(The
omitted portion of the Old Testament lesson is the list of the names of the
spies.)
The
Lord commands Moses to send spies into
the land and they come back with a mixed report. On the one hand, the land is indeed flowing
with milk and honey. On the other, the
people groups who live there are large and they have fortified cities, they
won’t be conquered easily. The people
want no part of battle, they have been slaves, not soldiers. Caleb does his best to quiet the people’s
fears and doubts. The mission God gives
is never something we can do ourselves or in our own strength, if we undertake
what we are able to do in our own power we will never have the joy of seeing
God do His work. He knew how this would
turn out, they weren’t prepared to walk in faith at this level. It was still too easy to go back to Egypt.
Forgiveness
is to be our way of life. We are to live
as Jesus died, arms wide open to embrace those who have sinned against us,
praying for the Father to forgive them, ready to reconcile. That usually isn’t my first response, or my
second. It takes time when someone has
hurt us to be prepared to reconcile.
Unfortunately, rarely does anyone take responsibility for their
sin. In my experience it is
uncommon. The servant has no choice but
to affirm this massive debt to his master, it is an inconceivable amount to owe
anyone. The forgiveness he receives on
this debt is, likewise, unimaginable. It
is important for us to recognize the vast debt we owe to the Lord that has been
forgiven in order to become a people who are able and willing to extend
forgiveness. It takes faith to forgive,
the faith that our own sins have been wiped out.
Is
righteousness simply acknowledging Jesus as Messiah? It would certainly seem to be a corollary to
Paul’s argument that if circumcision on its own means nothing without living
according to the law then baptism without righteous living is meaningless. Life means something. I am reading NT Wright’s book, “When God Became King” just now and his central thesis
is that we as Christians too often overlook the life of Jesus, we care about
the virgin birth, the atoning death on the cross, and the resurrection but we
don’t pay much attention to His life.
His life, however, reveals to us the contours of righteousness and the
contours of our own lives, He has shown us how to live in faith and
righteousness. We need that example in
order to not make the mistakes God’s people have always made, we need to know
how life is supposed to be lived in a sinful world. We need to learn to live beyond our fears and
doubts.
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