God's Midnight Meadow

 I'm walking through a green field in my dream. The grass is above my waist and it is wet. It's the middle of the night, the sky a velvet black. I walk slowly, and glide my hand over the top of the grass. All I see is the glistening green, and the comforting darkness. I am at peace. There are no sounds, just the wisk of my hand, brushing the grass, and the soft sqealch of my shoes on the dark, damp soil.
            
         I have no destination, no goal. There is just me and You, God.

I walk, and I walk, and I walk. There is no rush, no hurry, no schedule to abide by. Instead I abide in You. This heart of mine, this heart of darkness, is serene. I like the darkness, and You are there.

  I hear Your whisper, Your soft voice is the only sound, and as You speak, it is music to my soul. I find comfort in the night, when it's just me and You. When everybody is dead to the world, and the Sun slumbers. When the Moon glows and the stars, the stars decorate the sky like pin pricks in black mattee.

  My soul is midnight, yet You are the light. My sin is slowly dripping oil, yet You absorbed it with Your blood. I taste the dew of the meadow, and it is sweet. I am soaked in your grace.

 I walk through this field, through this wet grass, through this black night, through my deep dream. I walk alone, but You are there. I'm by myself, but You are by my side. I walk for so long, so long, and then I walk into You.

  You've waited for me and You will wait for everyone at their own pace, in their own place.
My place is the night, the dark, the blackness, but instead of dispair, there is hope. Instead of death, there is life, and instead of misery, there is joy.

      You are the light in my night, the small flicker of flame, the candle in the dark room.

For in this gloom, it's just me and You...and I am at peace.

Jericho: A Loving God or A Ruthless Killer?

            It started with a documentary on Netflix. An archaeologist set to find the city of Jericho of Biblical fame. He discovered a site which after excavating provided a wealth of evidence supporting the story. Most people know it. God commanded the Israelites to march around the city for seven days, and on the seventh day, seven times. Then with a great shout and blowing of horns, the walls collapsed and Jericho fell. That's as far the story goes, at least in the Children's Bible.
            The truth is that it was a wholesale massacre. Man, women, child, animal put to death at the edge of the sword. Then the city was burned. No survivors, except for a prostitute and her family.
             I hadn't read the story for quite a while, but I remembered the basic details. What the documentary brought to light and after reading it again, was the slaughter which followed the miraculous victory.
            Many Christians nowadays, particularly new ones, are taught almost completely from the New Testament. The Old Testament is viewed often as irrelevant, and too challenging for young faith to explore. After all we are living under the new covenant. Jesus died for our sins because a gracious God loves us. This God to many is also a pacifist. Violence simply does not compute, and turn the other cheek is the golden standard. Treat others as you yourself want to be treated.
          That is not the whole story. It is a half truth.
The first thought that popped in my head while I was trying to rationalize the Old Testament God with the New Testament was this: We were all born with a death sentence. Every man, woman, and child is on death row. The crime is sin.
          God hasn't changed. He is the same loving God from the beginning to now. He is also a vengeful, violent God. The subject of that wrath is and always will be sin.
          The Old Testament is full of God's judgement and wrath, especially against His own people. Many people read that and that's it for them. Sorry, they say, I can't believe in a God who would inflict that kind of violence on men.
           The truth is much more than that stumbling block though. If you can get past that, you'll find a wealth of evidence pointing to a gracious, loving, Old Testament God.
            Isn't it interesting that the survivor of the Jericho massacre was a prostitute? A harlot who would go onto to be a part of Jesus' family tree. The world's view of prostitutes hasn't changed. They exist on the outskirts of acceptable society. Outcasts and broken, shameful women. Jesus loved prostitutes, He'd rather hang out with them than with Pharisees, the so called righteous ones.
           When God told Abraham He was going to destroy Sodom for its sin, Abraham pleaded on the city's behalf. God listened. Judgement followed, yet God allowed an incredible amount of leeway on the small chance that such a wicked city could be spared.
             (Another interesting fact which most people miss about the story of Sodom is this. Lot and his daughters survived while their husbands and Lot's wife perished. Faced with a childless future, which for women back then was a fate worse than death, the two daughters got their father drunk and impregnated themselves through him. One of the boys born was Moab, who was the ancestor of the Moabites, Ruth, from the book of Ruth, was a Moabite, and also part Jesus' family tree.)
           Why did God command that every one in Jericho be killed though? The Bible doesn't say it was a particularly wicked city. Not on Sodom's level of debauchery. There is a clue, however. Joshua 6:18 reads: " And you, by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take of the accursed things, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it." Now you could read different things into that, but my interpretation is this: Curses are not be messed around with. If you invoke a curse, the consequences are and can be deadly on a physical and spiritual level. For whatever reason, Jericho was cursed, and the only way to deal with a curse is complete and total annihilation, lest it corrupts you. This is applies to Christians on a personal and corporate level. God did not stop being an Old Testament God when it came to Christ either. When Jesus died on the cross, He was cursed...with all the accumulative sins of mankind, past, present, and future. The only way to break a curse is to kill it, so Christ died and the curse of sin along with Him. Jericho in my mind is a representation of that.
           If you still struggle with the dichotomy of the vengeful, violent God and the loving, gracious one, let me conclude with God explaining Himself in His own words.
              Deuteronomy 32: 39-43
"I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand. For I raise My hand to heaven, and I say, as I live forever, if I whet My glittering sword, and My hand takes hold on judgement, I will render vengeance to My enemies, and repay those who hate Me. I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the heads of the leaders of the enemy."  Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people.
                 Two words jump out at me. Gentiles and atonement. Gentiles = Us, and atonement = Christ.
                 I serve a loving, vengeful, atoning, violent God who delivers a lethal blow to wickedness and evil, and delivers and heals us.