Thursday, January 12, 2023

 

Thursday, January 12, 2023


Psalm 31

Genesis 3:1-19

John 7:1-13


My time has not yet come…


How far is God willing to go to be with us? How much of our nonsense is He willing to put up with? Does He ever push us out of the nest and make us flap our wings on our own?


In the Garden, we disobeyed Him. It was a holy place, and we desecrated it with our rebellion. Since God’s nature is bound up in His holiness, we had to leave. The curse we read about this morning precedes our expulsion. The curse itself was not the expulsion, however: it was the punishment which fit the crime.


God’s fundamental attribute of holiness informs His other attributes, like steadfastness and loving-kindness. This is why He led the Israelites out of Egypt, and kept them safe in tents during their time in the wilderness. God’s display of steadfastness and loving-kindness in this act is such a momentous time in the history of His people that there is an annual festival to commemorate it: the Festival of Booths (or Festival of Tabernacles).


Jesus is being hassled by His brothers to go and make a big showing at this festival. But, replies Jesus, it is not yet His time.


This is because the mission of God is not to leave us in a state of miserable disgrace, trudging through the wilderness, with nothing but a flap of dead animal skin between us and the elements. That is only the journey; the destination is the empty tomb.


This is why Jesus set His face to Jerusalem for the last time when He set off for that final Passover. God is not content to walk alongside us making we sure we just stay balanced on the bicycle. He is not leaving us in the wilderness with some manna and quails. He is leading us home, to that state of blessed holiness. And the undoing of the curse of sin requires a blood sacrifice: the perfect Passover Lamb that is Christ on the cross.


When Jesus says (multiple times in this Gospel) that His time is not yet, rejoice! The people around Him see a glimpse of the beauty of God, in this case, the flight from Egypt. But Jesus always wants to take God’s blessings one step further. He is always taking us higher, out of reach of the dangers and snares of this world. He is always taking us deeper, into the glory that only He knows as the Second Person of God.



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