Sunday, March 7

Oh yeah. Oscar Sunday. Got E! on in the background watching the best and worst dressed. Actually I couldn't care less about the Oscars and the only reason E! is on is because the Soup Awards were just on. If you haven't seen the clip of an Ewok moonwalking and humping Al Roker on the Today show - look it up, it is unreal.

Reading for March 7
Numbers 8:1-9:23
Chapter 8 once again revisits the Levites and how they are to be set apart for God as they were the first born tribe of Israel. God gives Moses the ceremonial customs that must be performed to set the Levites apart. They were to sprinkle "the water of cleansing" on them, have them shave their whole bodies, and wash their clothes. This was followed by a series of offerings to God on the Levites behalf.

This "water of cleansing" intrigued me, so I looked it up. I thought it might be an early version of modern baptism. Baptism is basically a public statement of your faith, but it also signifies your dedication to God and serves as a physical reminder of our sin and God's ability to cleanse us from it. The commentary I found said this about the sprinkling of the water of cleansing:

This signifies the application of the blood of Christ to our souls by faith, that we may be fit to serve the living God.

All of these rituals and rules that have filled the previous two books of the Old Testament seem to fulfill that very purpose - so we may be fit to serve God. But then with Jesus' sacrifice we no longer need to do these things to be fit. His sacrifice validated us with God without having to go through the burdensome rituals.

Chapter 9 is about Passover. Saying that if someone is unclean during the selected date for the passover, they are not allowed to celebrate it on that date, but must wait an additional month to celebrate it. The text then revisits the imagery of God as a cloud that rests over the tabernacle. When the cloud is resting over the tabernacle, the Israelites are to camp. When the cloud rises and begins to move, the people are to move. Now this was discussed already in Exodus, but this section goes into a lot more detail. It says that sometimes they only camp for two days, or sometimes they camp for two years. Now remember, every time they moved, the keepers of the tabernacle had to ritualistically wrap up the items inside and transport them safely to their new, unknown destination.

As defiant and difficult as the Israelites were, it does show some serious determination to follow a cloud around the desert...

Mark 13:14-37
Jesus continues speaking about the 'end times' in this reading. He references something called the 'abomination that causes desolation' - this apparently occurred in the book of Daniel. After looking it up, apparently this abomination is when a Greek leader put up an altar dedicated to Zeus over the altar in the Israeli temple, and then sacrificed a pig on it. The double whammy. Not only did he dis God by putting something dedicated to another god right on top of his altar, but slapped him in the face by slaughtering a pig on it. Something that is considered unclean in the Jewish tradition. 

Anyway, this is a minor point as Jesus just used this as an analogy, but I was just really intrigued by that. Apparently there will be another abomination of desolation in the future that will be a sign of the end times. It doesn't say exactly what that will be, but apparently we'll know it when we see it. So if you see someone doing something that is like "uh oh...he really shouldn't be doing that" - you should probably go get a helmet.

Psalm 50:1-23
Ah, a new psalmist - Asaph.

Snap. This guy is excellent. Check it:

⁸ I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices
       or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
 ⁹ I have no need of a bull from your stall
       or of goats from your pens,
 ¹⁰ for every animal of the forest is mine,
       and the cattle on a thousand hills.
 ¹¹ I know every bird in the mountains,
       and the creatures of the field are mine.
 ¹² If I were hungry I would not tell you,
       for the world is mine, and all that is in it.

I love verse 11. I love the thought of God knowing every intimate detail of the world we live in. Like how in other books it says he knows the number of hairs on our head. Very cool. 

Proverbs 10:29-30
 ²⁹ The way of the LORD is a refuge for the righteous,
       but it is the ruin of those who do evil.
 ³⁰ The righteous will never be uprooted,
       but the wicked will not remain in the land.

Alright, yo.  Have a good night and an excellent week. Love.