Okay, so I missed not one but three days of the blog. Now I get to try to catch you all up. I encourage you not to get discouraged when you miss a day or two or three. This is time you’re giving to God in order to bring yourself closer to him. If you don’t see a friend for a few days isn’t it nice to spend some extra time with them to reconnect? It is the same with God. Don’t beat yourself up; just get back in the game.
The LONG reading today begins with the great commandment. First and foremost, we are to love God. Not just a god, but the LORD our God. God expects us to internalize the covenant we have with him. It should be part of our very being. We need to make it the core of what we talk about, how we behave, how we interact with other people, what we turn to when we are having issues or temptations, and what we teach to those around us. When it talks about “fearing the Lord”, it isn’t talking about being scared. It is talking about obeying his commandments and respecting God. Putting him in the place he belongs in our hearts and lives. Love is the root of obedience. If you truly love someone, you do your best to do what they ask and what pleases them. That is selfless love. There isn’t a lot of that anymore, yet that is exactly what God calls us to. We spend way too much time thinking that we should love ourselves regardless of what that does to those around us, or to God. If we truly love God, accept him as our savior, and choose him as our Lord then we will obey him, and teach those around us to do the same. That is the focus of this chapter in Deuteronomy.
Verses 4-9 are called the Shema in Jewish culture. Every morning and evening the rabbis recite it for those gathered. Why? So that it will be the center of their thinking. The whole point of the Old Testament was to clarify that there is only one God. Everyone around them worshipped multiple Gods. Man didn’t comprehend that God is beyond what we can do, he does it all. God has committed himself to us in love and we are to give him all of us that we can. God didn’t just make a covenant with a few people. He made it with generation after generation. We can all enjoy the blessings that come with it, if we choose to enter into that covenant.
In chapter 7, Moses goes on to discuss the blessings and victory that comes from following God. God doesn’t just expect us to follow rules and regulations because he feels like controlling us. It isn’t about control. It is about knowledge. God knows everything. He knows what choices will ultimately lead to, he knows exactly the consequences that will follow actions, and he knows what will happen in the future. People in our culture spend tons of money on talking to psychics, and they aren’t even right 10% of the time. Yet people do exactly what they tell them to for just that small amount. It is the same with horoscopes and other things like that. Let me ask you a question. If you met a guy who knew which stocks were going to go up, and which were going to go down, would you listen to him about where to invest your money? If he was right 100% of the time would you entrust him with everything you had? God knows 100% of the time what is going to happen to us ultimately. Yet we choose to follow our own path, try to manipulate what is going on in our lives and do what we feel like doing. Is that smart? I came the realization that even though I don’t always feel good about what God is doing in my life at the moment, not once has he not brought me through that to something better. Not once. My life has not been easy. I have had a lot of awful things happen to me but he has always brought me through it to something amazing when I chose to follow his ways. That is what he expects, and if we do that, we will find blessings. Not part of the time, or most of the time, but all of the time.
Chapter 8 is about remembering who God is, what he does, and obeying him, and in chapter 9, Moses goes on to remind them that by recalling our past mistakes without allowing that to drag us down will help us to stay focused on why we are following God. Then in chapter 10, Moses talks about how our obedience is an expression of grateful Love for God. Are we seeing a theme here? We are to Obey God. That is much easier when we remember a few things. Moses pointed out the things Israel should remember. We can apply these same things to our lives as well. First, God provided every need they had in the desert. Food, water, their clothes didn’t give out, anything they needed was there. We are the same. I cannot count how many times I’ve wondered how I got all the bills paid and had plenty of food to feed my family. We were sick last September, my entire family including some visitors we had. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feed everyone and get medicine for everyone. I was making due fixing food, but things were starting to run out. Then out of the blue, Esther Garcia called me and asked if we needed anything. I asked her if she could grab some medicine for me and bring it over. Not only did she do that, but she brought dinner. It was exactly the type of food our guests liked and everyone enjoyed it. I hadn’t told Esther I needed that, or that we were almost out of kid’s medicine as well. Yet, I believe because she was listening to God, she allowed him to use her to meet my needs. She didn’t know what they were, but God did. Secondly, Moses told them to remember that they are naturally rebellious. We have a sin nature that makes us that way. None of us are going to follow God by our own ability. Our human nature will always call us to be rebellious. We don’t deserve good things because of what we do, or because we are good people. No one is a good person. People can’t be good on their own. It is Christ living in us that makes us good. Finally, God has given us a system for bringing us back into fellowship with him. It isn’t because we’re awesome, or fun or anything else about us. It is because he is merciful and loves us. That’s it. If we remember these things daily and talk about them together, we will be focusing on God and his ability to help us, and find it easier to obey God.
Chapters 11 through 17 are focusing on the special guidelines God expected Israel to follow. We are free of many of these now through Jesus. As I have mentioned before, the old covenant was really to point out to man that we cannot solve the sin issue ourselves. We can never follow the rules completely, do everything that is required or even make up for the things we don’t do. We have to allow God to do that for us. He gave us the opportunity to allow him to do it; we just have to choose to accept that. If we do, he will cleanse us and give us the righteousness we need to be with him. These laws were to make sure that Israel didn’t behave as the other people around them. We are to avoid appearing to be like those that don’t follow God. This is something we should be thinking about today. Jim talked about it on Wednesday night. Do we behave in a way that others see Jesus in us? Do we show in our behavior and lifestyle that God is the Lord of our lives? The Bible tells us that the road to salvation is in choosing Jesus as our LORD and savior. The two go together.
I am going to tackle the readings in Mark separately from the readings in Luke. Let’s start with finishing out Mark. It takes us through the trial of Jesus all the way to his rising from the dead. Mark is very quick and clinical about it. I love how Mark points out that Pilate even recognizes that Jesus is God in a way. Though I’m not sure he grasps exactly what that meant. He knew that Jesus was not claiming to be an earthly King but that it went beyond that. Yet, even that was not enough to cause him to go against his human self interest to pacify the crowd. Pilate was more concerned with pacifying the crowd than he was with doing what was right. We can be grateful that God is not a judge like that. God is a just and fair judge. He doesn’t allow himself to be swayed by what people think.
I am also amazed at the way Mark describes Jesus’ behavior. Through all of it, Jesus did not act in fear. He is the only one through the entire account that doesn’t, yet he is the one that had the most reason to in a human sense. Yet, we see the peace of God in him even as he goes through the horror he does. We also see a beautiful picture of exactly what Jesus did for us in the story. Barabbas was guilty of his crime, Jesus was not. Yet, Barabbas is released and Jesus is crucified in his place. That is exactly what Christ has done for all of us.
I also want to focus on who was there when Jesus died. First, we see Joseph of Arimethea. He was a very prominent person. He had power, privilege and esteem. Yet, Jesus had touched him. He knew the truth and he did what he could even though it would probably hurt him. He didn’t deny Christ, he embraced him. He didn’t worry about whether he’d be mocked, or punished for following Christ; he stepped out and gave what he had to Christ when it was needed. We also see Mary and Mary. The disciples were gone. It was the women who loved Jesus who stood faithfully at the foot of the cross and made sure they knew where he had been laid. We see them then come to the tomb to prepare Jesus for burial. It was because of this faithfulness that they were the first to learn about Christ’s resurrection. They were the ones given the joy of hearing it from the angel and taking the news to the disciples.
Several other things jump out at the end of Mark. First of all, God doesn’t leave them to wonder about the empty tomb. He clearly announces that Jesus has risen from the dead and that everyone who follows him will be restored to fellowship with him. Jesus appeared to many people and blessed them with the knowledge that he had risen from the dead.
Luke is my favorite Gospel. Technically, it is written anonymously. Yet, scholars general agree that it was written by Luke, a doctor who traveled with Paul. He is also believed to be the author of The Acts. They are both dedicated to the same person, acts picks up chronologically where this book leaves off, they use similar passages, and in both the disciples are declared witnesses of what Jesus did. There are many “we” passages where Luke is the obvious companion due to his being left out of the list of who was there. There is not much known about Luke the person from the New Testament. He was a gentile, a doctor, and he traveled closely with Paul, even when Paul was imprisoned. Luke wrote for the common person. He didn’t write to those with knowledge of who God was before being exposed to Jesus. He even tended to substitute Greek expressions where Hebrew ones had been used before and uses less of the Old Testament in his writings. He is also the only gentile author in the New Testament.
The focus is on Jesus dying not only for the Jews, but for the world. Luke wants to give an orderly account of the life of Jesus. It is intended to be an account that progresses from beginning to end in as complete and accurate way as possible. The entirety of Jesus’ life on earth from birth to ascension is described, which is more inclusive than the other gospels. He writes to expose those who are unfamiliar with this sort of God to exactly who Jesus is and what he did. He wrote to those who had gotten an idea of this in order to give them certainty of it, to give them knowledge to back up their faith. This is something that speaks directly to my soul. Luke speaks in very scientific ways at times, and shares things about Jesus that increases our faith and reduces our doubt. His goal is to illustrate what Jesus did to back up what he says.
We start with Luke’s greeting. This is a very Greek way to begin an account. He addresses this to “Theophilus” which means friend of God. Luke tells us that he is not the first to write about Jesus, and that he was not a personal witness to these things. He states that his information comes from first hand sources that were present for these events, which means that they are accurate and true.
Luke gives us a beautiful story about the people surrounding Jesus and John the Baptist. I love the way he shows the faith of those who raised them. He shows that while they were considered blameless in God’s eyes because of their faith, they still made mistakes. God still used them to bring about his will. I also find it interesting that while God chose to force Zechariah to be silent, he didn’t silence Elizabeth, she kept quiet on her own. I won’t touch that one, but think about why that might be. I don’t think it only had to do with gender either.
Next, we see Mary visited as well. I am continually amazed at the faith of Mary. It isn’t hard to see why some would be led to worship her as well, not that I’m condoning that. Only God should be worshipped. I do however, pray that I would have the faith and strength of character that Mary shows in the Bible. She was only as old as many of you. Mary was a young teenage woman living in a world that didn’t value women very much. She was chosen to be the vessel that brought salvation into the world physically. This would on the outside make her look like she was impure. The result of that impurity according to the law was death. It could mean her losing the man she loved, her family, her future, her reputation. It would mean losing everything that she had spent her entire life building up. She gave it all up in an instant just because God asked her to. She trusted him to lead her and take care of her even if she couldn’t see how it would possibly turn out well. I can imagine the insults, the gossip, and possibly the physical blows that she had to suffer.
The angel also tells Mary why Jesus will be great. He will be the son of God. God himself is coming to be with us on earth. Mary will get to be the person physically closest to him. I can’t imagine the fellowship she experienced by being Christ’s mother. I always wonder if as a child when Mary felt overwhelmed if Jesus comforted her directly as God would. She will always be known as the mother of a King who will reign forever. These are great pictures of what will come. Yet, I can still imagine her weighing out whether her personal suffering will be worth all of that. Or maybe God took into account that she was a teenager and wouldn’t consider the consequences as much as what she was being promised. Regardless, Mary faced a lot of pain and suffering by being obedient to God.
She goes to visit Elizabeth. It says she went with haste. This implies that she was running away in my mind. Maybe not running away from home, but getting away from judging eyes. It is obvious that Elizabeth was a comfort and support to Mary. I have been blessed to have an awesome relationship with my niece. I had the same relationship with my sister when I was a teenager. No matter how bad it was, or how ashamed I was, I knew I could go to my sister and she would comfort me even if she had to give me a few choice words to go with it. I believe that my niece has that same relationship with me. That is the kind of relationship I see between Elizabeth and Mary. I also see that as soon as Mary entered the house, Elizabeth knew that what might appear to be sin on the outside was actually the blessing of God. I can imagine that even though she believed that Elizabeth would love her regardless, the pronouncement by Elizabeth that she understood the entire situation must have been a relief to Mary. This is evident in the spontaneous song Mary bursts into. She praises God. She celebrates God’s holiness, his mercy and his power. He is merciful to those who fear him, who are humble, and those that are in need. She contrasts these with their opposites. He has done amazing things for all of us if we just take the time to realize them. God is not a god of the few, but a god of all. We all can find miracles in our lives. Chief of which is that he sent his son to pay for our sins and make a personal relationship with him possible. How awesome is that?
Our reading tomorrow is Deuteronomy 18-20 and Luke 1:57-80. I am leaving for San Francisco tomorrow but I will take my laptop and do my best to blog each day. Please pray for our safety and that God will lead us while we’re there.
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