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Jan 7, 2010, 6:06pm

Everyday Women Everywhere-Main Community Forum :: EWE Prayer Room :: From the Bible :: Pass it On

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Topic: Pass it On (Read 6 times)

Pneuma
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Pass it On
« Thread Started on Nov 1, 2008, 8:42pm »

Pass It On

Deut. 34: 1-12 1 Thess. 1: 1-10 Matthew 22: 34-46

Moses saw the Promised Land. He led God's people there, he who had been an escaped murderer in his youth. He was called, and he returned to Egypt equipped with authority from God to perform signs and wonders. He wandered with his contentious and often doubtful people for forty years, and now he was at the Jordan river, just at the edge of the fulfillment of God's covenant. But Moses did not pass over the Jordan into the promise with that covenant; instead, he passed that covenant on. The Bible says: "Joshua son of Nun was full of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses."

Paul, writing from a prison in Rome, couldn't visit the church he started in Thessalonica. However, he wrote, "You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia." Paul passed the Lord along to the people in that church, and they were doing the same. In fact, their example went beyond the local region and news came all the way back to Rome -- news about a people who had turned from idols, dared to refuse the cult of Emperor worship, and who "waited for God's Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead -- Jesus who rescues us from the wrath that is coming."

Although it would seem that Jesus comes in the middle of this story, He actually comes before the beginning. In the Gospel reading, Jesus asks the Pharisees what they thought about the Messiah: whose son is he? They expected a great military conqueror who would raise Israel to be first among all nations, they knew the Messiah would be born of David's bloodline, and they tended to think of David establishing Israel rather than God calling and equipping David. So, they answered, "The son of David."

In one sense, they were right. Mary's marriage to Joseph is what makes Jesus the Son of Man, and His bloodline traces to David. Yet, Jesus was the Word that was uttered by God at the moment light itself was created, before the world was ever formed. Jesus is also the Son of God. So, Jesus reminds the Pharisees that David was in prayer when he spoke of the Messiah, saying: "the Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' " Then, Jesus asks, "How can the Messiah be David's son if David calls him Lord?"

Jesus came as One Who did all things well: perfect. Yet, He did not even call himself good, saying: "there is only one who is good, and He is God." Jesus, image of the Father, passed God on and commanded us to be true examples -- as was He -- of the One God whose very breath gives us life. When they first heard they were called to be perfect, the disciples, knowing they were far from that, asked, "Who, then can be saved?" Jesus answered that humanly speaking, this is impossible, but that all things are possible when God is with us. So, Jesus passed God on -- as did Moses, Joshua, David, Paul, the entire Thessalonican church, and all who heard and believed in God through these examples. And, now, it is our turn to pass God on until all Jesus' enemies are laid under His feet.

Notice that the Bible warns us that those enemies are alive and kicking still. God says, "Sit at my right hand until . . ." Where is Jesus? He is at God's right hand. He had walked among His enemies. We were those enemies, in fact. For God loved us while we were yet enemies of Christ-- willful, selfish, fearful, or unknowing and unborn. Now, we are born again. Jesus told his disciples when they came back from their first solo preaching mission, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven to the earth." Satan is defeated in heaven. Yet, our enemy is on earth, full of wrath, for Satan knows his time is short by eternal standards and soon all the devil will have is a pit of ashes: the outer darkness devoid of all that God makes.

Like Jesus, we are called to be God's children, as David put it in the Psalm, "In the presence of our enemies." That is why, even as Paul congratulates the Thessalonians, he has to admit that they were God's examples in spite of persecution. We cannot let fear or war or darkness or persecution, or sickness, or even death stop us from being God's children -- for God is stronger than all that. The question is how? How do we come to be true to this awesome God of relentless love who will not even spare His own Son for our sakes?

"You shall love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor like you love yourself." There are some who try this in different orders. The great scholar C.S. Lewis loved the Lord with his mind first before his heart and soul followed and before he had the grace to reach out to share God in his articles and stories. Some come to God because they are impressed with the things God's people do; so social action is a door for them to heart and mind and soul. A very few, the mystics, sense God's movement in all creation and, seeking that Spirit, come to love, study, and apply the truth that sets them free.

For me, it was the heart. Oh, elements of all the rest were there, but love called me and caught me first. Naturally, I wanted to know more about the One I loved; so, I was led to lifelong study of the Bible. I could not do this without committing more and more of whom I really am -- so I invite God's Spirit to live in all the rooms in my soul. And, as I reached up to God, I found that to embrace Him, my arms had to become wide enough to reach around all those whom God is embracing at the same time. Neil Diamond wrote a song where he says, "Reach out one hand to God, because that is what it is there for; and, reach the other out to your neighbor, because that is what it is there for!"

Pass it on. In the presence of our enemies, pass it on. And our cup overflows, unable to contain for itself all the love and hope God gives us even in the Shadow of our own crosses. For One has come among us greater than the Cross. He came to pass God on. He loved God, studied and knew God. He gave all of Himself to God so that what He did and said was what God says and does. And He loves us, more than He loved His life. His Name is Jesus and He lives in you if you let Him, which means that God does as well. But Jesus doesn't want to just abide there in the secret places of your life. What Jesus wants is for us to Pass Him, to pass God, on. Let us go forth in His Name and do just that. Amen.

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