Numbers 19:1-21:3
They’d been in this place before and poor old Moses seems to get a little bit narky and a little bit self-obsessed and he gets himself a lifetime ban from the promised land. God tells Moses to speak to the rock but Moses decides he actually fancies whacking the rock and giving the people a bit of an earful. I suspect Moses felt that was a bit more dramatic and would make more of a point of his exalted status and the Israelite’s stupidity. The trouble is that that Lord doesn’t seem to like his people’s faces being rubbed in the dirt and he certainly doesn’t like people taking on His honour as their own. The tragedy is that God had been so deeply generous to Moses and Aaron in giving them a key, affirming role in bringing water from the rocks of Meribah but, for whatever reason, Moses and Aaron lost sight of that privilege and decided instead to exploit the opportunity to vent some anger. This is a serious proof text for anyone who wants to show the importance of character in leadership and is also a serious parameter-setter for anyone who finds themself in some form of leadership. God’s take on leadership seems to be that it is for helping people, for bringing them forward and for giving honour to His name. That’s an attractive picture and one that I pray all of the leaders in all of the contexts across all of this city will grow closer to day after day.
Luke 5:33-6:11
Jesus’ claim to be Lord of the Sabbath (or at least that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath) is pretty mega. We’ve seen in our trek through the Old Testament that Sabbath-observance is banged on about time after time as being a crucial and eternal aspect of obedience to Yahweh. It’s no wonder that the Pharisees took exception to Jesus moseying along and completely disregarding it (at least in their view) as he was, in this act, was pretty much undermining the whole of the Jewish religion. You could only derive one conclusion from such heretical activity - Jesus is on a crusade to explode Judaism from within and to redefine it completely around himself. This puts Jesus either as a dangerous meglomaniac or as the author of redemption pointing out a twist in his plot that suddenly gives you new eyes for all of it. And, praise God, that the second of these is true! Praise God that we live post-twist, post Jesus being deployed into the story. Suddenly the backdrop of the whole tale is clearly one of compassion and of life, of healing and of hope. Jesus has changed everything and now we live completely obsessed with him, not, as the pharisees, discussing what we might do with Jesus but rather, as the man with the withered hand, utterly delighted at what he is doing for us.
Proverbs 8:1-11
If you think you are thick, don’t worry - listen to wisdom and she will make you smart!
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