Day 134

Judges 18:1-19:30, John 8:12-30, Psalm 60:5-12

Sometimes we wonder why the Bible has to be so gruesome, but then when we see what is going on today we see that the Bible is just real life.

We have a little bit of a hangover from yesterday’s readings with the Danites finding a place to settle. Their problem is that they called in on Micah and his priest on the way and picked themselves up some idols and the ephod and decided to worship them. It was a little difficult to distinguish yesterday because they said that it was all for God, but idols and things are not of the Lord and so we are yet again heading down that slippery slope. It didn’t help that Micah found himself a priest from the Levites – a proper priest!

Then we get to the Levite in ch19 and the almost mirror situation to Lot in Sodom. It is here that we get to the gruesome parts that we probably would prefer not to read. In it though we see warnings that we cannot ignore (yet half the world do). The people had no king and no leader to keep them on track so they felt that they could do what on earth they liked, and they tried to get away with it. The lack of leadership also meant that they had no one to focus their eyes on God, it is that focus upward that was really missing.

We could check out the news today and find no end of examples of what happens when we take our eyes off God, and the BBC spares half the detail! What we read in the Bible is not actually that gruesome compared to what still goes on today when the world ignores the God of love and instead worships the God of self.

In the Gospel, Jesus is trying to bring this focus back. There is a lot of talk about the one who sent him because the Pharisees still can’t see that he is one with God and sent by God. Then the striking indictment that they do not know the father. After all that they had been through, in the Exodus, in Judges and throughout the Old Testament, it is the age old problem, they do not know God. Jesus came to rectify that and they are rejecting him. In this last paragraph about not understanding I was reminded about the centurion at the cross when Jesus died, “surely this man is the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54). A day will come when the world cannot deny the Christ.

Jesus was talking to the Pharisees about that day, but we can be assured that the day will come again when the Christ cannot be denied, the question is whether we are ready for it?