Wednesday, March 29, 2023

 

Wednesday, March 29, 2023


Psalm 69:1-16

Exodus 8:20-9:12

Luke 20:27-47


Observance: John Keble, priest (d. 1866)


The sacrifices that we offer to the LORD our God are offensive to the Egyptians.


This statement is instantly recognisable to any Christian who has attempted to speak about the message of the cross in public. Moses wanted to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the holy mountain to offer sacrifices acceptable to God; sacrifices of thanksgiving and atonement for sins. It would not have been the fact that they were slaughtering animals that would have upset their Egyptian masters, as ancient pagans slew beasts all the time. The offensive bit was the why, not the what. Christians love and forgive one another because that is how we are made to be by God. The unbeliever does the same thing; but their reasons are different. Either the idea of God is offensive, or the fact God would demand us to act in this way is offensive.


But this is not the core of what is happening here. Moses is not worried about offending the Egyptians; he is worried about offending God. The concern here is about holiness. It is a concern about mixing the sacred with the profane.


There should be no fear about bringing the sacred into the place of the profane; that is a good way to get some much-needed blessings into the places that need it most. What should be in our minds is to guard the sacred from allowing any profanity to enter. Just as God demanded absolute separation between the sacred and the profane in the years before Christ, with events like this one in Exodus, the wider narrative of Exodus, the Levitical Law that Moses would later receive, and the warnings of the prophets to come, we are to obsessively guard ourselves against anything that would profane us. Our bodies house the Holy Spirit of God – holiness is in the name – and so they are beautiful temples, designed for things only good and lovely.



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