March 9, 2023

 

 

Psalm 1 (NIV)

1 Blessed is the one     who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take     or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,     and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,     which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—     whatever they do prospers. 4 Not so the wicked!     They are like chaff     that the wind blows away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,     nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. 6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,     but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

At first glance this psalm appears to be a beautiful piece of poetry, as so it is, but on closer examination it is far more than that; it is in fact a synopsis of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It is a timeless evaluation of Society. At the creation God gave man (and woman) free will. From the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and from generation to generation up to the present-day, society remains divided between the righteous and the unrighteous; those who choose to do good and those who choose to do evil.

In the stories of the patriarchs, we see repeated the divide between the godly and ungodly. Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, their son Able was murdered by his brother Cain. Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Abraham and Lot are examples of those who chose to have a relationship with God and those who followed their own way. God does not impose His will upon us but, even under the Old Testament gave the choice of good or evil. In Deuteronomy 30:19 we read “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed may live.” In Joshua 14:15, Joshua presents the people with the same choice: “Choose you this day whom you will serve…….. as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Before we consider ourselves too quickly in the righteous camp, we do well to remember Romans 3:10 where the Apostle Paul reminds us "There is none righteous, no not one” . We are told in Psalm 103 that "God knows of which we are made and remembers that we are dust.”  God knows our weakness and realizes that it is impossible for us to keep the Law in its entirety. Because He is a God of Justice, he had to fulfill the law’s demand but, because he is also a God of love, He instituted the sacrificial system for the Israelites under the “Old Covenant.”  In Hebrews 9:22 it is written “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.”  The sacrificial year culminated in the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur. Celebrated in September or October (10^th day of the month of Tishrei in the Jewish calendar as ordained in Leviticus 16:29-32.) It is the holiest day of the Jewish year when the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies to present the blood of the year’s final sacrifice to God, as the festival’s final shofar sounded over the temple complex.

In the New Testament we see the birth of the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus fulfilled the prophetic predictions and the law’s requirement when, at the end of his sinless earthly life, He willingly gave himself to be crucified. He is the perfect Lamb of God, and the perfect and final sacrifice for all people. His resurrection on the first Easter morning confirmed God’s acceptance of Christ’s death as the final sacrifice for all people.

The New Covenant (The Good News or Gospel) was instituted when Jesus in Mathew 24 commands the disciples “Go ye into all the world and preach the Good news to every creature” and, as reported by Luke 46-47, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day; that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations.”

God still gives everyone the choice between Good and Evil; the response to that choice lies with each of us.

·       In John 3: 16 we read “God so loved the world that he gave his only Begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

·       In Timothy 1:16 St. Paul tells us that: “This is a true saying and worthy of all to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

·        In 1 John 2:1-2 St. John tells us that “If anyone sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins.”

      (See also Page 78 in the BCP) 

·       In John 14:6 Jesus says “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to The Father except through me.”

 

- Barb Edgecombe-Green