On the 5th Day of Christmas...

On the Fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, five gold rings.
Today we look at God’s message that was proclaimed from the first five books of the bible – that is, those first five books of the Old Testament known as the Pentateuch.
These books’ authorship is attributed to Moses and is also known as the Torah – a word which is usually translated as “Law” or “teaching”.
According to the website: http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Torah.html#.VJ_VrsAk , Torah is both a name and a general concept. While we think of law as a definitive and a boundary that should not be broken, the word, “Torah” as a concept actually reflects” the way things are”.

I like the idea that our five gold rings might represent the Pentateuch because of the traditional association of gold rings with vow making and keeping. It seems like a nice idea to remember and have fidelity to the essence of our faith which, in written form, begins at Genesis.

The five books of the Pentateuch are; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Both Genesis and Exodus are fairly readable and from the accounts of creation we then follow the Journey of Jesus’ ancestry from Adam and Eve through to the 12 tribes who Moses led out of Egypt. After that point the reading gets more difficult with many detailed descriptions about how the Ark of the Covenant was to be built, along with the Tent of meeting etc, the design for the priestly garments and the sacred utensils. And then there are rules…. Lots and lots of rules… and hidden in between those, are some amazing stories that are not so often read.
As an overview we see that God created the world and set it up in a particular way, but his creation freely chose to disobey and do things their own way. From this point we see the natural consequences of sin and sometimes human nature at its worse. Through it all, it seems that God seeks for someone who is willing to have a relationship with him, and as he finds them we follow their stories and God’s promise to bless.

Right back from the Book of Genesis there are stories which record the lives of God’s people and God’s promises. These promises take two forms, ones that are conditional on our actions (obedience to God’s law), and promises that are unconditional.

It seems that we always want to be able to earn our way into heaven and over and over again, in the Bible, we see those who tried and failed. The Israelites and us also, continuously have times where we acknowledge that we’ve done the wrong thing, and determine to change our actions, but we can never attain the perfect standard.
The first promise of a redeemer appears as an unconditional promise, therefore not dependent on our actions, but on the mercy and love of God. It is found in Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Ultimately the offspring, of the woman is referring to Jesus. Enmity in the original language implies bloodshed, signifying the sacrifice of Jesus, yet the bruising of the heel implies that the wound will not be permanent. The words were spoken to the serpent who, in the narrative, is the embodiment of Satan, over whom Jesus would have ultimate victory.

These two forms of covenants, conditional and unconditional , show up in the lives of those we follow through the Bible, most notably Abraham, who was both obedient to God but also the recipient of the unconditional Covenant. His story is where we most notably notice that he took God at His word – he believed God- and it was credited as righteousness. And so we know him as the father of those recipients of God’s Covenant who enter by faith- By believing God. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

Abraham tried to achieve God’s promise by his own efforts, and missed the mark, but when God blessed him with a son by his barren and old wife, Sarah, he knew that nothing was impossible for God. Seeing as God had said he would bless Abraham with a multitude of nations through Isaac, after Abraham being asked to give Isaac to God as a sacrifice, Abraham figured that God would raise the dead. The whole story is very much a prophetic declaration of the promise of the Messiah who would rise from the dead.

Our fifth article of faith states that God the Son rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures. There are many scriptures that point to the resurrection and it is so obvious- in retrospect. For example, Psalm 16:10 “you will not leave me in the grave. You will not let your faithful one rot away.” Jonah was in the belly of the whale 3 days… is a sign of the death and resurrection of Christ.

The Pentateuch is mostly known as the book of the Law and we tend to think of God’s law in terms of a conditional Covenant. It seems to be human nature and it is truly the natural order of things. Ie. You work hard and you achieve, you break the law and you pay the penalty. But the understanding of the Torah, as a teaching about how things are, means that the whole of those five books are the “Torah”… the way things are… implying that the promises of God, are also the way things are. The struggles and the failures, which are so embarrassingly honestly recorded, are also the way things are – not just for them, but also for us. And now the Torah takes on an almost prophetic element as it is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ.

Honestly, the thing that always frightens us, when we talk about the Pentateuch, is that we know that those laws condemn us. Even the very best of us can’t perfectly keep them. But there is good news… as I remember someone saying, “The only person that could ever live the Christian life was Jesus Christ”. We just can’t do it, and we really do need to rejoice that the Torah also contains the unconditional promise of God to send us a saviour.
Jesus came and he embodied the Torah… he is the Torah… and now it is fulfilled. The law has been kept and completed, and as he exclaimed from the cross, “It is finished”. This is found in the Gospel of John 19:30, the Greek word translated “it is finished” is tetelestai, an accounting term that means “paid in full.”

It is said that the purpose of the Torah was to make Israel a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This is also God’s purpose for us. As Christians we are the new Children of Abraham and heirs of the promise through faith in Jesus Christ.

Today also marks the feast of St. Thomas Becket who rose to be archbishop of Canterbury. Although previously enjoying close relations with King Henry II, when Thomas joined the ranks of the clergy his priorities changed and he clashed with the King over matters. Four knights attacked him in the church during prayers, though it took a number of blows to kill him. After the third blow he stated, “‘for the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.' “

Would we be so willing to protect the name of Jesus and the church?
If we do not study the scriptures, if we do not go to church, if we do not financially support our churches then we in turn do not support theological institutions and the official learning institutions that promote, guard and protect the Gospel.

On this day I would like us to reflect on our fidelity to the word of God and His Church. God’s Promise to us is an unconditional Covenant. Through the sacrifice of Jesus we are offered an uninhibited relationship with God and St. Paul declares this conviction “that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38,39). But will we let this Gospel be perverted? Will we let the Gospel be perverted by the cults that claim we can attain perfection by our efforts and good works? Will we let the Gospel be perverted by religious traditions and activities that are meant to help us understand God but instead become empty idols that placate our sense of needing to feel that we’ve earned our place in God’s “good books”.
I pray that we will dedicate ourselves to enabling the Gospel, and protecting the message of the pure Good News that Christ died for the remission of our sins, and that he rose from the dead and is living still – not because of any goodness in us, but because of the goodness of him and His great love.