Ep.228: Appointment with Death.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Hebrews 9 says:
Just as humans are appointed to die once,
and afterwards face judgment,
so Christ was sacrificed once
to take away the sins of many;
and he will appear a second time,
not to bear sin,
but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him (vv. 27-28).

This passage puts three appointments on our calendar: one with death, one with judgment, and one with Christ to receive his salvation when he returns.

A man I worked for died a couple of years ago. He didn’t want a memorial service or public ceremony. So instead of attending a funeral or a celebration of life, I attended happy hour at a pub, which a friend and colleague organized. We told a story or two and raised a glass to his memory.

How conflicted society is about death! How to deal with it? Like my boss, many people no longer have rituals to incorporate death into the meaning of life.

I wonder sometimes about my appointment with death. Will I move into an old folks home, isolated with my peers, hoping for occasional visits from younger folk? When I lose my mobility, will my weekly highlight be a sling lift into a hot bath tub? Maybe I’ll spend my last days attached to IV lines and monitors, until they disconnect me and let death deliver me.

What does it mean to die with dignity? Or is death always undignified?

Christ kept his appointment with death, naked on a cross, an undignified death. By his death he took away the sins of many. Now he has an appointment to return, bringing salvation to those who wait for him.

Here are three ways to look at our appointment with death.

First, death is an enemy. God breathed into dust, creating human life; but death dissolves that union, returning the body to dust and releasing the breath back to God. When I attend a funeral, even if it’s called a celebration of life, I feel grief that another battle has been lost, that Enemy Death won another undeserved victory, and the world a poorer place.

Death is also a friend. In her later years, my mother said, “My friends and I are not afraid of dying. We’re afraid of the journey that will take us there.” Fortunately, death limits how long our bodies and minds deteriorate, it brings an end to suffering, and it puts a boundary on the evil or the good we do.

So death is an enemy and a friend. It is also a gateway. Christ, who passed through death to a new life beyond, invites us to follow him to that place. There he will breathe new life into our dusty bodies,and invite us to eat fruit from the tree of life.

Let’s pray.

Our father, sometimes our lives are short, confusing, painful. Sometimes they are long, rewarding, and beautiful. O God, as long as your breath gives life to our frail and dusty bodies, help us live fully and worshipfully, preparing diligently for our appointment with death, waiting in hope for our appointment with Christ who will be our judge and saviour.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.227: Psalm 105: Memories.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 105 is a recital of Israel’s history. I used to find it rather tedious and wondered why the poet thought it necessary to versify this material. Surely the history books were adequate. Couldn’t he be more creative with his poetry?

Re-reading the psalm recently, I learned it may have been written to encourage Israelites during the Babylonian exile. Let’s observe how the poet chose stories from history to hearten the discouraged exiles.

The psalm’s history review begins with Abraham saying:
God is mindful of his covenant forever. . .
the covenant he made with Abraham
his promise to Isaac. . .
which he confirmed to Jacob as a statue,
to Israel as an everlasting covenant (vv. 8-9).

God made his promises when Abraham and his descendants were a little lost tribe in the vast land of Canaan. God protected them there, even rebuking kings, saying “Do not touch my anointed ones!” (v. 15). This sounds like the stories where Abraham passed off his wife as his sister, and God warned the local king not to take her into his harem (Gen. 20). If the Israelites in Babylon felt like a little lost tribe in a big, dangerous world, the poet’s message was, This is not a new experience for Israel or for God. He can handle it. He will be faithful to his forever promises.

The writer next cites Joseph, whose brothers became annoyed that he was daddy’s favorite, and that he had dreams about becoming the family patriarch. When they sold him to Egyptian traders, his dreams were lost in exile, slavery, and prison. But God remembered him and made his dreams come true. Joseph became a powerful Egyptian ruler and saved his family and the whole country from famine. The message for exiles is that God who remembered Joseph in Egypt remembers you in Babylon, and he will help you.

The poem moves to a third historical recital, the story of the Exodus, where Moses and God confronted Pharaoh with plagues until Pharaoh released God’s people from slavery. Then God helped them escape, taking them on an impossible journey through the Red Sea and the desert to the Promised Land. This God will one day free the exiles from Babylon and take them on their journey home.

A striking feature of this psalm is how the poet edited Israel’s history. He deleted all the sin and rebellion! There is no mention of the evil Joseph’s brothers did or, of 4forty faithless years wandering in the desert. The poem recites only larger events that ended happily. Why? I think the exiles already knew how badly things go wrong. They needed encouragement and hope.

Let’s pray.

Our father, you reminded the Israelites of their their history. You watched over Abraham when he was a stranger in a strange land. You protected Joseph as a prisoner and slave. You remembered your people in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land to worship you.

Lord, we too are foreigners and exiles (1 Pet 2:11), for our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20). Lead us through danger and deserts to the land you have promised. With the poet we pray:
Bring us out with joy,
your chosen ones with singing.
Bring us to a place where we
we can keep your statutes
and observe your laws (vv. 43, 45, paraphrased).

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.226: Dirty Conscience.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Hebrews 9 says that worshippers in ancient Israel’s religion needed to be cleansed with the blood of bulls and goats. The author continues:
How much more will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself . . . to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works,
so that we may serve the living God (Heb 9:14).

The Christian conscience needs to be cleansed? From dead works? Let’s look for a moment at this problem conscience, and at what kind of works it must be cleansed from.

I was raised to believe that my conscience is God’s gift to help me tell right from wrong. If my conscience feels guilty, I have done wrong. If my conscience isn’t bothering me, I must be doing right.

The New Testament presents a more nuanced view of the conscience. It talks of a seared conscience (1 Tim 4:2), a defiled conscience (Titus 1:15), a weak conscience (1 Cor 8:7), and in our passage today, a conscience attuned to dead works (Heb 9:14). Paul even suggests keeping your conscience in the dark sometimes. For example, if your food might have been offered to idols, don’t ask, because your conscience might make a fuss (1 Cor 10:27). Paul says of himself, “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor 4:4).

In short, the conscience is a useful but defective arbiter of good and evil. It needs to be trained (Heb 5:14, KJV) so it will help your spiritual life instead of hindering it.

Hebrews goes on to say that our consciences must be cleansed from dead works. What are these dead works that dirty the conscience?

Modern ethical theories focus on the question, “What is ethical behaviour?” They pose problems like this: A train is hurtling down the tracks toward an accident. If you throw the switch to divert the train onto a siding, it will save 25 passengers. But it will kill the five workmen on the siding. Should you throw the switch?

Scriptural ethics have a different focus. Rather than creating endless lists of right and wrong actions, or specifying all the works you need to do, scripture addresses the kind of people we should become. We are on a journey of the heart. Our attitudes and motives must be purified, our thinking must become wide and loving like God’s. On this journey, as we become like Christ, our consciences come free of scrupulous attempts to manage all the details of behaviour, and instead grow sensitive and flexible to relationships where love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8) –both our sin and others.

Luther famously wrote, “Sin boldly, but believe even more boldly in Christ and rejoice.” Sin boldly? Does that sound Christian? He wrote this in a letter to Melancthon, his fellow reformer, who was prone to scrupulosity and attacks of conscience (Fred Sanders at “Sin Boldly!” – The Scriptorium Daily). Luther was addressing ta similar problem Hebrews. That is, don’t permit a weak conscience to govern all your actions. The measure of our lives is not the volume of evil we manage to avoid, but the great love we learn to give. This requires us to step out in faith and do something useful in the world. Our attempts at love and service will often be impatient, wrong-headed, or self-serving. But we can trust God’s grace and forgiveness to see us through our failures.

Let’s pray

Our Lord, some of us have spent too much time trying to keep a clear conscience and to manage our behaviour. We have spent too little time learning to love you and our neighbors. Our feet and consciences are dirty from walking through this world of idols and materialism and moral relativity. Wash our feet, Lord, as you did the disciples’, cleanse us from useless works, so that we may serve the living God.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.225: Psalm 104: God’s Playhouse.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 104 opens with an amazing description of God:
The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
He makes the winds his messengers,
flames of fire his servants (vv. 2-4).

These striking pictures of God playing in his creation. He dresses himself up in light. The heavens are the tent he plays in. The upper story of his house goes right through the blue sky, with its joists fixed on the water above. He makes a chariot of the clouds and employs fire as his personal valet. He uses wind for the messaging app on his world wide web. God who created light, water, wind, clouds, and fire, now uses them for his clothes, transportation, servants, and messaging app.

Let’s pray some of the phrases from this psalm.

Our God, we have seen wildfires in California and Australia and Siberia, driven restlessly by wind, consuming the plains and forests, sending smoke to the heavens. You are the God who rides on the wings of the wind, whose servants are flames of fire.

The poet says:
You water the mountains from your upper chambers;
       the land is satisfied by the fruit of your work.
You make grass grow for cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate.
        The earth provides food:
     wine that makes our hearts glad
oil that makes our faces shine,
bread that sustains our hearts (vv. 14-15).

You provide the necessities and luxuries of life: wine, oil, flour for bread. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!”

The poet says,
All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time. . . .
When you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
When you send your breath,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground (vv. 27-30).

We, like all creatures, Lord, receive our food from your hand. When your hand is open, we are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, we are terrified. When you take away our breath, we return to dust.

But when you send your spirit, we are born again, and you renew the face of the earth.

O Lord, this is the mystery of life. Our bodies come from the ground, and our food grows in the ground, and our lives end in the ground. But our breath, our spirit comes from you. We try to own the ground from which we come, and manage the clay bodies we live in, but it is you who sets the limits of our lives. You breathed into us when we were dust, you sustain us on this dusty earth, and one day our breath will return to you.

With the poet we pray,
May your glory be forever, Lord,
may you rejoice in the work of your hands (v. 31).
Let us sing to you, Lord, while we live,
let our hymn be of you as long as we have breath (v.33).

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.224: How God’s Covenant Went Wrong.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

The book of Hebrews makes this comment about the covenant Moses mediated with God at Sinai: “If there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, there wouldn’t be a need for another” (Heb 8:7). That’s strong language. Something was wrong with the covenant God organized? So he had to abandon it? And make a new one?

To describe what was wrong with the covenant, Hebrews quotes the prophet Jeremiah,
The days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel. . .
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord (Heb 8:8-9).

Did you notice: the author used that quote to turn a hidden corner in his argument. Instead of telling us what was wrong with the covenant, he tells what was wrong with the people who agreed to the covenant. That’s a big difference.

Then, Hebrews tells us what the new covenant will look like, again quoting Jeremiah:
This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel. . .
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts. . .
No longer will they teach their neighbours,
or say to one another, “Know the Lord,”
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest (Heb 8:10-11).

I have three observations about the new covenant.

First, it was promised to Israel, not Gentiles. So does the new covenant belong to the Church? Jesus and the New Testament do not clarify how the transition from Israel to the church worked. The church has discarded parts of the old covenant, like animal sacrifice, and claimed other parts as its own, such as God’s promise to bless the whole world through Abraham. The church has consigned much of the Old Testament to the category of “stories about God from which we can learn lessons”. What we learn is not to repeat Israel’s wars, its politics, or its religion. Instead, we want to reproduce something of the relationship with God which Israel expressed through the prophets and the psalms.

A second observation on the new covenant: it has not yet been fulfilled in the way Jeremiah explained it. For example, he says,
No longer will they teach their neighbours,
or say to one another, “Know the Lord,”
because they will all know me (Heb 8:10-11).

If you’ve attended church or browsed some Christian books recently, you’ll notice that a frequent topic is, “How to know God better”. Clearly, we’re not yet where Jeremiah promised, where it’s no longer necessary to preach that sermon.

My third observation on the new covenant is a personal question: “Has God put his law in your mind and written it on your heart?” Or does your heart, like mine, keep going astray? As far as I can tell, God has not given me one life-changing event in which he wrote his law on my mind and heart. Rather, he writes it bit by bit, day by day, as I meditate on scripture and engage in spiritual disciplines.

Let’s pray.

Our father, we want to receive the new covenant you promised Israel. We want your law written on our hearts and in our minds. Help us grow out of our immaturity, out of our need for constant teaching and reminders. Help us grow into the place where we know you in a deep and permanent way.

We pray the Anglican collect, “Grant us so to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest [the scriptures] that by patience and the comfort of your Holy Word we may embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. . .” (Book of Common Prayer, collect for Second Sunday of Advent).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.223: Psalm 103: Bless the Lord, O My Soul.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 103 opens with a well-known call to worship:
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me
bless his holy name (v. 1).

Some modern translations say “Praise the Lord” instead of “Bless the Lord”, but I prefer the word bless. I like the reciprocity, the relationship implied by mutual blessing: God blesses us, and we bless him back. When we feel God’s goodness in our lives, we respond by speaking blessing to others and back to God. Bless the Lord, O my soul.

The poet blesses God for the good things he gives. God forgives, heals, redeems, crowns us with love and compassion, satisfies our desires with good things, and renews our life like the eagle’s (vv. 3-5). God’s blessings move us toward lives of wholeness, health, and meaning.

The poet, who has faced God’s anger and displeasure, does not give way to fear, but asserts positively:
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbour his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve,
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us (vv. 9-12).

Author Walter Brueggemann says, “Psalm 103 stuns those in the chaos of the exile with the proclamation that YHWH [God] acts out of compassion rather than a precise moral calculus. Divine generosity far outlasts the encounter with divine wrath” (Psalms, by Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger, Cambridge University Press, 2018, Kindle, chapter “Psalm 103”). God doesn’t crunch the numbers, weighing our bad deeds against our good. He forgoes punishing sin, he discards the memory of it, and acts with infinite love.

Let’s pray to this generous God.

As a father has compassion on his children,
so you have compassion on us, Lord.
You know how we are formed,
you remember that we are dust (vv. 13-14).

Our father, where we have castigated ourselves for broken relationships, failed resolutions, and endless sin, we come to you for forgiveness, healing, and redemption. Where we have lived with long regret for things done and said, and for things not done and not said, we come to you. We remember your promise to satisfy our desires with good things and to renew our life like the eagles (v. 5). Satisfy us, Lord, with the healing of our bodies and minds, with the restoration of relationships, with growing character, and hearts at rest. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days (Ps 90:14).

The poet says,
The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and it’s place remembers it no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting
your love is with those who fear you,
and your righteousness with their children’s children (vv. 15-17).

Yes Lord, we feel our lives and our world passing away like grass. The great American democracy drifts toward chaos, Russian politics revert to brutal dictatorship, and the Chinese empire assets its power in a violent world. Our bodies age, our loved ones decline, we attend more funerals than weddings. But your love, O Lord, is from everlasting to everlasting, and your righteousness with our children’s children.

With poet John G. Whittier, we respond to your love, as he says:
Yet, in this maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed hope my spirit clings,
I know that God is good.
I dimly guess from blessings known,
Of greater out of sight,
And with the chastened psalmist own,
His judgments too are right (The Eternal Goodness, lines 41-44, 53-56)..

Judge us, O Lord, as you must, but in mercy and love, in kindness and gentleness.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.222: Psalm 102: The Ephemeral and the Eternal.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 102 has a two-line title which describes it as:
The prayer of an afflicted person who has grown weak
and pours out a lament before the Lord.

In this psalm, the poet is shaken to his core. He says,
My days vanish like smoke;
my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass; (vv. 3-4a).
I eat ashes for food
and mingle my drink with tears
because of your great wrath. . . (vv. 9-10a).

Sleepless nights. Tearful days. Starvation diet. Burning bones. Little wonder the poet feels his life is lost, vanishing like smoke in the wind. Shadows lengthen on his years. He withers in the heat of the day and passes into evening like sun-scorched grass.

Not only is the poet shaken: his city, Zion, is also shaken. He prays for restoration, saying:
You will arise and have compassion on Zion,
it is time to show favour to her. . .
For her stones are dear to your servants;
her very dust moves them to pity (vv. 13a, 14).

Returning to his personal troubles, the poet contrasts his brief, painful, and ephemeral life with God’s eternity:
In the course of my life, [the Lord] broke my strength;
he cut short my days.
So I said
Do not take me away, my God, in the midst of my days;
your years go on through all generations.
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
and discard them.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end (vv. 23-27).

The poet frames the brevity and pain of his life against God’s eternity and creative activity. The poet’s life is wearing out. The world he lives in running down. The heavens above are aging and passing away. God made them all like a fashion show, where the costumes that dazzle the runway today will be discarded at the end of the season.

Let’s pray.

O Lord, our life is smoke, a vapor that disperses in the air, a grass that withers and dies. We live a few short days, never achieving the glory you made us for, leaving no permanent trace of our passing.

But you, O Lord, outlive the changes. The earth that to us is unshakeable will wear out like a garment, the heavens will collapse like clothes thrown in the laundry hamper. But your life and watchfulness outlast it all. You remain the same, your years will never end.

With the poet we pray,
Do not hide your face from me
when I am in distress (v. 2a).
Do not take me away in the midst of my days (v. 24a).
May the children of your servants live in your presence;
establish their descendants before you (v. 28).

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.221: Endless Intercession.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Hebrews 7 points out that Jesus is superior to other high priests of the Hebrew tradition, because his lineage traces back to Melchizadek, an obscure priest in Genesis to whom Abraham tithed his plunder of war.

Of the Hebrew high priests, the author says,
There have been many of those priests,
because death prevented them from continuing in office;
but Jesus has a permanent priesthood,
because he lives forever.
Therefore he is able to save completely
those who come to God through him,
because he always lives to intercede for them.
Hebrews 7:23-25

Two comments on this passage.

First, the author suggests that a central weakness of the Hebrew religion was that priests had to make yearly sacrifices to keep up with the annual accumulation of sins. When a high priest died, another took over to keep the forgiveness going.

Jesus, in contrast, has a permanent priesthood. He made one sacrifice to deal with all sin for all time. But like the old-time priests, he didn’t entirely solve the problem of sin. The author says Jesus lives forever to intercede for us, implying that we, like the Hebrews, need someone to help us obtain recurring forgiveness for recurring sins.

I do wish Jesus had solved the sin problem. But despite my relationship with him, I keep on sinning day after day, year after year, and Jesus keeps interceding on my behalf with God.

A second comment on this Hebrews passage: it says Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he lives forever to intercede for them. I don’t feel he’s saved me completely yet, because I keep sinning. My mind, my imagination, my relationships, and my behavior often seem more unsaved than saved. I hope Jesus is planning a future state in which he will save me completely, as he promised.

Let’s pray.

Our father, here are three things I believe.

I believe I am a sinner. As I age, the problem of sin seems more deeply entrenched than ever. I am not the man I set out to be. I have not had great success at living a holy life, or loving you and my neighbors as I ought. I agree with the author of Hebrews that what I need is not just a yearly brush-up of forgiveness, but a dose of eternal salvation.

I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. That he dealt with the problem of sin, that he is present at your throne, and that he always prays for me. Do receive his prayers, accept me because he has introduced me to you, look at me in the light of his intercession, and forgive all my sins: past, present, and future.

I believe Jesus is on my side, that he deals with the sins I have confessed, with the sins I have not yet confessed, with the sins I confess but am unable to shake, and with the sins I am unaware of.

Jesus has made me his brother, your child. Have mercy on your family, O God.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.220: Psalm 101: What to do until God Comes.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 101 opens with a song to the Lord, praising his love and justice. Then it moves quickly to personal application as the poet says:
I will be careful to lead a blameless life–
when will you come to me? (v. 2).

What a poignant question. If prayer is a dialogue with God, when will God show up and speak with us? And what shall we do while we wait for him?

The poet starts the psalm with two things he does while he waits:
First, he sings to the Lord, praising his love and justice (v. 1).
Second, he affirms his commitment to lead a blameless life (v. 2a).
The remainder of the psalm describes this life the poet intends to live.

Let’s pray some phrases from the psalm.

Our father, we wait for you. When will you come to us? We long for your presence. As we wait, we renew our commitment to you and to your law, our commitment to live lives that are moral, loving, holy. As we review our commitment, we invite you to remember your commitment to us as our saviour, shepherd, helper, and friend.

The poet says,
I will conduct the affairs of my house
with a blameless heart (v. 2b).

Give us blameless hearts, Lord. Pure hearts, free of self-promotion, self-indulgence, self-pity. Hearts that act in love and mercy, treating our neighbors with dignity and respect.

The poet says,
I will not look with approval
on anything that is vile.
I hate what faithless people do;
I will have no part in it (v. 3).

Yes, Lord, help us to discern good and evil in our hearts, our lives, and our society. Cure us of delusions, of false dreams about the good we would do if we were rich and powerful and influential. Help us to live graciously and thankfully our small lives of faith. As we wait for you, we submit our lives and our thoughts to your law.

The poet says,
The perverse of heart shall be far from me;
I will have nothing to do with what is evil.
Whoever slanders their neighbour in secret,
I will put to silence;
whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart,
I will not tolerate (vv 4-5).

Yes, Lord, save us from personal and professional relationships that would corrupt us. Give us courage to silence those who slander others. Help us to recognize haughty eyes and proud hearts, and to avoid them.

The poet says,
My eyes will be on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
the one whose way of life is blameless
will minister to me (v. 6).

Set before our eyes the faithful in the land. May we reject what is violent and corrupt and evil, and learn from those who live by faith and righteousness.

The poet says,
No one who practises deceit
will dwell in my house;
no one who speaks falsely
will stand in my presence (v. 7).

With the poet, Lord, we commit ourselves to the truth, and to those who speak truly. We renounce conspiracy theories and fake news; we renounce those who spend their spiritual energy by meditating on the evils of big pharma and deep state and lamestream media. Help us to meditate on your word, to discern and live by its truth. Help us to see this present evil age as you see it, God. Give us eyes of faith to see Christ and his kingdom.

And do not forget to come to us as we wait for you.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.219: A Weak and Useless Law.

Hebrews 7 discusses the priesthood and law that Moses set up for Israel, with Aaron as the first high priest. Comparing Aaron’s line of priests with Jesus, who came from a different line, the writer says,
The former regulation [that is, the priesthood of Aaron] is set aside
because it was weak and useless
(for the law made nothing perfect),
and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
Hebrews 6:17-19

“Weak and useless” is a rather harsh judgement on God’s law that established ancient Israel’s religion. If the system was weak and useless, why did God bother to set it up? And why are we still studying it?

The Book of Hebrews explains that it was weak and useless because the law can’t make anything perfect. Interesting thought. What use is God’s law if it can’t make things perfect?

I answer that question by looking at the two moral problems we need to solve.

The first is how to eliminate, or at least reduce, evil. Laws of all sorts do impact this problem, but law of any type has severely limited effectiveness. If laws could solve the problem of evil, our country probably has enough laws to make a perfect society! Russia and China have lots of laws too, but they may be less perfect than ours.

The second moral problem: how to make people good. Goodness is not simply obeying laws and avoiding evil. It is being motivated to actively love each other and God.

Laws are helpful, because they contribute to solving the first moral problem. They do motivate some of us not to murder and steal, and to drive only a little faster than the speed limit.

But “law and order” politicians are wrong when they think harsher punishments increase public safety and reduce serious crime.

Imagine two conspirators planning to rob a liquor store. Do they call in their accountant to do a cost-benefit analysis on the project? If the prison term for armed robbery is longer than the prison term for unarmed robbery, are they likely to leave their guns at home? If the punishment for break and enter is harsher than the punishment for robbing without property damage, are they likely to hire a locksmith instead of breaking the door down?

The punishments written into law do provide some incentive not to do evil, but not everyone attends to this. The author of Hebrews watched the high priest make the same sacrifices year after year for his own sins and others. Is there any way out of this never-ending cycle of never-ending sin?

The system is so broken not even God’s law can fix it. To stop sinning and begin loving requires stronger motivation and greater willpower than any list of rules can supply.

In our verses today, the author hints at an answer, saying, “The former law is set aside because it is weak and useless, and a better hope is introduced by which we draw near to God.”

Let’s pray.

Our father, we feel the weakness of your law in our lives. It is a sad week for us when our best efforts yield only the news that we didn’t murder anyone, that we didn’t commit adultery, that we didn’t rob a liquor store. You made us for better things than that, father, for relationships of love, for communication and community and good works.

Your law is not able to motivate and empower us to live the life of love we need. Help us then to find that better hope, the hope with which we draw near to you. Replace our never-ending cycle of sinning and repenting with a better cycle of drawing near, of receiving your spirit, of learning to loving you and others.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.