Remember Me

It never ceases to amaze me that God continues to meet us exactly where we are at.  In the midst of joy, chaos, or impatience.  No matter the culture, time, or place.  Not an excuse or vague generality - I'm wondering when this stopped being so miraculous?  That God who spoke the world into being with a single Word, would care to take the things most familiar to us, the most practical, tangible, and earthy things - to speak to us.  No matter the culture or time, He chooses to speak through His Word.  In dreams.  Through spiritual encounters.  Through logic and reason.  Science.  Philosophy.  Emotion.  Other people.  It never ceases to be a miracle that a God who is so Holy would dare to enter into our mess.

The examples are too numerous to count, even in our modern day, but what of Scripture?  Of all of the prophecy fulfilled?  Of all of the concrete tangible object lessons that God used to speak to His own people.  Shepherds.  Marriage.  The Exodus.  And what about those who were "outside?"  Since nothing was too small for Him- Jesus turned water into wine.  Fulfilling prophecy, but also a modern day tale of a "god" who would come and do the same.  So much so that priests of the day would run around and take the pots of water people left outside their door and replace them with wine every night.  And what of the people of Nineveh?  It was no accident that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish - one of the "gods" of that area.  And even Pharaoh's wise men or sorcerers - Moses took signs that could be preformed by these magicians, and God took them a step further to show who He really is.

And what of the Ten Commandments (or the Ten Words)?  As phenomenal as the screen plays and movies have been telling this story, some things are great fiction writing.  The common misconception that there was so much writing that Moses needed to carry two tablets down the mountain?  The expert Motyer shares that rather it was common from 1800 BC onward in the Hittite culture for Kings to make covenants with their vassals.  Two identical copies of the same covenant were written down.  The vassals would carry one.  The King the other.  So why did Moses carry two down the mountain?  Yahweh was the resident King, truly living among his people.

As we approach Christ the King Sunday, the same story is preached again.  A King who lives among His people.  As highly as we think of ourselves, we must confess the truth.  We try to meet his requirements.  To live up to the holiness.  But rather than lower His standards when we cannot begin to meet them, God lifts us up.  The Bible is the story of this red thread time and time and time again.  And the climax of the story are the words that we read this Sunday in the Gospel according to Luke.  The King has dared to come near to His people again.  And not just to live, but to die.  To pay for our sin and the sin that lays upon us, once and for all.  Jesus is King, God with us, Immanuel.  And yet - He cannot wait until the last day to be near to us again.  That is too long for Him to wait, and so He sends His Spirit to dwell in us.  The fire that walked through the first covenant with Abraham.  The cloud of smoke that led the people out of slavery in Egypt.  The ring of fire that encircled the mountain of God when He shared His covenant with His people.  And on.  And on.  And on.  Now living in us.  For beloved, you are from God, and have overcome by the blood of the Lamb. "For he who is in you, is greater than than he who is in the world."  -1 John 4:4