Tag: faith

He Heard Our Cry

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn InspirationLeave a comment

A reflection on portion Shemot/Names, and the incarnation.

When the Lord appears to Moses at the burning bush, He says:

“I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey …” (Ex. 3:7-8).

The Lord has “seen,” He has “heard,” He “knows,” and therefore: “I have come down to deliver them … to bring them up …”

The verses cited above shows the Lord’s presence among His people, even in the midst of their suffering; and in fulfillment of His promise to Abraham, He would rescue them from their circumstance (Gen. 15:12-16).

Again: The Lord has “seen,” “heard,” “knows,” and therefore “I have come down to deliver them … to bring them up …” And in grand narrative, Moses describes just how the Lord “come down” in order to bring “them up.”

The birth of Messiah Yeshua/Jesus is the incarnation of that Word of promise: to come down, in order to bring them up.

We read in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us …” The Word so majestically described in John 1:1-4, became flesh. The Greek is more descriptive, as it says that Yeshua pitched His tent among us.

John utilizes in 1:14 the same language found in the Septuagint of Exodus 40:35, “and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.”

The incarnation was the fleshing of the Lord’s promise, His wisdom and logic. It was the softening, the personalizing, the making vulnerable the second person of the Godhead. Why?

God heard our cry. The incarnation is the coming down of God into the tent of human flesh in order to rescue, and relate personally to us as “wonderful counselor.”

Have you ever felt “cut off” or isolated? Jesus did as well. Have you ever prayed and it seemed that heaven was silent? It happened to Jesus as well. He knows the depths of our struggles, personally (Heb. 4:15; cf. Lk. 22:42; Matt. 27:46).

Wrongly accused, ridiculed, abused, tortured, scorned, abandoned, and murdered, the tabernacled Word experienced it all for you, in order to bring you to the promised, prepared place (Jn. 14:1-3).

Increasingly it seems the incarnation is overlooked apart from one day a year, when “theological” bickering and commercialism overshadows said day, and the mystery of the holy Child.

The birth was the coming down of the Lord in response to the cry of His people. And for them, there remains the promise of their going up: and you are that living letter, the narrative of God’s faithfulness to save, by the blood of His Son, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Ultimately, you are not a story recorded by Moses, but a life written by God Himself, in the Word made flesh.

Hallelujah!

Be well. Shalom.

The Abased King

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn Applied Theology, InspirationLeave a comment

Matthew 25:31-46 describes a day like no other. The final judgment. The gathering and separating of the nations, as sheep and goats before the Messiah, and His throne.

To those on the right, “Come, ye blessed of my Father…” To those on the left, “Depart from me, ye cursed…”

Upon hearing the charitable acts done or refrained from, both ask, “Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison…” Still more, those on the right will ask when they did these things, while those on the left will ask, when did they not do those things.

There is a curious verse in Proverbs that helps us to understand what Yeshua is conveying: “He that is kind to the poor lends to the Lord; He will repay him for his kindness” (Prov. 19:17; cf. Prov. 14:31).

Kindness to the poor is reckoned as a loan to the Lord Himself, a loan which He will guarantee and repay. Why? How? Kindness a loan? Considering the depth of meaning to kindness in Hebrew, He is making a marvelous promise, but that’s for another time.

The incarnation of Jesus brought Him closer to us than we can fathom. As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).

What we learn from Scripture is that the Lord is not only close to the poor, but also the sick, the broken-hearted, the hungry, the thirsty, the widow, the orphan, the lost, the abused, the afraid, even the bold, every facet of human experience.

What does that have to do with you and me? Christ.

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (II Cor. 5:21).

Righteousness is not a sedentary condition of those faithing in Messiah. God’s righteousness in us leads to life changing relation (Eph. 2:8-10).

To Proverbs again, “When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices; And when the wicked perish, there is jubilation. By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, But it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked” (Prov. 11:10-11).

Why would a city rejoice at the blessing of the righteous? It all has to do with what the righteous do with the blessing.

The righteous are those, following and faithing in Messiah, who lower themselves in order to benefit the community: the poor, the needy, the outcast, the lost, the broken, the messed up, the suffering, the hungry, the thirsty, the oppressed, the stranger, etc. They do not rest on their advantage.

The way you can access the condition of your relationship with the Lord is not only by your attitude, but also your involvement in the lives of those the Lord identifies with. What is your involvement with life around you? Do people rejoice to the Lord because of you? Humbling isn’t it?

Yet the judgment pictured above is even more striking when you consider where Christ became “hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison…” At His arrest, His trial, His judgment, His crucifixion, and His death.

“When did we see You?” He is pointing to His cross. The Lord is in all of those human conditions. Seeing Him on the cross, we see God relating to man, and becoming the worst degree of suffering.

Christ died with nothing, even His robe taken. He suffered the greatest injustice beneath the lash of religious and governmental authority: naked, beaten, scorned, rejected, alone, thirsty, reckoned among the worst of humanity. The righteous One, the King of glory, abased beyond our imagining.

What should our response be? A calm, passive assurance of acceptance in heaven on that day? Or righteous involvement to help alleviate the suffering Christ identified with? “Whatsoever you did to the least of these my brethren, you did to Me” … or “you did not do.”

Our sin nailed Christ to the cross, but what does our cleansing by His blood do? “Come, ye blessed of my Father…” those blessed by the Father, because of the Son are moved to action when previously we would have been spectators and scorners: “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him” (Matt. 27:42).

I am in no way judging you dear reader, as I am first writing this to myself. In a season where many are giving up hope, losing faith, or enduring the most excruciating torment, what can we do, but be Christ to a people in need. That is our mission, not self-preservation – for we are already dead to the flesh, and alive in Him.

Be well. Shalom.