Three things are missing, truth, justice, and a man to
intercede. Just as with the lack of a
good shepherd, the Lord is forced to take matters into His own hands in order
to restore truth and justice. Wrath and
vengeance are part of the restoration of righteousness. The way in which the Lord brings about
righteousness is through some form of violence.
Does that seem a strange statement given the rest of what Isaiah wrote
concerning the servant of the Lord?
Violence is required to defeat an enemy who has held the people in
bondage. In the case of Jesus, He came
in righteousness to deliver us from the bondage of sin and suffered violence
but what He did was complete the overthrow of satan’s kingdom on earth in those
who believe. The final battle will be indeed
violent as the powers of satan and his servants array themselves for that
skirmish. We are called to be truthful
and seekers of justice and sometimes that feels like violence to those who
oppose the Lord.
Jesus comes back to Cana where the first sign was done and
an official whose son is ill implores Him to come and heal the boy. Why does Jesus suggest that the man won’t
believe without a sign? He has come to
the one man he believes can actually do something, he already believes. The greater sign is to heal simply by a word,
not some gestures or actions. A
wonder-worker would come to the boy and do something and perhaps he would be
healed but Jesus will not “do” such things, He is not a wonder-worker (an
actual designation some gave Him, something like Simon Magus in the book of the
Acts), his power is greater than this, the power that the Father created the
world with, the power to speak healing.
The man indeed believes and his faith is rewarded in the healing of his
son at the very hour Jesus spoke it.
The letter to the church at Smyrna is certainly not a
prosperity Gospel is it? Some will be thrown into prison and the reward goes to
those who are faithful unto death. The
Good News, however, is two-fold. The
letter is written from, “…the first and the last, who died and came to life”
and the promise is “The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second
death.” This life is all we know and we
cling to it as if it were all that will be when we know better because of the
resurrection. There are two things
against the church at Pergamum. The
first has to do with holding to the teaching of Balaam and also it reflects on
the prohibitions given in the Jerusalem council from Acts 15, against sexual
immorality and the eating of food you know has been sacrificed to idols. The second problem is apparently related to
the first, the Nicolatians sin. This sin
seems to have been sexual in nature. To
those who repent and conquers this sin, the promise of life is made. Some have to die for the faith while others
simply have to commit to righteousness.
We don’t know what the price of that commitment will be. For Jesus, it
was the cross, but the road to the cross begins with saying no to temptation.
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