thread from last week<\/a>\u2013that one of the chief purposes of wandering around in the desert being uncomfortable and hot and angry, is so that the people might discover for themselves that they don\u2019t really love God. Moses quotes the people, \u201cbecause the Lord hated us he brought us up out of Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\nOur modern sensibilities shudder at the ugliness of the desert sojourning. No one is supposed to hate anyone. And there is no reason to hate God, if indeed he does exist. And I think the people of Israel, having regathered their bundles after the horror of the Red Sea, would have agreed with the modern westerner. We are good, and it was right and proper of God to save us, on the rare occasion that we need saving. So, when things don\u2019t pan out the way we thought they would, we are angry with God and willing to let the deep ugliness of hatred and rebellion bubble up against the Savior. We should not be surprised by sin, but we always are, because we think we are better than that.<\/p>\n
What is really surprising, though, is that God is not surprised.<\/p>\n
I mean, truly, I expect him to be alarmed and surprised by sin because I always am\u2013especially my own, which is why I don\u2019t really want to discuss it with him. Because I shouldn\u2019t have done or been whatever that was, and we both expected better of me, and so let us Never Speak of it. But carry on through Deuteronomy reading the law, and the organization of the land, and you will be able to see that God expected the people to sin. Indeed, he understood far better than they themselves did how evil they really were.<\/p>\n
The law is quite detailed, and it cuts to the heart of human \u201cgoodness\u201d. God, knowing the human person perfectly, carefully instructs that person not to do everything he will, in fact, do. I\u2019ll list some of them, shall I. A king will have too many wives, another king will rob a man of his heritage, almost all the people will fall into the worship of other gods, they will sacrifice their children under various green trees, they will want to worship themselves and they will do it by worshiping other gods under every green tree, they will want horses from Egypt, they will not tell their children about God, they will unjustly and falsely accuse each other, and they will listen to all manner of false prophets. These are just a few.<\/p>\n
If you read the Old Testament, but first sleep through Deuteronomy, you will find that all these particular troubles happened, down to the very detail. And many more. You will carry on reading, wondering why you have to toil through all these strange stories. And then, perhaps, you will go back to Deuteronomy and read it with a wakeful mind. And there you will discover that the law itself predicts the peculiar rebellions of the human heart. Indeed, God appointed the law to cut right to the center of the human person. The law is there not so that we will perfectly follow it, but so that we will see how much we hate God and each other. And so of course we shield ourselves as best we can, because it\u2019s so troublesome.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t evil and unkind of God to give the law, even knowing that we would rush out to do its opposite. It is out of his great mercy that he illumines our distrust of and anger against him. And he does it over and over, most patiently, showing me myself and how I am not a moderately well functioning demigod, but someone rather more wretchedly unpleasant that people wag their heads over and say, \u2018I don\u2019t know, we did everything we could but she just won\u2019t listen.\u2019 When nothing could be done, that\u2019s when God, unsurprised and un-rattled, stepped in to do what the law required.<\/p>\n
And really, it is the best thing, to discover that God is not throwing up his hands in shock that I didn\u2019t love him that much. Of course I didn\u2019t. How could I? I\u2019m not God am I. I needed God to do it when I couldn\u2019t. And not huffily, the way I clean the kitchen after the children have failed to do so. But rather graciously, kindly, with good humor.<\/p>\n
The clever thing about the law is that, having spread a bright and unrelenting light over your black heart, the light lifts off of you and illumines the cross, where all the ugliness of sin is perfectly concentrated. There Jesus hangs, unsurprised, fully cognizant of what he is doing, without reproach, dying your death. And you can stand there and just be more surprised than anything. Imagine. Every particularly detailed sin is gathered up and shouldered by that same Savior. Each law points past you and directly to him.<\/p>\n
Now, when you wander off into the desert, waiting and wishing for the promised land, you don\u2019t have to say, \u2018because the Lord hated us\u2019, you can say, \u2018there is therefore now no condemnation\u2019.<\/p>\n
Happy Sunday<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thought I would pick up my thread from last week\u2013that one of the chief purposes of wandering around in the desert being uncomfortable and hot and angry, is so that the people might discover for themselves that they don\u2019t really love God. Moses quotes the people, \u201cbecause the Lord hated us he brought us up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2373,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,48],"class_list":["post-4709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-the-bible","tag-anglicanism","tag-just-plain-spiritual"],"yoast_head":"\n
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