echoes of redemption

The Bible seems to be a book focused around helping God’s people remember.

One of the central stories is the story of God bringing his people out of Egypt. Freeing them from hundreds of years of slavery. Releasing them from the cycles of oppression.

It is a true historical account, but it also seems to be a metaphor of who God is.

He is the God of the oppressed.

He is the God who hears his people’s cry.

He is the God who works through people to accomplish his will.

We learn so much about God in this movement of Scripture. And the amazing thing about this moment, this story, this example, is that Scripture wont leave it alone.

Over 56 different times it brings it back up. “I am the God who brought you out of Egypt.” It becomes the defining moment of who God is an how he relates to his people. The prophets call the people back to living rightly through this story. The hopeless find hope in retelling it. The prideful are warned through it.

It is a story to remember.

We do well not to forget the God who brings people out of oppression today. It is a story that should define who we are as his people – and how we relate to him. But more than that, we do well to remember his movements in our lives. We need to be a people who remember who God is. A people that reflect on what he has done for us.

Remembering brings balance. When hope seems thin, when pressure hits, when the good times don’t seem to stop, when we’re riding high – we need to remember. Remembering helps us plug in to the bigger story of what God is doing – and keeps us out of the traps of getting so caught up in ourselves we miss leaving a mark in this world.

So today, remember. Reflect. Recall the God who brings people out of oppression. Join him in his story of reconciling this world.

Remember.

People love to watch Jack Bauer on television – there is something about his unbridled passion. His anger is focused.

He gets the job done.

Yet for a lot of people when the television shuts off, their aversion to anger increases greatly. They don’t want to be around someone with that much raw passion.

Many of us have been hurt by anger. Someone took it too far. Someone lost control. And, to be honest, we’re still sorting through it. Any anger in the room, justified or not, brings a flood of emotions we’re not ready to deal with.

Tianne Moon at Fellowship taught me that when I take everything personally, I’m struggling with pride.

Anger must be present in our world. Anger moves us as people. It gives us reason to change. It makes the world a better place.

If anger is used properly, it is focused on situations and it leads us to action. And action leads to change. If we take this kind of anger personally, we have our value as a person inseparably linked to our performance.

We are probably not taking a sabbath – God’s gift to help us destroy the link between who we are and what we produce.

Our desire to be “right” has replaced our desire to do right.

In a way, this takes us back to Monday’s thought – that anger and weeping go together. It’s anger and humility. Anger and change. Anger and openness. God designed them to be interwoven. Balanced.

The story of Jesus driving people out of the temple in John 2 is so counter the Jesus I grew up learning about. The one who used his hands to form the world now wielding a whip. Cracking it against the skin he created. It’s too much to think about.

The creator inflicting physical pain on the created.

And why? Look at how the passage is laid out. Jesus walks into the temple and finds people selling (1) oxen, (2) sheep and (3) pigeons. He also finds (4) money changers.

He then makes a whip and uses it to drive out the (1) oxen and (2) sheep. Then he turns over the tables of the (4) money changers.

One group he saves for last. One group he addresses verbally. One group he makes an example of.

And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” – John 2:16

Jesus saw men selling pigeons and he was livid.

And why?

The sacrificial system set up in Leviticus revolved around animal sacrifice. In an agrarian culture animals = money. But not everyone has money. Which means not everyone has animals. So God extended grace. A way that someone without money could access him.

But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. – Leviticus 5:7

Anyone can catch a pigeon. After all, who sends the pigeons?

God set up a redemptive system and provided everything people needed to live within it. So when Jesus saw people in the temple selling pigeons he exploded in fury. The religious leaders were essentially saying, “A pigeon you catch on your own isn’t enough. You have to buy Temple Pigeons.” The very way that God provided to help the oppressed was now a tool used to further their oppression.

One of the greatest prayers I can lift up is for anger toward the things that make God angry. Because I am designed to follow God’s heart and God’s anger always moves him into action.

—update—

I just finished reading Vince’s post on Jesus as a “tough, confrontational, revolutionary leader,” and I thought… yeah. Check it out here.