31 March 2012

31 March 2012

I shall take the Israelites from the nations where they have gone.

It isn't geography that the LORD is concerned with here. We have harmful entanglements with the world and he wants to free us of from them. This is necessary for him to cleanse us from the foul idols and horrors with which we defile ourselves. Only together under one shepherd can we hope to follow his judgments and respect his laws.

For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, rescued him from a hand stronger than his own.

We don't fully appreciate what we are up against in our daily lives. We don't fully appreciate the little ways in which we bow to the world in compromise. We are not strong enough to break free on our own so the LORD comes to our aid. We unite around his sanctuary among us. We unite around Jesus, the son of David, the prince of peace, who reigns forever.

Jesus makes this possible by cleansing of us of our idols and reversing the divisions between us in his own flesh. He takes our own sins to the cross and puts them to death. These sins and idols kept us imprisoned within ourselves. Jesus frees us to be a people united in him and uniquely his own.

[A]s high priest of that year he was prophesying that Jesus was to die for the nation-and not for the nation only, but also to gather together into one the scattered children of God.


Division and sin our synonymous. Fortunately God himself offers the solution. The veil seperating us from God was also sepearting us from one another. Jesus tore both assunder in his own body. Let us not return to the nations from which he has gathered us. Let us remember that nothing there could satisfy the deepest longings of our heart.

I shall change their mourning into gladness, comfort them, give them joy after their troubles