December 23, 2023

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1.27)

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I tell you only the one who does the will of My Father who is in Heaven shall enter in.” (Matthew 7. 21)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

It is said that the crucial difference between the Old Testament “commands,” called the Law, and that of the New Testament “commands,” also called Law, is in the difference between condemnation of sin and the forgiveness of sin. I have heard, of late I have heard and read many comments, that say Christians do not follow the Law [and the Prophets] because we are not of the Old Testament covenant. They say that Jesus promotes a “new way, new truth and new life” which is different in its scope and application from that of the “old way, old truth and old life.” I would ask you to consider for a moment how it is that we know Jesus of Nazareth born in Bethlehem to be the Christ? Did that concept just pop into our brain as some mysterious epiphany and immediately transform our lives from old to new, lost to found and finite to infinite? Our knowledge of Jesus comes from the Word of God lived out in those who were believers before we were believers. They became believers because of believers before them and so on and so forth moving back through time even before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in Bethlehem conceived by the Holy Spirit of God to be the Son of Man and the Son of God. Where did those believers come into contact with Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ of God, the Messiah of all people? And I will iterate firmly and without fear that Jesus is the Messiah of ALL people.

When Jesus was born it was the fulfillment of God’s word for all people. The angels declared it in the heavens. That declaration poured out like rain on the just and the unjust (meaning upon the Jew and the Gentile, the in-group and the outcast regardless of time and space and place.) It was the revelation of God in the Old Testament covenant spoken to judge, priest, prophet, king and those whom they served that Israel was not a stand alone nation of righteousness. They were not meant to be an island of purity in a sea of forgetfulness. And even if they were, the waters of the sea like the leaves of autumn fallen from trees (yes, trees were talked about yesterday) blown about by every wind and doctrine which the forgetfulness could imagine and conjure up to be truth that served their purposes brushed against the shores of the island in the wilderness of Sin. At times they were waves like a great tsunami as we have seen even on a Christmas day not long ago and rushed against the land and overtook it bringing destruction and change without permission. No, the word of God as it was given to those in Israel and before it was even Israel was a calling out of a people to go in to all the world and make disciples of all nations. You think that calling was limited to Jesus as He spoke to the disciples as recorded by Matthew before Jesus ascended into Heaven? Following Paul’s teaching to the community of faith in Christ found in Colossae, we hear of the preeminence of Christ who was before all things. Indeed, nothing that was made was made without Him in mind and in truth. All things had a purpose and they still do. It may be a purpose denied or accepted or not yet discovered but there is a purpose nonetheless and it is ordained by God to be worthy, true and good (meaning it serves God’s purpose as it was intended to be.) Now we can draw in the “gifts of a Good God” as Jesus taught about good gifts even a bad father would give to their own children. God is all about goodness, mercy and life. If that were not the case, then Adam and Eve would never had left the garden. Instead, they would fall to the ground as fruit never to be consumed except to return to the dust from which they came. Their surrender of the Word and Spirit of God to the Enemy was grounds for dismissal only by the grace of God. In today’s sense of justice casting its shadow back upon the story, Adam and Eve deserted not even to live. They should have been crushed and eliminated. Doing so, however, would only vindicate the assertion of Satan that God is indeed not good.

So, what then of this difference between the Old and the New Testaments, the Law of Justice and the Law of Grace? Has their been a shadow cast upon the Promise of God to Abraham and his descendants because of sin which causes us to see “the Law” in a negative light? And if Jesus is the light, the true reflection of God, who better then to bring to light the truth of God’s Word which is, as the psalmist David scribed, “perfect, reviving the soul” as Jesus, God’s only begotten Son. What we do know is that Jesus spoke and speaks still today through the Word to the very heart of the matter. What God said to those ancestors of ours in faith is no less true and valid today. We are not to abide by the Law? You say it points out sin and condemns it? And Jesus didn’t? He called all sinners to see the sin and repent, even the sinner within themselves. He called out the sin and cast the glow of mercy over the sinner. Like a city set on a hill, the gospel was never intended to be hidden nor preserved in our hearts never to be shared. We are, as the new Israel of God, to be a beacon to the world as much as was Israel of old. The difference comes in understanding fully through Jesus the Christ what God was saying to the world the entire time. By free will, the interpretation of what God said was often misguided and misspoken. If it was clearly heard and understood then there would have been no need for judges, priests and prophets to guide kings and their people in the ways of God. What would have if Israel had been fully faithful and truly obedient to the call of God in, over and through their lives? Would they not be “the righteousness of God” and a testimony to all the world calling them to be delivered from sin and stand in their salvation which comes from God alone? And now we find ourselves at this point in Jesus’ teaching on the mountainside reminding all those who listened (and we know now who “all” those were) that not everyone who utters “Lord! Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven on earth as it is in the realm of God beyond this world. Seriously? Wait, doesn’t that stand against the “New Testament” rethinking of the Law with mercy, forgiveness, grace, compassion, understanding and tolerance? But, that isn’t what the new covenant actually meant. Jesus taught how the Word of God was always intended to be. It wasn’t an entitlement gospel nor an accommodation gospel. It was “the way, the truth and the life” as Jesus imaged it and not imagined it. He didn’t just make this stuff up. He received the message and the word from His Father in Heaven. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. I think it is time we stop and listen to the full word of God which led us to the place where Jesus and the world collided. It was a moment in time that was intended for the crucial course correction so that we might all get back on track with the Word of God in our hearts, mind, body and soul. That may well be the only gift I can offer you all today and it is a good one because God said so.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, You have revealed to us best in Jesus the Christ. By Him and Him alone shall we gain this eternal life and our place in eternal rest, living for You always. Show us more and by Your Holy Spirit instruct us in the way we should go, the truth we should reveal and the life we shall live with you forever. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.