Tag: freedom

Justice Remembered (Exodus 12:1-13, 21-28)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Passover Seder, by Melita Kraus

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 

They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn with fire. 

This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt….

Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin.

None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. 

You shall observe this as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this observance mean to you?’ you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed down and worshiped.

The Israelites went and did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron; so they did. (New Revised Standard Version)

The Exodus, by Yoram Raanan

Today’s story of Passover is the highlight of Jewish history concerning both God’s judgment and God’s justice. It is a continual reminder that God is concerned with the divine Name; with his people; and with providing them what they need.

The Lord’s tenth and final plague against the Egyptians was the ultimate judgment of taking their firstborn children. At the same time, the Lord extended great justice to the Israelites by removing the oppressive obstacles which hindered them from having their basic human needs met.

Both God’s judgment and God’s justice were to be annually remembered through rituals established by God. These remembrance rituals of Passover are meant to be brought perpetually to Jewish minds, so that they will maintain a high view of Gods’ Name, and also never be a nation who acts like the Egyptians.

Passover and Exodus constituted a new beginning and new life for Israel. Slaughtering the Passover lamb was the start of liberation for the people; along with the eating of unleavened bread. Both the blood of the lamb, and the absence of leaven, together communicated freedom to the Israelites from God.

Even today, nearly four millennia later, Passover is still celebrated amongst the Jewish community as a great festival of freedom. The primary ritual in this celebration is the seder, an evening meal which involves eating several symbolic foods.

The purpose of coming together to eat special foods is to relive the experience of the Exodus from Egypt. It is a time of passing down the people’s communal memory, as well as reflecting upon God’s divine redemption for them.

The Passover rituals are the root of Christianity’s celebration of communion at the Table. For Christians, the final seder meal of Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper in the Upper Room is remembered and relived, so that believers may contemplate the Cross of Christ as the ultimate divine redemption.

Table fellowship for both religions – Judaism and Christianity – has a central place in ritual remembrance. God is acknowledged and praised as the great Liberator from oppression. Justice is memorialized. Past events are remembered in order to live justly and rightly in the present.

Deliverance of people from both physical and spiritual slavery is a grand theme throughout all of Holy Scripture. People of freedom are never to let themselves again be placed in bondage. The New Testament puts the matter this way:

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1, NRSV)

The yearning for freedom from oppression and injustice lies within the breast of every human on this earth. It’s why people will go out of their way to use whatever means they have of standing against abusive powers.

It is more than ironic that there are people today who espouse themselves as Christian, yet are hell-bent on using whatever means they have to oppress and abuse others into submission. Such persons are not demonstrating care for the Name of God, especially not the Name of Jesus Christ. Instead, they have another agenda – one that has nothing to do with liberation and freedom.

This is one big reason why we need rituals. Rituals keep us remembering the things we need to remember, and help us forget the things we need to forget.

Earthly power is not the summum bonum of life. Rather, real power is Love. Again, quoting the Apostle Paul from the Book of Galatians:

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. (Galatians 5:13-15, NRSV)

Indeed, all that really counts for us in this life is “faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5:6)

Remembering true freedom, and it’s real cost, through established rituals, is perhaps the best way of ensuring that the oppression and injustice of empires like Egypt and Rome do not happen in our present day.

Therefore, if we lose connection with important and seminal events of the past without ritual remembrance, we are setting ourselves up for terrible injustice to occur.

We are better than that. Redemption and remembrance can help show us the way.

Great God of all justice, righteousness, and redemption: Continue to break the yoke of Pharaoh in our time, and forever shatter the bonds of human oppression.. Hasten the Day when we shall all be free, at the coming of your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit are one God, now and forever. Amen.

Rebellion In the Community (Numbers 16:1-19)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
Korah and His Company Refuse to Obey Moses, by Wheatfield Media

Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites—Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—became insolent,and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council. 

They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”

When Moses heard this, he fell facedown. Then he said to Korah and all his followers: “In the morning the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him. The man he chooses he will cause to come near him. You, Korah, and all your followers are to do this: Take censers and tomorrow put burning coals and incense in them before the Lord. The man the Lord chooses will be the one who is holy. You Levites have gone too far!”

Moses also said to Korah, “Now listen, you Levites! Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near himself to do the work at the Lord’s tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them? He has brought you and all your fellow Levites near himself, but now you are trying to get the priesthood too. It is against the Lord that you and all your followers have banded together. Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?”

Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But they said, “We will not come! Isn’t it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? And now you also want to lord it over us! Moreover, you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you want to treat these men like slaves? No, we will not come!”

Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, “Do not accept their offering. I have not taken so much as a donkey from them, nor have I wronged any of them.”

Moses said to Korah, “You and all your followers are to appear before the Lord tomorrow—you and they and Aaron. Each man is to take his censer and put incense in it—250 censers in all—and present it before the Lord. You and Aaron are to present your censers also.” 

So each of them took his censer, put burning coals and incense in it, and stood with Moses and Aaron at the entrance to the tent of meeting. When Korah had gathered all his followers in opposition to them at the entrance to the tent of meeting, the glory of the Lord appeared to the entire assembly. (New International Version)

By Bible Art

I must admit that, having been a church pastor for decades, today’s story sounds eerily like several parishioners I’ve known over the years. They, along with the story’s antagonist Korah, strike me as ungrateful and continually concerned about angling for more power and authority within the community.

Rebellions are nothing new. They happen everywhere, from faith communities to neighborhood associations, from local politics to national governments.

The Book of Numbers is a rather depressing part of the Bible, largely because of the nature of the Israelite grumblings, without much gratitude happening.

The murmurings turned to complaints, and then to outright rebellion. It seems to have been a pattern with the Israelites in the desert. The animosities were directed against God or Moses, and sometimes both.

In each one of the various stories of rebellion in the desert, the rebellious people died in various ways by means of a plague, a fire, or in a battle. We get the sense with today’s story that a whopper of a divine judgment is going to happen.

The punishments mentioned in the Old Testament are meant to highlight, with rather strong illustrations, that the political and religious systems set up through the covenant code were divinely originated and sanctioned. In other words, don’t mess with God’s authority.

So then, a rebellion against Moses and Aaron was, in reality, a rebellion against God. And it would bring divine wrath on the rebels.

Having been in various leadership capacities in my life, to me the most insidious kind of rebellion is the subtle sort. Authority is challenged indirectly, in passive-aggressive forms through gossip, back-biting, and building a coalition from false information.

I also think that those subtle forms of rebellion really upset God. Which is why the Lord extended divine wrath on such rebels.

Korah was a Levite, like Moses. But that is about all he had in common with Israel’s leader. Korah’s rebellion was precisely directed against the leadership of Moses (and Aaron).

Similar to many arguments I’ve encountered throughout my ministerial life, Korah framed his argument with pious sounding language – as if Moses was the problem the one opposed to holiness.

Lord, have mercy. I really do despise religious gaslighting.

Korah implied that Moses was raising himself above the others, that the entire Israelite community was holy, therefore, there’s no need for a leader like Moses. The people’s holiness is enough. That’s all anybody needs, right?

Apparently, no.

Neither Moses nor Aaron dealt with the argument. Rather, Moses was satisfied to leave the matter with God as to what to do with the rebels.

It’s always good to let God reaffirm God’s own way of doing things. It was God who raised up Moses, and it would be God to whom Korah would have to answer.

The reason these sorts of situations keep popping up in every generation of history is that they deal with a problem which all humans encounter. Every person, group, faith community, and nation must contend with the tension between authority and freedom.

Like so many arrogant demagogues, Korah believed he was the guardian of freedom – and that the people ought to follow him. Yet, even though many did, the most important person in the room, God, did not.

Give peace in our time, O good and gracious God, a peace which the world cannot give. To those who have taken up arms in anger or revenge, or even in the cause of justice, grant the grace of conversion to the path of peaceful dialogue and constructive collaboration. And to those who are victims of human cruelty, open wide your arms and enfold them in the embrace of your compassion, healing, and life. Amen.

The Day Is Coming (Malachi 4:1-6)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
The Great Day of His Wrath, by John Martin, c.1851

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty.

“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” (New International Version)

These are the final words of the Old Testament, the concluding message of the prophet Malachi.

Malachi’s vision of God’s future action describes a Day of Judgment, a time of utter destruction for all those who devoted themselves to wickedness. The faithful, however, will receive healing by means of bright righteousness. God will restore a good, right, and just order of things.

The divine restoration will cause joy and celebration. In their freedom, the faithful will ensure that the wicked shall not have power and authority ever again.

Therefore, the conclusion to the Book of Malachi – and of all the Old Testament – is a call to obedience, to observe the law. Finally, it is communicated that Elijah – one of the greatest prophets in Jewish history – will return in order to turn the hearts of family members toward one another. And without this change of heart and behavior within the family, there isn’t anything good to look forward to.

In other words, justice and righteousness, humility and gentleness, mercy and peace, all begin within the home. If we are to get things right out in the world, it will be because we have learned how to develop and maintain right relationships and provide for one another in our families.

So, how is that project going? (said in a sarcastic tongue-in-cheek sort of way).

And, how is the religious and spiritual progress going? (said in that same obnoxious sort of tone)

Furthermore, what are you and I doing to help the situation, and not to bring harm to it? (said in an actual serious tone)

It will not do for any of us to simply blame others – even though those others likely have a lot to answer for themselves. You and I cannot control others, especially family members (although some folks do their darndest to try and do it!).

Therefore, we must practice self-control, and do what is within our own power to do in order to help bring blessing – not judgment – to the earth.

All of us need to allow accountability into our lives, so that we may continue in living good and responsible lives.

Yet, that does not always happen. Graciously, the world is not presently spinning on its axis because of me or you. Our mistakes, foibles, screw-ups, and sins are not good, but they are also not going to stop the sun from coming up tomorrow.

It is terribly sad that there is so much war, death, destruction, harm, malevolence, disease, and disaster in this old world. It’s as if the earth is under a curse, which it is. But the world is also loved by God.

The faithful ultimately trust in the grace and mercy of God. The Christian, specifically, looks to Jesus to provide the righteousness and justice that we ourselves have not been able to accomplish.

The judgment of God exists, so that the justice and mercy of God can be fulfilled.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

1 Peter 2:24, NIV

In union with Christ, the faithful know what a change of heart truly means. And they know what to do in order to affect that change in their lives today:

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. (Romans 6:6-13, NIV)

So then, let us restore right relationships with others, and especially with family. Let us live as people who have been lifted from a curse, and are free from divine judgment.

Let’s get up each day and live into the freedom we possess from the power of guilt, shame, and plain old-fashioned sin.

Let’s be people who choose to look both backward and forward:

  • We look back at the redemptive events of Jesus, to his coming to this earth in a miraculous incarnation, and to his death, resurrection, and ascension.
  • We look forward to the return of Christ, a second advent, when he will save his people, judge all people, and restore all things.

We can do this, my friends. We can live as we ought to live, love as we ought to love, and give as we ought to give – because of the One who has gone before us, is with us, and is coming again.

The Day is coming. Make sure that when it does, we are found faithful.

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:45, NIV

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. (Revelation 1:5b-6, NIV)

Developing the Skill of Wisdom (Colossians 1:9-14)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Colossians 1:9-10, by Bible Art

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (New International Version)

When I was younger, I played a lot of ping-pong. And I got good at it. In fact, during a several months stretch, back-in-the-day, I had a record of 156-2. Not bad.

That kind of record was only possible because of the two reasons that make any skill an accomplishment:

  1. Knowledge. I learned the game of ping-pong and eventually knew it inside and out.
  2. Experience. I practiced for hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in developing my technique.

The sort of knowledge that Paul was talking about was more than information and intellectual understanding; he used a specific word (in the Greek language – ἐπιγινώσκω, pronounced “EPee-gi-NOS-ko) which refers to knowledge gained by experience.

In English, we need to put two words together in order to communicate Paul’s concept: experiential knowledge – an understanding which is gained by continual repetition and practice until there is proficiency.

There are just some things that can only be learned and integrated into life through constant use and development over time. And this is precisely how a person becomes mature in life:

Growth + Time = Maturity.

And with maturity comes the wisdom to live life as it meant to be lived. This means that wisdom doesn’t come overnight or quickly; to be wise requires a great deal of learning, effort, experience, and time.

The wisdom and understanding Paul refers to is not some sort of secret information which has to be accessed through careful initiation into a group of people who have the inside knowledge. No, this is wisdom which can be gained by anyone who embraces a life of faith and spiritual discipline.

The highest form of knowledge for the Apostle Paul is knowing God in Christ.

This sort of knowledge is an understanding of salvation, and experiencing deliverance from guilt, shame, and the false self. Such knowledge is evidenced by the fruit of the Spirit in living a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Colossians 1:11, by Bible Art

From the outside of Christianity looking in, it may appear that this is all a grand achievement of the human will. But it isn’t. On the inside, the Christian life is thoroughly a work of God’s glorious power, bringing new life, and effecting spiritual growth and maturity into a wise and good way of life.

We did not deliver ourselves. God did. The Lord transferred our membership from the realm of darkness to the empire of light. Christians are simply people who have been redeemed by God in Christ. Our liberation is because of God’s gracious forgiveness of sins.

Forgiveness, however, is not the end game. Forgiveness frees us to pursue the spiritual life without guilt and shame hindering us and weighing us down all the time. Forgiveness opens us to the possibilities of positive and life-giving relational connections with God and other people.

In our relationship with God, prayer becomes the conduit of divine/human conversation. That connection, in the past, had blockage because of our unhealthy lifestyles. But it is now unobstructed because of God’s gracious intervention by Jesus, in the Spirit.

So, when it comes to our interactions in prayer, there’s no need to invent a new game; we just need to learn the one we’ve got, and put in the hours of work necessary to become accomplished at it. 

Today’s New Testament lesson is a prayer from the Apostle Paul to the Colossian Church. His prayer for them was singular: To have wise minds and spirits, that is, to have knowledge of God – an understanding of who God is and how God operates.

To learn divine ways is to acquire the skill of wisdom.

Paul prayed for a reason: so that we might live our lives in a way which pleases God and enables us to sustain a lifetime of spiritual growth. 

As people created in God’s image and likeness, we are hard-wired with a spirit which needs strengthening and exercise. That happens as we put in the constant repetitions of connecting with the divine and putting in the time on our knees – praying daily for ourselves and others to mature in faith so that we might all together act wisely and justly in this world, for the life of the world.

A good place to start is to use Paul’s prayer as our own. Never has there been such a need than now for us to know how to apply wisdom in the places and in the circumstances we’ve never been in before. 

For wisdom to happen, we must grow in our knowledge by putting in the hours of prayer.

The skill of wisdom doesn’t magically happen. Wisdom is the culmination of acquired understanding; a lot of practice exercising love in the places where love is not; and engaging in a lifetime project of becoming knowledgeable through constant learning, struggling, and growing.

Direct me, O Lord, in all my doings with your most gracious will and wisdom. Further in me your continual help – that in all my work and in all I do and say, I may glorify your holy name; and, by your mercy, obtain the life that is truly life; through Jesus Christ, my Lord.  Amen.