Thursday, February 12, 2015

do not cook an alien in its mother's milk

today's readings: Exodus 34:1-35:9, Matt 27:15-31, Psalm 33:12-22, Proverbs 9:1-6

apparently cooking a young goat in its mother's milk is not only bad, but very important. we see this command repeated several times in the OT. wonder why that's so important.

I don't know. but today we see Moses wearing a veil. speaking to God "face to face" makes his face glow. seeing God as "other" can lead to seeing Him as "alien", that is, "not from here." He literally IS an alien. not a little green man, but not an earthling, either. He became an earthling for awhile, but then He went "back there" as a human... in what COULD be described, if you were Fox Mulder, as the world's first alien abduction.

so how does all of this come home today? these things happen in the OT. in the NT, we see the human reaction to this alien man among us. He scares us. He makes us feel threatened. He gets Himself killed.

and that was perhaps no truer said about any other man in history. Jesus does in fact "get Himself killed." He doesn't kill Himself. but He deliberately does what He knows will so infuriate the local authorities that they will kill Him.

when Pilate washes his hands, the people cry out "may His blood be on us and on our children."

thanks be to God that that very blood is on us today. because, in the strange twist of reality that God is so good at, that very "curse" of that very blood is the only thing that makes it possible for any of us to join Him in that alien abduction.

may Your blood be on me and mine, Lord.

2 comments:

Cherie L. Fleming-Pearce said...

Amen!

Julie said...

Mother's goat milk.....must remember to ask that one in the future....I wondered if you were going to mention it. "May His blood be on us and on our children" that should be our deepest desire of our life. Amen