Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14

Hey friends. Don't worry I haven't given up - we lost power on Saturday night and it just recently came back on. It was funny too, because on Saturday night, I was planning on taking ZE GERMANS out to dinner and bowling. The power went out right before we left and then we couldn't get anywhere because all the roads were closed. Then we tried to go to a local burger place, and as soon as we pulled in the parking lot, their lights went out. So we came back to the apartment. We lit some candles, had cereal for dinner, and then played Uno and Spoons by candelight. It was actually a really fun and unique experience and I'm glad that the power was out that night.

But then it was out all day yesterday and that was extremely sucky. No hot water, no light, no cooking (we have an electric stove), so we got bored pretty quickly. I did keep up with my reading though and actually did it by candlelight for the past two nights. I felt like a biblical scholar of the days of yore! Seriously though, it is nice sometimes to have something we depend on taken away to realize how much we need it, but also to experience life without it for a little while. I sort of felt like the Israelites yesterday - I got all grumpy and whiny because I couldn't play video games or watch movies. I asked our building manager why she ever led me out of Egypt, only to die in my apartment of boredom. At least I had electricity in Egypt.

Anyway, I'm gonna do one entry for the past two days, because I still need to do the book report for Mark.

Reading for March 13 and March 14
Numbers 19:1-22:20
So now the Israelites complaining has shifted from "we have no meat" to "we have no water". Now I can understanding complaining about a lack of water. As a wise man named Milhouse once said, "Hey, I need that to live." The people are now not only wishing they had been left in Egypt, but actually wished they had died in the "Earthquake Purge" from a few chapters ago.

Thankfully, God doesn't seem to take offense at his people's need for water. God instructs Moses to take his staff - the staff of miracles - and to strike a rock with it. Doing this will cause water to spring forth. So Moses does as he is instructed, and the Israelites get the water they need for themselves and  their livestock. However, Moses and Aaron did not recognize God as the provider of the water when they performed this miracle. As a result, God did not allow Moses or Aaron to accompany the Israelites to the promised land when that time eventually came.

Shortly after, Aaron died on a mountain called Mount Hor. God instructed Moses to remove Aaron's clothes and to put them on Aaron's son, Eleazar - an obvious 'passing of the torch' so Eleazar would now be the chief priest of the Israelites.

The next passage is about the Israelites trek across the land they were in, and about all the various kingdoms that would not allow them to walk through their land...and how most of them were ultimately destroyed.

There is one bit in here that caught my attention though. The Israelites begin complaining again about the lack of any sort of comfort of living and God gets pissed and sends a bunch of venomous snakes down to them, many are bitten and many die. Look how they respond:

"We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

Is that not almost word for word what the Egyptian officials said when the plagues were ravaging their land and their people? Is this symbolic to show that the Israelites are no closer to God than the Egyptians were? God's response to this is very strange, too. He has Moses make a bronze snake and put it on a pole and anyone who looks at it will be cured of the snake poison. Isn't that an idol then? And not just an idol, but an idol of a snake - the one animal that represents the downfall of humanity. Was this intentional poetic justice on God's part? That God is very cunning. 

Luke 1:1-56
The opening passage of Luke is really interesting:

 ¹Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled^[a] among us, ²just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. ³Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

So, right off the bat, you know that Luke was not an eyewitness to the events of Christ, and is going on things he had studied. In the notes in my Bible, it said that the scene in Mark when Jesus was arrested, and that naked dude fled the scene - most scholars believe that to actually be the Mark who wrote that Gospel. The other thing that stood out of this is that Theophilus bit in there. Who is that?

Well apparently, Luke wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, and both were addressed in the same way to Theophilus. Also, it looks like no one has really agreed on who this actually is, or if it is a specific person at all. Some people believe that its just a general title like "student" or "friend". Pretty cool though.

Luke, so far is a very different approach than Matthew and Mark. Aside from that intriguing opening paragraph, he goes into a lot more detail around the events surrounding the birth of Christ, and also John the Baptist, who certainly played a large and important part in Jesus' story.

The thing that really stands out to me in this first chapter of Luke is the emphasis on women. Reading the old testament, women are never included in any equation or census. They are never accounted for and don't seem to matter very much at all. So for Luke to open with an entire chapter devoted to the mothers of Jesus and John the Baptist must have been extremely controversial for the time. Also, the mother of John the Baptist is the sister of Mary, so Jesus and John were cousins. I never knew that...

Psalm 56 and 57
 ⁸ Record my lament;
       list my tears on your scroll ^[b]—
       are they not in your record?

I like the idea of God keeping a record of tears. That he would care that much to keep track of every tear we have cried, is very humbling.

Also, I think this may be my favorite verse so far:

 ⁷ My heart is steadfast, O God,
       my heart is steadfast;
       I will sing and make music.

If I had my own music room, or studio, I would put that in a plaque or something and display it very boldly somewhere. So cool. 

Proverbs 11:8-11
 ⁸ The righteous man is rescued from trouble,
       and it comes on the wicked instead.

 ⁹ With his mouth the godless destroys his neighbor,
       but through knowledge the righteous escape.
 ¹⁰ When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices;
       when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
 ¹¹ Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted,
       but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed.

Alright, I just remembered that I need to do the entry from today as well. This is the first time I've been three days behind since I started this thing...but I would like to mention something first. At church yesterday, our pastor said that there are basically four categories of things we need to partake in to have a rich life as a person and as a Christian - these are the four:

Community
Scripture
Prayer
Service

I think I got the scripture down, cuz I'm reading it every day. Community, I'm pretty good at and I try to be an "example of God's love" to others as much as I can. The other two are where I'm lacking. But I think I can make up for the prayer one here. So I'm gonna try to reinstitute the prayers in these entries. So here we go:

Dear God, 
It certainly has been a while, and I am sorry. I have been extremely frustrated and confused by some of the things I've been reading, and I pray that at the end of this thing, I will see for myself what the truth is.
I pray for my friends who are having hard times right now, and especially for someone who is facing a particular hardship - please guide this person to make as many right decisions as possible in this time. 
God, thank you for my wife and dog who bring me immense amounts of joy. Thank you for a church I can feel proud of and comfortable in. Thank you for a job that requires me to be creative and energetic. Thank you for letting me spend some time away from electricity this weekend and just experiencing pureness.

I pray these things in Jesus' name
Amen.