Saturday 17 December

Ezra 1:1-2:67

It should have been glorious.  It should have been the moment that the whole generation remembered at their grave.  But it all fell a bit flat.  It seemed like there was one silver pan missing - surely there should have been 30 rather than 29 (1:9)?  And that sense of incompleteness sets the tone for the book.  Ezra should be a book of epic victory, and yet it feels more like drinks party that you didn’t want to be at.  Ezra chronicles the second exodus, the second time of “let my people go”, second time of traveling to and populating the land of milk and honey.  But the milk tastes slightly off and the honey seems past its best.  Ezra points beyond itself.  It confirms God’s intention to release his people from exile but it points to the fact that the exile isn’t really about the land.  It affirms God’s desire to see his people free from oppression but it points to the fact that the Babylonians (or the  Persians or the Romans or the Americans(!)) are not the real oppressors.  Ezra is a book of promise, but of promise unfulfilled.  Wise readers digest the message of Ezra and look for the true Governor who was to come - to free them from exile, to walk them into the land, to establish them in the gate.  

Revelation 8:1-9:12

Oh boy.  And that was only the first woe.  If I’m honest I’m just getting pretty sick of it.  I’m sick of all this judgement.  I’m sick of all this pain and all this punishment.  I’m sick of the smoke and the scorpions and the agony and the longing for death.  But most of all I’m sick of my own sin and I’m sick of our sin that requires this kind of tragic response.  Woe to me.  That is the truth of it.  Woe caused by me and my stupid, always-in-the-background, never-quite-quashed desire to do my own thing, to put two fingers up to God and choose to please myself.  Woe to my flesh that keeps on dragging me down to my most base self.  Woe to the devil for being such a complete git.  None of these trumpets or woes should have been necessary.  None of these trumpets or woes would have been necessary if we had just clung close to our loving and merciful God who only ever wanted to provide for us and nurture us.  I repent of my fallenness.  I repent of my sin.  O God, please would you spread more repentance.  Please would you turn more of us from our sin.  And turn us to prayer.   

Psalm 144:9-15

“On the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you.”  It won’t be very good because a 6-string guitar is tricky enough but it will be for you...