“What did this people do to you that you have brought such a
great sin upon them?” Good
question. Indeed, why did Aaron fail to
lead? It is a continual problem for the
nation. Saul will fail because he said
he feared the people regarding the utter destruction of the Amalekites. We are a people who are man fearers and man
pleasers rather than God fearers and God pleasers. Jesus always got that right, never chose to
please Himself or others, never stroked His own ego or protected His reputation
among men, and definitely never did that for others. Aaron needed to stand with God against the
people in faith and failed. Failure
wasn't final though, he was still high priest in the end. Aaron didn't exactly throw the gold in the
fire and have calves pop out, he fashioned them with a tool, but that didn't
fit the narrative of throwing the people under the bus. (Sounds a bit like Adam and Eve doesn't
it?) The Levites take God's side against
their brothers and get an everlasting commitment to be priests. Moses says he will go back up the mountain
for one reason, "perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." What?
How does he do that? He offers to
die for their sin. He can't be the
sacrifice because he is not without blemish of his own. Nice offer, great leadership, but it won't
work.
Jesus ends the Beatitudes, the intro to the Sermon on the
Mount with saying that you are blessed if you align yourself with Him but that
will also mean that you will be reviled and persecuted and all manner of evil
will be falsely said against you for His Name's sake. Doesn't exactly make you want to line up with
Him does it? He does, however, say that
puts you at one with the prophets of old and means you will have great reward
in heaven. He is making some
extraordinary claims for a guy who hasn't been on the scene long. Who is the "you" that is the salt
of the earth and light of the world? In
John He will say that He is the light of the world. The Jews are intended to be both. They are to bring light into the world by
keeping the commandments and by doing "good works" which are properly
called good by virtue of being done in accord with God's will. The people to whom He speaks would hear the
sting in His words of failure. We are to
be those people, salt and light to a world in need of both. We can only be those things by
counter-culturalism, rejecting the applause of men.
The people of Thessalonica turned from idols to serve the
living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven. We don't often think in such terms and how
the Gospel sounds because we are so familiar with it ourselves. It is a powerful claim to say we have the
living and true God and that all others are false gods. It seems so exclusive and the world knows it
and hates that message. The church has
been in retreat on that claim in some quarters because the world hates the
exclusivity of the Gospel but we can't retreat on the truth can we? There are ways to proclaim that truth that
don’t require us to be combative, we speak the truth, in love, but it remains
the truth for the world not against it.
Jesus promised that the only safe place to stand was on the truth. It might get you an unpleasant life but the
rewards are eternal, everlasting. He
died for us, will we stand for Him?
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