DAY 73

JUST TELL ME HOW

Deuteronomy 22, 23 & 24 and Mark 14:1-26

“Just tell me how…” has often been my prayer to God, “Just tell me how to be a Christian in the middle of the zaniness of my life!” I wonder if that is what the people are thinking in our Old Testament passage. Their life is a bit crazy. They are moving around, going into a new land, learning to farm, and more. On top of all that there are all these laws. As I first read them I struggled a bit with them (as I have in the past). I was thinking, “Do I really believe all these, is this what God really wants…?”

I conclude the wrestling is good. I am the guy who has stated that I am really trying to “live under the authority of Scripture”. So if I say that, then I need to work through these difficult passages. Then it hit me. Do I really want God to tell me every exact detail, look at how I am wrestling with the detail he gave the people in the Old Testament. Maybe this path of following Jesus is actually better because when our forebears had all the rules, they got it all mixed up.

That doesn’t mean the detail is wrong for their culture. In the middle of all that detail I see justice. Stoning people is not what I am talking about and the difference between how men and women were treated in the culture of that day certainly rubs me the wrong way. Yet peppered throughout it we find pretty unique laws for their day and age. Consider the one where if a woman is abused and there is no one to hear her plea for help then she is to be protected by the law. I don’t think the other cultures surrounding this new nation would have that kind of a law. Then there are all the laws about not exploiting the poor, not charging interest, etc.  There is a fair amount of decency in the middle of this long list; decency that was new to the world.

Mark’s Gospel today is full of important moments: the woman who anoints Jesus, Judas’ betrayal, the Passover, and Jesus’ institution of Holy Communion. Where do I begin? Let’s try and look at these four moments together. The anointing by Mary (Luke’s Gospel identifies her as Lazarus’ sister) is a remarkable pouring out of herself in worship of Jesus – and it is the exact opposite of Judas’ actions – extreme worship versus extreme betrayal! Then there is Jesus. He knows He is being anointed for burial and He knows He is being betrayed. His actions and concerns? He wants to celebrate a festive meal…you might say, “Really”. His answer, “Yes, really, go and get it ready, the Passover.”

He wants to do this because He wants to institute the new meal of freedom. That is what the Passover meal celebrates; the Exodus, the meal that took place before the march to freedom. Here we are having that meal the night before Jesus delivers us from all that enslaves us. And He does it while one worships and one betrays.

The witness of Jesus’ actions set in the contrast of those two extremes brings me back to the ANSWER to my question, “Just tell me how to do this…” Yes there are things that I need to do, but there is a starting point, and it is not with me, it is with Jesus. The first thing I need to “do” so that “I can do this Christian life” is to surrender to the reality that Jesus does it first – and what He does is everything – He and his mission will not be distracted by either the worship or the betrayal. In other words God is not distracted from His Love for you by what you are doing. He doesn’t love you more or less based on what you do. He has already done it.

The Christian life therefore begins not with doing, but with not-doing, with sitting and receiving; and with trusting that God really does have it all “covered”. Isn’t that the point of this big Old Testament story we are in the middle of? Isn’t that what God was asking them? First, first receive what God is giving – first trust God. The same is true for me (and you).