new people, people who don’t age, children who thrive and
survive. The promise is that the people
of God will dwell safely and securely in the Land and that all life will
flourish. Peace will be the overriding
theme, concluding with the animal kingdom living peaceably together. The reaction to that new creation is to be
rejoicing and the leader of the rejoicing will be the Lord Himself who will “rejoice
in Jerusalem and be glad in my people.” Do
our hearts long for this promise? It is
hard to have a vision of a new creation and to imagine a perfected and sinless
world. We only know this one that is
broken by sin, fallen from its potentialities, and we love it.
Peter makes what he probably thinks is a generous offer of
forgiveness, if his brother sins against him seven times he will forgive. Jesus raises the bar impossibly high, eleven
times as high in fact. Way back in Genesis
4 a man named Lamech, the first polygamist in the Bible, a man the sages believed
to have killed his grandfather Cain, one of, if not the least noble men in the
antediluvian age, said to his wives, “If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then
Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.” Do those
numbers look familiar? Jesus then tells
the parable of the unmerciful or unforgiving servant to illustrate the point
that our forgiveness is contingent on our being forgiving to others. We tend to underestimate the grace we need
from God and to overestimate the grace we need to give others. Our perspective on sin is all wrong. Peter
will later find that he needs much forgiveness from Jesus.
There’s that tree!
The tree of life is accessible to those who wash their robes. It seems like an incredibly simple thing
doesn’t it? Why doesn’t everyone just
wash their robes and access the tree of life so that they may enter the city of
God? Naaman, the Syrian leper who was told
by Elisha that he had to wash in the Jordan nearly didn’t receive healing
because he wanted it his way, not God’s.
If his servant hadn’t intervened, Naaman would have continued to be a
leper for that reason. Those who are
outside are those who refuse to wash their robes, accept that sin is serious
business and come to Jesus. It isn’t His
fault that they won’t come to Him. Sin is
what barred the way to the tree of life.
If we don’t let go of sin and receive His righteousness through the cross,
we have no right to complain about our plight.
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