17 April 2010
Psalm 20, 21; Exod. 17:1-16; 1 Pet. 4:7-19; John 16:16-33

It is human nature to seek to assign blame when things don’t go as planned and more often than not it is God’s leader who gets the blame. At the end of the story of the water, Moses gets it right, the real question was whether God was still with them or not. They had come to Moses and demanded he give them water and one can only imagine what he wanted to say in response. The Lord, however, provided for the need, just in time for the nation’s first battle in war against their enemies. The Amalekites would continue to be a thorn in the flesh of the nation for a long time, it was the failure of Saul to completely wipe them out that led to his rejection as king. The lifting up of the arms of Moses here prefigures the need for others to come in and help lead the people, he cannot do it alone.

The words Jesus speaks here are plain to us but it is almost unimaginable that the disciples understood him at any level. That He was going away but they would see him again would have been incomprehensible to them. They had no idea of death and resurrection and ascension, it had never been done. How could they know joy after the crucifixion of Jesus? He promises, however, not just joy but a joy that is complete. Little did they know that the joy would be based in the hope of eternal life. So much lay ahead of them that they could not understand at the time that Jesus could not explain to them. How do you explain Pentecost in advance? How do you explain the persecution and death they would face? How do you explain that the work they would do would still be bearing fruit 2000 years later and change the lives of billions of people?

Peter sees the end as being near. The early church seems to have lived with the belief that Jesus would swiftly return and all would be taken up into Him and therefore the apostles urged their people to live according to that belief and hold things lightly. They were to live as though Jesus were coming now and be prepared to welcome Him. Whether He is coming today or not for another 2000 years should be immaterial to the way in which we live in the present. We should always live as though He were coming now, living according to the ethical injunction to love one another, which, as Peter says, covers a multitude of sins in that if love is our ethical grid we will keep ourselves from many sins we would otherwise commit. Peter also urges his flock to suffer well. There was an expectation of persecution and hatred of the world that we almost never think about in the west where we have lived in a society long shaped by Christianity but we are moving into a new age where we no longer can expect society to think well of us. We would be well advised to take these words to heart.

Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength!
We will sing and praise your power.