FOR THEY SHALL ALL KNOW ME

This is my last blog entry for the Journey class. I will facilitate a new class beginning next week on the first of April, April Fools day. There's bound to be some symbolism regarding such an auspicious date but I'm not touching it. 

We have been studying three of the major covenants from the Jewish scriptures in the last several weeks: Noah, Abraham and Moses. This week, there are two different sets of readings in the lectionary. Once I read the Jeremiah passage, I thought it appropriate to end on the promise of future covenant as it not only related to the time of Jeremiah but to our own Journey class.

When I was preparing to come to Richmond for seminary, a retired pastor who was a member of my ordination council, counseled me on remembering that "the best is yet to come." I must admit that after working in a number of intensive cares at two different hospitals the view of the future (growing older) was not what I what have initially referred to as the "best" to come. Being fairly older than the average seminary attendee, one can look back with some trepidation on what might have been done better in the past. But the past is just that: past. Time to move forward. For me, God is forgiving of the past and busy establishing the future by being involved today. 


How does the passage below speak to you where you are in your covenant with God and with others?

Jeremiah 31:31-34
31:31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

31:32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.

31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

31:34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

IF IT'VE BEEN A SNAKE IT WOULD'VE BIT YA

Nehushtan at Mt .Nebo

Nehushtan - (Nehush - snake)  the name of the cult serpent of brass upon a pole which King Hezekiah destroyed because by the time of his reign the Jewish people were worshiping it as an idol. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia and Jewish Virtual Library (on-line versions), the cult serpent has some tradition with the story in Numbers 21:4-9 but does not seem to have taken on the Nehushtan name until the time of Hezekiah. Accordingly, the serpent on a post is supposed to be shedding its skin, a sign of rebirth or healing for those who "look" upon it. According to the above references, the word "look" in verse 21:9 was not merely a glance but a time of acknowledgment of one's own conduct which resulted in repentance. This repentance was what saved the person from death.


Two questions: Is there difference in the way God approaches people in the Numbers passage compared to the John passage?
How do we sometimes change in relation to the gifts God has given us as illustrated in the time of Moses compared to the time of Hezekiah?

Numbers 21:4-9
21:4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way.

21:5 The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food."

21:6 Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.

21:7 The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

21:8 And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live."

21:9 So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.


John 3:14-21
3:14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

3:15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

3:17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

3:18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

3:19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

3:20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.

3:21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."

THE THIRD COVENANT. EXPRESSION OF LAW

A "run of DeMille" production

Maimonides, physician to Salidin and renowned Jewish scholar of the late middle ages, stated that for Judaism, Moses was the principal and greatest prophet of all for God's people. 
In today's lectionary choice we follow in the path of the covenants which God instituted with his people. Noah, Abraham and now Moses. For the Jewish people it is the covenant of the law with Moses that brings salvation to those who follow and obey it.
Jesus' distillation of the Ten into two sides of the same commandment regarding God and neighbor transformed the decalogue into a more efficient travelogue of religious ethics for our journey. Though by no means the first code of conduct from the mid-east, the "Top Ten" have remained influential in Western minds up to today. And its placement as public edifice has been the issue of more than several court decisions, even though most of those Ten Commandment displays were placed in parks and public places in the 1950s by Paramount Studios as publicity promotion for what was then described as "The Greatest Event in Motion Picture History." 


In the scriptures from Exodus, how does this illustrate the aspect of covenant (3rd) for the Jewish people. What does it mean for us?


Exodus 20:1-17
20:1 Then God spoke all these words:

20:2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;

20:3 you shall have no other gods before me.

20:4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,

20:6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

20:7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

20:8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.

20:9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

20:10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.

20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

20:12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

20:13 You shall not murder.

20:14 You shall not commit adultery.

20:15 You shall not steal.

20:16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

20:17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.