DAY 37

A DAY OF CONTRASTS

 Exodus 39 & 40 and Matthew 23:23-38

Sometimes our readings from the Old and New Testaments line up, sometimes they don’t, and occasionally they are diametrically opposed – today we are in the latter category.  

The culmination of the Book of Exodus is God coming to dwell with His people. It has been a long road. You have worked hard to read it; they worked hard to live it. It started with the struggle to get free of Pharaoh. It moved to the struggle to trust and follow God. It continued with the struggle to create all he had commanded. They have done it! It is a good day in the camp of the Israelites as…the glory of the Lord fills the Tabernacle, 40:34.

In contrast it is not a good day in the Temple. Jesus is continuing what is often referred to as the Seven Woes. It seems as if it is a tirade. I don’t often picture Jesus behaving this way. In fact I have never pictured him this way. It seems to me as I read this today he is in one, a tirade. In culminates in him lamenting over Jerusalem. He loves this city. He cried when he entered it just a few days ago. It is His city, and yet the city that is the most religious city in the world has forgotten God.

The point today that is “smacking me in the head” is that following God is work, it can be a struggle, and there will be days I will get it right and days I won’t. Yet God is faithful; he will dwell with me, with us, if we seek him. The point is also that if I, if we, do not want him, and if we, who call ourselves His people, pervert Him, then He will hold us accountable – even as He laments.