Saturday 12 February

Exodus 11:1-12:51

And so the liberation is achieved!  What a truly astounding and glorious thing it is that God does for the Israelites, freeing them from the centuries-long stranglehold of submission to Pharaoh.  It is worth pausing and reflecting on quite how extraordinary and how significant this thing was that God did for his people.  He categorically and completely proved that he was master over every aspect of life and that he had chosen Israel to be his own special people.  He has crushed the anthropocentric kingdom of Egypt and exposed the power and dominion of the theocentric kingdom of Israel.  As Moses predicted, even Pharoah’s officials line up to bow down before the Israelites and acknowledge the fact that their God reigns.  God has done what he always seems to do; turning the world upside down to turn masters into slaves and slaves into masters.

And God’s desired response to this momentous event seems to be an OCD sufferers dream come true!  (With the exception of the grisly business of smearing blood around the front door.)  I would have thought that this deliverance would have called for a wild and revelrous party but it seems the Lord has more of a Gina Ford-style evening in mind.  The restrictions on how the passover should be commemorated are detailed and demanding but all call the partaker into the reality of the event.  They also leave the Israelites in no doubt that the Passover was not just about them but about the demonstration of the unrivaled reign of Yahweh upon this earth.

Matthew 27:11-44

What Matthew masterfully shows is how each of the different sets of people at the crucifixion have received some revelation about who Jesus is but have refused to re-engineer their lives around it.  Pilate is told that Jesus is the King of the Jews and his wife has been warned in a dream but he carries on with his activities as normal, thinking, bizarrely, that giving his hands a quick tinkle in some water is sufficient response to the fact that he is about to crucify his God.  Others, such as the soldiers and the crowds, have glimpsed Jesus’ kingship and saving power but prefer to stand themselves above or outside of this claim, aggressively mocking him for it or suggesting that his supporting evidence isn’t quite yet strong enough to gain their approval.  What a disgusting thing this is.  How stupid to think that we can watch God in a detached manner and pass judgement on Him according to our own rules and opinions.  Matthew’s implicit invitation is that we climb inside this narrative and submit ourselves to the revelation of God that is taking place in this Place of the Skull.  We have to walk this ground with humility and openness, prepared to be completely undone and remade by this history-quaking and earth-shaking event.  Life can not go on as normal after we have truly understood the cross; either we choose to drink its blood and follow its call or we close our ears and live forever with its blood on our hands.

Psalm 21:1-7

My first thought is “who gives a fig about what God did for the king?”  But then, I remember that through Jesus we all have access to the royal blessings and suddenly I find I’m quite happy to offer some naturally-occurring fruity laxatives to find out a little more...