I am not sure what my congregation would do if, after the
readings on Sunday morning, I threw a basin of blood on them in order to
confirm that we were all one under the covenant. The eucharist is certainly preferable as a
means of making community. The seventy
leaders and the others who went up the mountain had reason to fear after all
they had seen and heard but when they arrived they ate and drank in the
presence of God. What does it mean that
they saw the God of Israel? There is no
description of Him but there is a statement about what was under His feet,
"as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for
clearness. " Sounds a good bit
like, "before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like
crystal." That was what John described
in Revelation 4, what we sing about as the glassy sea around which all the
saints cast down their golden crowns in the hymn, "Holy, Holy,
Holy." Moses is called up further
while the others remain to settle disputes in his stead. For six days Moses waits, alone, on the
mountain for the Lord to do what He promised re the tablets and finally, on the
seventh day, the Lord calls Moses out of the cloud. Echoes of creation? There is creation going on here, the creation
of a new people, the birth of a nation.
Matthew gives us context for why Jesus was in the region of
Galilee, it fulfilled prophecy.
Matthew's Gospel is richer in references to fulfillment of Old Testament
prophecy than any of the other three.
For that reason it is presumed that he wrote for a Jewish audience and
his aim was to persuade them that Jesus was their Messiah, the one promised in
the Torah. What was Jesus' message when
He began to preach? The same message as
John the Baptist, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." Preparation for the kingdom to come begins
with repentance. In Exodus the people
were called to consecrate themselves for three days prior to God's giving the
Law. We have to be prepared for an
encounter with the living God. That
preparation extends to preparing ourselves for such an encounter in worship on
Sunday as well.
When Paul says the fullness of deity dwells in Jesus bodily
he is saying that if you have seen Jesus you have seen the Father, just as Jesus
said to Philip in John 14. On the
mountain in our first reading it seems likely that what or who they
"saw" was Jesus, just as it is likely that the one with whom Moses
met in the tent of meeting was Jesus.
The work of Jesus at the cross finished all that was necessary to bring
about the kingdom of God in your life.
Paul says, therefore don't let anyone tell you that it is necessary to
keep the festivals of the Old Testament or the dietary restrictions, that was
prelude, this is celebration. These
things are all law and not Gospel, they are religion and not worship and
adoration. We are indeed set free from
the Law by the Spirit. Why does the Law
have such appeal for us when, as Paul writes, it doesn't restrain the desires
of the flesh? Only the Spirit can do
that.
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