26 October 2012

Psalm 31; Ecclus. 11:2-20; Rev. 9:13-21; Luke 10:38-42

Again, we see that the Lord is sovereign over all things, we can rest in that truth but we don't seem able to do so, we busy ourselves with many things in order to get for ourselves what we truly want.  In the final few verses of the passage we get this, " One becomes rich through diligence and self-denial, and the reward allotted to him is this: when he says, ‘I have found rest, and now I shall feast on my goods!’ he does not know how long it will be until he leaves them to others and dies."  That sounds very like a parable Jesus tells concerning a rich fool in Luke 12.13-21. 

One thing is necessary, to attend to the word of the Lord.  Jesus came to serve and not to be served.  Martha is doing her duty according to custom, she is working to provide hospitality to her guests, attending to them and serving them.  Mary is acting out of societal norms, women didn't participate in learning the Law from rabbis, they learned it from their husbands, but Mary sits with the other disciples to soak up all that Jesus is teaching and Martha is busy with many things and she is upset with her sister for not helping out.  Jesus, however, commends Mary for her choice and Martha is offered rest if she will but choose the one thing necessary.  We can get so busy serving the Lord that we never take the time to bask in His presence, to allow Him to attend to our needs.  It is a not so subtle trap and a destroyer of our souls.

200 million mounted troops, two-thirds of the population of the United States today,

 are released from the east of the river Euphrates onto the earth and they will kill one third of all the people remaining on the earth. If that were to occur today it would mean the death of 2.3 billion people.  In spite of this wholesale death, the people don't turn to the Lord.  Again, like yesterday's reading of the locust invasion, the plague is brought not by God Himself but instead the angel lets loose what has been bound and kept back.  The protection of God is simply released and the hordes of hell are set free to do their worst to humankind.  We should be thankful each day for God's protection.  Let us never take this life for granted, no matter what troubles we may be experiencing.

25 October 2012

Psalm 37:1-18; Ecclus. 10:1-18; Rev. 9:1-12; Luke 10:25-37

As we prepare to elect a new President of the United States it is good to remember the sovereignty of God.  Both parties run ads and the talk show hosts pontificate that if we elect the other guy it will mean the end of the world as we know it and yet, as Christians, we know that the Lord is in charge of all things, His will is being done.  That does not mean that we should not participate in the process but it means we should not participate in fear.  We, of all people, know that the Lord is in control of all things.  In the midst of the passage is also the reminder that we are but dust and to dust we shall return so where is there room for pride and arrogance.  Humility should be our clothing.

We know nothing of the person who was beaten and robbed.  Jesus doesn't tell us any details about him at all, no nationality, nothing.  All we know is that he needed someone to be a neighbor to him.  The Law made no distinction between an Israelite and a foreigner and neither was there to be a distinction among them in such cases as this.  The priest and the Levite could have done something to help but it is possible that they both were on their way to Jerusalem to serve at the temple and if they came into contact with either blood or a dead body they would be disqualified from that service.  They chose to serve in the temple and the honor that attached to it rather than to serve this man.  Only the Samaritan chose the man, and that was so offensive to the interlocutor that his response to who was the neighbor was, “The one who showed him mercy.”  He couldn’t even bring himself to say, "The Samaritan."  Pride got in the way. 

This part of the vision is particularly terrifying as it is directed at human beings and not for death but for misery, five months of utter misery.  The shaft into the abyss is opened, the Lord's angel has the key to open it, and when it does, it unleashes the power and fury from hell itself of these bizarre creatures led by their angel (fallen), Apollyon, the Destroyer.  What this should tell us is that hatred of humanity comes not from God but from the true enemy of humanity, satan and his angels.  The desire of this one is make life an abomination, surely as in the story of Job, whose life was made detestable in order to entice him to curse the God who gave him life.  In all this, God remains in control of all things, He is the one who sent the angel to open the shaft, but He is not warring against humanity directly.

24 October 2012

Psalm 38; Ecclus. 7:4-14; Rev. 8:1-13; Luke 10:17-24

This passage contains many injunctions that sound very much like Jesus' teachings.  We are told not to seek high office, Jesus said that we are to be like children instead of seeking greatness and we are to humble ourselves as servants to one another.  We are enjoined to righteous living not to multiply sacrifices and Jesus says that we are not acceptable to God due to the multiplicity of our offerings, no matter how much we tithe of things like our spices, we are to keep the "weightier matters" of God's Word.  We are not to grow weary in prayer, Jesus tells the little parable of the persistent widow and calls us to believe we pray to a Father who gives good gifts.  We are not to babble in the assembly of elders, Jesus tells us to keep our prayers simple and in so doing gives His disciples an incredibly short but powerful prayer we know as the Lord's Prayer.  The Apocrypha isn't evil, we simply don't put it on par with the Scriptures.  We receive it as the Jews do, writings that are useful but not Scripture.

The seventy-two return rejoicing at the success of the mission, all that Jesus has sent them to do has been done, they have seen great things.  Jesus rejoices with them but puts it all into perspective by reminding them that the real cause for rejoicing is that their names are written in heaven, they are known by God and when something is written in heaven, it is written forever.  He has given them an everlasting name that will not be cut off (see Isaiah 56).  In response to all this Jesus gives thanks to the Father that He has been faithful and is revealing marvelous things to these disciples.  To the disciples, He tells them that they cannot imagine how thankful they should be, they are seeing things no one has seen before, not Moses, not the prophets, not John the Baptist.  They should rejoice beyond measure.  So should we.

If you rejoice with the angels in Genesis 1 when the Lord speaks and the wonders of His creation are revealed, and what an amazing thing it would be to see as all things come into being, things that never were, then you must also be deeply saddened by the desolation of that creation.  Paul says in Romans that creation gives testimony to its creator and to His will for life on the planet, a testimony some have ignored and acted in disobedience to the revelation.  Does this horrid destruction not also bear witness to the greatness, in the sense of great power, of God as well?  Should those who witness it not tremble in fear?  It seems likely that in our day we would attribute it to something we have done to the environment.  The conclusion that it is the work of God in wrath seems inescapable but we should know by now that we think ourselves to more powerful than we are when it comes to creation, there is no doubt that some would find alternative explanations for God's work of destruction just as they do with creation.  It isn't enough to see great things, properly interpreting them is equally important.

23 October 2012

Psalm 26, 28; Ecclus. 6:5-17; Rev. 7:9-17; Luke 10:1-16

Apparently the writer of Ecclesiasticus has been in ministry.  His advice regarding not trusting anyone too quickly and not having many advisers is sound and a lesson I have painfully learned in my life and in my ministry.  There are indeed all sorts of friends in your life but we should be careful about whom we trust and the kind of people we have close to us.  It is a difficult lesson to learn that not all who want to be close to you can be relied upon and betrayal is more painful within the church than anywhere else but it is also all too real.  There are always those who complain about an inner circle of advisers but generally that reveals something about the one doing the grumbling.  I am thankful for those who have stood with me in tough times and proven themselves more valuable than gold.

Jesus sends out the seventy-two to go and heal and to also proclaim the kingdom has come near to the people to whom they minister.  He sends them out with only the power of God, they are to be fully reliant on God for all they have as they go about the work.  They are to expect people of peace wherever they go and are to bless those who receive them.  If they are rejected, it is also to be expected, but they are not to waste time quarrelling but simply dust off their feet as a sign against them.  The woes Jesus pronounces are on the places where He has already been and proclaimed the kingdom in word and deed and who have not turned towards God in response to the proclamation.  After this, we don't hear of the seventy-two again.  It would seem that this was something like an athletic team where there was a preliminary "cut" and then a final cut to the twelve whom Jesus kept very close with three of those, James, John and Peter being closer still.  Even then, one of the twelve was a betrayer.

The ones around the throne in the white robes are those who have proven themselves faithful and true in the tribulation they have suffered.  Their faithfulness is without question and they now serve to offer praise.  It is certainly an interesting cry, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”  The part that is interesting is the final piece, salvation belongs also to the Lamb.  Remember Jonah's final cry from the belly of the fish, it was "salvation belongs to the Lord!"  If we had any doubt about the identity of Jesus, it is resolved in this statement, He is Lord, salvation is a dual action and results in the giving of the Spirit.  Moses was known as a friend of God, Jesus spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper and called them friends, have we proven our friendship to God?

22 October 2012

Psalm 25; Ecclus. 4:20-5:7; Rev. 7:1-8; Luke 9:51-62

"Do not say, ‘I sinned, yet what has happened to me?’ for the Lord is slow to anger.  Do not be so confident of forgiveness that you add sin to sin."  There is the balance of understanding the Lord.  He is slow to anger, and "forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin"  but He will by no means clear the guilty.  Paul says " What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!"  We have been set free from the law and its judgment because of the righteousness of Jesus in fulfilling the Law but that is not license to sin, we know what sin is because we also have the Law that defines righteousness but we also have the proper interpretation of the Law in the person of Jesus, the living and incarnate Word, living in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We have been redeemed from sin and death by the sacrifice of Jesus but the result of that is that He is not only savior of our lives but Lord of our lives as well.  We have been given a new Spirit to lead us into righteousness.  Let us awaken to that reality and live by the Spirit.

The people of the village didn't receive Jesus because He was going to Jerusalem.  The Samaritans were particularly inhospitable to Jews and even more particularly those who were going to keep a festival in Jerusalem.  They thought that Jerusalem was the height of the apostasy of the nation, that the place God had chosen for worship was Mt Gerizim in Samaria where they worshiped, where the blessings were pronounced in Deuteronomy, so they were hostile toward Jerusalem which they considered a center of idolatry.  Jesus' first response to one who offers to be His follower was to say the Son of Man has no place to rest His head, probably a reflection on what has just occurred.  We have to be prepared for rejection and persecution on this journey, recognizing that the world rejected Jesus and that this is not our home. 

Is this a literal 144,000?  It seems unlikely given the penchant for numbers with 12's as their base.  There were twelve tribes, twelve apostles, etc and twelve was a full complement.  Jacob had to add Joseph's sons to round out the twelve, the apostles felt duty bound to add a twelfth after Judas' death, this was a particularly important number and 12,000 times 12 would indicate a large number of those to be sealed as the Lord's own, a significant remnant.  The angels with the power to harm earth and sea were told to wait until this sealing was complete, but there will come judgment on the earth when God has His own sealed and numbered.  Let us live according to our faith and evangelize like there is no tomorrow.