At the bottom of the Mount Sinai, the recently freed Israelites waited for their leader to descend. They had arrived after experiencing the most amazing displays of God’s power and provision for them. They had seen the Red Sea split and Pharaoh’s army washed up on the shore, they had seen bread fall from heaven, water pour from a rock, and enemies defeated simply by the raising of Moses’ hands. And yet their journey had been characterized by a perpetual grumbling against the very God that had delivered them and particularly against the man that God had provided to lead them; namely, Moses. They had never really trusted him and this moment was no different. At the bottom of the mountain they began to grumble amongst themselves wondering why “this Moses” had been so long up on top. “Who needs him anyway,” they thought. And so they hatched a plan to have their own divine encounter right where they were. Under Aaron’s leadership they formed the golden calf and began to worship the God that had led them out of Egypt, but on their own terms and according to their imaginationsThey danced and partied and must have felt quite satisfied that they were able to deal with God apart from Moses, their mediator with God....
"Taking Every Thought Captive" 2 Corinthians 10:5
Bill_Spanjer
Christ our Joseph
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”, must have been the words in the heart, if not on the lips, of Joseph after being betrayed by his brothers and falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife. Sitting in prison in a foreign land so far from the father he loved, he must have remembered the amazing dreams that God had given him of how one day he would rule and have even his brothers bow before him. How could Joseph have known that the way God establishes his glorious kings is through the way of suffering. Yes, Joseph was to be a man of power and glory, and as such would deliver the very brothers that had betrayed him, but to get there he would have to take the path of apparent God forsakenness. This is the pattern that was established for the people of God and one which the contemporaries of Jesus had not learned. As Jesus told his disciples on the road to Emmaus,...
Christ the Seed of the Woman
As Adam and Eve stood along side the serpent, ashamed and alienated form the God who made them in His image, they awaited their certain death sentence. God had told them that the day they ate of the forbidden tree they would surely die. For in eating they had not merely disobeyed a command, but the shame and horror of that disobedience was in the fact that they had chosen to trust Satan rather than God and to believe his blasphemous and slanderous portrayal of their creator. How quickly and easily they were convinced that God did not have their best interest in mind and that if they only reached out and grasped for their independence they could have what God refused to give them. Of course, not more than an instant after yielding to Satan’s temptation they had discovered that far from being gods, they were in fact shells of what God had made them to be. Awaiting the impending sword of judgement, how they must have felt the despair and hopelessness that sin inevitably provides. If only there were a way to make things right. If only there were a way to mend the tear that their sin had created between them and their Lord. And then, as they listened to God hand down their sentences, beginning with the serpent, they heard the most amazing thing. For woven into the curse....