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Ex. 4
God gave Moses three signs with which to convince His people. Those signs involved a snake, leprosy, and blood. Why those three things? I can’t say that I actually know the answer to that, but I can see a pattern in it. The snake makes me think of the serpent, the tempter and deceiver, who appeals to the lusts of our flesh. The leprosy is a symbol for the disease of sin, which takes over and rots away our flesh. These two put together take me to what James wrote about temptation and sin. “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” (Jms. 1:14-15).
So in God’s first two signs for Moses we see our hopeless human condition, which we also see in the enslavement of the Israelites. Interestingly, we also see that God overcomes those first two signs. He rendered the snake a harmless stick and restored the diseased flesh of Moses’ hand. Likewise, God has the power to overcome our human condition. He strips power from the lusts of our flesh and cleanses us from the resulting disease of sin.
But if those two signs aren’t enough for us, God gave Moses one more. Where the first two gave us the “what”, the third one gives us the “how”. God takes the water – perhaps a symbol of our baptism of repentance – and turns it to blood, which is Jesus’ righteousness, poured out for us. It is the blood of Christ that proves God’s power to turn our snakes into harmless sticks and cleanse our dying flesh.
Luke 7
Twice that I can think of, Jesus marveled at someone’s faith. This centurion requesting healing for his slave was one of those times. The Canaanite woman requesting healing for her daughter was the other. Both instances involved foreigners. So the question came up, why did the Gentiles, who did not even know God as the Jews did, have the greater faith? In thinking about that, my mind went back to Luke 4, where Jesus stated, “…no prophet is welcome in his hometown.” (Lk. 4:24b), citing a couple of Old Testament examples to make His point. From there, two words came to mind. Those words are familiarity and expectations.
I think the more familiar we are with something, the more we think we know it. With that perceived knowledge, we then begin to build a box around that something. That box is the framework of our expectations. We expect something we are familiar with to behave according to what we know of it. Well, newsflash – God doesn’t fit into a box! Thus, trying to conform God to the framework of our knowledge-based expectations is limiting indeed! Another thing about familiarity is that it breeds complacency. Even though Jesus’ disciples believed He was the Son of God, they ate, slept, travelled, and did all the human, everyday things with Him. They, more than anybody, knew that on some level, Jesus was just like us. Somehow, that kind of familiarity doesn’t lend itself to earth-shaking faith.
Today we walk with God daily in a different way. And, as with the difference between falling in love and a thirty-year marriage, it can be hard to keep that day-to-day relationship fresh. We fall prey to the problems of the seven churches in Revelation. We lose our first love; we become lukewarm. For those two foreigners with such great faith, Jesus was fresh and new. They had no framework of possibility limiting expectations of Him. They knew only of the spectacular, but nothing of the mundane, and their knowledge shaped their faith. I want to know God like that. Fresh, new, exciting, and limitless. How do I do that? I don’t know. But I think actively remembering that His mercies are new every morning and seeking to see Him in the every-day little things is a good place to start.
Job 21
Job was in a hard place. He, having sought God and shunned evil, sat with nothing but a thread of a life he could scarcely tolerate. Meanwhile, truly wicked men prospered. Not fair! Not just! And all Job’s friends could do was insist that God punishes the wicked and restores those who acknowledge their sin. Not helpful! Job asked them, “How then will you vainly comfort me, for your answers remain full of falsehood?” (Job 21:34).
Was there anything that could have comforted Job, though? He knew the truth, at least concerning the wicked; that God reserved them for His day of judgment. But that clearly wasn’t comforting either. His friends could have shown him kindness, acknowledging his hard position and encouraging him to hold fast to God, as Job had suggested before. While that might not have comforted Job, at least it wouldn’t have added insult to his injury. Or what if Job knew the other side of the coin of truth; that the eternal reward for the righteous who endure life’s unjust suffering is far greater than any reward the wicked have in the here and now? Is that comfort? I don’t know. But it is hope, which gives us a reason to endure. And part of our job here on earth is to help each other hold fast to that hope.