DAY 56

COME TO ME ALL YOU WHO ARE WEARY & HEAVY LADEN

Numbers 9, 10 & 11 and Mark 5:1-20

They set off, but not until after they celebrate the Passover. There is an exchange between some men who are unclean, and in a way it is encouraging to read of them trying to follow the Law of the Lord. We see in Numbers 9, 10 and 11 more of the details. There is a necessary trumpet to summon and move the people, and then there is the actual moving out of Sinai.

It doesn’t take long before the people complain. It is easy to sit in my chair, read about the Israelites, and judge them. Yet I am also trying to picture this situation, hundreds of thousands of people, on the move – dust, activity, and probably a fair amount of chaos. I am thinking about how I do when I use to load the family for a vacation. I must confess to you I did not do well in those situations.

I don’t think it is necessarily wrong that the people needed food; it is rather that they first began by questioning why God brought them out of Egypt. God does not despise their needs, rather their attitudes. Of course we got a few moments with Moses (the weight of responsibility he is feeling must be huge) and then God’s response to Moses and the people.

Bearing the weight of any situation is part of the life of faith. It is not that people who don’t have faith, don’t have responsibility. Rather, because we have faith, we ought to carry that load differently.

Mark 5:1-20 reveals a story of someone who was carrying a load, a load of torment. He had to live apart from his family in the tombs, that is until he met Jesus. The healing is dramatic and the man is restored. It is interesting that this troubled man did not say to Jesus, “Why did you make me like this?” That question would have paralleled the way Israelites the behaved in the Old Testament. Instead the Lord takes away the load. It is interesting to think about how the Israelites have experience with God helping them, we don’t know if this man does.

At least one lesson here is when we find ourselves under a heavy load, as people of faith, our challenge is to keep our perspective and remember all that God has done for us.