Numbers 26:1-51, Luke 2:36-52, Psalms 60:1-12, Proverbs 11:15
Today is the 17th day of March, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and what a joy it is to be here with you today as we come in and out of whatever is going on and just situate ourselves around the Global Campfire. And I…I just love that image, our…our faces in the firelight and we’re just intently listening to God’s words speak into our lives in this little oasis that we have before reentering our day in the world outside that…that it can be crushing but we come here and we become strong and we center ourselves in God’s word and we know that we’re not alone and that changes the atmosphere of the day. And, so, what a joy…what a joy to be here to take the next step forward in the Scriptures. And, so, let’s do that. We’ll pick up where we left off yesterday. Numbers chapter 26 verses 1 through 51.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the gospel of Luke today there is a pretty huge contextual piece for us to understand as we continue our journey through the Gospels and walk alongside Jesus for the first months of this year. And, so, today we have this…well we are given the awareness that Jesus family is a devout family and that He is grown in body and Spirit, but they have an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. And we’ve mentioned it before, that’s a 90 mile walk one way. So, 180 miles on foot or cart. That’s a pretty good-sized journey and the terrain of the journey isn’t the best either. So, we get these little clues, like this is part of the rhythm of Jesus life. He’s accustomed to going to Jerusalem. It’s not a foreign place to him. So, it’s not going to be a foreign place to Him later in His ministry. He knows what’s up there. But the back story that’s apparent in this story gives us a lot of clues about how Jesus was perceived. So, for starters when He was born and He was brought to the temple for the sacrifice according to the law of Moses, there were prophetic voices there, respected ones. An older woman who’d spent over 80 years worshipping God in the temple, she would’ve been known, she would’ve been respected. So, her words would’ve been heard by the common people coming in and out that that would’ve mattered. And the old man, Simeon, same thing. So, there’s like this buzz around this child from the get-go. But now in today’s story Jesus is grown to be 12 years old and they’re making their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover and He stays behind when his family leaves. And they would’ve traveled is…traveled as kind of caravans for safety and just community. It’s a long ways. So, Mary and Joseph don’t figure out Jesus missing until they’ve already gone one of the days that journey. Now they can’t find Jesus and they gotta take another day to get back and search for Him. And, so, they’re gonna be traveling back to Nazareth on their own. And they frantically search the holy city. And this is not like a little village. This is big city. You can only imagine…you can only imagine what that would feel like as a parent, but in the end they do find Jesus and Jesus is in the temple and Jesus is with the religious leaders. He’s with the scribes and the Pharisees. He’s with the priests and they are amazed at Him. That’s very fascinating because two decades later, they’re all going to turn on Him and have Him killed. But let’s not just think that Jesus appeared in a vacuum of the Galilee and did ministry and that part of the region among the common people, a place known for its zealotry. Today we see Jesus at 12 years old before the religious leaders and their amazed by Him. He’s already on the radar. So, when He does get older and does begin His ministry, we see often the Scriptures telling us that religious leaders from Jerusalem take that 90-mile trip up to the Galilee to find out what’s going on with this guy. And some of them would remember that this is that little kid that stayed back here to talk to us. So, it's…it's…it’s interesting to kind of look into these stories and understand that there’s this back story to the way that Jesus came onto the scene and did His ministry.
Prayer:
Jesus, we thank You for that. We thank…because knowing You and having the benefit of the Scriptures to allow us to observe You and look at You as You did Your ministry on this earth giving us an example for what our lives cam and must look like, we are grateful. And anything that helps us to understand story better is helpful. So, we thank You for that and we invite Your Holy Spirit to plant the words that we’ve read today from the Scriptures into our hearts, minds and lives, that they may yield fruit for Your kingdom. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, our precious Savior. Amen.
Commentary:
Okay, so I don’t know if you noticed or not but there’s this nasty virus going around. And I started paying maybe closer attention to it as we were preparing to depart for the pilgrimage to Israel a few weeks ago. So, I remember landing on the big plane in London and boarding another big plane for Rome. And Italy had seven cases of this virus at the time. And then we moved through there to Tel Aviv and began our journey in like a week later. Italy was beginning to go into lockdown. And then we moved through our pilgrimage and just kind of counted the days and we were all feeling fine. We’re like, “we’re in the clear. This is fine” and we moved through our Israel pilgrimage and then got back home safely and lots of places, including Israel started to lockdown. And then things started to escalate some in the United States and now there’s all kinds of measures to kind of keep us sequestered from each other, so we don’t pass this around. This is working out pretty well for like people like my son Ezekiel who’s been back…we’ve been back from Israel for a couple weeks, he’s been to school for two days because schools been closed and he can’t practically turn television without hearing that the latest update. And I’m not one to usually comment on world or political or the…whether related or these kinds of events and there’s a couple reasons for that. The first reason would be who cares what I have to say about world events? Who am I? Why does it matter what I think? There are so many people who are so smart and have so much to say and there is no shortage of…of ways to find out what people are saying about things. And, so, I just, you know, why add to the noise? I mean, it’s not my…it’s not my role to comment on everything that’s going on and add a Bible verse to it. Secondly, back when the Daily Audio Bible was just getting going and had kinda become this podcasting phenomenon I got a piece of advice that always, always, always has stuck with me and that is fly above it all with what you do. Let the Bible speak for itself. And I’ve tried really, really hard over all of the years to do that, to create this space that we are in right now. Like we are around this Global Campfire. This is a place that we go to every day and it…it’s a space that we have created collectively but individually in our hearts, and it is beyond the reach of all the things that are going on around us. It’s a place where we just come and exhale and allow God’s word to wash into our lives and we leave this place refreshed and able. At least that is the intention. And, so, you know, I thought this morning about 15 years, this, seven days a week, when hasn’t there been some sort of crisis somewhere? When hasn’t there been some sort of election? When hasn’t there been some sort of political maneuvering? When hasn’t there been things to fight about, or debate about? When have there not been things to be afraid of? I mean everything from a previous scares about infectious diseases to the rise of ISIS, we’ve moved through all these things together day by day by day. So, I wouldn’t normally have any words about coronavirus. It’s just that at this point it’s affecting the world and this is an opportune time for us to practice what we’ve been exploring all year long, eyes to see, ears to hear, because at this point this virus is causing all of our governments to in one way or another invite us to isolate ourselves so that this can go away, which is causing a ripple effect of disruption in small or large ways, and it begins…like you can feel the tension of it, the unknown of it. Like for most of us we’re like…we don’t understand. There’s this is very very big reaction. All this news is a very very big thing that…and I feel fine, but we also see a little fraying things in society like, you don't…a run on the grocery store to get cases of toilet paper. And if we have eyes to see and ears to hear we can see the sobering reality of how fragile all of our societies, and even we ourselves really are and how much we actually are in this together whether we like it or not. And what I’d like to say is, as we move through the Bible and many of us here have moved through it several times, what we see is that the Bible is full of stories of disruption, whether created by man or whether it was just a thing that happened. It’s full of the stories of disruption and what people do with it? And what the Bible tells us is that at every crossroads, wisdom is there at every turning point. Wisdom is there. So, I don’t have any advice on whether or not you should have several cases of paper towel. I don’t have any advice on how to kill the virus, or how long we should stay away from each other or what practices we can use to avoid these things. There is plenty of really good advice out there for these things. But what I would like to point out, at least spiritually is this is disruptive, whether it’s in a small way or whether it’s in a big way. This is disruptive. Normally, our course of action in times of disruption is to try to bulldoze it away. Make it go away as quick as possible so that we can return to the status quo. And what I want to suggest here is that we don’t do that. That we embrace the disruption and invite wisdom, invite the Holy Spirit to come into this disruption because it’s a time, it’s an opportunity all over the world to read think some the things. And man, we are in this season called Lent. What…what…I was gonna asay what better time…there is no good time for infectious disease to be racing around the world…and yet, because this is happening, because it is disrupting things and we’re all shaken in some way, this is an opportune time to invite God into it. What needs to change? Not just to make this go away. What needs to change within us that we have this opportunity to see now because we’ve got a glimpse of our fragility? What needs to change so that we might live healthy in body, in mind, in spirit. I hate disruption in life in general always. It's…I never welcome it. Who does? But I’ve learned over these years, God is there in those disruptions. He is there when we get shaken loose of something and He uses these times to right our course. So, like I said a number of times this isn’t normally what I would talk about but I see the disruption and I see it happening globally and if we would awaken, if we would revive, if we would have eyes to see then we will see the kingdom and we will see that God is inviting us forward through this and that this disruption is an opportunity for some things to get shifted, to get rearranged, to be re-prioritized before it all goes away because when it does go all away we’ll forget that it even happened. And yet, this is an opportunity to invite God.
Prayer:
Father, even though we just prayed, we’re coming to You again about this and we do intercede. We do intercede. Lord have mercy on the earth, have mercy on the people of the earth, have mercy on Your children. And yet, we acknowledge that we have a preconceived notion about what that’s supposed to look like. And what we’re doing here is embracing the disruption that is happening, inviting Your Holy Spirit into our lives. What are You saying through this? Now that things, the status quo has been disrupted, what are You saying? How do You want to move us around? How You want to shape us in this? Infection…infectious disease can certainly spread from one person to another, but so can Your kingdom. Show us how to infect the world with light and life and good news and healing and hope and courage. And in this time of disruption may it spread like wildfire to all the ends of the earth, to all the lives that are affected either directly or indirectly. Show us how to be light in the darkness, even as You continue to transform us from within. This is our prayer God. Make us aware of Your Holy Spirit’s movements in the world and in our lives and families. Come Jesus we pray. Nothing is off limits to You. We are open. Change us through this we pray in Your mighty name. Amen.
Song:
Life is Beautiful - The Afters
Through the window
I see you waiting
You are smiling
‘Cause I’m coming
Your eyes are a story
An ocean of memories
Pictures of faces and places
And all of the things
That make us feel like we have it all
All of the times
That make us realize
We have it all
We have it all
Life is beautiful
Life is beautiful
Living and dying
Laughing or crying
If we have the whole world or have nothing
I know there are long nights
But we’ll make it
With every sunrise comes a new light
And all of the things
That make us feel like we have it all
All of the times
That make us realize
We have it all
We have it all
Life is beautiful
Life is beautiful
Life is beautiful
A father’s love
A wedding dance
New Year’s dreams
A toast with friends
A soldier coming home from war
The faith, the hope of so much more
A brand new life, a mother’s
prayer
Shooting stars, ocean air
A lover’s kiss, and hard goodbyes
Fireworks, Christmas lights
These are things that make us
feel alive
These are the times that make us realize
Life is beautiful
Life is beautiful
These are things that make us feel alive
Life is beautiful
These are the times that make us realize