There are two groups of people here who it would be
difficult to imagine being part of aren’t there? The first group is the people of Jericho who
are shut up inside the city walls, no one either coming or going. They are waiting for a siege. They see this overwhelming group of people
outside the city of whom they have heard things that can hardly be believed in
the forty years since they left Egypt. They
are in fear and yet, what in the world are these people doing marching around
the city blowing their trumpets and carrying the ark on long poles every
day? The second group are the Israelites
who have heard that Joshua's plan is to march round Jericho each day for seven
days blowing those trumpets. Doesn't
really sound like a plan of conquest does it?
They must have looked a sight walking around the city and then retiring
to the camp. The city had to be
suffering after receiving no provisions for a week.
The disciples probably wondered about Jesus as the people of
Israel had wondered about Joshua. What was
He talking about that the bread was His body and the wine His blood of the new
covenant? They were thinking that this
was it, the final Passover prior to the fulfillment of not only the prophecy
but the hopes for the kingdom being restored and here Jesus was talking about
what sounded like death. He is still
talking about the coming of the kingdom but the metaphors and symbols aren't
sensible to them. As they go to the
Mount of Olives Jesus tells that something is going to go horribly wrong and
Peter, God bless him, stakes his claim to being the most faithful
disciple. No matter what these other
weaklings may do, Peter will never leave Jesus.
Jesus prophesies that Peter's betrayal will be the worst of all. He isn't the man he thinks he is.
In light of so many evil governmental regimes in the world how
can Paul possibly say, "there is no authority except from God, and those
that exist have been instituted by God"?
If we have learned anything in the first two lessons today we have
certainly learned that sometimes God does things or allows things that make absolutely
no sense to us at all. Paul can say
these things because he believes in the sovereignty of God as much as any man
who ever lived. He is writing here to
the church in Rome, a place he wants to visit and in fact he will visit Rome,
as a prisoner, and he will die there because of the governmental
authorities. Along the way, however, he
submits to their authority with the same attitude Jesus took to Pilate when He
said, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you
from above." The sovereignty of God
in all things means that sometimes we will simply have to believe it to be true
even when it looks differently to us. Trust
and obey have to be our mantra in those times.
No comments:
Post a Comment