Exodus 12:14-13:16 Matthew 20:29-21:22 Psalms 25:16-22 Proverbs 6:12-15
Today is the
31st day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian
and this is the last day of the first month of the year. So, we have journeyed
a full month into this new year and it has flown by. Probably…it has for me…flown
by in life, but it’s like all that comes up in the Bible right out of the gate
in the first month is huge and we can see why this is the adventure of a
lifetime. I mean, in the Old Testament, which is what we’re about to read from
today, alone this month we have begun at the beginning and found out what
happened to us. We watched a…a flood of the entire earth, a reset of all things
and we watched the heart of mankind as it was separated from God deteriorate
and Abram who became Abraham and we met Isaac and we met Jacob, whose name
became Israel and then he had kids, the children of Israel and then they sold
one of their brothers into slavery in Egypt, which eventually had the whole
family in Egypt and then 400 years passed and they’d become this massive people
as was promised. And then a person named Moses came onto the scene in a basket
in the Nile River. He has now become the…the prophetic voice to the Hebrew
people demanding of Pharaoh that God’s people be set free. And as we conclude
this first month of the year, that in fact is what we are about to witness. So,
we’ve been reading from the Evangelical Heritage Version this week, which is
what we’ll continue today. Exodus chapter 12 verse 14 through 13 verse 16.
Commentary:
Okay. So, on this final day of this first month of the year we experienced what is known as the Exodus. So, the children of Israel, who had been enslaved, making their exit, their exodus from Egypt and heading out toward the Sinai Peninsula toward this land of promise. And we will be journeying with them now for quite some time, pretty much for the rest of the Bible. So, as we make this Exodus, we will hear references to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob throughout our time for the rest of this year but let’s not forget that we…we learned their stories. Like, we…we journeyed along with them. We got to know Abram who became Abraham and we got to understand this son of promise, Isaac who was born to parents well beyond the age of childbearing. And we got to meet Isaac’s kids, Jacob and Esau, right, and Jacob was the conniver who had to flee and how it reaped…reaped certainly the…the harvest of his…of his deception. But God also came for him as part of the promise and changed…changed his name to Israel. So, as we move forward into a new month, we’re leaving some of those stories behind, but let’s not forget these stories that we have journeyed through this far.
We get into the book of Matthew today and…and the context for…for the stories that we read today was that Jesus was on a walk from the Galilee to Jerusalem where He was to die. Like, we’re on that walk and it’s a 90-mile walk and it's…a lot of it is uphill especially once you get to Jericho. From thereon it’s all uphill, pretty strenuous hike, 18 miles up to Jerusalem. And that’s kinda where the story begins today, is in Jericho. So, Jesus has…if it’s a 90-mile journey, then in Jesus only has 18 miles left so, He’s already walked a long way, people are following along. He’s informed His disciples very clearly about what’s to happen and they’re quite confused about it, even to the point where some of them, you know, their mom comes and asks for seats at the right and the left hand of Jesus on His throne. They’re expecting once He gets to Jerusalem that there probably will be a throne because this is it. And Jesus has always taught in parables. And, so, even though He’s explicitly telling them He’s gonna be handed over to the religious leaders and then ultimately be turned over to the Gentiles and be killed, it seems that they’re not taking Him seriously or literally. So, you can only just imagine the loneliness of that walk. Just, you’re not alone, but you’re misunderstood and there’s nothing you can do. And, so, it’s isolating, and you can only imagine that. So, Jesus has walked quite a ways, and He’s arrived at Jericho now knowing that He’s gonna be walking uphill for 18 miles and all that work is for one purpose, to die a pretty horrible death. So, when some blind men start calling out to Him, you would understand Him being a little preoccupied, like just wanting to keep moving and just keep focused. But they keep calling and He, according to the Scriptures was moved with compassion. And that is so beautiful, because let’s imagine ourselves in the most stressful situation that we’ve ever faced, like the kinds of stuff, you don’t even want to remember, the kinds of stuff we don’t want to think about, the hardships that we might have gone through where we were like, “I don’t think I’m going to survive this. I don’t think I can…I can do this. I can’t do this another day. I can’t make this.” Like when we’re just really, really overwhelmed. And then just imagine people screaming out for you and you even having the capacity to be moved with compassion in a moment like that because we’re so…you know…when things are so stressful for us we’re self-absorbed and focused on what can be done to alleviate the pain. And Jesus would’ve been walking, you know, step-by-step one step closer to agony and somehow still…still He’s moved with compassion. And, so, He stops, and He asks an important question, really important question that we need to allow to linger with us, to actually become kind of part of the rhythm of our lives as we’re moving forward, a part of what we contemplate this weekend. Jesus stopped and called them and I’m quoting the Scriptures here, “and then He asked, “what do you want me to do for you?””. What they wanted is what we all want. “Lord open our eyes.”
Prayer:
Jesus, we have asked this many, many times and we see this, that you are opening the eyes of physically blind men, but you are moving about the countryside calling for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear the kingdom being revealed. And so, we realize that maybe we have not physically faced blindness. Although many of us have, but we have all faced and face spiritual blindness and we are asking you to open our eyes that we may see. And we confess, indeed, we have prayed prayers like this before, but we are not messing around now. We are serious. Holy Spirit come and open our eyes so that we might see and be irreversibly changed so that the course and trajectory of our lives falls in line with the narrow path that will lead to life. Come Holy Spirit we pray and give us eyes to see. Open our eyes we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.