You belong to your father.

 

Monday, July 31, 2023


Psalm 59

2 Samuel 10

John 8:31-47


Observances: Joseph of Arimathea; Ignatius of Loyola, priest and founder of the Society of Jesus (d. 1556)


You belong to your father.


I have the distinct pleasure of seeing two little boys grow up together at the same time. They were born only some weeks apart, so seeing their differences and similarities as they get through those first months raises all sorts of theories as to which boy will take what role in the relationship. That is to say, when they become of age, who will be the one cooking up the schemes, and who will be the one who gets in trouble for them?


David didn’t even have a friend cooking up schemes for him. He wrote today’s Psalm while trapped in his own home hiding from Saul’s assassins. “For no fault of mine, they run and prepare” he laments. It is something every little school child has cried out: “But I didn’t do anything wrong!” Worse yet was the trouble he ran into with the Ammonites. He was drawn into bloody war simply for trying to do the right thing.


But this is the pattern of the war between God’s kingdom and this world. Jesus came as a beaming light of truth to His own people. He was only doing the right thing by everyone He came across. And yet, He was rejected. Jesus’ brilliant insight into the human condition diagnosed the reason why: this world is under the influence of Satan the liar – indeed, the inventor of the lie. And so the goodness of God needs more than just the bare truthful fact to get through to us. Bare truthful fact is intercepted by the father of lies. And so, God adds His saving grace to the truth, so that when we receive it, we become more than just information receptacles. We become God’s children.



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