Numbers 7:1-65
Flipping heck. Was it really necessary to list out one by one the gifts of each of the twelve leaders when each and every one brought exactly the same thing!! Surely the writer could have just summarised it all in one paragraph by listing the gifts and then listing the names of the leaders? Obviously the writer was a complete dufus. Either that or he was trying to make a very particular point about the value of each tribe’s contribution and the way that the Lord deeply values each and every act of sacrifice that is made to him. Worship, it seems, means so much to God that he is perfectly willing to bore us senseless in telling us about it. When we gather on a Sunday morning to sing songs to Jesus I don’t think Jesus just hears one of each song. I think he hears 300, one from each of our mouths, and I believe that he delights in each and every one. When we lay out chairs for housegroup, put out someone’s rubbish, take time to talk with a shop assistant or cheerfully greet a traffic warden we are (or, rather, we can choose to be) committing acts of worship to God. Slow, steady, slightly unremarkable alongside everything else that everyone else is doing but deeply pleasing to God nonetheless. He is the God who watches us, and he values each and every thing we do for him.
Luke 2:21-40
Luke’s gospel, as I should have said at the start of it, is, as you know, part 1 in Doctor Luke’s 2-part epic of Luke and Acts. It is amazing that we see here at the start of the series Luke flagging up major themes that will run through the rest of the account. Firstly, Luke majors on the importance of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, he speaks of Jesus being the Light to the Gentiles. God’s Holy Spirit is getting grimy in the detail of this story, revealing His intentions to Simeon and even prompting him to go into the temple courts so that he would come across the young Jewish couple who were consecrating their young son to the Lord. While the Spirit blasts into centre-frame at the start of Luke at the festival of Pentecost, Luke is at pains here to point out that even before that time, the Holy Spirit was working hard to draw people into the plans of the Father. If we are to see all that the Lord has for us in this life, we would do well to become close friends with the Holy Spirit.
And these thoroughly Jewish people, set in the most Jewish of contexts are, at the start of this remarkable story, already preempting the work of God that is to come - salvation and redemption are in the air, and it is not to be constrained to one particular people group. This work of God is already seen to be a light that just has to spread, not just to Jerusalem, but from there to the world. Again, we would do well to pick up on Luke’s urgings and regard ourselves as people called into the spreading of this light. As we go along we will see how this will happen. For now, the establishment of the understanding is enough to start forming an evangelistic desire within us.
Psalm 35:1-10
We have seen the like of this before but it is still useful to note the benefit, and the biblical mandate, for venting in prayer the frustrations we feel in relationships. I believe this is a thoroughly healthy method of coping with the tensions and strains of life. After all, if we are to truly forgive others we must first identify and ‘own’ our anger over their sin. That way we truly invite God’s presence into the situation and beckon him to deal with us and our life as they truly are, not as we might like them to be.
