Introduction
Most bookstores shelve predictive books. People want to know about the future. What is ahead? Will there be safety in the world of terrorism? Will another scandal riddle this administration or will another major corporation fall as Kmart or your local newspaper did? Personally, what about my future…where will I be and what will I be doing in a few years?
These are good questions to ask as we plan for our futures. These however, need other questions to be asked as well. Like, how shall I keep my commitments today into the future? How can I grow as a person during seasons of pain and joy?
Our text today tells us what the Jewish people are to do and how they should relate the events of their last 400 years and certainly their last few days in the future.
God gives us certain devises to help us in the future with recollections of the past, so that information is not lost, and so that a greater lesson is learned. Today we will seek to unpack the past for the future for the past, so that in the end, God will be understood a bit more and our lives will be His a lot more. May I say it this way: God wants to be your Lord in the future.
Command #1: Remember by observing a rite
And he does this with a series of three commands which help us orient to the future. First in our study is the celebration of the Passover. We read in verses 6-10 we should keep this ordinance. We should eat matzos and we should have a time with children asking questions. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Not just one night as the seder, but for 7 days of intentional reflection. This is an annual rite to observe.
In fact, the Hebrew says (avad’ta et havoda)
The Hebrew word for work is repeated. Worship by observing this rite. Or another way of saying this is to “Serve by the service of this month. “(.10) You can’t miss the definitive nature of this command. If you want to be an observant Jew, if you want to worship God in the way He desires, then eat matzos. Sounds so weird, at least to me today. I think of worship and I think of singing or praying, but here, he says it’s in the eating.
What else happens during the annual reflection of the Passover? Children ask questions. And what are we to answer? 1) God did this for me (.8) and 2) God spared us (14). In other words this is not only a historical reality to mark like we do with say, a tall ship parade into Sydney harbour. This is a memorial time for us to take this personally. God did something for me, for us. It’s not old and dusty; it’s very relevant today.
There are other requirements for this holiday of Passover. We are to remember. “This day” (.3), the event itself should serve as a reminder between our eyes (.9)…not a leather strap, but the event!. Even our first-born sons are in a way reminders of the horrible events on the Egyptians and the blessedness of redemption on that fateful night. So they are in a way belonging to God (.12), but the Hebrew says, “zikaron” that is, they are memorials to God.
God, Yahweh, wants us to use the future ceremonies of Israel to remind us of our glorious past, the times when we were most desperate for his help. We had begged for 400 years for deliverance, and he heard us. In the future, we will use the ceremonies of Passover, the eating of the original fast food, matzos, to remind us of his love and redemption. He doesn’t forget. He will answer. He will bring glory to himself. And we will be the people of his praise.
Command #2: Look at things/ Don’t look at other things
We are given a series of things to look or not look at. And when we see or don’t see, we are complying with the standards of the Almighty.
“Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and nothing leavened shall be seen among you, nor shall any leaven be seen among you in all your borders.” (.7)
So we are instructed that no chametz or s’or is to be seen. Wow, what a demand for the cleansing of houses. What you must remember is that this is a wilderness book. In other words, it’s for scouts not for LJ Hooker. What I’m saying is that this demand for sanitation and observance without leavening requires a spring cleaning of major proportions. The Jewish people are going on the move, for the next 40 years we wander. And then we enter this promised land, filled with milk and honey… at least in potential. But it’s a dry and desert land. It’s not the Hilton Hotel or the elegance of the Opera House. Think back to when Captain Phillip arrived in Botany Bay, then Sydney harbor. And imagine some few years later, they require a major festival with clean houses. Listen, the houses had not even been built yet! Exodus is a wilderness book. It’s the book of escaped slaves finding their way both literally and figuratively to Israel.
All this to say our future is one that God sees clearly, but we might have a hard time even being assured that we have. He knows one day from the other; we are struggling to get to the next one.
There are certain things he wants us to see to facilitate this memory activation. They are
1) Memorial feast/ unleaved cakes
2) Sign on hand/forehead (.9)
3) Pillar of cloud/ pillar of fire by night (.21)
All the things we are to see and the things we are not to look upon. Our bodies are one connect-the-dot puzzle. In other words, our eyes function together, and our ears point the way of hearing one thing. That’s why we are facing one way and have a hard time moving another (unless you play rugby for a living). Our thoughts are to be one direction, and our hearts are to be single. Didn’t Yeshua teach that as well?
The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6.22-23)
Jesus is teaching the singleness of affection to God and to man. Memorials are well and good, but they are not just a part of the life that is a patchwork fabric. We are to have a single design God is saying. We need singleness or clearness of eye. We see what God did; then we will remember who God is.
We wear signs on the hand or head and this teaches us to use all our bodies to remind us of God’s actions in the past. And if we are good students to this instruction, we will be encouraged about the God who is walking with us in the future. And that’s what the cloud teaches as well.
This implies motion, doesn’t it? The cloud sat for times and moved at other times. You couldn’t control it.
God is not interested in being one of a list of concerns in your busy life. He wants to be the sum of it all. What you look at will tell you who is number one in your life.
Command #3: Firstborn sanctified
Finally, the third command is given. It’s in verse 2 and repeated in verses 12ff. And I’m fascinated by the Hebrew word for womb. The verse reads, all who open the womb (Kol rehem) The Hebrew phrase says literally “all the firstborn who open all the womb”. How graphic. How one by one this is. Amid a population of over 3 million people, God is concerned about one Jew at a time. This is good instruction for me and for us as well, isn’t it? When someone comes to our doors, we should be a community of welcome, whether it’s someone we know or not. Welcome each other.
But now let’s get back to the womb. The womb is the place of mercy. Note the link with the word racham, rachmonis, and rechem. These words imply mercy and is directly related to the word for womb. Mercy is a female trait they say, but it’s something that we can learn as blokes as well. Listen to this story from Yeshua:
He spoke about a pair of men who were praying. The one was a religious leader and was comfortable negotiating with God. He said, “‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ (Luke 18.11)
He spoke with a confidence and almost self-consumption that makes even the worst of us a bit uncomfortable. Yeshua goes on to tell about the 2nd man:
“But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ (Luke 18.13)
What a contrast! Mercy is a womb thing. Mercy is a God thing. And the first born is to open the mercy of God to the family and bring God’s mercy to the world.
The firstborn was to be dedicated according to most translators. But may I coin a word? The firstborn was to be brought over, to be Hebrewed. This is a new use of the word. What happened to Abram when he left Ur is to happen to the children born to the people of redemption.
This implies personal conversion. We must each one be brought over from what was to what will be. Abram became Abraham and founded not only the Jewish people but stands as a representative of all people who will be encountered by the Lord. All who believe in the God of the Scriptures and who follow Him are children of Abraham. Not just the racial children are children; but it’s a family of faith. And at that, individual faith. To me this implies personal conversion.
In their lives the firstborn of the Jewish people are to be mercy bringers and themselves converted. But not only firstborn, rather they are representatives and chronologically first. So that we ‘remember God’ (.12)
We all need to have an Abraham experience of meeting the living God and of walking with Him in our journey of adventure.
The major theme in today’s portion is that the future is in God’s hand (Psalm 31) and that includes our exodus route. Whether a book gets written and published and sold in the Dymocks or Angus and Robertson near you, we can count on the Lord who is the God who led us out of the house of bondage and gave us eternal life in Him.
Don’t forget that Yeshua was a firstborn son who clearly Hebrewed the Jewish people and who brought mercy to the many. Yeshua was careful about what he saw and what he avoided, and he observed the rites of the Lord, even the Passover hours before he was executed. If anyone can fulfill this passage today, it’s Yeshua, who died for our sins and rose from the dead.
So: What lessons do we learn from today's teaching?
1) Without a clear understanding of our history we will fail in the future
2) Without commitments in the future, we will forget or mar the memory of the past
3) God wants to be in personal relationship with each of us, Jew and Gentile. We all need a Hebrew experience, coming or crossing over from death to life.
4) Moving forward is the only way to walk with God. Sitting still is acceptable at times, but when the cloud moves, you must move.
No comments:
Post a Comment