Thought I'd treat everyone to a nice early one today. Off into town later and thought I'd get myself a bit of God's truth first. Onto business then,
Today's readings
Exodus 27:1-28:43
Mark 5:21-6:6a
Psalm 24:1-10
Exodus carries on with lots of instructions. The only thing that I could think while reading this is that God seems to be asking an awful lot of the Israelites here. They're still wandering through the wilderness and yet He wants them to find all this gold and all of these gems. Now maybe these instructions weren't carried out straight away and it wasn't till they were a more established people that they implemented all of the bits God ahd asked for. But it still seems like a huge amount of work and attention to detail. It's certainly not as user friendly as Ikea instructions. But I think that this is something we have to accept. Doing God's work does have benefits. It should mean that people live a life that has more justice and love within it. But it is work and it can be hard work that seems to big for us. What's important though is that God wants us to try to carry it out, aided by His grace and power. It might not work and it might look rubbish but God grades on effort not attainment. We need to be willing if not capable!
Into the New Testament we swerve and Jesus is still in action mode. I love how Mark just focuses on these amazing displays of power, his awe and enthusiasm at Jesus is obvious to spot. So we've the miracle of the woman and her bleeding, then Jairus' daughter being awoken after appearing dead. Both of these show people believing beyond belief. Jairus was told his daughter had died and still trusted Jesus to heal her, even though people started to mock him and Jesus. The woman was terrified Jesus would rebuke her but instead He praised her daring. I think that Jesus wants us to come to Him and kind of finds it funny that we don't always embrace Him rather than just reaching out for a quick touch. But I think these both fit in with our Exodus reading. God wants our effort and our enthusiasm. He knows that this world is in a bad shape and needs a lot of work but He wants our faith that if we try to fix things, He will work through us and in us, regardless of our abilities.
And that's shown in the next passage. Jesus wants to work with everyone but if we're stubborn or dismissive of Him then He won't do much at all. Jesus ensures that the people who did come to Him were helped but He was unable to do more because people didn't want to risk being seen as foolish or following someone they thought they knew everything about but yet missed the bigger picture.
Finally our Psalm today and to me David is not just marvelling at God's power but also realising how little we can achieve towards bringing love and justice to the world, without first focusing on God. This world is God's and we need to defer to Him when it comes to what needs to change and how it should happen.
And that's your lot for today. Yesterday's tune is here. Questions, criticisms and comments welcome as always,
Jon
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