Wilderness Wanderings

Welcome to Wilderness Wanderings. My name is Renita Reed-Thomson, and I have the privilege to serve as a partner missionary with you at Immanuel Christian Reformed Church.

I want to talk with you today about what it means to do our work as worship. It's a catchy phrase but what does it really mean? Does its simply mean dedicating all we do to the glory of God, or is there more to it? We want to look at a Hebrew word in our exploration, 'Avodah' and which means "work, serve, and worship."

Our text comes from three different verses which use this same Hebrew word "Avodah."

Key Verses

• The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Genesis 2:15 (ESV) Tend in this verse is often translated 'till' or 'work.' It is interesting to note that the two words translated here as tend (avad) and care (keep or guard), are often used together in reference to keeping the law.

• He said, "But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain." Exodus 3:12 (ESV) In this verse, the word Avodah/serve refers to worship.

• And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15 (ESV) Again, note that tend/work, worship, and serve are all the same word in Hebrew.

John Piper said that mission exists because worship does not. How much greater would be our worship of God if we turned what we do most of the week from "work" to "worship?" Too often, we separate our worship from our work. It is something we do on Sundays. But God is the author of work and it the greatest of all workers. We are made in his image to work in such a way that it brings honor and glory to Him.

One of God's great gifts to us is fulfillment and dignity that come in and through work. As is His way, He gives us this gift and delights in us as we give it back to Him, then He gives more back to us! We can never outgive Him or worship Him too much in and through our lives. As we do this with and in our work, God is glorified. Don't be surprised if avenues of creativity and new opportunities aren't opened up to you along the way of discovering work as worship!

Let's pray together.

Prayer

Father, we thank you that you have given us the privilege to work; to be occupied with worthwhile endeavors that reflect your love and care for us, our families, and our community. We pray that you will open our eyes to see your glory in the work you have given us to do. We pray that we will glorify you by giving back to you our 'whole soul' as we worship you in our work. Amen.

Welcome to Wilderness Wanderings. My name is Renita Reed-Thomson, and I have the privilege to serve as a partner missionary with you at Immanuel Christian Reformed Church.

I want to talk to you today about a time in scripture when we observe a move from a garden to a graveyard, and then from a graveyard to a garden. We will be looking at a few different texts during our time together.

I don't know about you but the joy of serving a risen Savior can often be overshadowed by seeing suffering and death all around. From a shooting at a traffic stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to kidnappings in Kaduna, Nigeria, to the war in Ukraine, the words "O death, where is your victory?" can sometimes ring hollow (1 Cor. 15:55).

From Garden to Graveyard

But recently I saw anew the shift in Scripture from garden to graveyard, and then graveyard to garden. Eden moved from being a garden to a graveyard in the recounting of the fall in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve, who were created to work and care for the garden, suddenly knew death. The garden that was created for flourishing and life had the shadow of death cast over it.

And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken (Gen. 3:22-23).

From that time on, the world knew daily the reality of the graveyard.

From Graveyard to Garden

But then Jesus came to earth, lived and died, and was buried in a tomb located in a garden. He defeated death in that garden. And the first person he appears to, Mary Magdalene, confuses him for a gardener.

He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him" (Jn. 20:15).

And as it turns out, she was not mistaken. Our God and Father, and Jesus the Son, are indeed gardeners.

God as Gardener

Was God a gardener? Did he actually work with his hands? In Genesis 2:7-9a we read:

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.

We hear the words: "The Lord God formed…the Lord God planted…The Lord God made…"

God didn't simply use his voice in creation. God got his hands dirty while making humanity and the garden.

During Jesus' time on earth, his hands got dirty again. Very dirty. Calloused, splintered, and injured as a carpenter for 18 years, and then scarred as the nails pierced them, the result of an unjust trial, sentence, and execution.

You can't garden from a distance. You must get your hands dirty in the soil. And thankfully, God does not garden from a distance. We are told in John 5:17 that, "My Father is always working, and so am I."

Let's Get Our Hands Dirty

And each of us, in our own gardens, cannot garden from a distance. And so, our hands get dirty with the invasive species of sin that has filled our own gardens: in our homes, churches, communities, nations, and world.

Death has lost its victory and has lost its sting. The graveyard has become a garden again.

And we join the God who saved us by getting our own hands dirty. We get in the dirt, we pull the weeds, we plant the seeds, we labor as gardeners using our time, treasure, and talent.

And in so doing, we strive to join with our Father in bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, a little bit at a time.

Welcome to Wilderness Wanderings. My name is Renita Reed-Thomson, and I have the privilege to serve as a partner missionary with you at Immanuel Christian Reformed Church. Today I want to talk about living life as a peach, and not an orange.

Our text today comes from Colossians 1:15-16:

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see—Such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

Recently as I flew on a very long flight from Chicago to Addis Ababa, I was unable to sleep and therefore got a lot of reading and writing done. One quote that I read jumped out at me: Christians tend to live their lives as oranges, not peaches.

The quote makes sense. Oranges are segmented. They are self-contained. They have a rather strong "flesh" that protects the juice from inside each segment. Like oranges, we too compartmentalize our lives into segments. We create layers between them, often unintentionally, that keeps things neatly separate. From the outside, it looks like one cohesive unit. It's only upon peeling the orange, that you see the divisions.

Eating an orange is easy. The peel and rind come off relatively neatly with just your fingers. The segments keep your hands from getting sticky orange juice on them.

Peaches, on the other hand, are different. You need a knife to take off the peel. The inside pulp of a peach has no divisions. In fact, the pulp and pit are so connected that it is difficult to separate them. It's difficult to eat a peach neatly. Peach juice often drips all over faces, hands and clothes.

Christians (and all humanity in normal everyday life) segment our lives. These segments keep things neat and clean in their isolated boxes. Some of the segments that we have created in our lives are those that we believe are important to God. Some segments we do not believe are important to God.

The segments we believe are important include church services and activities, social action activities, evangelistic activities. The segments we do not believe are important are work, rest, leisure, sports and the arts.

We believe that the segments are real and even Biblical. But they are not.

We call this the sacred/secular divide and it has permeated the global church. This has caused us to be ineffective as ambassadors for Christ from Monday-Saturday, and it has reduced the impact that the church, as the people of God, can have on every sector and industry.

Colossians 1:16 reminds us that "all things were created through him and for him." Colossians 1:20 reminds us that God expects us to bring restoration or reconciliation or shalom of all things to Him. This includes both material and immaterial things. And everything in life is connected – it's how it was made to be! You cannot do just one thing. There are ripples and impacts everywhere. And yes, that can get messy – but in good ways!

As you go into your day, consider the parts of your life that you have segmented like an orange, and see if there is a way to reduce the compartmentalization, becoming more like a peach, for the glory of God.

Welcome to Wilderness Wanderings. My name is Renita Reed-Thomson, and I have the privilege to serve as a partner missionary with you at Immanuel Christian Reformed Church.

I work with many pastors across West, Central and East Africa, who are seeking to reclaim a redeemed marketplace for Christ. One pastor in particular has inspired me as well as many of the members of his church. His name is Rev. Dr. Johnson Asare from Northern Ghana, and you will often hear him say that it is "risky not to take risks." He is a man who has taken many risks in his life, as a businessman, a pastor, a Muslim-turned-Christian, and a community leader. He knows what he is talking about. While others have said something similar to this, hearing him say it has stuck with me because of his testimony, and I find myself repeating that phrase from time to time.

I was reminded of that line as I considered this parable from Matthew 25, where our text comes from. This is the very familiar parable of the talents. As it is familiar, I will not read the whole passage but will remind us that is a story Jesus tells about a man who goes a journey and entrusts three servants with different amounts of his wealth, according to his ability. One receives five bags of gold, another two, and another one. The first two double what they have been given, while the last servant simply buries it. The master is pleased with the first two and welcomes them to more responsibility, while the last one gives this explanation for his lack of effort from verse 24 and 25:

24 "Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'

This parable reminds us that it is a sin to squander what God has given us. He has given us three main resources: time, treasure, and talent, and all three work together for the flourishing of the world, for the flourishing of ourselves, and for the glory of God. This parable reminds us that we are not to wrap or bind up those opportunities and bury them for fear of losing them through risky ventures or doing things "incorrectly."

I see this over and again in my work with small and medium business leaders across Africa. Doing business is risky and I have watched many people take those risks. Unfortunately, many businesses do fail, but that is not the end of the story. There is much to be learned in those failures. In the same way, we take risks in relationships, in church, in accepting a new job, or investing yourself in your community. Living involves risk. It is an investment of ourselves to people, places, and things.

We are accountable for the investment of our lives. We are responsible to God, to ourselves, and to each other.

We may sympathize with the person who received only one talent, but we must always remember that the source of the conservatism on the part of that person was his inadequate view of God.

The servant with one bag only saw his master as someone who was "a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not sown seed."

But we must view God in His entirety. He has given each person unique combinations of time, treasure, and talent. And He has crafted us in a way that when we use these resources with integrity and love, it is a win-win-win. When we don't use them with integrity and we confess, He forgives us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

As I head into this day, I wonder what risks I will take with my time, treasure, and talent. I wonder which risks I will cower at, which ones I will embrace, and which ones I will bury.

My heart's desire is to prayerfully consider the risks before me, and to remember that I am accountable not just for the risks I take but also for the risks I don't take.

Be encouraged this day in taking risks for the glory of God!

Welcome to Wilderness Wanderings. My name is Renita Reed-Thomson, and I have the privilege to serve as a partner missionary with you at Immanuel Christian Reformed Church.

Most Christians are aware of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19, 20). In it, Jesus calls us to a commitment to make disciples. Most Christians are also aware of the Great Commandment (Matt: 22:37-40). We are to commit our lives to loving God and others. But few Christians understand or remember the Great Commitment. It is the first directive given to humanity by God during creation. It describes why we exist and for what purpose we were created. Sometimes referred to as the Cultural Mandate, it is often forgotten as part of the basis for which we are to live our lives.

In Genesis 1 we discover not only that God creates the world in which we live but creates all of life including you and me. In creating us, He provides us with a simple but clear job description. It is not only for certain people but for all people made in the image of God for all time. In only 34 verses, Genesis introduces us to a God who created earth on purpose and for a purpose. Let's read Genesis 1: 26 and 28.

Key Verses: Genesis 1:26 and 28

• 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Genesis 1:26 (ESV)

• 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Genesis 1:28 (ESV)

God created humanity to rule and steward His creation. This was not a static realm, but one ever expanding as the population fulfilled its destiny to spread around the earth. Genesis 1:28 begins with God's blessing. God's blessing is the grace to accomplish what He had given humanity to do. Humanity, created in the image of God, shared with God the capacity to create through repurposing what God made into new products and services from what God had created from nothing. This creativity was fueled by the need to develop both social systems and economic systems as the population increased and spread around the globe. In these few verses God, the creator of the Universe, invites His special creation, made in His image, to join Him as co-creators whose task is to repurpose out of creation products and systems that make human flourishing possible. This is done as humanity "works" in the global village (Genesis 2:15) fulfilling God's call to fill the earth.

Within the first man and woman are the seeds of hundreds of generations, capable of creating, exploring, building, discovering, and developing a society that both increases and honors God. It is in the work God has given us that we discover the capacity for all to be co-creators with God. He created the universe out of nothing that we can create everything necessary to see cultures, societies, and communities multiply and expand to fill the earth.

While filling and caring are universal, as Christians, we are also given the command to love God and others (The Great Commandment) and to make disciples obedient to the commands of Jesus (The Great Commission). These directives are also written on the pages of creation and work. If we fail to grasp the significance of the creation/work paradigm, we are left trying to share the Good News without the context. The creation/work paradigm gives us the pages on which to write our own story of following Jesus and being ambassadors of the Good News, a royal priesthood, sharing how God has redeemed all things. We deliver the Good News while being salt, light, and leaven through the Great Commitment to work and care for God's created world!

I pray that you find joy as you live into your calling, to fulfill the Great Commitment, the Great Commandment, and the Great Commission, for the glory of God.

An extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Leviticus 23:9-14 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

DIVE IN QUESTIONS

1. Have you ever heard of "firstfruits" before? What does it mean? What are firstfruits? What are your firstfruits? What are you supposed to do with firstfruits?

2. What is Ordinary, Chronos Time? Do you have any experiences or examples of it? Where does this idea hit home or makes sense for you?

3. What is Sacred, Kairos time, and how is it different from Chronos time? Do you have any experiences or examples of Kairos time you can think of? Where does this idea hit home or makes sense for you?

4. What does the Sabbath have to do with this festival?

5. How does the Feast of Firstfruits connect to Jesus' life?

6. How might your Ordinary Time living this week flow out a true resting in God's Sacred Time and not the other way round?

A special note: next week, during the March Break week, we will have special guest Renita Reed-Thompson lead us in devotions Monday through Friday. Pastor Michael and I will be back into the Ten Commandments the week after.

Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our ancestors that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. (Deuteronomy 5:1-3)

These verses are Moses' introduction to the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words) of the Covenant. As one of you pointed out to me in an email, the Ten Commandments themselves are perhaps best understood not as a set of commandments, but as the terms of the Covenant that God the King has made with this people. This is why two tablets are made and placed in the Ark: one copy of the covenantal contract for God, and one for the people.

What interests me most today though is how emphatic Moses is about who God made this covenant with. It was the previous generation of 38 years ago who stood at Mt. Horeb to receive these words of covenant from God. Everyone knew this. That was the generation who had died in the desert. But Moses re-writes history. After recounting the sins of that generation and their death in the previous chapters, Moses now declares that no: it wasn't them—it was with us, with you, the living that God made his covenant.

Commentator Patrick Miller points out that, "the emphasis on the covenant as a present claim rather than a past event is laid out especially in the second half of verse 3, the force of which is best conveyed by reproducing the Hebrew rather literally [like this]: The covenant was made not with our ancestors but 'with us, we, these ones, here, today, all of us, living.' The text uses seven words heaped one upon another to stress the contemporary claim of the covenant."

This echoes back to yesterday's devotion. The covenant, like the law, is always lived out in a particular time and place among a particular people. And that time, place, and people is not those of the past, but of the present. Always of the present. If this covenantal word of God is to have life: it cannot have it in the past, which is gone, or in the future, which isn't yet here. Life is lived today. And so, the day of God's covenant is always today. No matter how many days have passed since Horeb. Today is the only day in which the covenant can be lived.

This rhymes with the New Testament. Jesus answers the objection of the Sadducees to the idea of Resurrection in Matthew 22, saying: "have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living." Likewise in 2 Corinthians 6, Paul declares that "now is the day of salvation."

There's a beauty in this. It means that God's mercies really are new every morning. It means that our past sins, shames, and heartaches do not have to determine our present or future. Forgiveness, love, and grace in Christ are offered afresh for our response in each new moment—in every new today. Because God is not the God of our ancestors or of the good ol' days—he is fiercely and firmly the God of today: of the present moment, in the present culture of our present world, among us, the living people who bear his name and covenant.

This is the law Moses set before the Israelites. These are the stipulations, decrees and laws Moses gave them when they came out of Egypt and were in the valley near Beth Peor east of the Jordan, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan. This land extended from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Sirion (that is, Hermon), and included all the Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the Dead Sea, below the slopes of Pisgah. (Deuteronomy 4:44-49)

It's a strange thing that such specific and lengthy details are given, again, about where the Israelites are when this great, long Deuteronomy speech of Moses is given. The commentaries just skip over these verses, as if to say: we've already talked about all this, there's nothing new to see here. And yet, it is here. So, why?

In reflecting on much of our present church conversations about ethics and law and righteous living, I wonder if maybe there's something more to this grounding in geographical space and time than meets the eye.

Jesus is the Word of God, made flesh in a real place and time amongst a particular people—as we've reflected on already in these opening chapters of Deuteronomy. My sense is that the law, which is also the word of God, is always to be worked out and lived in just that same way. That is: embodied—made flesh, lived—in a place and time, just as it is here in Deuteronomy. The law does not necessarily come to us as an abstract, unalterable, eternal truth from time in memoriam. It comes to us "when [the Israelites] came out of Egypt and were in the valley near Beth Peor east of the Jordan." It comes to us in a real time and in a real place among a real people.

What do I mean to say by this? Well, we have a tendency to work out the implications of legal and ethical questions of righteousness in theory—in the abstract—apart from any real human situation where the names, actions, and circumstances of real people are known to us. When we then attempt to rigidly shoehorn the real, concrete lives of people into this perfect, but abstract Bible-based code we've made: people get squashed and cut up by the sharp edges. It brings death.

Thankfully, this is not how the law of the Bible works. Don't get me wrong: Paul is clear on this—the law still brings death. But as Moses will often say: this law also offers grace and gives a context for life. The law is to support and lead to the Shalom of a people in a place and time, not make them slaves again as in Egypt.

As Jesus will later say of the Sabbath, this law is made for man, not man for it. It's given to a particular people in a time and place. But as the times and places of the people change, so must (and does) the law. You can see this happen across the pages of the Bible. Even some of the laws of Deuteronomy are already different than those same laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. And changes will continue to happen along the pages of scripture.

The form that the law comes to us in then: as a law spoken to a particular people in a particular place and time—says something to us about the law itself. It is particular, not abstract or universal. And it is changeable: subjective—if you will—to the lives of the subjects it means to govern and support.

Principles like this inherent in the form of the law, mean that we must ever be vigilant to the ways that the Bible—God's living word—speaks anew in Spirit-fired ways to the ever-changing times, places, people, and yes—even culture—among whom it is spoken in each present moment. It is no sin to be a "revisionist." This is, in fact, what it means to be attentively faithful in the times we're given. Said in more familiar language, this is one of the ways in which we are called to be "Reformed and ever Reforming."

Then Moses set aside three cities east of the Jordan, to which anyone who had killed a person could flee if they had unintentionally killed a neighbor without malice aforethought. They could flee into one of these cities and save their life. The cities were these: Bezer in the wilderness plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites (Deuteronomy 4:41-43).

At first glance, these Mosaic cities of refuge seem rather antiquated and irrelevant to the Christian church. However, upon closer examination there are some lessons that Christians would do well to remember.

Hidden here is a basic principle which lies behind the story of the two brothers in Genesis 4 and is articulated fully in Genesis 9:5-7: "from each human being…I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. 'Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind'. As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."

This is God speaking. Human life is precious because we are made in his image and we are blessed to increase upon the earth. Anyone who kills human life denigrates God's image and stands in the way of his blessing being fulfilled. In killing a person, we set ourselves against God. The Heidelberg Catechism reminds us how seriously God sees murder. It offers this commentary, "I am not to belittle, insult, hate, or kill my neighbor--not by my thoughts, my words, my look, or gesture, and certainly not by actual deeds--and I am not to be party to this in others; rather, I am to put away all desire for revenge. I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself either" (A 105).

Blood revenge was commonplace in the ancient world, even in Israel. It is still practiced today. Historically, the closest male relative of the victim was responsible to kill the slayer. However, accidents happened. But it was possible, even likely, that the family of the deceased person refused to accept that the death happened unintentionally. They would seek vengeance. This had the potential of initiating an escalating cycle of revenge killings. Where would it end? These cities of refuge were places to which the innocent could flee. There, a public determination could be made to validate their claim to innocence.

We live in a so-called civilized society. We don't endorse practices like this here, do we? Not literal blood. But what about virtual blood? Maybe we ought to update the Catechism to include cautions to behaviour that hides behind the screen. Do not the culture wars that pit conservative against liberal illicit behaviours which the Catechism correlate to murder.

When it comes to what is known as 'silence culture,' would not virtual cities of refuge be a good thing? It seems to me that sometimes people possibly get silenced for things they would like to retrack, or for things that get taken out of context. I fear that our culture is returning to a 'blood revenge' mentality, even if it is only virtual blood. And Christians are not immune.

Israel was to be different from the other nations. The church is also called to be set apart. We are set apart to be followers of the prince of peace, "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 'He himself bore our sins' in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; 'by his wounds you have been healed'" (1 Peter 2:23-24).

Jesus, the innocent one, offered himself to death, to murder. His death brings an end to the escalating cycle of revenge killings. He opened the possibility of forgiveness as the grand alternative. That is why Paul wrote, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord" (Romans 12:17-19).

In commenting on the command against murder, the Catechism offers this positive explanation, "By condemning envy, hatred, and anger God tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful, and friendly to them, to protect them from harm as much as we can, and to do good even to our enemies" (A 106).

When someone harms us, let us think first of the cross, where the true innocent one died. Enough blood has been shed. Let us be people of peace, even of virtual peace.

Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other (Deuteronomy 4:32-35).

In our text for today, Moses is challenging Israel to do her historical homework. Its unlikely Moses would have appreciated some of the dry history textbooks, imposed on high school students. For him, history was alive with the great saving acts of God. These are the stories Moses wants remembered; remembered so that the appropriate lessons can be drawn. The most important is this: there is only one God, he is the Lord God of Israel.

As I read Moses' words, I am reminded that early in its history, the church began to meet on Sundays to remember her own history. Our story as church parallels Israel's story. Let's consider these two stories.

The essential question is this: has anything like what Israel experienced ever happened before? 'Of course, not', it's a rhetorical question. And arguably, nothing like it happened until Christ himself.

Early on, God spoke to Israel directly, "And God spoke all these words…" (Exodus 20:1). With this act, God separated himself from the other gods of all the other nations and identified Israel as a nation unique among the peoples. Gods did not speak directly to their people. Moreover, Israel survived the encounter. "You heard God and lived", Moses reminds Israel.

This was another act of God's grace. He desired to have direct contact with his people. Other gods were not interested in such things. They had more important things to do that interact with their worshippers. Humans believed they needed to attract the attention of their god, but only enough to get a few blessings. If a god got to close, there would be human casualties.

God's direct speech was too much for Israel. They were afraid and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die" (Exodus 20:19). But God desires to speak directly to us. Thus, God came to us in Christ Jesus. This is the burden of John 1, summarized in the famous words of verse 14, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." In Christ, we see the glory of God and we too live.

The gospel accounts want us to recognize that in Christ, something greater is happening. Israel was spared from death when they met God. Wherever Jesus went, he brought life: the hungry were fed, the lame walked, the deaf heard, the dead were raised. When we hear God, we are not just spared from death, we are given the life of Christ himself. Jesus promised the Spirit who would teach us everything he had told his disciples (John 14:26). Paul adds, "the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children" (Romans 8:15-16).

The miracles Israel saw God perform in Egypt and afterwards, revealed God's omnipotence. He was and is stronger than Pharoah and all his gods. Jesus came, claiming to be God. He came with signs and wonders, showing that he was more powerful than sickness and hunger and even death by raising people back to life. The Gospels present Jesus as the Lord God of Israel, who ushers in the kingdom of God with signs and wonders that climax in his resurrection.

Through his death and resurrection Jesus proves his divine identity; he is the Redeemer of Israel. If God's rescue of the Israelites from their slavery to Pharaoh and his kingdom demanded a tremendous act of divine power, how much more our rescue from sin and the kingdom of darkness. This is what Jesus has accomplished for us, and in so doing he has demonstrated that he alone is God; there is no other.

That is why Sunday became the church's day. She continues meeting to remember her history and to respond in faith. Moses wanted Israel to remember that only her Lord was God, so that she would believe and live in covenant faithfulness. Christians meet to encourage one another in their faith and in their Christian life. If you have lost connect with your Christian fellowship, I encourage you to get reconnected. Its difficult to go it alone.