I've Been Thinking About This…

Just been thinking about the verse of the day – you can see it by twittering “@votd votd” – Psa 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. (ESV)

Getting into mischief

- and thinking about how often I am my own trouble. I’m an expert at causing all sorts of issues for myself, mostly because I ignore what is right in my quest for almost anything else. And yet, at the end of the day, when I realize how I’ve messed up yet again; when I’ve managed to prove to myself yet again that I can rocket off the straight and narrow path at a moment’s notice; when I recognize that I’m drowning – I am deeply grateful there is help at hand.

The danger, of course, is that we can take this help for granted. How are YOU doing?

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My Twitterbot – @votd – sent this verse out today -

Psa 50:15 – And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (KJV< -votd) #votd

- and when I saw it it gave me a bit of a nudge. The reason I endure certain problems is so that I am forced to call upon the Lord for help. Backed into a corner, I can’t solve the problem myself, so I pray upwards.

This Scripture passage is saying that we will be delivered from those problems specifically so that we can glorify God. A neat reminder.

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Reading Mark chapter 5 brings you to this passage:

And the person I’m feeling for is Jairus. There’s obviously a terrible urgency – Jairus (a synagogue president!) is on his knees begging in front of this Jesus; he says that his daughter is at the point of death. You can feel the relief in his mind as he’s finally got the Great Healer in tow to bring Jesus home to heal his 12-year-old daughter. Then some silly woman has to go and get herself healed in the middle of all this! AND she’s ritually unclean … AND she shouldn’t be in this crowd … AND she shouldn’t be touching anyone, let alone someone as holy as this Man. And as if that wasn’t enough, Jesus has to stop and have a little chat with her – “OK, OK, she’s healed, for heaven’s sake. Let’s just get going here!”

Then come the messengers. Jairus recognizes them and must have guessed as soon as he saw them what the story was – his daughter was gone. I cannot imagine the grief he must have felt; the anger at that wretched woman for holding up the journey. Life suddenly grows awfully dark for Jairus.

But God has a plan. (No duh! He always has a plan.) And Jesus overhears the bad news (v. 36) and a chink of light burns into the blackness – the Great Healer seems to think there’s still hope. Now in an act of grace, Jesus permits only the four men to continue with Him – Peter, James and John (the inner circle) and Jairus – to Jairus’ house. Somehow the entire crowd was dissipated, and there was sudden quiet.

I wonder what Jesus said to Jairus during that walk? Was there silence? Deep words? We’ll never know. But the light of hope must have grown a little brighter for Jairus, don’t you think?

When they got to the house the mourning was in full force; surely he must have felt sick with grief. If everybody was mourning, all hope had to be gone. Yet Jesus continues, and ejecting all the mourners, goes over to her bed. Three disciples, two parents and one Lord. Still there is a crack of light for Jairus – the Healer has now seen her and hasn’t stopped.

And He doesn’t seem to do anything special. He simply takes her hand and says, “Up you get.” And she did! Poor old Jairus! How could he handle the shattering of all that darkness? Light detonated around him – life would never be the same. All his preconceived notions of how the world worked were blown away. I’m guessing that, although his daughter got up and began walking, Jairus needed to have a bit of a lie-down!

I find it so easy to see the darkness moving in, just like I imagine Jairus did. The busyness, the inclinations and the beliefs of the world – like Jairus’ crowd, woman and mourners – all get in the way of the light for me too. Sometimes I’m holding on to the sure Truth of the Gospel for myself (by my fingernails, it seems) because there are times in my life when problems are presented to me, I think, solely in order to show me that God is active.

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My pastor has started to read through the Gospel of Mark for the rest of the month – you can follow him here: Saving Pastor Ryan. So a few of our small group members are joining him – thought I would too, even though I’m a few days behind here. As others join the blogfest, I’ll post their links.

Of all the things I think of when I read chapter 1 of Mark’s Gospel, I think that the idea of timing hits me most solidly.

First the promise of 2,000 years has suddenly come to pass, and who was ready for it? As a nation it had looked forward to this time since its infancy in Goshen, Egypt – as the patriarchs did before that – but it has been so long that expectancy had become the habit and realization just couldn’t take hold.

Then comes John the Baptist to ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’ – but very few are awake to hear his song in the Jordan Valley. He must have had some impact though: God never sends someone to do pointless things.

But most of all, he is there for the Christ – to make sure that the prophecies are completed:

• Mark 1:4 “John appeared…” (to fulfill Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3-4)
• Mark 1:9 “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee” (a prophecy referenced in Matt 2:23 that seems to refer back to something Isaiah references in Isaiah 11:1)
• Mark 1:15 “and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’

Secondly I’m struck by the immediacy of response throughout the chapter. Look at all these verses:

For all that few are awake to respond to the Christ, He Himself is in the center of a whirlpool of activity. Every few minutes some new event seems to be triggered; there is a sense of intense and irresistible urgency; once the Christ has appeared, there is no stopping the forward momentum.

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The end of Proverbs – we’ve made it through all 31 chapters. And how appropriate to end up at this chapter that lauds the wife. Marriage is more than a contract. It is a 2-sided life-long commitment that must be adhered to without let-up. Diving in with both feet, supporting each other to the fullest, being strong where the other is weak, and each trusting the other’s strength to cover one’s weakness – these are some of the graces of the best marriages, and so they are shown here.

It is clear that this is a fairly wealthy household. The mistress of the house has servant girls to manage (v. 15); buys a field with her own money (v. 16), and is hardly likely to plant the entire field herself, so she must also be managing farm hands. She has applied herself in the past and can sew (vv. 21, 22, 24), weave (v. 19) and trade in the marketplace (vv. 14, 18, 24). She is also generous to the poor and needy (v. 20).

It is also clear that this is a marriage that has continued for years. She has raised children who are well-fed and clothed (v. 15, 21) as well as respectful (v. 28). Her husband is one of the village or town elders (v. 23).

The gates of a village, town or city were important places in the ancient Middle Eastern world. It was where the elders gathered (Job 29:7). They could see goods and people enter and leave the city – an important job for the elders, for it took the pulse of the community. Inbound people could ask for directions. Farmers off to their fields would be seen and noted. The poor could ask for alms (Amos 5:12). Discussions of weather and war would take place. Boaz came to the gates of Bethlehem to redeem and ensure his marriage to Ruth (Ruth 4:1-12, esp. v. 11), for this was where justice was executed and witnessed (Amos 5:15; Deut 25:7).

So when, “her works praise her in the gates” (Prov 31:31, ESV), just who is telling people about her works? Her husband, of course. Verse 23 says that her husband sits among the elders of the land in the gates, and he’s obviously been bragging on her in a big way. By the way, just because we don’t hear anything about what the husband is doing in the chapter, it would be wrong to assume he sits around in the gates all day doing nothing. This chapter is a paean to her, not to him.

The thing is, such boasting as the husband is doing has a manifold impact. First it protects the marriage from outside attack because it tells the listeners that he thinks highly of her. Secondly, the listeners naturally feel they should respond with some bragging on their own wives – which can only be a good thing. Thirdly, the word gets passed on to others, possibly people who will trade with her or just chat on the street, who will see her in an ever better light. Fourthly it will get back to her – and whilst it is always nice to hear a compliment first-hand, it is even better to hear it second- or tenth-hand.

What an excellent thing it would be if every husband would follow suite and boast daily about his wife!

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It would be an interesting exercise to take every proverb listed in the book of Proverbs and sort them by topic. Nearly 2 weeks ago we covered this verse:

… and here we are on the same subject. I wonder too – in how many verses across the entire Bible does God speak of His protection, or just say, “I am here”? We’re defenseless in so many ways, and it can be a great comfort to meditate on an all-powerful God who is present, or who will intercede on our behalf, or who limits what we must endure.

There is one difference in this verse though – here He is a shield rather than a tower. A shield is something that protects us, it’s true, but now we are on the attack rather than defense; in fact it’s more for deflection than outright protection (there’s got to be a song in there somewhere).

When we stand up for the Lord, our job is to trust the shield while we use the sword. Paul connects directly to this thought and this verse when he exhorts us to ‘In all circumstances take up the shield of faith’ (Eph 6:16 ESV) -

Here’s Baring-Gould, quoting from Matt 16:18 in his glorious hymn:

Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never ‘gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.
Sabine Baring-Gould, Onward Christian Soldiers

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