For eighteen years the people of God served the king of
Moab. Then they cried out. So we have a left handed man and a fat
man. A left-handed man would have been
considered to be handicapped and unfit for soldiery, but it also meant that
when he was searched no one would have noticed anything amiss on his opposite
thigh. He was able to conceal the
two-edged sword because no one suspected it.
This is an earthy story to say the least, when he left the sword in the
king, the dung came out and then, with the doors locked the attendants believed
the king must be relieving himself so they remain outside until they were
"embarrassed" that it was requiring such a long time. The courage of one man turned the tide in
favor of the Israelites and Moab's yoke was broken.
Matthew gives us details about what happened at the moment
of Jesus' death that the other writers do not such as those who had died coming
back from the dead and entering the city.
I have no idea what to make of that information but Matthew is quite
clear that it happened. When Jesus cries
out from the cross what we know as the cry of dereliction, "My God, my God,
why have You forsaken Me" we need to understand its context, it is a quote
from Psalm 22. That psalm is one of
deliverance and ends with the certainty that one day all will praise and
worship the Lord who delivers the psalmist.
It is like Jonah's cry from the belly of the whale which recounts the
situation but with eyes of faith proclaims, "Salvation comes from the
Lord." Jesus has not given up hope,
this is, in fact, a victory cry.
The disciples spend a glorious forty days seeing Jesus after
the crucifixion and resurrection prior to His ascension. As I have often said, if you want to know
what happened next you should read Revelation 5 and see the Lamb looking like
it was slain appearing before the throne.
The disciples are still thinking in terms of earthly kingdoms though,
they believe the power to be some earthly power. They don't get it yet. Do we?
We are given a mission and the power with which to do it, pray, proclaim
and work for the kingdom to come, His will to be done, on earth as it already
is in heaven, starting in us. We have a
two-edged sword like Ehud possessed, the Word of God, with which to fight this
battle. We know that the what looks like
dereliction is indeed a victory cry, let us go forth into the fray.
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