God Drops by for Dinner

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Don Merritt

Genesis 18:1-15

I must admit that it felt kind of weird typing the words “God drops by for dinner”, but that’s what happened. Abraham was sitting outside his tent one day when he sees three men approaching; they were God− Father, Son and Spirit.

No, I don’t think it was God and two bodyguards; what would He need bodyguards for?

Being a gracious host, Abraham offers something to eat and drink, and they accept. He tells Sarah to get busy baking bread; he selects a perfect calf and tells a servant to prepare it for roasting; the Three would be there for the day it would seem, for it takes a long time to go from flour to bread and from a living calf to a roasted one… They would be visiting for quite some time just as close friends like to do.

I wonder how often we spend time with God just visiting…

Abraham returns to his Guest with milk and curds. “Where is Sarah?” He asks. (Notice they knew his wife’s new name).

Abraham says that she is in the tent.

Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” (18:10)

Sarah, listening at the opening of the tent (wasn’t she supposed to be making bread?) chuckles to herself at the thought of becoming pregnant at 90 and the Lord wanted to know why she was laughing− she lied. “Yes, you did laugh” was the Lord’s reply…

The Christmas Story is all about an impossible birth, and so is Father Abraham’s story. From an earthly point of view, neither story can be true, and ever since that time, people who do not have ears to hear, have dismissed both as mere myth. Yet both really took place, for nothing is too hard for our God. Abraham’s is a story of promise, the Christmas Story is a story of promise fulfilled and I can’t help but think that of all seasons of the year, this is the most hopeful, for if nothing else it reminds us of the hope we have in Christ… if only we could stop hustling and bustling long enough to have eyes that see.

We’ll pick up the story here next time, and when we do, we will have a rare glimpse into the mind of God at work: see you then!

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Covenant Terms

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Don Merritt

Genesis 17

On a certain day Abram was going about his business as usual when God came to him out of the blue…

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” (17:1-2)

For the first time in the relationship, God is giving Abram covenant terms (conditions) that he must follow, beginning in verse 1 with “walk before me faithfully and be blameless.” In the next several verses (3-8) God promises Abram that he will not only have a son, but that he (Abram) will be the father of many nations, and changes his name to Abraham. As the father of nations, he will also be the ancestor of kings, and God’s covenant will extend to all of Abraham’s descendants, and those of his entire household. The land of Canaan will be their homeland and they will take possession of it, something Abram had not yet been able to do. There is another condition as well, for all males must be circumcised.

In 17:9-14 God makes it abundantly clear that each and every male must be circumcised as a sign of the covenant, including anyone in the household who is not a blood relation, and that if they do so, God will be their God, and the God of their descendants. If they do not do so, they are to be cast out.

Sarai is also to be blessed, for she, in spite of their ages, will bear a son through whom the covenant will pass to future generations; her name was changed to Sarah.  Abraham’s reaction was to laugh, for how could they produce children at their ages? He suggested that Ishmael could be the son through whom the covenant would pass, but God, while willing to bless Ishmael with a great nation of his own, insisted that Abraham and Sarah would have the Son of Promise; they would name him Isaac, and he would be born within the year. To his everlasting credit, Abraham stopped laughing and was circumcised on that very day, along with all of the males in his household.

Let’s take just a moment and ask ourselves a simple question: Why did God wait around until Abraham was 99 and Sarah was 90 to fulfill His promise to give them a son − was He too busy in another galaxy or something?

While we’re asking ourselves questions, let’s ask another one: Why did the Son of God come to earth as an infant born to a teenager in a manger in Bethlehem, instead of coming on the wings of angels into downtown Jerusalem?

I can suggest one answer: God’s power is best seen when the humans in the picture are weakest. Certainly, a son born to a 90- year-old, fathered by a 99 year old, is just as unlikely as a child born to a virgin, for as we know, both are not possible in the normal course of events.

In both cases there would be no doubt that God Himself was responsible for the birth of a promised son.

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Arrested!

Posted on December 27, 2024 by Don Merritt

Matthew 26:47-56

As Jesus was saying the words of 26:46, the party sent to arrest Him is entering the scene with Judas in the lead. In the events that follow, there are a few actions that have an almost comical quality to them, even though this is serious business. Judas had a sign for the arresting party: ‘Grab the one I kiss.’ So old Judas walks up to Jesus as though everything was completely normal and says, “Greetings Rabbi,” and kisses Him. Now to be quite sure, this was a normal sort of greeting back in the day, but I almost want to laugh at the comic nature of it. Judas came onto the scene at the head of an armed mob, and pretends nothing is amiss, even though Judas Knew that Jesus knew what he was up to− incredible.

Jesus was placed under arrest, and then lo and behold, who should produce a sword and start swinging it? Our pal, Peter! Peter’s action should get high marks for courage, low marks for intelligence, and failing marks for understanding. Yes, it was courageous, maybe even heroic, but if a battle were to follow, Jesus and the Eleven are dead right then and there. But then Jesus, from Peter’s point of view, is a sort of “wild card”; what would He do in the situation?

Jesus stepped in instantly, and put a stop to the whole business of violence, heals the man that Peter had struck, and tells Peter to stand down. Perhaps reading Peter’s mind, Jesus said:

Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way? (26:53-54)

If you wonder about such things, 12 legions of angels would produce about 75,000 very unhappy angels, but the cavalry would not be coming to the rescue on that night, for God’s will went in a different direction. Then Jesus addressed the mob that had come to arrest Him:

Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled. (26:55-56a)

Actually, that He was leading a rebellion was most likely exactly what everyone thought, for they saw Him as the son of David come to reclaim the throne; the Messiah come to conquer and restore Israel to greatness, the King of the Jews. Jesus rubbed their noses in their error by pointing out that they could have grabbed Him at any time, but they had waited until now, under cover of darkness, and with that, Jesus would address the crowds no more; He went away quietly and meekly to do His Father’s will and accomplish the real mission of the Messiah.

That was also when His disciples finally comprehended that His mission was not conquest and the reinstatement of the Nation of Israel among the Pantheon of Nations. Of course, that is not to suggest that they yet comprehended what His mission really was; that would come later. Many scholars have written that they believe this also included Judas, who might well have been shocked that those legions of angels did not come. These scholars believe that Judas betrayed Jesus to force the issue and get Jesus’ messianic mission completed more quickly, a sort of helping push in the right direction.

For me, that’s a bit of a stretch too far, but it is an interesting theory. Whatever motivated Judas, there was no going back now and old Judas was in a very bad state, as the whole of Creation held its breath…

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Human Custom, Tradition, and God’s Promises

Posted on December 27, 2024 by Don Merritt

Genesis 16

The Christmas Story would never be complete without an examination of the friction between human customs and traditions, and the promises and ways of God. In our text, Sarai is getting old, yet she has never conceived a child. She knows that God has promised a son to her husband, but so far, God hasn’t come through with the heir. Custom in those days dictated that if an important person like Abram didn’t have an heir by his wife, then she could conceive a child through her slave girl, and Sarai encouraged Abram to use this option− to help God get the job done, one might say. Abram took his wife’s advice, and Hagar, the slave girl, became pregnant.

From this point forward, there would be no end of grief for Abram and Sarai; there are consequences to such things as they had done.

Hagar, realizing that her stock was rising, became unpleasant with her mistress, and Sarai complained of this to her husband who seems to have tried to wash his hands of the entire matter. Sarai sent the pregnant Hagar away into the wilderness… where Hagar had an encounter with the angel of the Lord. It would seem that God was disapproving of such treatment as Hagar had received at the hands of Sarai.

For our purposes in this survey, I will leave the details of this continuing saga for you to read on your own should you choose to do so. I must point out however, that there is a great lesson for us to apply as we celebrate Christmas, for in doing so, we must come face to face with the awesome promises of God, promises that have been fulfilled as well as a few which have yet to be culminated. At the same time, we deal every day with human custom and tradition, especially at this time of year, and sometimes these come into conflict.

I am curious to see if you have any thoughts on this: This Christmas season, when custom, tradition and God come into conflict− which will we choose? I know that in my personal case, I always say that I will choose God’s promises over tradition and custom, and yet I often find myself under pressure to compromise so that we can have both. There’s always a way to justify doing things, don’t you agree?

Yet this is what Abram and Sarai did, they compromised, and they came to regret that compromise, in fact it nearly tore them apart at one point.

Or… maybe you don’t see any conflicts at all. If so, I’m sure we’d be interested to hear about that view as well.

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In the Garden

Posted on December 26, 2024 by Don Merritt

Matthew 26:36-46

Matthew shifts the scene to the Garden of Gethsemane (which means “oil press”). This is another scene that is no doubt a familiar one for most all of us, a scene that has an odd feel to it, when we see the contrast between the Jesus of the prior scenes, confidently predicting His death, secure in the knowledge that He is doing His Father’s will, and the Jesus of Gethsemane who is troubled and mournful, asking His Father for another way. It might prompt us to ask, “Is there an internal conflict going on?”

I don’t think there is, but at the same time I must admit that off the top of my head, I can’t think of another scene in which Jesus seems conflicted about anything, maybe we’d better have a look at His Gethsemane prayer!

Here’s the scene: They went to Gethsemane where Jesus left 8 disciples, went a little further with 3 disciples, left them and went still further to be alone to pray. As the disciples were being placed in their positions, Jesus “began to be sorrowful and troubled” (26:37).Jesus told the three that “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (26:38) Matthew records these words as His prayer:

“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (26:39)

“My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”  (26:42)

Matthew also tells us that Jesus “fell with his face to the ground” in 26:37, and that He prayed the same thing a third time in 26:44. Interestingly, he only gives us one-liners for the prayers, yet Jesus was praying long enough for the disciples to fall asleep, so we can safely assume that more was said in those prayers…

One of the highest and boldest forms of piety in Israel was the prayer of lament (cf. Ps. 31:10; 40:11-13; 42:6, 9-11; 43:1-5; 55:4-8; 116:3-4) and it was not all that unusual for someone to ask God to change His mind (cf. Ex. 32:10-14; 2Kings 20:1-6; 2Sam 15:25-26).

Jesus knew His mission, He was OK with His mission; He was determined. Yet, as the hour approached, He seemed to wonder if there might be another way to accomplish it, for He was fully human after all. Notice what He did: He took this to His Father in an attitude of submission; for He would do His Father’s will whatever that will turned out to be. Please take special note of this, for He was troubled and He cried out to God in submissiveness, not in rebellion. That is where we tend to go wrong, don’t you think? We might cry out to God, but we don’t always do so in submission to His will, preferring our own plans instead.

Apparently, Jesus got the “go ahead as planned” message from His Father, for we see these words in the concluding verses of this passage:

Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” (26:45-46)

From that moment forward, there were no doubts, no questions; God’s redemption of Mankind would move into full execution.

Those disciples? Obviously, they had failed to grasp the gravity of the situation, as they would continue to do, as the most momentous events in all of history unfolded…

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God Makes a Covenant

Posted on December 26, 2024 by Don Merritt

Genesis 15:7-21

In this passage, the conversation of our last post continues, this time Abraham asks God how he can be sure that God will give him the land of Canaan, an amazing question, all things considered. God’s reply is even more amazing: He swears out a covenant.

So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. (15:9-11)

God’s response was to tell Abram to gather certain animals together, which Abram did and cut them in half, laying the carcasses out with the halves side by side. In doing so, Abram consented to the covenant in blood without swearing an oath which is not the Old Testament norm.

Then, God swears an oath:

Beginning in verse 13, God tells Abram that his descendants will be taken to Egypt where they will be enslaved 400 years which is a part of the Covenant we don’t often bring up in Sunday School. Abram will not be involved in that phase as he will have died at a ripe old age. Then God will save the people out of Egypt after they become enriched from the wealth of that land (15:13-16).

Next, God passed through the carcasses in the form of fire, swearing that He gives the Land to Abram’s descendants (15:17-21). Normally both parties would march through the bloody carcasses, symbolizing that if they broke their covenant, this would be their fate, but here only God passes through. Why was it done this way?

There was no way for Abraham to avoid sinning against God because there was no provision for atonement for sins in this covenant; that would come along much later. When you step back and consider these incredible events, you quickly find yourself in one of those “Wow” moments, for God had sworn and passed through the blood on Abram’s behalf. This means that God took the penalty for the sins of Abram and those who would follow upon Himself, setting the stage for our Christmas Story, for when the Lamb of God appeared as a babe in that manger, God was fulfilling His obligation to Abram to pay for his sin.

Merry Christmas indeed!

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My Christmas Wish

Posted on December 25, 2024 by Don Merritt
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Merry Christmas to each and every one of you who drop in and read this blog from time to time.

May God richly bless you and your loved ones today, and every day throughout the coming year as you serve His will in your lives.

May His work in you be great, and His work through you be greater, and may the day come when you will hear Him say to you:

“Well done good and faithful servant.”

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Jesus IS Born

Posted on December 25, 2024 by Don Merritt
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Luke 2:1-21

In due course the time came for Mary to give birth to her son; they named him Jesus, just as the angel had told them. There really is no point in my retelling of the story since it is quite possibly the most familiar story in the entire Scriptures for Christian and non-Christian alike. Even so, there are a couple of things I’d like to mention here…

First, you’ll notice that Luke’s account begins with a call by Caesar Augustus for a census to be taken throughout the Empire. Augustus was the most powerful man in the world, and he ruled the mighty Roman Empire as a military dictator. As the adopted son of Julius Caesar, who had been assassinated in 44 BC, he was his heir and became the first Emperor of Rome in 27 BC and ruled until his death in 14 AD. Augustus was not his name; he had been born Gaius Octavian- Augustus was actually his self-given title and means “majestic”. He arranged for himself to be declared divine, and all of the people of the Empire were required to worship him…

So he demanded a census be taken so that he could be sure his treasury was collecting the full amount of tax from the people, and thus, Mary and Joseph were required to travel to Bethlehem to be counted… and so that the prophecies of old would be fulfilled. I mention all of this because in Luke’s account, the greatest and most powerful man of all, the ruler of the greatest Empire, the one who would dare to claim divinity and demand worship, became nothing more than a footnote in the story of the birth of a “nobody”, a poor carpenter’s son by all appearances, in a nowhere little town on the edge of the Empire… who just happened to be God Incarnate.

Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor!

The child was born in a manger, just about the last place anyone would want their child to be born. The announcement of His birth wasn’t made to princes or nobles; it was made to a group of shepherds out in the fields at night. Shepherds, because of the nature of their work were considered to be at the very lowest rung of the social ladder, and as Jewish shepherds, there was little they could do to avoid being ceremonially unclean every day of their lives, and yet God announces the birth of His Son to them. Thus, unclean shepherds were the very first to worship the Son of God.

This Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas came into this world confounding all of the great people, the smart people, and the “beautiful” people. He continued to confound them throughout His ministry, and still does to this day, for God couldn’t care less about the glories of this world; He is the glory of heaven.

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The Night When God was Naked Before Man

Posted on December 24, 2024 by Don Merritt

I like nativity scenes; they are the one thing we see around us this time of year that actually have something to do with what we are supposed to be celebrating. Yet sadly, even most nativity scenes, whether sculpted or painted… and certainly those that are reenacted… don’t portray reality.

When Joseph and Mary arrived in the City of David on that fateful day, there was no room at the Inn and they found shelter in a “manger”. We think of this as being like a barn, a really nice barn, but it would have been more like a cave where animals are penned up. Such a place would not be charming, rustic, or romantic, it would most likely have been a stinking hole, a place lower than low.

We depict the scene with radiating light, a kind of heavenly ambiance, but in addition to the stench, it also would most likely have been dark, cold and damp, infested with flies… yuk.

We often see paintings of Mary after giving birth looking as if she has just put on her best gown after a day at the spa, but if you have ever been a mother who just gave birth, of have been with a mother who just gave birth, you know very well that is a lie. Giving birth is nothing if not messy, sweaty and bloody, and mothers are not looking their best at that particular time.

In our songs about this amazing event, we see the Baby Jesus sleeping so peacefully; “not a cry he makes”…

Seriously?

Later on, a bunch of shepherds arrived to pay homage after an encounter with a squad of angels, and we depict them in their Sunday best as though shepherds were anything other than the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder of the time.

Yes, dear reader, we romanticize the entire scene, and that is a great shame.

Look at what Paul said about Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:6-8

When Jesus was born in that manger, there were no divine trappings of any kind; it was cold hard reality. Jesus left glory behind entirely when He came to earth and He was just like we are in every way. He grew hungry, thirsty and tired, He sweated, He needed bathroom breaks, He had body odor, He caught colds… there was nothing about Him that set Him apart from anyone else in the physical sense; according to Isaiah, he wasn’t even good looking. In the manger, He entered this world naked; on the cross He left this world naked, in the physical sense.

In between, He taught and healed and brought hope to Mankind that so desperately needs all of these and He did so without pretense or any worldly glamour or greatness; He was naked in the metaphorical sense, for in Jesus God is naked before Man, with nothing standing in between.

A few years back, I wrote a series of posts about our need to be naked before God, to take away everything that comes between us and God, and to approach His presence in complete humility and openness.

How hard that can be!

Yet in this, as in all things, Jesus is our model. If only we would resist the temptation to sanitize His story, maybe His humility and humanity would be easier for us to grasp, and we could see how truly awesome His divinity is. Yes, maybe that would make it easier for us to strip away everything that separates us from God in this life.

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“I Am He”

Posted on December 24, 2024 by Don Merritt
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John 18:1-11

This text is not actually one of the seven “I Am” statements of John’s Gospel, but it does make an interesting study nonetheless. It takes place in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last Supper at the time when Jesus was arrested. In short, Jesus and the remaining disciples had gone to the Garden to pray when Judas came to them with a detachment of troops to arrest Jesus. It is Jesus‟ response to their arrival that contains the statement we will look at today.

1: Here we set the scene: they left the upper room and crossed the Kidron Valley, which is more of a ravine than a valley, with a creek that runs through it separating the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. It is an area where there are many olive trees, and it is one of these groves that they entered, one known to us as the “Garden of Gethsemane.”

2-3: Judas leads a group into the garden to arrest Jesus; but what kind of group was this? There was a detachment of troops and officials from the Temple. First, the troops: The NIV says a “detachment” of troops, taken from the Greek word speira which is the word for “cohort”. A cohort of troops means 1/10 of a Roman Legion, or a detachment of 600 Romans soldiers. While this seems amazing, the Romans were not people who liked to fight fair battles, and could be consistent with that policy. An even more interesting question arises if this is true: How involved were the Romans in the plot to kill Jesus? The group of “officials” is most likely Temple police, armed as well. One thing seems to emerge early on in this story; the arresting officials seem more worried about their safety than Jesus is about His.

4-6: Jesus makes no attempt to hide from this force, but rather speaks first, asking who they are after… as if He didn’t already know that. Notice here who is in command of the situation: Jesus, not the military. Note also that John makes no reference to Judas kissing Jesus or any of that sort of thing, although His proximity to Jesus is noted. Rather John portrays the command of Jesus, which is entirely consistent with John’s overall demonstration of the spiritual authority of Jesus throughout his Gospel. When the men respond that they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus relies: “I am he”. (Literally in the Greek, “I am”. In so doing, we have the Son of God stating His real name: I AM.

The result of this statement is dramatic: hundreds of armed men, including some of the best military in the world fall to the ground. This is what happens when the force of men (and demons) comes into direct attack against the authority of God.

7-9: In spite of what has just happened, Jesus is determined to be arrested. His concern is not for His own escape, but for the safety of His disciples, which makes perfect sense considering the role that God had planned for them in the coming weeks and years.

10-11: Gotta love Peter! In his brashness, he nearly fouls Jesus’ arrest, but Jesus still in command of the situation, stills His follower and is taken into custody so that He might do his Father’s will.

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