Rachel's envy of her sister's fruitfulness begat blaming
Jacob for her own barrenness which begat Jacob's anger towards her. Recognize that pattern in your own life? She makes the same mistake her kinsman Sarah
made and Jacob makes the mistake his grandfather made, sleeping with his wife's
maid. The result isn't the same here as
with Abraham, although ultimately ten tribes will separate from the others and
two kingdoms will form. We see also the
theme of wrestlings here, just as we did in the womb as the two children, Jacob
and Esau wrestled with one another and as we will see when Jacob wrestles with
the angel of God at the Jabbok. Everyone
in this picture is wrestling with God rather than trusting God. In all things, the Lord is certainly making
Jacob fruitful, much more so than his forebears. Finally, Rachel is able to have her own
child, Joseph. You should always keep an
eye on a child born to a previously barren woman in the Old Testament, all the
way through Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. Then, things change dramatically with Mary. Just when you think you have a familiar
pattern that says this is how God works, He swerves.
The disciples follow up on the theme of believing in a
prosperity Gospel here with the man born blind.
Their question is, "Who sinned this man or his parents that he was
born blind?" If there were always a
causal connection between sin and suffering there would be no prosperity,
health or wealth would there? Jesus'
response is that this has nothing to do with sin, it has to do with God's works
being displayed and then He does that work.
No one had ever heard of a man born blind, never seeing anything, being
healed as Jesus does here. In saying
this He is saying that God is working through Him, He is co-extensive with
God. Then, He breaks the Law by making
mud on the Sabbath and causes the man to work by commanding him to wash it
off. The Pharisees can't see the forest
for the trees, Jesus is not of God because of how He accomplished the healing,
by breaking the Law. Another swerve.
John says that the amazing truth, a truth that was, for
some, unbelievable, is that Jesus was real.
He was a human being and John can testify because he saw, heard and
touched Him, the word of life. This word
was made manifest and John has a first-hand witness and testimony to that truth
no matter what others may say in their unbelief. There was an alternate explanation for Jesus,
that he wasn't really flesh and blood but a spirit in a Jesus suit, hermetically
sealed against contamination by contact with the world. No, if He did not take on flesh and blood He
did not redeem flesh and blood, it is simply a trick God played on us and His
perfectly sinless life means nothing at all for us. We all have sinned, but because of Jesus we
can receive forgiveness. He is light,
the light of the world and to walk apart from Him is to walk in darkness and
denying He came in the flesh is darkness.
We have a Creed that we confess each week together as the defining
belief of the church, the basis for our fellowship with one another is the
confession of the truth. It seems
unbelievable but God swerved and did more than anyone imagined by coming among
us.
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