April 22: Of broken promises, persistent mercy and bad sculpture

Joshua 24:1-33

Luke 21:1-28

Pslam 89:38-52

Proverbs 13:20-23

This is in part a reflection on today's (yesterday's really - I still forget to write on Saturdays!) reading, and on something else I read - the comments of a well meaning man, thanking God for a new day in which he could earn his home in heaven.  I was struck by that man's comments because I liken earning my salvation to being held at gunpoint and told I had to sculpt a masterpiece to save my life.  Anyone who knows my artistic abilities understands it would be better for the gunman to shoot me and save us all the time and trouble.

I wish I could say I was a Joshua.  As he speaks to the Israelites, knowing he is about to die, his thoughts, his purpose remain so clear. He knows the Israelites' minds: "Now fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness.  Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living."  But then to him, his path is clear: "But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

No, I am more like the Israelites.  Like them, I say "far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!"  And "We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God."  Of course, we all know how that went, how long that lasted.  And that is why I am like them.  It doesn't matter how often I echo Joshua's words, I make what Mary Poppins called a "pie crust promise" - easily made, easily broken.  

And yet we know God understood the Israelite's persistent sinfulness, and their inability to stick to the covenant and earn their salvation. So He sent a Savior - His only Son - to offer up the sacrifice our sinfulness required, a sacrifice that made us clean in a way we could not do ourselves.  And so I take heart despite my persistent sinfulness, and give thanks that despite my broker promises, Jesus has paid the price for my sins.