I think one of the attributes of the Scriptures that
indicate its truthfulness is the way that the history of God’s people has not
been edited to “clean it up.” There is a natural compulsion in all of us to
want to be liked and highly esteemed. Toward that end, we put our best foot
forward. If company is coming, then we clean the house. The posts that we put
on Facebook are not about our failures. We only put the good and respectable
stuff on there—the stuff that will make people think highly of us.
We might do the same thing about our family history. We,
understandably, might be embarrassed about someone in our family being
shamefully exposed. We might not want to admit that our family has been poor or
poorly educated. This is a matter of self-interest. There is truth in the
saying, “The apple does not fall far from the tree.” If our family is a bunch
of losers, then there’s a good chance that we are too. This is something that
everybody naturally hides, and so we might leave out certain details about our
lineage.
The vast majority of the Bible is the history of one family
that eventually grew to be a nation. From Genesis 12 onward the Bible is the
story of Abraham and his descendants. Abraham’s grandson was originally named
Jacob. God would eventually give him a new name—Israel—and that would be the
name of the nation. Jacob’s twelve sons would be the founding fathers of the
twelve tribes of Israel. The Bible chronicles the history of this people.
If the Israelites saw the Scriptures merely as their own
family record—if they looked at it like their own genealogy book—then I can’t
imagine how the embarrassing things that we find in the Scriptures could remain.
The sins and foibles of even their most important people are right there, black
on white. There was that one time, for example, where Noah got drunk and was
passed out, naked. His son Ham laughed at him, but Japheth and Shem covered him
with a blanket, walking backwards so that they would not see his nakedness. Or
have a look at what the Bible says about Jacob’s four oldest sons. You will
find sexual sins. You will see wrath and cruelty. These are not the kinds of
things that normally go into the family album.
In fact, even though we are not blood relatives of the
Israelites, our Christian publishing houses tend to be embarrassed about what
is in the Bible. A lot of Christians don’t know what is in the Bible because
all that they know about the Bible is what they learned in Sunday School.
They’ve never read it themselves. The materials that are used in Sunday School
are almost always edited to take out anything that is distasteful. If there is
too much violence or seediness or if anything is too frightening, then it gets
cut by the publishers. This is no good! The Israelites managed to pass down
what God gave them without editing it for thousands of years and those were
stories about their very own people. Why are we so embarrassed that we cannot
own and embrace the Scriptures that God has given to us?
The Scriptures speak the way they do because it is the truth.
The Scriptures also speak the way they do so that we could know what’s what. The
Bible tells the story of God’s people. It is the story of the relationship
between God and those people. God’s people are sinners—real, bona fide
sinners—not fake ones. The Bible, over and over again, shows that the sinner’s
fantasy—that they will get away with all their sins without being punished—cannot
come true. Over and over again the Bible shows that God is angered by our sin
and punishes sinners. The Bible also shows that God has mercy on those who have
been humbled and who ask him to have mercy.
So what happens when the Bible is falsified by our
publishing houses? A great deal of what I have just told you is left out. The
people in the Bible are not thought of as sinners—or at least not as poor,
miserable sinners who have done appalling things. God’s anger against sinners
for their sin is never talked about it. Such things might frighten the children
and embarrass the adults. Therefore, we have not taught our people to fear God.
God’s forgiveness has, generally speaking, been talked about, but God’s
forgiveness is altogether different when the person asking for it actually
needs it versus not really needing it. What I mean is that forgiveness is
something different for the person caught red-handed, soiled in sin, under
God’s wrath, afraid of going to hell because he knows that is where he belongs.
Because of the editing of the Bible—really the falsification of the Bible—that
we have done, forgiveness is turned into a principle that puts people’s minds
at ease who don’t really want to have anything to do with God. Forgiveness is
taken for granted as though God has to forgive us. The exception to this
principle, of course, is if we do something really disgusting or appalling.
These poor, miserable sinners are never known as ones who get forgiven, because
the editors have edited them out of the Bible!
This kind of thing might be done by well-meaning,
ever-so-pious people, but it is wrong. They know not what they do. If people
are embarrassed or appalled by the bible, then let them be embarrassed and
appalled by it, but don’t change it! We live in a free country. So if people want
to make up some god in their own head that they think is better than the one
that’s in the Bible, then they are free to do that. But that’s not the God that
I learn of in the Scriptures and the God whom I want to fear, love, and trust.
God does not want us to be embarrassed of him or his actions. He also doesn’t
need us to defend him and put cosmetics on him. God is quite capable of
defending himself. But if we want to learn of him, then he directs us to the
writings of Moses, the chroniclers, the prophets, and the apostles. The
Israelites managed to control their impulses to edit so as to clean up the
family history. We should too.
The thing that I’d like to consider today, in light of what
we have talked about, is our Old Testament reading. Moses tells us about Jacob
when Jacob is quite old. His twelve sons are all grown. Joseph, who was sold
into slavery by his brothers, has risen in the ranks of the Egyptian
government. Because Joseph was told by God that Egypt would have seven good
years of crops followed by seven bad years, he was placed in charge of storing
up the grain during the good years. Now that a severe famine had struck the
land, Egypt was the only place that had any food.
The famine did not just strike Egypt, but also struck
Canaan, where Jacob and his family lived. They were starting to go hungry and
so he sent his sons down to Egypt to buy food. While they were there they
eventually learned that their brother Joseph was in charge of distributing the
grain. Joseph would now take care of the family. He told them that they should
all move down to Egypt where food and pasture were plentiful.
This brings us to today’s Old Testament reading. Jacob is an
old man. He doesn’t want to leave his home. Furthermore, even his religion was
tied up with this decision, because God had promised this land to him and his
descendants. How could he leave it? It seems that the hesitancy of leaving is
so great, that God has to step in and speak to him directly. God assures Jacob
that it will be okay for him to go to Egypt. His descendants will not melt into
the Egyptian population. They will remain distinct. God will keep his covenant.
A mighty nation would come from his descendants and they would come back to
Canaan.
Even though God assured Jacob that things would turn out
alright, it still was very difficult for Jacob to leave. He would never again
see his homeland. He would die in Egypt. But he was so homesick that he made
his sons promise to bring his body back to Canaan, so that he could be buried
next to his forefathers.
So what does this have to do with what we’ve talked about
today? It is this: Jacob, also called Israel, is the great founding father of
all the Israelites. He is more than George Washington. But the Israelites did
not make up grand stories about Jacob, to make him seem more than he really
was. They did not invent stories about cherry trees or never lying. Instead,
they told the truth. The truth is that Jacob died a poor man in a strange land.
He did not have his own territory. He was renting from the Egyptians. He was
almost a charity case of Pharaoh’s. This is not some grand story about a great
man in the sense that we are used to.
And yet, the truth is that Jacob is a great man. His is a
grand story. His is a story of faith. It is a story of dependence upon God and
believing his promises. Jacob was a sinner whom God chastised like a good
father chastises his child—not because the father hates his child, but
precisely because he loves the child. God chastened and also forgave. He spoke
tenderly to Jacob, precisely when he was brought low. He reassured Jacob so
that his faith did not fail.
One of the important reasons why we should not edit and
revise the Bible is because we are supposed to learn from it. The way that God
dealt with Jacob is the same way that he deals with you. The circumstances of
your life compared to his life are somewhat different—although I think we often
overstate that difference. But the way that God deals with you is exactly the
same.
God made himself known to Jacob. God has made himself known
to you. God promised an inheritance to Jacob. God has promised an inheritance
for you. God chastised Jacob. God chastises you. God spoke to Jacob. God has
spoken to you by causing you to hear the true preaching of his Word and by
giving you his sacraments. When God spoke to Jacob he was reassured and his
faith was buoyed up anew. So also, when God forgives you by telling you that
you are forgiven, you are to take this to heart, and gladly look to God as your
dear father and regard yourself as his dear child.
This relationship that God has initiated and sustained with
you is the most important thing in your life. Even if you lose absolutely
everything else, but you retain the good graces of your God, then you are
blessed more than the richest person on this earth. Think of how distressed you
would be if you lost your savings and your home. Think of what it would be like
to live hand to mouth after selling all your assets. Is this the retirement
that you dream of? I guarantee you it wasn’t Jacob’s dream either. But he let
these things go because he believed that God was his God, that God loved him,
that God would set things right in the end, and when he does, then they will be
better than they ever can be in this present life.
And so we shouldn’t be afraid of anything except God. If God
is for you, then who can be against you? We also shouldn’t be ashamed of our
Scriptures or of Jacob, an example of faith for us. There are a lot of
historians who despise little Jacob and his descendants. They say that Israel
never amounted to much. They never got much territory. They were nothing
compared to the nations around them. In like manner people look down on Jacob
as a failure for dying in poverty as a stranger in a strange land.
But we have a different way of looking at the course of this
world. The story of this world is not the story of technology or progress or
money or art or conquering or dominance. The story of this world is about a God
who has loved us, his creatures, from before the foundation of the world. In
order to save them all, he sent his Son to be born of a woman, to be sacrificed
on the cross. The God who has created all things and sustains all things still
speaks to us in his word so that we are not led astray into myths, but know
what the true God is like and how he regards us. Jesus is the greatest treasure
this world has ever had, but what did this world do to him? They couldn’t stand
him and the light that he brought. They crucified him.
Let’s not be embarrassed of him or of the Scriptures that
reveal him. If people want to mock them, fine. As for you, let that crucified
Christ be your life, your hope’s foundation, your glory, and your salvation.
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