They had to pick out a lamb. Four days before they killed it, they had to pick out a lamb to observe it. They needed to observe it for any flaws. The lamb had to be perfect. The lamb might have lived with them. They must have had a close relationship with it. Ever watched any You Tubes of lambs? They are really cute — fluffy wool, dark eyes, ears sticking straight out from their heads, playfully spastic as they jump around. Four days is long enough to become emotionally attached to the cute little thing. Then they had to slay it at twilight before the night and day began. Even in a culture where the slaying of an animal was somewhat routine, it must have hurt.
Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on the 10th of Nissan, the day everyone was to pick out a lamb. He presented Himself as king by riding in royal procession upon donkey according to the prophetic utterance of Zechariah 9:9. Multitudes loved Him. Multitudes hated Him. The leadership had determined that He must die to save the nation. Rejected as King, they chose Him as the sacrificial Lamb. Jesus died at three in the afternoon on the Day of Preparation, just at the time when the priests were beginning to slay the Paschal lambs. By sunset His body had been placed in a tomb.
The Galileans reckoned their days differently than did Judeans. So, Jesus could genuinely enjoy the Galilean Passover on the evening before He died. By this time in history, the Jews had been celebrating Passover for about 1,470 years. As He broke the unleavened bread (unleavened spoke of sinlessness), He said, “This is My body broken for you.” Every Seder (Passover meal) has four ceremonial times when everyone sips from a cup of wine. The third time is called the cup of redemption. As Jesus led them in the Seder, He lifted up the cup of redemption and said, “This cup is the New Covenant in My blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me.” The next day at the very time that the Judeans were slaying the Passover Lambs, His blood was flowing down the cross to the ground. He gave up the ghost and died.
For 3½ millennia Jewish people have celebrated Passover. I know of no other ritual that has endured for so long. Why has it endured? It has endured because it speaks of the glory of God in how He has and He will deliver His people from their sin. The Passover shouts at us that the seed of the woman has crushed the head of the serpent, that the seed of Abraham blesses all the families of the earth, that the servant of the Lord was smitten by God, afflicted for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, that the Lion of the Tribe of Judah has become a lamb to take away the sin of the world, that the Son of David has taken up his scepter to reign, that the Old Covenant which was written on stone tablets is being replaced by a New Covenant which is being written in our hearts.
We must pick out a lamb. Will it be the perfect, sinless Lamb of God who was slain on our behalf? Or will it be another one of our own making or choosing? The ones of our own choosing are inherently flawed. He is the only perfect One. To choose another is to invite the wrath of the Lamb. To choose Him is to invite His unmerited love. Now that is Glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
PSALM 60
We entered into Portland in the late afternoon. A rain storm was breaking up and a rainbow appeared to stretch out over the city. It was like a promise from God that He would be with us during our stay there. Later, the Lord gave Laura this promise from verse 12, “Through God we will do valiantly, For it is He who shall tread down our enemies.” Indeed, He was with us through unemployment, financial lack, sleep deprivation, personal injury, and even death. When I graduated from seminary (the very reason we had moved to Portland), Laura presented me with a framed water painting (which she had done) of a shepherd holding his hands up in praise to the Lord. The caption read, “Through God we will do valiantly.”
The fact that God really does that is not just a neat idea in His Holy book for me. It is an experience. I have been there. So has David. This Psalm instructs us to actively rejoice in the provision of God. It recognizes that we will lose some battles. (Lord you have cast us off!) But when we look at the whole, the victory is ours because ultimately He wins the war. That is our God! We are victorious because He cast off His own Son on the cross so that we might become victorious. To the disciples it looked as though they had lost the battle, but in that loss, they won the war. We must actively rejoice in the cross for only through the cross do we experience His victory. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John
JOB 30
We watched him digging through the apartment complex trash. He was looking for plastic bottles. He was homeless. In America the homeless often look for aluminum cans to sell for a little bit of money. In Mongolia the homeless often look for plastic bottles. There are very few aluminum cans. They can get about one tenth of a penny for a plastic bottle. So if they collect one thousand bottles, they can get almost $1.00. We turned around and went upstairs to our apartment. We collected all of our plastic bottles, caught up with the man and gave him the bottles. At first we encountered only his disdain. He kept angrily jabbering something at us. He did repeat one word a lot that sounded like, “Ruski.” We took it to mean that he thought that we were Russians. He apparently did not like Russians. We pointed at ourselves and said, “Americans!” Immediately his demeanor changed, and he jabbered something in a more friendly tone.
Yesterday, we saw how Job remembered and longed for the days when the good pleasure of God was felt by Job in his family, friends and good things found in this world. We observed how that is a dangerous place to be because we can transfer our attention from His great glory to the things in His hands, which he gives to us. In contrast to yesterday’s passage in today’s passage, Job moves on to his present condition. Now his fortunes have reversed. The most despised of society despise him. He who thought that He was experiencing something of the glory of God is now being ridiculed by the lowest dregs of society. I have never had to experience that. The closest that I have come to it was when the homeless man was ranting against us because he thought we were Russians. I really did not feel the emotional impact of that because I am not a Russian.
So where is the glory of God in this for Job? Indeed, Job is reduced to crying out, “You have become cruel to me; with the strength of Your hand, You oppose me.” Job could not peek beyond the curtain into eternity. If he could, he would have realized that he was playing a pivotal role in a divine drama that was designed to shame Satan and exalt the Lord. We too are playing pivotal roles in a divine drama that is designed to shame those who will not bow to the Lord and exalt the matchless grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must remember this, “This world is temporary. We will one day walk behind the curtain into the eternal realm. When we do, the confusion of this world will disappear.” His glory will be all that is important. So to live successfully now, we must remember to fix our eyes on His glory, not the rancid accusations of the citizens of this temporal world. Their accusations matter not because we are not citizens of this world. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Our appearance right now may not live up to that, but one day it will! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
MARK 7:24-37
Something in me likes tunnels. On the way through the Smokies on I-40, there are a couple of tunnels. It is amazing to me to think, "Wow, I am inside a mountain. Somebody dug all this rock out so that people like me could drive through the inside of this mountain." Why I like it, I don't know. I mean, there is nothing to see in a tunnel, just walls and lights. There is just something cool about driving through the inside of a mountain or driving under the bay on I-95 in Baltimore. There is just something cool about driving in a tunnel knowing that you are far underneath the ground and that this is the closest way to get from one point to another. But there is nothing to see in the tunnel, just car lanes, round walls and lights. It is where we get the term tunnel vision.
The people around Jesus suffered from tunnel vision. Their tunnel vision caused them to exclude the Gentiles. Jesus designed an excursion to show them their tunnel vision. He purposefully entered the region of Tyre and Sidon, a Gentile region. He was approached by a Gentile woman who pleaded with Him to deliver her daughter. He almost seemed cruel toward her. He ignored her at first and then, when she persisted, He implied that her daughter was a little dog. What kind of glory is that? It is not glory when you have tunnel vision. But our Lord does not have tunnel vision! He sees the big picture. However, His first coming had specific objectives in mind that He saw and His disciples did not. With those objectives fulfilled, He could redeem mankind. Oh the disciples thought they saw them, but they did not. This action was for His disciples. He sought to break them out of their tunnel vision. Matthew's version tells us that the disciples were annoyed by her. But Jesus wasn't annoyed.
After delivering this woman's daughter, He left the region. It is again reminiscent of the Gadarean demoniac. He traveled all this way in order to reach just one person, a non-Jew at that. Jesus had told her (as recorded in Matthew), "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." That was one of the objectives of the first coming. But the disciples were tunnel visioned. They only saw the people of Israel. Even after the resurrection, it took a persecution to drive them out of the country. And then it took the dramatic vision of Peter and the conversion of Paul to reach out of the Jewish communities outside of the country. His apparent rudeness was for dramatic effect--upon the disciples. It was to break the curved walls and lanes of their tunnel vision.
The woman persisted. She even permitted herself to be compared to a little dog under the family table to receive crumbs that accidentally fall off of the table. You see healing is for the family of God. The disciples tunnel vision was that only the descendants of Abraham could be part of the family. Yes Jesus was sent to the lost house of Israel. But ultimately the big picture was for people of all ethnic groups to eventually sit at the table of the Family of God. He gave her the children's bread. He healed her daughter. She became part of the family. Jesus was breaking the disciple's tunnel vision.
He left the northwest in the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon and went back south east to the Gentile region of the Decapolis. Do you remember the Gadarean demoniac? This is the region. Jesus had left the former demoniac behind to tell what great things the Lord had done for him. The former demoniac did his job. The multitudes came. Jesus is ministering to Gentiles!!! The tunnel is collapsing. Thank God, for I am a Gentile by physical birth but grafted into the family of God spiritually! When we finally gather around the throne of Glory, there will be people from every tribe and tongue and nation there worshipping Him, the King of glory. The variety of people found in that multitude will be rich indeed. We won't be limited to our little way of doing things. His glory will be enriched by the variety of ethnic groups present at the throne. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John
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