Thursday, March 23, 2023

 

Thursday, March 23, 2023


Psalms 54; 55:1-12

Exodus 4:1-26

Luke 19:1-10


“A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.”


Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. The lesser elohim who would rebel against the Lord and take us down with them are facing rightful destruction. Fire and brimstone, floods, lightning and thunder precede the Lord’s justice. He looks at His creation, which He made, blessed, and called good, and sees the evil that stains its beauty. The Lord can only do good, for that is His nature, and the ultimate good act is to remove evil so utterly that there is not even a memory left.


To be holy is to be set apart; separated from that evil influence and taken into God’s goodness. That is what the Jews thought they were doing when they sent Jesus outside the walls of that holy city of Jerusalem to be crucified. But Christ had to go out into the darkness in order to destroy it: just as He seeks out and saves His lost, like Zaccheus, He then protects them from the evil they have fled by charging headlong into the enemy once they are safely behind the front lines.


Circumcision doesn’t save anyone from God’s justice; being set apart from evil does. Christ did this on the cross for us, and for Moses and his son, circumcision was a sign of that separation. If Moses were to be the agent of deliverance for God’s chosen people, he had to be marked as a holy one himself: the alternative is death.


This isn’t a capricious decision on the Lord’s part. He doesn’t throw dice in the air and decide who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. The dynamic at play is actually between justice and mercy: what we deserve versus God’s generous love. Christ was set apart to be our sacrifice, and He has done it, and He is now our bridegroom because of His blood that was shed for us. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.

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