I am going to apologize in advance for what could be a rather incoherent post. My brain is just not here today ~ I think it may have been buried under all the snow we got yesterday...
The Old Testament reading opens up with Moses disregarding God's instructions to SPEAK to the rock and hitting it instead, and then being told as punishment he would also not be permitted to enter the Promised Land with the Israelites.
I feel for Moses a little bit here. I'm not sure how, exactly, they can tell this, but according to the notes in my Bible, this is very close to the end of the Israelites' desert wanderings. Which means Moses has been listening to almost 40 years of whining and complaining. Once more, the people come to a place where there's no water, and instead of trusting God, who has shown over and over His miraculous provision for them, they whine about how great they had it back in Egypt, of all things! Seriously, I don't fault the man for snapping!!
And if this is indeed the second generation after the Exodus, they won't really have had any memories of Egypt at all, let alone it being a wonderful place! Which means their whining and complaining was passed on down from their parents. Wow, what a sad legacy to leave when they could have left an incredible legacy of faith in God instead.
Then we have a bunch of cities and/or nations denying Israel safe passage, and as a result, some are cursed by God and some are just annihilated by the Israelite army. Again, we have more complaints about the food and God sends a plague of poisonous snakes to punish them. God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and raise it on a pole for all to see and everyone who looks at the snake statue will be healed. This is a foreshadowing, of course, of Christ, who was also raised on a pole/cross to heal the sickness of sin.
Then we have more battles and more victories before coming to the very interesting story of a sorcerer named Balaam whose donkey talked to him and whom God used to bless His people even though Balaam had been hired to put a curse them. What has always kind of confused me about this story is that when the initial request comes from Balak, the Moabite king, Balaam says he needs to inquire of the Lord. Seems like an odd thing for a sorcerer to say, doesn't it?!
The other thing I find confusing is that at Balak's third request, God tells Balaam, "Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you." And then the very next morning, it says Balaam saddled his donkey to go with the princes of Moab, and God "was very angry when he went." I don't get that. God had just told him to go the night before. My Bible indicates it was Balaam's greedy attitude that angered God, but that's certainly not obvious from the text. Just thought it was interesting.
Then the passage in Mark today tells of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. I think the thing that always strikes me most about Jesus' death is the temple curtain being ripped in half, notably from top to bottom, as opposed to bottom to top, which would have given some cause to say it could have been done by the hands of men. Although that would have been an amazing feat, if even possible ~ this was no ordinary curtain! I was actually a little shocked at some of the statistics I found.
Though the credibility of the sources is tough to confirm, it seems widely accepted that the curtain was 60 ft long, 30 ft wide, four inches thick, and it weighed between 4 and 6 TONS. It would have been like trying to tear a large city phone book in half! Probably not even possible for a mere mortal! And a simple fall from the lintel in the event of an earthquake would not have ripped it in half either.
This was so obviously an act of God and such a beautiful symbol of the access now granted to ANYONE seeking Him through Christ. We no longer need to rely on human priests to approach God; we can enter into His presence ourselves whenever we want to!
All we need to do is call on the Name of His Son.
Tomorrow's passages: Numbers 23-25, Mark 16
3 comments:
Thank you for your thoughts, Tammi. The foreshadowing of the bronze snake on the pole to Christ on the cross was much more evident to me today as I read than it has been in the past. The Israelites constant whining and grumbling has been getting to me too, but then I think to myself how often I resort back to old behaviours and patterns so quickly and have to ask forgiveness yet again.
Today was the first time I noticed how the bronze snake was a foreshadowing of Christ. I am starting to love the OT!
In one sermon I heard, they thought God was angry with Balaam because God had said so clearly that he was not to go with them the first time he asked. So by him asking a 2nd and 3rd time God was frustrated that his first answer wasn't good enough. Either way, I believe his greediness played a huge role in that.
Great post!
I feel sorry for Moses too. He put up with so much and this action denied him something he looked forward to for so long. I also wondered if he had possibly misheard God or forgotten what the instructions were (because really, whether you speak to a rock or hit it with a stick, unless God wills it there will be no water!) I guess that fits in with the intentional vs unintentional sin and the consequences of both.
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