A KNIFE TO A GUN FIGHT.

God often has his servants bring a knife to a gunfight. Or, in the case of Moses, which was a stick or staff (in other contexts, the word can also mean “scepter”).

With a simple piece of wood, Moses fought against the most powerful leader of the most powerful nation on earth. Sounds foolish, doesn’t it? Yes, but when it comes to heaven’s arsenal, our Lord prefers to use foolish weapons to defeat the wise and powerful of the world.

With this staff, Moses and Aaron turned the Nile to blood (Exodus. 7:20) and held it over the sea so the Israelites could pass through (14:16). With this same staff by which he had punished Egypt, he also blessed Israel with drinking water from a rock (17:5-6).

What made this staff so powerful? Was it magical wood? No. God connected his word of promise and power to this simple element of creation. It was a vehicle for his gracious work in this world. The stick’s power came from God’s claim upon it. It was, indeed, “the staff of God” (Exodus. 4:20; 17:9).

As such, this wooden staff is like the jars of Gideon or the waters of baptism. They are all the unpretentious ways our Lord chooses to defend us. Each of them, in their own way, are the word of God made visible. A word of wood. A word of pottery. A word of water. They are not the words we would look for, or even hope for, but they are the words of life itself. 

Simple things which many would scoff at as silly or foolish, these are what our Lord likes to use. The ultimate example of which is “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23-24).

Hallelujah!

Happy Sunday 🥂

Out of Options: Jacob and GOD.

Unbeknownst to Jacob, God has Jacob right where he wants him: out of options. Food has run out. Time has run out. But the famine has not run out. Jacob has been dragging his feet about sending his sons back to Egypt for more supplies because he knows that this time, his beloved Benjamin *must* go with them.

Jacob is out of options, that is, except for the options of (1) relying, not upon himself, but upon mercy and (2) relying, not upon himself, but upon others. Not only for Jacob but for all of us, that is a highly unsettling place to be.

None of us willingly place ourselves in situations where we are out of options, where we must rely upon divine mercy and our neighbor’s actions on our behalf. We’re too busy playing divinity in our juvenile galaxies of self-determination. So, in ways sometimes small and sometimes big, the Master of providence picks us up by the scruff of our necks and drops us there. Where we are empty, at our wits’ end. And where we are thus precisely in a situation ripe for divine work in our lives.

It's a terrible place to be because we cannot shepherd events or pull the strings to get what we want. But it’s also a blessed place to be. A vacuum is created within us that the Spirit of God begins to fill. Less of me, more of God. Less of control, more of Christ.

We sit in the dirt with Jacob and fix our eyes on the horizon. We place ourselves under the mighty and merciful hand of a compassionate God. We wait. We hope. And we trust that, no matter what happens, we do not really sit there alone. Jesus is right there beside us. For if there’s one truth we know about Christ, beyond any doubt, it’s that hell and all its demons cannot make him budge one inch from those whom he calls his friends.

A New Song; There's Something New Under the Sun!

There is an old song of our fallen and failing world, and the song is;

“There Is Nothing New Under the Sun.”

A flat song, out of tune, and accompanied by wheezing trumpets and tattered drums. When you look at your life in shambles because of the strings of foolish decisions you made, this song plays in the background. When you are utterly bankrupt inside, with nothing there, and you wonder why you even exist, this old song plays. False notes. Gasping melodies. This is the song sung in the amphitheater of this world, a broken record of broken people leading broken lives. We all know it by heart.

God knows that we know that old song all too well, so he, with mercy higher than the mountains, with love deeper than the ocean depths, gave us a new song. In Hebrew, שִׁיר חָדָשׁ, shir chadash. “Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day” (Psalm 96:1-2). This is not the siren song of worthless idols, but the saving song of him who “made the heavens,” before whom are “splendor and majesty,” and in whose sanctuary is “strength and beauty” (Psalm 96:5-6).

This new song is not novel in the sense of modern and innovative, but a Good News song of the Lamb who renews our hopes, renews our souls, renews life itself. This is the new song of Jesus, for if anyone is in him, they are a new creation. Old things have passed away, old songs have been trashed, and everything is new in the Word made flesh who dwelt among us and sang his love into our hearts.

You see, there is something new under the sun: God became man in Jesus, the Godman. He is our new song. And because of him, in our life under the sun, which so often is hard and painful, we are carried along on the shoulders of our Good Shepherd, who fills heaven and earth with his booming voice of divine love for us.

Hallelujah!