Feasting on the Sweetness of the Lord

So maybe I'm not a goalie after all.  I intended to publish at least the daily reading everyday for anyone (if there IS anyone else reading this) to follow, but I don't even seem to be able to do that.  Problem is, spring has sprung, and the gardening chores have consumed what would be my writing time.....I'm trying to seriously stay reading though.  I've also been trying to keep up the Beth Moore study Psalms of Ascent, just finishing the 3rd chapter.  I was amazed upon re-reading my last post how the theme (shadow) has carried through in this study also.  I closed last post with a cry to the Lord to help me to see him, and tonight I echo what mom & I said earlier in the day that so many people just flippantly read the Bible without seeing!  Once you recognize Jesus in the New Testament as God, you see him everywhere in the Old Testament as Jesus. 

I'm actually drawing from the end of Chapter 2 in Psalms of Ascent,  here we're seeing Jesus in the feasts.  I know my kids are always asking why God in the Old Testament was so....bloody, harsh.  In order for us to KNOW the effect of sin (death, eternal separation from God), we must see and feel the effect of sin.  In order for sin to be done away with, the punishment of sin must be upheld.  The bloody sacrifice shows us that sin is death, sin is to be dealt with, and the results of sin not dealt with are destruction.  Lev. 17:11 says, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul."  The flesh is not eternal.  The soul is eternal.  How can we picture an eternity separated from God without the representation of the terrible destruction of life?  Sin is the ugly taskmaster.  The sacrifice demonstrated its effect and foreshadowed God who would provide himself the lamb (Gen. 22:8) because, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin (Heb. 10:4).  He in his mercy, became that sacrifice once for all, taking our place - the scapegoat, upon whom the full effect and wrath of God fell - then turned around and told us we were free in him!  Reminds me of Braveheart, "FREEDOM!"  or in Jesus' words, "It is FINISHED!"

So parallel Christ's death and resurrection with the Feasts of Leviticus.

The first Pilgrim's Feast was "Unleavened Bread" that began at the end of the Passover and lasted for seven days.  Leviticus 12:17-28 describes this feast.  In addition to the unleavened bread was Passover where the Israelites were to take a lamb (one per family) and dip hyssop into its blood and paint it on the door lintel and side posts - then the angel of death would "pass over" their house.   Unleavened bread was eaten at Passover.  Leaving just a smidgen of leaven in bread eventually ferments the whole lump - like leaving just a little sin eventually corrupts the whole person.  But the amazing picture here is that Jesus is the Passover Lamb - spotless, without corruption - no sin in him.  What I never saw before was the connection of Jesus telling his disciples at Passover, "Take, eat, this is my body" to his body NOT seeing decay.  Read Acts 2:29-33.  Thus while Passover represents Christ's death, taking place literally on Passover, representing the end of sin ("It is Finished") and the beginning of freedom (Israelites flight from Egypt), Unleavened Bread represents his body (bruised, pierced as prophecied in Is. 53) and his burial - "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." Ps. 16:10

To me this is another layer of that onion skin.  Peel away.  

March 26 Reading: Luke 22:1-38

Luke 1 "Thy Word is a Lamp Unto My Feet!"

I'm almost ashamed to post realizing that I haven't posted in two months.  It's not that we haven't been inspired, my sweet mom and I, it was just that time of the year where obligations ate up my time....  Speaking of eating, one gobbler has been my creation of another blog entitled "Gene-Erecipes"   http://gene-erecipes.blogspot.com/  following my desire to cook through our family cookbook in one year.  It was through this blog that I realized I am a goalie and, like a goalie, I must guard against all those attacks that keep me from winning the race.  The initial goal of Onion Skin Garden was to share the bounty of the bible studies my mother and I have, but it seems like the more "organized" we get about studying, the less the flow becomes.

So we want to make this more interactive.  Mom & I decided to forget about Beth Moore and the various published studies we've tried to do together (sorry, Beth!) and just read the Bible together in a year in the same way that I'm cookin up physical food - we asked the Lord to stew his spiritual food in us.  After all, one of my mother's favorite "WOW" (words of wisdom) to us growing up was "what's happening in the physical is happening in the spiritual."

The interactive part is that I do hope that all you inspired readers of this blog will contribute.  This will be an open forum for your insights into that particular scripture.  I know that most of you have your own daily readings or devotions that you do, so we are just going to focus on one part of our reading (we do both an Old & New Testament reading to get through in a year).  If you want to join us, we'd love it - in any case, please follow.

I can't tell you the number of times I've read Luke.  Every Christmas at least some of it.  But today I peeled off another layer of blessing as I reread this 1st chapter.  By some strange direction (could it be the Holy Spirit?) the Old Testament reading was Numbers 8 which dealt with the Levites being set apart for the priesthood and what a picture of Christ this was - the firstfruit of all creation, the firstborn...the high priest, the sacrifice.  This following a discussion yesterday with my daughter about philosophy and how Descartes in his Methods proved the existence of God - at least in the mind.  I can't begin to explain his reasoning but I gathered that because we see the shadow of something that something must exist.  The Old Testament is a shadow.  The shadow of the New - which is incidentally why everyone who reads the book of Revelation is blessed - the source of the shadow is revealed.  The firstfruit of all creation, the firstborn, the high priest, the temple, the sacrifice, the law....all shadows of the heavenly, shadows of God's plan, shadows of Christ himself....allow me to rephrase Descartes, "He thinks, therefore I am."

So in reading the Old Testament we need remember that we are just seeing a shadow in the physical of what has happened in the spirit.  Hebrews 10:1 says, "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and NOT the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect."  But these shadows were cast for us to RECOGNIZE the shadow's source when it came, continuing in vs. 11, "and every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered ONE sacrifice for sins forever, sat down...for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."  So mom's WOW speaks truth but may be better said, "what's happening in the physical has been cast from the spiritual."

Luke 1 begins with the conception of John the Baptist.  His father Zechariah who, according to vs. 8 was "executing the priest's office" (the shadow) is visited by the angel Gabriel to be informed that his post-menopausal wife will bear a child who, "shall go before him [the source of the shadow, Christ] in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."  Well how can we EVER be prepared for the Lord?  The shadow didn't save.  But the source, Christ himself, does.

Then Gabriel visited Mary with the news that she would be "overshadowed" with the power of the Highest to conceive the very Son of God.  Amazing Grace.  She reacted just like Zechariah, "how can this be?"  Doesn't this sound like us?  I know I ask it all the time as I peel that layer of pungent onion skin away and say with tears, "how can this be?  I don't understand, Lord!  Help me with my unbelief.  Let me SEE you."  Like Zechariah I am dumbfounded.  Until I realize the truth of Luke 1:37, "for with God nothing shall be impossible," and by the overshadowing of the power from on high, I can say, "be it done unto me according to the word." Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.