The people are afraid of the surrounding nations and decide
that it would be good to begin to worship so they rebuild the altar for
sacrifices. The city is being re-inhabited
and rebuilt but it must have been a pitiable sight at the time. They built the altar, simply a big grill, in
the midst of the city and began to bring the sacrifices required by the law and
kept them burning day and night as a supplication to the Lord. Their expectation would have been that he
would have then provided protection from the enemies round about them. Finally, they determine also that they need
to rebuild the temple and on the day the foundation was laid they had a worship
event with great fanfare. There were
those present, however, who remembered the glory of Solomon’s temple and their
wailing at that memory became indistinguishable from the praises of the
others. The Christian life and Christian
worship should always be this same mixture of celebration and mourning. Celebration for what God has done but
mourning over the necessity of His having to do it, celebration of His goodness
and faithfulness and mourning over our sin.
Jesus heals a demon-oppressed man who is blind and
mute. The crowds acclaim Him but the
Pharisees accuse Jesus of having powers that come from Beelzebul with which to
do such works. Jesus’ argument is that
this makes no sense logically and it also begs the question of by what power
others perform these works. I would say
that Jesus gets a little testy regarding the idea of blaspheming the Holy
Spirit wouldn’t you? If you want to see
a passage that bespeaks the Trinity this would be the one. If you can be forgiven for blasphemy against
Jesus but not the Spirit, it would certainly elevate the Spirit from simply
some manifestation of God’s presence to personhood and equality with God. Blasphemy, in Judaism, would be reserved only
for slander against God.
As he closes his letter, Paul speaks of several other men
who are brothers in the faith and co-laborers for the Gospel, some of whom are
coming to visit the Corinthians and some who have come to him from this
church. The cross pollination of the
early church was due in some part to their identity as a persecuted minority in
the cultures in which they were situated.
They were as vulnerable as the people in Jerusalem at the time Ezra writes
and they needed one another, the reassurance of others who were keeping the
faith. It is important that we not grow
insular in our little church world, that we have ties with brothers and sisters
in our workplaces, in our schools, and across denominational lines, that we be
reminded we are not alone. The Holy
Spirit is the tie which binds us with one another, wherever we may attend
church and wherever we may be in the world, that is not something to be taken
for granted or taken lightly. If we don’t
feel the need for them, it may well be they feel the need of us.
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