New Thoughts (9/3/04-9/9/04)
Two completions are occurring here, two satisfactions of God's timing. These are times that were declared to man in the Mosaic law, times that would accompany every birth of a child into God's people. They are times that would apply both to those naturally born into the family, and those who came in from outside. That it is two distinct events being discussed here is not immediately evident, although it is at least suggested by Luke's wording. However, a look at the Law of this timing, as laid out in Leviticus 12:3-5 makes plain that the event of circumcision was not an event done on Temple grounds, indeed could not be.
The eighth day was the day declared on which a son of Israel must take on the sign of covenant relationship. Yet, by that same Law, the child's mother was yet unclean. She could not go near the Temple yet! Indeed, it would be another month or so before she could. Curiously, at the birth of a daughter, this time of separation from the house of God was doubled. The reason for this, I do not understand. I do know, however, that God has His reasons for all that He commands of His people. It is not some frivolous matter, but worth understanding.
One thing this makes clear is that thirty days and more have passed between verses 21 and 22. In fact, Jesus has been on the earth some 42 days when He is taken to the Temple. Now, can we really think that the family has been staying in the stable this whole time? I cannot. I cannot imagine that the pride in hospitality that is so much a part of Middle Eastern life would allow it! Remember, this was not some public inn whose stable they had commandeered. It was the property of some family member of Joseph's, however distantly he may have been related. This was family, and though there may have been a few days' inconvenience when too much family had come for them to accommodate, that was not likely to have lasted a whole month.
As I'm thinking about that, I am reminded of this matter of covenant which circumcision declared participation in. I believe it was in the ISBE that the author suggested that the rite of circumcision was a matter of drawing the parties into blood-relationship, into the ties of familial relationship. The bonds of family supersede all other commitments among men. This was the bond into which God brought men, from Abraham on forward to today, the bond of family. We are so much more than the servants of God, although we gladly serve Him. We are His sons and daughters. He has declared us so. He has marked us as members of His family. As such, as family, His bonds to us, His concern for our well-being, is strong. As His family, our bonds to Him, our concern for His good pleasure, ought to be equally strong. Our family ties with God should, in fact, trump every other concern that vies for our attention.
These same family ties, albeit in more mundane form, are what sustained Mary and Joseph as they spent time in Bethlehem. The stable they occupied was not a stranger's territory, but family turf. Those who offered them that place did so for the sole reason that they could not do better in that moment of time. Even though they had no better accommodations to offer, it is telling that they still offered what they had. This changes one image I had of Joseph's efforts when the couple arrived in town. He hadn't gone door to door seeking out some place for Mary to stay. He had gone direct to the door that must be answered, the door of family. He knew, knew with certainty, that family would provide. That Joseph was not a rich man seems evident in the sacrifice they brought at the second completion. That his family was well to do is not implied at all in their generosity towards him here. The meanest of families would have done the same, would have found some means of providing shelter to kin.
Why do I spend time on this? Because it seems to me that this speaks rather well to our own condition. We come to God in a poor state. We have little to keep us alive, and nothing to offer Him on whose door we knock. We have only this one hope to hang onto: We are family. We have not called ahead to make arrangements, but we are sure He'll be home. We are strangers in town, yet we can come to His door knowing that when we knock He will answer; when we seek shelter from Him, He will provide. He may not provide us with mansions and riches in this life, but He will provide shelter. We walk the land with one hope, and that one hope is more than enough!
Holy Father, what words of comfort these are! You taught us to knock, knowing You would answer. You taught us not only through Your teaching, but through the model of Your people. So much that You teach, these eyes fail to see! I consider, Lord, that You have said that all creation speaks of Your glory, and I consider that for so very long, I couldn't hear it. How sorrowful I could become to think of the time wasted without You, the time I could have known You but refused to. Yet, the joy I have now, knowing that I can come to You, knowing You will always welcome me, knowing that whatever my circumstance, You will see me through; that joy is so much more than any sorrow I could know! God, what thanks could ever be enough for Your provision? If I had anything of worth to offer You, it could never suffice, could never even begin to repay my debt to You. Yet, I will offer what I have. Such as I have, Lord, I give to You. I give to You the hospitality of my own heart, and welcome You to stay as long as You will, indeed, I pray it is an eternity that You spend with visiting me. Thank You, Lord, for all You provide. Thank You that I am today Your child, a son of the kingdom, a joint heir with my Lord and Savior. Thank You, that I can rest in the assurance that You will complete what You have begun in me, the new beginning will reach its proper end because it is Your doing, and You do not fail of Your purpose!
A new beginning: This is what comes to us in covenant with God. This was symbolized in the timing of the circumcision. On the eighth day, the day of new beginnings, the child was to be marked as a member of God's chosen people. Modern thinking would determine that the timing of this event was such as would ensure the child was going to live, and yet was not old enough that the pain of circumcision would overly traumatize him. Such thought would find little more than medical cause for the timing of the event. In fact, one finds evidence even in religious writings of a similar mindset that has become blind to God's purposes. They see no more in this rite than the behaviors of a late-comer to the ritual. They would have us to think that the Jews were simply aping the rites of those nations among whom they dwelt! God leaves no grounds for such foolishness. The eighth day was not chosen as an echo of some other people's rites. It was not a day chosen with no idea of its significance. It was a day appointed by God precisely because of its significance! With circumcision, that child was marked as being not only part of the earthly family, but part of the heavenly family. It was a mark of new birth, second birth, birth into the life which only the covenant God could provide.
Lest we miss that significance, as many appear to do, as they lift their intellect up as an idol, God repeats the timing. Instructions were given to the Nazarite, the one under vows of particular holiness. Such a one, devoted as he was to the God of life, was not allowed to touch what was dead. This was part of the vow he had taken. Yet, what was the poor man to do if his companion suddenly passes away at his side? It is not as though he sought contact with death, death, in this case, seemingly sought contact with him! Yet, he remains guilty in the sight of a holy God. What is he to do? The remedy is given in Nehemiah 6:9-11. He is to come 'on the eighth day,' with the same sacrifice that was required for the newborn. Why? For the very same reason. The newborn child of man is born into sin, he is sinful from the very moment of his birth, and it will require the new birth of covenant relationship with God to bring real life to that child. The eighth day marked this new beginning, the transfer from the living death of the sinner to the full life of God's children. We are born touching death. Like the Nazarite, we must wait an appointed time before we approach our Father, and we must come with an atonement for our sins.
The newborn, or the Nazarite: each must come with that atoning blood, and before that atonement could be made, there was the need for a burnt offering. What is the significance of that, Lord? The atonement I understand. I see its fulfillment. But, what was the burnt offering about? How has it been fulfilled? Lord, help me to see this. I sense in my heart that there is something there I need to learn. Would You reveal it to me in Your time? Thank You!
That is a question that will have to await another time for understanding to come, I think. What strikes me, though, is what we see in these first days of Jesus' life. What we see is obedience, but notice that this is not the instant obedience that we might associate with God. It was a more complete obedience than that. It was an obedience not only to His command but to His timing. The lesson that is so often lost on us in the rush of the present age is that obedience sometimes, perhaps most often, requires waiting for the appointed time. We serve the Most High God, and if we understand sufficiently to serve Him truly, we have to understand that service is only service when it is rendered at the appointed time.
God may provide us with hints of our future purpose. Chances are, He is also saying something to us about the timing. As often as not, though, we hear about the appointed purpose and rush off to fulfill it without listening to the rest of His message. We are so anxious to be of service, that we spoil our service by our failure to serve by His instructions! We've gotten out ahead of the pillar of His guidance, stepped out from under the cloud. Then, when things go poorly, we look about hurt and confused. We wind up suspicious of our ability to hear God, because He surely would not have sent us into this mess! Obedience is only obedience when it obeys completely! Obedience is only obedience when it is willing to patiently await the appointed time.
Circumcision, inasmuch as it had any meaning, would have been utterly meaningless if it were done on whatever day the parents happened to find convenient - perhaps the nearest Saturday, so that relatives could attend more easily. Mary could doubtless have come to the Temple with her offering just about any time. She was not known to the Temple staff, being an out-of-towner, and the Baby had been born elsewhere, anyway. Who would know whether thirty days had passed or not? But, what use would there be in bringing a sin offering in a sinful manner? To obey the requirements of an offering without obeying the prerequisites for making that offering would be more than useless, it would be an increase of sinfulness! But Mary would obey. She would patiently wait for the required days to pass. She would patiently wait, whether the family had found space in the upper rooms during that time or not. Whether in house or stable, she would obey the God who had come to rest upon her those many months ago. She had been enveloped in His cloud, and she was not about to depart from the center of His presence now. Indeed, mother, much like Son, would spend much of the next three decades waiting for an appointed time. Mary would need patience and grace extraordinaire to stand with her Son through it all.
Now, having approached the topic of circumcision, it is important to recognize that what is true of that physical marking is equally true of all physical manifestations of spiritual matters. The physical manifestation is never the point! Over and over, God declared to His people that the mark, the scar of circumcision was nothing in His sight, if the heart, the ears, the tongue did not bear the spiritual mark of covenant with Holiness. In looking at circumcision during this study, it was interesting to read that this mark that was to distinguish God's chosen people was actually a mark common to pretty much all the local peoples other than the Philistines. The mark itself did not make Israel unique. The reason for taking on the mark may not even have been all that unique to them. The mark was not the point! What meaning could that mark possibly have to a child eight days old? It's doubtful whether that child registered anything about the event other than that it hurt a whole lot! The power of the event was not in the blade, was not in even in the blood shed from that incision. The power was in the union being declared by the action. The power was in the child becoming a part of God's family, of his being adopted by God, even as we are adopted into His family today. But, there will come a time in every child's life when he has reached the age of reason, the age of responsibility for his own choices. If, in that time, his life does not reflect the mark made upon him at his birth, the mark will be meaningless.
The sacraments of the church fall into this same state. Communion is of no meaning to one whose spiritual state is out of communion with God. Baptism is no more than a dip in the water to one who has not truly repented, not truly come to Christ. The name of Jesus is just a Greek word, or worse, on the lips of those who don't believe in Him. The physical manifestation is not the point!
Miracles most assuredly fall into this same state. When Lazarus was raised from the dead, he was not the point. The fact of his standing there before a crowd of shocked relatives was not the point. In fact, the record would seem to indicate that he became a bit of a distraction from the point. The point was that here before them stood the One with the power to give life. But, the majority were to excited looking at the walking dead man to notice the importance of what had happened. Goose flesh was enough! So many among us are seeking God for a physical healing, and yet, if that healing should come, the grave still awaits should He tarry. Does this mean we shouldn't seek His healing? I'm not sure, really.
When I look at Jesus at work on the earth, He was clearly healing many. But, was healing the point? I really don't think so. Ever, when He healed the physical, His concern was for the spiritual. We see that constantly. The lame man walks, and what is Jesus' admonition to him? 'Go, and sin no more.' The blind man sees, and Jesus' treatment of the man makes plain that it is the spiritual eyes that needed opening, and the spiritual eyes that were opened. Every physical event in Jesus' ministry, it seems to me, came for one purpose: to point to the spiritual matter at hand. Just as His teaching was in parables, stories of the ordinary events of ordinary life in which greater spiritual truths were made inescapably plain, so His whole ministry was a manifest parable. His whole ministry was a showing forth in ordinary life of things in heavenly realms.
So what exactly does circumcision symbolize? We all know that Scripture speaks of uncircumcised hearts, uncircumcised ears, and so on, but what is the message that is being conveyed by this imagery? The message is found in the fact that the uncircumcised member is closed off, sealed away from outside influence, as it were. Likewise, the uncircumcised heart is impervious to the external influence of the Holy Spirit, because sin has sealed it off. Ears that are sealed off may hear the words of Scripture, but will not understand them - exactly the sort that Jesus knew were listening to His own message. This is not to suggest that our hearts and ears are to be left open to every influence, any more than the circumcised member of flesh was to be exposed to every possible influence. Can it be that it is this very likeness which God has drawn between this organ and our heart that makes fornication such an issue with Him?
What does it say of us if we are willing to allow this unprotected member to be exposed to all manner of evil? It declares that our heart is equally exposed. Just as the uncircumcised member is shut off from all influence, so the member that is not chaste is exposed to every manner of vile influence. Just as the uncircumcised heart will not accept anything of the Lord, the heart that is not chaste will accept all manner of evil, even as it rejects that which it should most welcome. A heart like that will lead to ears that will gladly listen to anything, but in the noise of all they hear, the last thing they will recognize is the voice of God. These things must be not only circumcised but also chaste, pure, wholly devoted to the use of One and only One.
Some argue that Israel adopted the mark of circumcision from the nations amongst whom they dwelt. Those who offer such a theory may well have some solid sociological or historical evidence for their statements, but they miss a few critical points. First, and most absolutely foremost: Israel didn't adopt anything! Indeed, Israel wasn't yet existent when the decision was made. There was only Abraham, and even he did not decide what the mark of covenant would be. His only decision was to obey God's decision.
Shall we suggest, then, that God adopted this rite from the gods of the nations around Abraham? I think not! We might suggest that He was redeeming this rite. That would be a bit more accurate. Isn't it just possible, perhaps even quite likely, that Satan, the rebel from the courts of heaven, knew a bit about God's plans, about His ways? Isn't it probable that, if he knew this marking of the flesh was to have some important part in God's plan, he would twist it to his own ends? That the marking of circumcision was a common feature of many religious rites strikes the humanistic scientist as proof that Judaism and its Christian offshoot are just permutations of older myths. Coming to the evidence with uncircumcised eyes, they see only what the deceiver would have them to see. The purpose of his initial deceptions is made plain in the power those lies have to deceive this present generation!
The man of God, on the other hand, knows these ancient idolatries for what they are: deceptive acts of a clever enemy, aimed solely at misleading, at making the Truth appear to be the lie. He sees the clever trap of his enemy laid in the co-opting of God's chosen sign and symbol. Why, Israel was taken into Egypt. At first, it seemed a boon to Israel, but it became a trap. Where they were at first welcomed, they came to be loathed. They were forced into servitude, and because those for whom they slaved also held to circumcision for their own reasons, the local social climate saw God's chosen mark not as a sign of holiness unto God, but as a sign of membership in the ruling classes of Egypt. God's people were not even allowed to take on His own sign because it offended the ungodly!
The cross is another symbol, another mark that God had reserved for His plan of salvation. Here, too, it seems that the enemy of heaven had some understanding of what was to come. Here, too, before ever God manifest His own purposes, the deceiver had come, and made certain that this chosen symbol of God's would be a cause for manifest horror in the mind of man. What God would hold up as the sign of salvation, Satan would have seen only as a tool of heinous torture, of utter humiliation. He made certain that the very thing upon which Salvation would be lifted up before the eyes of man was seen as a proof of guilt.
But, that ploy doesn't work anymore. The horror that the cross symbolized in the years surrounding Christ's life has faded. We understand that it was something bad, but having never witnessed anything close to the viciousness that was life under the Pax Romana we have lost our sense of what it meant to those who were there. Indeed, so watered down is our view of the cross, that the enemy has changed tactics. If he cannot make it an object of horror to us, he'll make it an object of entertainment, an object of art. Since he failed to turn us away from God by making Him appear to be the worst of criminals, he now seeks to distract us with pretty trinkets. Indeed, so common is the symbol of the cross in today's culture that it has absolutely no power in the eyes of most.
Bearing your cross is the price of discipleship. It requires a certain willingness to share in the shame our Savior suffered. His shame was not in that He had done ought to deserve the death that was cast upon Him. He went to death an innocent, and this Truth was evident to all. Pilate knew it. The Temple authorities knew it. The soldiers on the hill knew it. The criminals being executed alongside Him knew it. Yet, they were powerless to stop what God had purposed. In American culture today, it cannot even be counted on that those wearing a cross around their neck believe in God at all. It may mean nothing more to the wearer than that it was a pretty thing their mother owned, or that was given them as a gift. It is a pretty thing, with no more meaning to them then any other bauble.
The world inevitably co-opts the marks of God's choosing, because the world continues under the authority of that deceitful usurper. He seeks by whatever means he can to make null and void the message of life and hope. The prince of darkness, he knows his rule is only so long as the Light is not come, and he is working overtime to make certain that he retains his prison camp population here. He is working overtime to make sure that the Light, when He comes, will not be recognized. For the most part, he succeeded with Israel. The Light came to His own, but His own did not receive Him because they did not recognize Him. The clear message had been distorted. The signs and wonders that pointed to a Redeemer born in Israel had been plagiarized, had been co-opted and put to such disreputable usage that none would so much as look at Him when He came.
The Cross had been co-opted, made an object from which any sensible being would shy away. The idea of Messiah had been co-opted. There had been many who came along claiming to be the one, and every one had been nothing but a rebel seeking an army. Every one of them had led not to restored life, not to Israel strong and proud once more, but only to needless death and futility. So it was that Jerusalem missed the time of her visitation, and remained captive in the camp of its enemy.
With that perspective, it becomes clear that God was indeed redeeming His own signs and symbols, even as He was bringing about the fulfillment of those signs and symbols. When He instituted the act of circumcision with Abraham, He was not co-opting, He was redeeming what was His to begin with from the corruption to which enemies had subjected it. When He chose to use the Cross as the scene by which all of His prior purposes would be fulfilled in Himself, He was not co-opting the tools of Roman authority, He was redeeming what was His own sign and symbol from the corruption of the enemy.
Interesting, is it not, that this same symbol had been co-opted by the Egyptians hundreds of years earlier as a symbol of life? An earlier deception! He would mislead the people of God by those amongst whom they dwelt. Just enough truth there to sound right, yet down that path lie deception, slavery, and death. Thus was the symbol of life distorted in the minds of God's children. Can we even begin to imagine how many ways had been laid up in Jewish history by which this symbol of the Cross would be made anathema?
Yet, it remained the sign of God's choosing, and as such, it maintains its purpose in spite of every attempt by the enemy to subvert it. God is not moved by their corruption. His purpose is not swayed by Satan's nonsense. The power, the true power of His sign is not changed, and it is not changed for this one reason: The physical manifestation is never the point! The symbol is not the point. The symbol is utterly powerless in itself. It is a thing. The symbol is powerful only when it truly reflects the inward spiritual reality. Circumcision is nothing if the heart remains sealed away from God's influence. The cross is nothing if the heart has not been made home to the Holy Spirit. All our religious display is nothing if we are not being made Christ-like.
Lord forgive me! In those places where I've been settling for the appearance of righteousness, in those places where I've lost sight of Truth in favor of looking good, forgive me. Guard my eyes and my heart, Father, that they might see only You. Open them, Lord, that they may respond to You. Lord, a thin veneer of righteousness does not satisfy me, and I know it cannot satisfy You. You have no desire for veneer. You're looking for the whole man. Yet, I know, Holy One, that I will never be a whole man except You make me so. You have brought rebirth, and I know daily, even hourly, that this reborn man needs the renewing work that only You can do in me. I lay myself, then, upon Your mercy. Make me like You, Lord, in more than appearance. Make me like You in character, in real character. Bring me to that place, Jesus, that I am like You, that I respond as You respond, that I have learned from my big Brother what it means to be a man; what it means to be a man of God.
There is so much that is being fulfilled in this first month of Jesus' life. So many prophecies have already found their completion in Him. So many of the rites and ceremonies that were the staples of Jewish religion were also coming into their completion in Him. It occurs to me, as I consider the scene being laid before us, as Jesus is presented to the Temple, if the whole matter of the firstborn, and that of the Levites, was not being completed in Him. Consider why it was that Jesus was being presented to the Temple. At the unveiling of the Law of life, God had told His people that every firstborn male was to be dedicated to His use - exclusively to His use. The firstborn son, be it of man or of beast, is His (Ex 13:2). (Note that we cannot put this in the past tense. It's still true. God does not change.) Now, in case we misunderstand, or think we have room to skirt the requirements, He repeats Himself: The firstborn is to be devoted to the LORD. The males belong to Him (Ex 13:12). At first glance, I thought maybe God was relaxing the requirement here. It seemingly started with the firstborn of any sex, and now was being reduced to the males alone. Does that word 'firstborn' imply the sons alone? I'm not sure it could be said with certainty, and that may be exactly why Moses repeats the message with clarification. But, the word is a masculine noun, and it is the word that speaks of birthright, which was an inheritance reserved for the eldest son.
In this, there's an interesting aside with regard to what God demands of His people. It is the one with the birthright, the future chief of the tribe that is to be dedicated to Him alone, for His exclusive use. What trust He demanded of this tribal nation! The chief was the lifeblood of the tribe, and He was in essence telling His people that if their trust was in their chief, it was horribly misplaced. "Our trust is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Our trust is in the one who created our chief in the womb." Truly, He wants our best things. He wants what only He can deserve, the best we have to offer. He wants our future. Yet, in all these things, He asks of us nothing that isn't His already.
I would consider this, also: The males, these chiefs amongst children, are to be devoted to Him: set apart for Him alone, covered from the sight of others. I had thought this might be the same word in use for things devoted to destruction, but it is not. Yet, there is that imagery of being covered up from the sight of others. Strong's points out, regarding this word, that it is a covering such as a couple might pull over themselves when consummating their passion for each other. Consider that this was a tent-dwelling, nomadic people, and the need for this covering, or at least the desire for it, becomes quite evident. Yet, though they be covered, they are not distant from the rest of their family. They are within the same tent, yet they are separated unto themselves. For the next few decades, Jesus would be like this, would He not? He would dwell in the house of His earthly parents, He would submit to their authority, yet He would be separate. He would be with His Father - devoted to Him, covered from the sight of others in so many ways.
Returning, however, to this thing that Jesus was fulfilling. Having made it plain that the firstborn are for His exclusive purposes, God later provides some insight to His people on the matter. Consider, He tells them, what I did in Egypt. Every firstborn son of Egypt was destroyed in a night, but of your sons, not one was taken. Why do you suppose that was so? It was because I was in that moment sanctifying all of Israel's firstborn to Myself. It is for this reason that I tell you truly that they are Mine. I AM the Lord, and I have done this thing (Nu 3:13)! Here is the divine right of God, the right of the Sovereign Lord over His people.
Jesus labored for our Salvation, sacrificed for our Redemption why? Certainly because it was the will of His Father. Certainly because He did only what He saw His Father doing (Jn 5:19), and His Father had labored long eons on this purpose of our salvation. Jesus was the firstborn of the new Creation! He is the only Beloved Son of the Father, but He is also the firstborn, the first fruits of redemption and resurrection (1Co 15:20-23). Indeed, the whole purpose of His ministry was that He might be the first-born among many brothers (Ro 8:29)! God is not satisfied to have an only Son. He wants the same thing that He promised to Abraham - a family large beyond counting, a tribe so numerous that it populates the whole of the new earth! Truly, Jesus fulfilled the dedication of the first-born.
Now, there's another piece to this that I think should excite us greatly, who are the children of our Father by His predestination and His grace. I have noted God's clear and distinct command, His exercise of sovereign right, in declaring the firstborn sons His own exclusive property. Now, see God's mercy already on display in that period which so many would tell us was only displaying God's justice: "I set them apart for Myself. I did it. I sanctified them there in Egypt. However, I am not going to take what is Mine by force. I will not deprive you of My children. Instead, I am taking the Levites to serve Me" (Nu 8:17-18).
So, what's so exciting about this? Listen! We cannot be the firstborn. Jesus is and always shall be the firstborn Only Son of God, the first-fruits of the resurrection life! His is the birth-right, His the inheritance. If the story stopped there, where would our hope be? We would be just one of so many 'other' children, left to fend for ourselves. But, God has not left it so! We are the Levites, those who, although not born into His family, are taken by Him because we are chosen by Him! We are those who, although not sanctified in that first Passover, have been sanctified after the fact. We have been placed amongst those whose blessing is the greatest, because the Lord IS their inheritance! God is my inheritance! All praises be to His name! Never mind His property! Never mind that He owns everything that is and ever shall be! Never mind having all that as an inheritance! HE is my inheritance! Is that not enough reason to do whatever it may take to be, as He requires, devoted to Him exclusively? Isn't that enough cause to separate ourselves from everything that does not bear His emblem, that does not carry the imprint of His seal?
Now, here's the thing that rather blows me away about this whole scene: nobody had said that Mary had to bring Jesus to the Temple to dedicate Him to the Lord! God had already made clear that He had made a substitution! He had taken the Levites so that there would not be the need for this parental sacrifice. Yet, Mary obeyed the earlier form of the command. She did so by her free will, of her own choosing. I'm quite sure this was not her decision alone. She doubtless had the confirmation of her husband's word on the matter, but the point is this: It was her (or their) choice to obey more fully than Law required. We look at this scene, see that they came with a pair of birds for the sacrifice. This was almost the minimum acceptable offering. In cases of abject poverty, it might be reduced to one (Lev 5:11), but the use of birds rather than lambs was a provision made for the needy. Some look at this and say, 'see? Jesus came of a poor family.' I'm not so sure that we can draw that conclusion. They had now been away from home for more than a month, having departed rather abruptly to obey the Roman decree. Even if they were reasonably well off, all their goods were up north, and they were not.
Now, I think the matter of the birds is a distraction. After all, the birds were not the sacrifice from Mary's perspective. Face it, we kill off animals constantly for no other reason than to satisfy our own hunger. A couple of pigeons more or less isn't going to wrench our gut overly much. It wasn't the birds that were the sacrifice, though, it was her son - God's Son! The birds were a legal requirement. Her child was a freewill offering. The Law did not require that she give her child over to the Lord's exclusive use. The angels had not told her that she must do this thing. Righteousness, and the Holy Spirit that informed her, that had been resting upon her, strengthening and informing her according to His office, told her that this was the right thing to do. I wonder if it wasn't this choice that prepared her most for all that she must bear as Jesus' story unfolded.
What I see here might be what could be called a spiritual law. There are legal requirements, and then there are sacrifices. If we are doing solely what the Law requires, following the letter, and seeking out the minimum that is necessary for compliance, we have not really sacrificed. We have obeyed. We have achieved the righteousness of the Pharisees, perhaps, but we have not really sacrificed. The sacrificial offering, the truly sacrificial offering, is given as a free gift. It is given. That's key. It is not simply complying to demand, it is a gift. Salvation was not complying with some demand on God's character. Righteousness did not require it of Him. Justice certainly did not require it of Him. Neither did mercy require it of Him. Mercy had been satisfied when we were not destroyed of an instant! No, salvation was not the response of necessity upon God, it was a free gift, given to man simply because God so chose. I was going to say because of God's love, but even love, the most popular of God's attributes, did not require that He do this thing. Love, mercy, righteousness, justice, holiness, all that God is informed His choice, to be sure, but it was, in the end, His choice.
What can be more fitting, then, but that we who have enjoyed this most marvelous free gift of God should choose to offer ourselves back to Him as free gifts? We were once the exclusive property of the devil. We did only as he commanded because we had no choice in the matter. Bound to him by slavery to sin, we served and served and served some more, never doing anything but what sin demanded. Salvation has come! Shall we not, then, freely cast aside those bonds which once held us? Shall we not gladly devote ourselves just as thoroughly to pursuing the pleasure of this Good Master as we once did in chains to that vile tyrant? "I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, your spiritual service of worship" (Ro 12:1). Living, because we have sacrificed the death in which we walked. Holy because He has clothed us in righteousness. Acceptable, because it is given by free will. It is an active choice on our part. Spiritual service, because our choice has entered us into the ranks of the Levites. Worship, because that is the service required of the Levitical brotherhood. And, in all this, we declare Jesus as the first-born! The fulfillment of the birthright, the eternal Chief of the tribes of Heaven.
There is another spiritual law to be seen in the actions Mary took. She devoted her child to God's service. She is not the first woman in Scripture to do this, nor is God's response to her act different than those who went before her. Hannah would be another example of the principle at hand. Both of these women devoted their child to God, and in both cases, God worked mightily through those children. How we have lost sight of this! We can't even agree whether it's right to baptize a baby, let alone to consciously commit the entire course of his life! Allow me to say this: Neither of these women stopped at this act of devotion. They didn't bring their children to God, and then just leave nature to take its course. Not at all! This was a serious spiritual commitment they had entered into. It wasn't just their children that were bound by the vow their sacrifice entailed. They, too, were bound by it - bound to ensure that the child they had devoted to Him would be truly devoted.
What does that mean? It means that the child must be raised not as her own son, but as God's. It means that the child being raised must be prepared for God. He must be raised in a manner that will bring him to adulthood pure and clean. It means that his training must be such as will make him aware of his calling, that he must be raised knowing that he is exclusively God's, that nothing can have a higher place in his life. He must be trained up in the way he should go. Indeed, he should be thoroughly informed from his earliest years, before we even think him able to think, with the knowledge that his is a life devoted to God from birth.
How we have lost the power of this! We have forgotten that as godly parents we are not only able to have awareness of our child's path in life, but we are required by our God to ensure that our child is also aware of it. We are all surrogate mothers and fathers, watching over children that are not our own, though they may come from our womb, from our seed. They are children of God, even as we are. We are not their overlords. We are not their owners. We are trainers, preparing them for service to their heavenly Father. Yet, how many parents today would be so bold as to devote their child to God's service? How many would see it as more than a religious rite of passage for their child? How many would pursue the training that devotion requires?
If this generation fails, it will be because we, as parents, have failed them. We have failed to truly commit them to God, and we have failed to raise them in an awareness of any such commitment. We have been so afraid of damaging their tender psyche, of somehow twisting them by any efforts to shape their character. We have foolishly left the spirit of our children to the 'natural' course of things, and we wake up one day wondering why they've turned out the way they have! Of course they have! The natural course of things is the course of corruption, the course of deception, the course of slavery to sin. What were we thinking? In our fear of damaging these children that were entrusted to us, in our fear of offending them, angering them, whatever it is that has concerned us; we have condemned them. If we will not prepare them for God, if we will not train them daily in the ways of purity and righteousness, then we will have prepared them for a life of sin, degradation, sorrow. As parents, we cannot help but train our children to serve a master. Every man and woman serves a master. Which one have we been preparing them for?
Oh, Lord! How my heart sorrows in this, because I know that I am seeing my own failure. How slippery a deception it is! Even though I knew the dangers of such a mindset, still I allowed myself to be more concerned for my daughter's opinions and feelings than for the reality of her spiritual condition. How can this be, Lord? How can it change? I know that in Your economy, in Your providence, it is never too late for the one You choose. Yet, we can make the path of the chosen so hard. Samson was chosen, Lord, but his parents failed in preparing him. He was Yours in the end, to be sure, but such a hard path! God! I would not have it so for my daughter, for your daughter.
Though I have failed, Father, have mercy on her. Help us to turn our course even now, even this day, and look to how we may prepare her for You. The world so hates purity! The world so hates righteousness! Everywhere, even in the clothing stores, Holy One, all is geared towards ensuring that purity cannot survive. How, Father? How, Holy Spirit, can I counter this? How can I model a life of purity? How can I train her when I am so much tried in my own spirit? I know, Lord. I know. With You, nothing will be impossible. I know. You chose me, an impossibility to my own thinking. You have done so much to change who I am, though I so often feel the same. You have done so much to change my wife, to change our relationship. No, truly, nothing is impossible with You.
Lord, God, I know that if I am going to see my daughter prepared for You, it's going to require a change in me. I know this, and I know that if I am going to change it must come by Your doing. Without You, Lord, I can do nothing, but with You all things are possible. A daughter that reaches adulthood pure and holy is possible. A daughter whose love for You eclipses all else in her life, in spite of every attempt of society to see that she doesn't even know You is possible. That I might be the instrument of her growth in purity is possible. All this is possible, Father, but only if You will work in me. You have worked in me, this morning to will it. Now, will You come, Holy Spirit, and work in me to work it.
Wow, that is not where I thought I was going with this! I was actually thinking of the power to be found in that act of devotion from birth, but that's not where the power was. That was but the symbol and the sign. Like circumcision, the physical act of devotion is a powerless thing unless there is the spiritual reality behind it. In this case, the spiritual reality is a commitment of effort, a commitment to the spiritual training of our children. The act of devotion will be nothing more than a ceremonial nicety, a 'Kodak moment,' if it is not accompanied by long years of devoted effort to make the reality match the symbol. It takes effort for us to maintain ourselves as those who are exclusively His. How can we think it will not take effort to maintain our children in that same status?
Exclusively His. Prepared for God. What wonderful things these are! What a wonderful sound, what a marvelous goal for a life! That is, after all, what this Christian life is about. It's about preparing us for God. One day we will be presented before His throne, presented as His bride and His daughter-in-law all at the same time. Bride to a king - it takes preparation. Esther was long weeks in preparation for her presentation to the king. Our King is so much more highly exalted! Even so, our preparations will be much greater, much more thorough. His purity demands it. His holiness cannot tolerate the presence of sin. Every last vestige of it must be scrubbed off ere we come into His presence. Pure and clean: prepared for Him. With eyes for no other, exclusively His, attuned to His voice, a true helpmate ready to serve in love and in truth. That is our goal. No. That is our destiny!
Lord, prepare me!
Returning to the physical offering that was made, the two birds, there is some question in my mind as to whether the birds were taken as sacrifice because Joseph and Mary were poor, or whether it was simply a function of their having been far from home for some time now. Recall that they had been in Bethlehem for more than a month before they proceeded to Jerusalem. Through all that time, they had, it would seem, been living on the hospitality of one of Joseph's relatives. Now, in our minds, we might think that this relative, being the owner of sheep such as the sacrifice required, could surely have given them one by which to make a better offering. If this is our thinking, though, our thinking needs to return from western pragmatism to righteousness!
Certainly, this relative could have done such a thing. For all we know, he may even have offered it. But, Mary and Joseph were righteous. They knew that a sacrifice that came of their own goods, their own means, was far more important to God than a finer gift that came from someone else's stock. They remembered the lesson from David's life. He would not take another's field to dedicate to the Lord's use. He would not offer the Lord what had not cost him. Likewise, Mary and Joseph were more concerned with what was right than with what looked good. So was God.
There is one lesson to recall about sacrifice. The appearance is not what counts, though God requires that we sacrifice the best of whatever it is we are giving. What counts with God is the heart, the devotion that brought one to make the sacrifice. The material part is, for the most part, immaterial.
The second point that should be made about sacrifice, that we should have in our hearts at all times, is that what God requires of us (for sacrifices are a requirement, even though they are given freely from the heart) is tempered by His mercy. He could have simply stopped when He required a lamb for the sacrifice due for the firstborn. He could have required a bull. But, God, in His mercy and wisdom, laid out a schedule of requirements, a 'needs-based' format of sacrifice. Indeed, the full layout of this sacrifice in particular makes it clear that in God's mind, the welfare of His people was of far greater interest to Him than the offering itself. In fact, though so many stop at this offering of two pigeons as the allowance made for the poorest of His people, it is not. He would bend farther for those in serious need. There would be those who could not even afford two pigeons. Fine, let him bring a bag of flour for the sin offering. The burnt offering, from what I can see, would be dropped as a requirement for him (Lev 5:11).
God does not ask us to give more than we are able. He does ask that we serve sacrificially, but never beyond our ability. On the other hand, He is always asking us to serve beyond our ability, because in doing so, we must lay hold of His ability. He is forever training us to lean on Him rather than ourselves. However much we may serve Him, we are going to find ourselves reaching points where we are comfortable with what we are doing in His name. This is our most dangerous time! This is the time that we will become distracted, and begin thinking we've got it under control. We can do it without troubling Him about it. We think we have accomplished something good in reaching this level, but God sees it differently. God sees that we have forgotten Him, forgotten our true condition. "Without Me, you can do nothing." That is the reality of our condition, however much we may have progressed in matters of faith.
However well our finances may be doing, they do not empower us to do. However sharp our minds might be, they do not empower us to do. However healthy our physique, it does not empower us to do. It's all God, and if we are forgetting that at the moment, expect a situation that will restore us to understanding!
Lord, once again, You have taken me in a different direction than I expected to go this morning! Thank You. It's good to be reminded that You are with me, You are talking to me in these times. It's good because even here, in these studies, as You are reminding me today, I can and do reach those places where I think I can take it from here. Who am I fooling? Nobody. I know I get like that in my employment as well, in my music, it's so much a part of me, Father! Oh, pride, will I ever see you departed from me? Holy One, I know it's in Your time. I know, too, that I dare not sit idly as I await Your time. I must, Father, by Your Spirit, remember the poison of my pride, and seek to cast it from me whenever I see it. Forgive me, Lord, that I have been failing in that endeavor. God, You are making that whole passage so very real to me of late. With You, most certainly, there is nothing that can be deemed impossible. Without You, there is just as certainly nothing that is possible.
Holy Spirit, I know myself too well at this point to think that I can keep this in mind of my own accord. Why, that would fly in the face of the Truth You have been speaking to me about just now! So, I lay myself upon Your mercy, asking that You would so speak to me that I might recall not only the lesson You have given me today, but also the things You spoke to me yesterday. It would be so easy, and so like me in my weak flesh, to let these things slip from mind, but You are with me always. This I know. Keep these ears, then, circumcised, Holy One, that they might hear You when You whisper to me reminders of who I am to be in You.
I have been looking at the sin offering, throughout this portion of study. That is what Mary and Joseph went to the Temple to offer, a sin offering. They sought atonement with God, to pay their debt to heavenly society. The Child they brought with them would in not so very many years fulfill the offering they came to make. He would complete by His own blood what the blood of so many birds and animals had only temporarily alleviated over the centuries. The blood of birds and beasts could ameliorate the debt of sin for a time, for so God had decreed, but it could never completely obliterate that debt. It was like an installment plan that never ended - until Christ came to make the final payment.
As I have just been discussing, the sin offering was always tempered by our means to pay, even in that type we had in Mosaic Law. It was to remain the best we had to offer, but never more than we had to offer. The final payment of the whole debt, however, was forever beyond us to pay. Though we be ever so faithful to bring the annual sacrifice, to observe all the intermediate sacrifices that life and circumstance might require of us, still the debt would not be paid in full. But, God tempers what we owe by what we can pay. He knew from before the beginning that we could not pay in full, no matter how far mercy tempered His justice. So, He allowed mercy an even greater influence in His perfect justice, and sent the offering Himself. The price of atonement with God is precious beyond all our ability to conceive it! The penalty of sin is death, and all these substitutionary deaths did not add up to the required amount. The atonement required was and is impossible for man. But with God, all things are possible!
None is excluded from atonement by his circumstances. None is excluded from atonement by his inability to pay the debt. The offering of atonement that is God's great gift to man is offered to all mankind. There is no sin so great that His atonement is insufficient to make us righteous in God's sight. There is no man so poor that God will not allow him this gift. There is, then, no excuse for any to remain separated from His love. There is no excuse for any to remain under the death sentence of their sins. There can only be one reason that they will not be reconciled to God, and that is their own stubborn and willful refusal to accept His gift. Pride! Always pride! It is that mindset of, "I'm a good man already," of "I don't need Him" that will be the death of us! So blind we are, that we can say these things and not even recognize that we simply add to the debt we already owe Him in saying them. And all the while, He is looking upon us with eyes of greatest compassion, waiting for us to accept the offering from His hand that we could never give Him from our own, waiting for us to offer Him the most precious thing we have, and accept from Him the same.
"Present yourselves as living, holy sacrifices," Paul writes (Ro 12:1). This is what God is asking of each one of us. This is what God has offered each one of us, the living Sacrifice which is Jesus. In offering ourselves back to Him, we offer of gift of like value. Yet, if that offering is not made with a wholehearted devotion to Him alone, we have not yet grasped what He has offered. We have not yet become sons of heaven, children of God. A living sacrifice: though there is nothing we can offer but Christ offered for us, there is nothing we can do to improve upon His perfect work, there remains that command upon us. Be as living sacrifices, walking dead when it comes to the sinfulness around you. Dead men, somebody once said, are not enticed by sin. Fleshly pleasures cannot arouse the senses of a dead man. If we will truly be sanctified for His service, if we will truly be as living sacrifices, we will be just as unresponsive to sin as if we were already in the grave. Yet, we will be so fully alive to Him, so fully attuned to Him, that this can only make our senses that much deader to the sinfulness around us. What hope is ours!
This last thing I want to note before I leave the present passage. As I was reading regarding the significance of pigeons and doves, I came across this comment in the ISBE. "The thing that escapes us is usually a little more attractive than the thing we have." That caught my eye, although at the time I wasn't sure of its significance. I mean, I knew what the author was getting at. He was talking about why it was that doves seemed to have a bit of preeminence as compared to pigeons, why they were the more valued sacrifice. However, for where I am, for what God is doing with me today, that is not why this quote is important. That is not the significance that God would have me see in it. No! I have been discussing sacrifices, and I can hardly have done that without speaking of Him who was sacrificed for our salvation, Jesus, my Lord, my Savior, my King! God then turned my thoughts back to that wonderful command of Romans 12:1, and in the last paragraph, was shedding a new light on it for me. Walk as living dead! So very alive, and yet so dead to the enticements around us. Then, I look at this quote: "The thing that escapes us is usually a little more attractive than the thing we have." Wow!
Listen! The thing that escapes us in our own power is to be Christ-like. The thing we have is this body of flesh, this burden of dead and dying sinful flesh that is rotting as we carry it along, making a stench of every place we are. What would not be more attractive than that! If we will let the power of God work in us, taking away that lump of death, if we will let our former life escape our grasp and lay hold of Him, we will be more than a little more attractive! We will be transformed! We are like the pigeons in our sins, we are tamed to them, and come home to roost amongst our sins, until that day that sin decides to eat us for dinner. We are comfortable in our cotes, awaiting our turn to die. But, the transforming power of resurrection life! Wow! We are become like the doves, taking flight from the demesnes of sin, hiding ourselves away from sin, protected in the cleft of the Rock, Jesus! Then, and only then, as we dwell in that place where He is, as we abide in Him, He sends us as doves back into the lands of sinful man, living sacrifices: Offering what we are in Him that others may come to the place we are. I don't know. I don't feel like I'm really capturing the whole thought there, and I know that in many ways, the significance I am seeing in that little quote does not exactly fit the quote. So be it! It is the thing God would have me to see at this moment: Let the body of sin escape us, and we shall be more attractive to Him and to others.
Thank You, Lord! Thank You! Oh! It's so awesome to have You so active in speaking to me again in these times! I've needed it. I've missed it, and I haven't known how to fix it, but You have done it! What a wonderful Father You are! I need to thank You, as well, my King, for the encouragement You have given me in seeing Jan starting to get fed in her own studies. I have wondered, God, as You know, whether I'm on the right track with this whole study thing, with trying to disciple these few students You have placed with me. It's been so discouraging, Father, so discouraging. But, in bringing Jan to a breakthrough, You have so blessed me! It's not just for me! I knew it, and yet, I have never been entirely certain what You would have me to do with it. I rejoice in knowing, Father, that You are indeed pleased with these times I spend with You. I rejoice in knowing once more, Holy Father, that You are talking with me, and I'm not just being impressed with myself. Thank You, thank You, thank You! All praise and glory and honor be to Your name! May You be glorified, Holy One, not just in what is written here on this page, but by what You have written on my life! Amen and amen! Let it be so!
