A basket of summer fruit. Our lesson begins with a beautiful image, so appropriate to the season. A basket of summer fruit that God sets before His people. Ah, isn't all right in the universe? "The end has come upon my people Israel;I will never again pass them by.The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,"says the Lord GOD;"the dead bodies shall be many,cast out in every place. Be silent!" Oh. Oh dear.
This is one of those stories that reminds us, that God not only calls us, but equips us with what we need to fulfill our calling. It's a powerful reminder that we're called to great things - that God expects great things - awesome things - from us, but that God doesn't expect us to do it on our own. Not because we're lazy, but because the things God asks us to do are oftentimes outside the realm of human possibility.
Cause if we just sink into the mire of Christian blandness we might as well just climb back into the upper room. And lock the door. I heard it's safe in there. But when the Spirit of God moved on the waters, and Light shined forth, and the morning stars sang together with all the heavenly host - when that hunk of clay took its first breath direct from the lungs of God - when the white-hot fire of God swooped down from Heaven and set a bush on fire/ blazed a trail in the wilderness/ filled the Temple with God's Presence/ brought forth the Holy Spirit and set the disciples' heads literally on fire. . . there was nothing bland about any of it.
The astute reader will recognize in this reading, from the second to last chapter in the Bible, imagery from the second chapter of Genesis, and the Garden of Eden: the Tree of Life and the River flowing on either side of it. Here, in this phase of John's Apocalypse, we return to the cool of the garden - that wonderful time when humanity walked with God in the cool of the day. That time when we spoke to God as casually as we might speak to one another. That time when all was right in the universe, and all was right in our relationship with God. Paul would call this righteousness. But, it's not that the 'unpleasantness' of the fall never happened. Or the unpleasantness of Cain killing Abel. Or the unpleasantness of drunkenness, sordidness, the golden calf, David and Bathsheba, war, strife, hatred, idolatry, unfaithfulness blah, blah, blah - it's not that all that didn't happen. It's that it's all taken care of. The tab has been paid. The tomb is empty. Jesus is made new. And now the full ramifications of the Resurrection of Jesus can be seen: Eden is made new. Eden has returned - but! It's also remade. It's new.
If you’ve been following this blog for a few weeks, you may have noticed a theme. . . I think the juxtaposition of the quasi-continuous readings of the Book of Revelation this Eastertide is a great reminder that the Resurrection of Jesus has personal and cosmic ramifications: everything gets made new. Everything. Even us. Even the whole wide world. Peter catches a glimpse of that in the lesson from Acts. His personal struggle with the […]
This is the overarching story of the scriptures. Over and over and over again God looks like he's been defeated. Over and over again it looks like the story is over. It appears that God had a good run, but the Cindarella story has to come to an end. And each time, God prevails. Seeming defeat turns into amazing victory. That is the story of God.
No. The gods didn't do anything new. The only thing useful about them was that they were totally consistent. Like the law of thermodynamics. Like gravity. But, Israel's God - oh, He's a bit different. He isn't bound by laws and theorems. In God's world the Red Sea can draw back. The sun can stop dead in the sky. Virgins can give birth to bouncing baby boys. A Christian-hating Pharisee like Paul can become an apostle. Our God can do new things.