The entry in the Land is also at
Passover. Forty Passovers have come and
gone since they left Egypt on what should have been perhaps a forty day journey
to the Promised Land and now they come across the Jordan and eat the fruit of
the Land. Never again will they eat or
God provide manna. How wonderful it must
have been for them to have something besides the manna but at the same time
there is something bittersweet about that time being complete, Hosea will
prophesy that the Lord will return the wayward people to the wilderness so that
they can bond with Him again as they did in these years. They have been difficult but they have also
been a time when He has been truly the shepherd of the people. Before they move ahead, the commander of the
Lord's army appears to Joshua, the Lord is with them but the commander is clear
that He serves the Lord and not Joshua, they are on the same side so long as
Joshua remains committed to the Lord's way.
The final Passover. There have been Passovers since but truly
this could be seen as the final one as it is fulfilled completely in Jesus'
crucifixion. The Lamb of God takes away
the sins of the whole world, just as John the Baptist said, so what efficacy
does the blood of Passover lambs have now that Jesus has completed the work of salvation? We now eat the fruit of the Promised Land
through the power of the indwelling of the Spirit in our lives. We are in the flesh, still looking for that
country of promise. Why does Matthew
only identify the host for their meal as "a certain man"? The Gospels often fail to provide details
that we might like to have but when they were written some of those people
might well have been still living and to mention their names might cause them
or their families persecution. Jesus names
Judas in answer to his question, how must Judas have felt knowing that Jesus
knew and did nothing to stop him?
These instructions for Christian
living require transformation. Be
patient in tribulation, bless those who persecute you, associate with the lowly
but also outdo one another in showing honor, repay no one evil for evil, don't
avenge yourselves, and “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if
he is thirsty, give him something to drink"? All of those things require me to change from
the way I have already been shaped or conformed, they require me to be softened
in the fire and pounded into a new shape on the anvil. Unfortunately the work of transformation
requires us to be living sacrifices, to choose to go into the furnace and then
with whatever strength we have left to crawl onto the anvil. He will do the work but not without our
cooperation. Such lives are possible, do
we want to be the people He wants us to be or are we satisfied with who we are
now?
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