There are times when the high tops of the Cairngorms are obscured by clouds, but on occasions some other lower feature is highlighted by a break in the clouds as in the photograph above. Equally, there are times when God will highlight some of his attributes which we would consider lesser ones.
In 1 Kings 19 verse 7 it states that “the angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him [Elijah].” Now the phrase the “angel of the Lord” occurs many times in the Old Testament and can be used on occasions to refer to the pre-incarnate Christ. But I have never heard anybody cite this occasion as being one of them. After all the angel is performing a relatively menial task of cooking a couple of meals for Elijah whose courage had failed him. The angel makes no great prophetic utterance and in fact on the first occasion the angel wakes up Elijah the words “of the Lord” are omitted. But a year or so ago I heard a preacher quote verse 7 and the thought dropped into my mind that the phrase ‘angel of the Lord’ could mean the pre-incarnate Christ. I began to react against this being applied in this instance because God would not come down to earth to serve a failure like Elijah. But then I was reminded of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper. Immediately I was also reminded of John chapter 21 and the miraculous catch of fish, with Jesus cooking a meal the the disciples including Peter who had betrayed Him. Suddenly the idea of Jesus cooking the meal for Elijah did not seem to far-fetched after all.
Of course, we assume it was just an ordinary angel and we equally assume that God must have been angry with Elijah for doing a runner. Elijah was probably angry with himself for his failure, but just because we might be mad about our failures it does not necessarily mean that God was angry with Elijah or us. I mean that Jesus had every right to be angry with Peter for denying him three times and most of us would have found it difficult not to be in the flesh. Of course God knew that Jezebel would react in the way she did threatening Elijah with his life, even if it was the last thing that Elijah was. God knew how disappointed Elijah would be so why would He be angry with him? So maybe it was a way of showing Elijah how sympathetic God was to Elijah’s dejection. Even if Elijah was so deep in his “pity party” that he did not notice that the angel who served him was God Himself. Elijah may have assumed that the angel who fed him was the lowest of the low.
What we forget is that God loves the “servant heart” and wants to see it in us, but because of our sinful nature we want to be in control, and are therefore blind to the possibility that God Himself would humble Himself to serve Elijah. We would see the washing of the disciples feet as as one off, as again we would see Jesus suffering on the cross as the “suffering servant” of Isaiah 53 as a one-off. But Jesus’ whole life on the earth was one of humility. Think, why Jesus’ severest criticisms were targeted against those who thought themselves self-important and want to lord it over others? Does it not show something of God’s nature and how He expects His servants to behave?
Apologies for a period of writers’ block and overcoming inertia.
David Rose, 2021.
I suspect most people have received gifts they did not appreciate. This year I decide to give the birds that visit my garden a new nyger seed feeder as my original one was getting quite tatty with one of its perches missing and its top held together by glue. So on Christmas Day I filled up the new feeder and put it out. Only to find that the birds that used to feed on the old took one look at it and flew away. They obviously did not appreciate what I believed to be an improved service. True, the weather since Christmas has been relatively mild for the time of year so they are not forced to use the new feeder. Maybe they will return and try again to obtain the seeds from it if there is a cold snap. Until then the variety of birds in my garden has somewhat decreased. Since then there have been a few birds at the feeder but none of the species that were so regular at the old feeder. There have been times when I have considered putting out the old one instead.
At this time of year at Carol Services and other Christmas events the prophesies of Isaiah in chapters 7 and 9. The first being the sign of Immanuel and the second being the one with “for unto us a child is born.” Let us put them in their historical context. In chapter 7 Isaiah confronts King Ahaz of Judah and the prophecy concerning Immanuel is given after Ahaz refuses to ask God for a sign. Isaiah then rebukes him by saying “hear now the house of David! Is it not enough to test the patience of men? Will you test the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Now Ahaz was one of the bad kings of Judah and because of that we tend to forget about him and concentrate on the good guys whom we can use as role models. So let us step back and consider what else Scripture says about him.
The picture that you see is of a bollard that was hit by a reversing vehicle. It is located at a supermarket, an articulated lorry delivering fresh food was just about to reverse into its delivery bay when a smaller truck, belonging to a laundry, entered the car park and noticing that the other vehicle’s reversing lights were on concentrated avoiding the other vehicle’s route the driver omitted to notice the bollard behind him. In trying to avoid one danger he ran into another resulting in a loud bang. Just like a golfer who hit a ball into a bunker on the right-hand side of the fairway last time he played a hole, over compensates and lands in a bunker on the left instead.
Have you ever noticed that when demons encountered Jesus in the Gospels they actually spoke the truth. Considering that the devil is the father of all lies, there must be a reason for this. Equally, in the book of Job when the devil is summoned into the presence of God, he does not lie. There is obviously something governing this that is not directly referred to in the text. However, I think there is a clue in the wording of the Lord’s prayer where is says “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Therefore when Satan was called into God’s presence to discuss Job he was unable to overrule the will of God and therefore had no option but to speak the truth. Equally, when Jesus walked this earth he often said that the kingdom of God (or Heaven) was near. Though humans were not usually aware of this, when demonic forces came into contact with Him the same rule applied, so they had to state that Jesus was “God’s Holy One,” or “the Son of God,” they were unable to deceive people by telling lies about Jesus in his presence. The last thing they wanted to do was to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, but they could not help themselves when they came into contact with Him. True, Jesus silenced them, but I believe this was more because he was concerned about the crowd’s reaction to their acclamation rather than he was concerned about the demons going on to spout untruths. Jesus knew that the Jews were waiting for a messiah that would fight and overthrow the Roman empire, and on several occasions He had to take steps to avoid being hijacked as a figurehead for a Jewish revolt. Of course once he had moved on they would have been free to lie again if they had not been cast out. Sadly, though, spiritually blind humans who encountered Jesus were not always as obedient as these demons. Such as the time in the synagogue in Nazareth when the people rioted and tried to throw Jesus over a cliff.
When we read 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16:- “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” it seems self-evident to everyone who comes from a churched background. We have heard it said, no doubt, that, of course, when Paul wrote this the Scripture he referred to was just the Old Testament. We should ask ourselves the question:- “Who in Paul’s day would dispute that?” The answer is the Sadducees, who believed that only the Pentateuch or the Torah, as the first five books of the Bible are known, were truly inspired. Paul as a Pharisee had been taught that all of the Old Testament was inspired. The problem was that when Pharisees debated with Sadducees they had to include some quotes from the Torah in order to win their arguments, but in doing that it gave the impression that the Torah was always trumps. But Jesus quoted most from the book of Isaiah (admittedly there is a lot of it to quote from), not from the Pentateuch. However, as the Gentile proportion of believers increased these arguments paled into insignificance. But today there has been a growth in the number of Jewish believers in Jesus, if they have come from a secular background to Christ they do not seem to have much of a problem accepting the New Testament as the inspired Word of God. Others that have been brought up in the “Torah is trumps” mentality seem to have more of a difficulty. They have an affinity to the Judaisers in the early church even if they deny it. Especially, with regards to Paul being the Apostle to the Gentiles, most first century Jews believed that God made Hell for the Gentiles so there was no point in evangelising them, and their modern counterparts ascribe everything to do with Gentile Christianity as being pagan. When other Christians refer to the fact that Christ fulfilled the Law they take as Jesus obeying the Law and living a perfect life as an example of how to live. The idea that in doing so that the New Covenant replaced the Old Covenant is anathema to them because it undermines their distinctive Jewishness. The problem the church has today with this kind of argument is that is so afraid of being accused of antisemitism, that it is does not know how to counter it effectively. Either it goes down the replacement theology route which risks denying the Jewish origins of Christianity, or it becomes too sympathetic and uncritical to anything Jewish and that includes the state of Israel. Just because “God blesses those who bless Israel,” does not mean that we should be blind to its faults.
cairngormmusings 