Tuesday, January 31, 2023

 

Tuesday, January 31, 2023


Psalm 59

Genesis 19:12-38

Luke 2:8-21


“Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”


This morning is all about going places. Lot “lingered” in his escape, and had to be rescued by force. His wife, unwilling or unable to turn her back completely on the evil city, was reduced to base matter. Even in the midst of his miraculous escape, Lot doubted his instructions from God, and asked to be allowed go somewhere in between salvation and destruction. The wickedness of the city followed Lot and his daughters, and the last we hear about this “righteous” man is that he is living destitute, in a tent in the wilderness, covered in shame.


But this is not the last word from God. Lot’s firstborn son is Moab, the first of the Moabites, those ancient enemies of Israel. Even without flicking through the Bible to the end (spoilers!), is the God we know the type of Person to just leave the shame and trauma of Lot and his daughters hanging, unresolved, over human history?


There was a famous Moabitess, whose story is included in the Old Testament. Her name appears in the New Testament too, right at the very start, in Matthew 1:5: Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David.


There are many miracles of God in which we can celebrate, but one of the most wonderful is how God continually takes our shame and turns it into glory, and then shares that glory with us. It shows just how confident God is, that He would take one of Lot’s incest babies and make him an ancestor of Jesus Christ.


It is in this spirit of God’s confidence that the shepherds, after hearing that their saviour, the Messiah, was a new-born baby lying in an animal feeding-trough, immediately went to see Him. There are a million and one rationalisations the human mind could invent that would reject such news. But God, for whom anything is possible, and takes what men intended for evil and uses it for good, inspired them with such trust and confidence that they experienced none of Lot’s lingering.


We need not race from destruction, for our Lord reigns, and is our strong fortress of protection. But we must race to Him. Drop everything: our God has done this marvellous thing; get running, because there is nowhere better to be.

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