Did you notice all the gods that were worshipped in the land
at the time of Josiah’s reforms? What a
list: the baals, Asherah, the sun, moon, constellations, the host of heavens,
Molech, Chemosh, the golden calves of Jeroboam, and all the high places. What a mess the nation had become! Josiah’s commitment to restoration of true
worship was amazing and we have to wonder what the people thought and how they
reacted to his reforms, the defilement and destruction of all these worship
centers. They had become accustomed to
worshipping at the places and entreating these gods and now they were unable to
continue. Eighteen years it took to
eradicate all this idol worship from the land prior to the Passover celebration
that was unlike any that had been since the time of the judges. “Before him there was no king like him, who
turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his
might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.” That is, on one hand, a wonderful thing, and
on the other, a terrible thing.
Shamefully, it wouldn’t last.
As Jesus comes into the town, he is met by a “ruler”, who we
know from Mark is a synagogue ruler, who implores Jesus to come lay hands on
his daughter who has “just died” so that she may be raised again to life. We can assume that he had heard about the
raising of the son of the widow of Nain and this was the hope that animated
this request. Along the way, a woman
with an issue of blood touches Jesus, which would have caused Him to be defiled
and her a pariah, but instead she is instantly healed. The logic of defilement is that unclean
defiles clean on contact but what if, as happened here, unclean is made
clean? Such a thing isn’t anticipated in
the law, only God can heal and make clean that which is unclean. The ruler doesn’t care about all that though,
he is desperate to get his daughter back.
When Jesus arrives the mourning is in full swing, a commotion surrounds
the scene. Jesus dismisses them and they
laugh Him to scorn for being foolish in believing He can reverse death and yet,
He does!
We all have spiritual gifts.
The Spirit enables the Body to function as Christ functioned. He was and is complete in Himself, we are
interdependent, we need one another and we need to take our own place in the
body of Christ. None of us have the gift
of congregating, we all have something to offer to the body and when we fail to
do that, the body is incomplete, unable to function properly, weakened. When we all bring our gifts to bear in the
church, it beautifies and strengthens the body in ways that enable it to be a
complete witness to its head, Jesus. How
many people are there out there who are not sharing their gifts? If we valued both our gifts and their use and
encouraged others to use theirs as well, if we saw people as extraordinary and
sought passionately to bring forth their spiritual gifts, what would the body
of Christ look like? What miracles we are
missing through this failure.
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