Break the cycle
The Book of Judges concludes with what has been a recurring theme: ‘Everyone did what was right in their own eyes, because there was no King in Israel’ (Judges 21:25). This is followed in our Scriptures by six books which outline the rise and fall of Israel’s Kings.
Since our rebellion against God in the garden, God has been acting to call a people to Himself and through them to demonstrate to all creation how good it is to live under His rule and reign.
However, bad news, we couldn’t do it! Irrespective of what God did: his rescues and provisions; his clear guidelines on what was expected or even a great and Godly leader to show the way, it never worked. At least not for long.
Clearly what they needed, we need, is a Sovereign ruler, one with the authority of God himself to lead us. However, the six books that detail how this worked show us one thing very clearly – it didn’t!
At times God’s people flourished, God was honoured and the whole world was drawn to Him (eg the story of the queen of Sheba found in 1 Kings 10). But like the generations before, it was the same old cycle of faithfulness, unfaithfulness, judgement, repentance, restoration. Over and over, from one king to the next. However now it is the leaders, God’s representatives, the Kings who are the ones who led the way and whose disobedience and apostasy would lead to judgement and eventually the demise of all that had previously been achieved. God’s people were divided and sent into exile. A truly tragic tale.
What are we to make of this story, our history?
Well, one thing is clear: any human solution is inadequate at best, because no human mediator can achieve God’s intention on their own.
A representative of God is not enough. A sinful human agent will never bring about God’s intention or achieve God’s purpose for His world.
What we need is God himself.
God alone can achieve God’s purpose.
And God alone has.
In the person of His Son, Jesus the Messiah, the one true God has entered our world, become flesh and dwelt among us. Now, in Jesus we have seen the Father God in all his glory, majesty, and power as he acted to achieve what he had always intended and reconcile the world to Himself.
This he has now achieved and this is the mission of the Church in which we are invited to participate.
Wow! What a privilege and what a responsibility!
