March 28: Exodus 10-12; Psalm 20; Matthew 21

Exodus 10-12:  10:3 gives us a good sense of what, according to the author, most annoyed God about the Egyptians:  ""Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?  Let my people go, so that they may worship me"

And the plagues continue; and there's a wonderful articulation of the inclusiveness of the community that the Israelites comprise:  10:9--We will go with our young and our old; we will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, because we have the LORD's festival to celebrate"

Pharaoh keeps saying "I have sinned" and then showing by his behavior that he really doesn't get it yet.
The locusts are the 8th plague.

The 9th plague is darkness, a withdrawal of light, in a sense a return to what things were before God created light, when "the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Darkness and chaos.

It takes more than 2 chapters to tell how the final (tenth) plague plays out.  It is actually the beginning of the departure of the Israelites, and very important because the Passover is a key event in the Jewish liturgical year.    Rules are given in ch. 12 for how the Passover will be celebrated in the future.  It is also known as the Festival of "unleavened bread."

Psalm 20--a prayer "for victory"  I love 20:4:
May he grant you your heart's desire,
   and fulfill all your plans.

I think that is why I pray for God to draw me via my desires.  When our desire is for God alone and above all, we shall surely receive our heart's desire.

Matthew 21--And so we find ourselves, in Matthew's Gospel, in Holy Week.  The Triumphal entry into Jerusalem is here at the beginning of the chapter--and in answer to the perennial question of the Gospels: 'Who IS this???' we see the answer "This is the PROPHET Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee" (21:11).

There quickly follow the cleansing of the Temple  (so far from "gentle Jesus, meek and mild"), and the cursing of the fig tree, surely one of the weirdest and most curious of passages in the entire gospel.

Then we have parables

• of two sons:  "I will go, sure thing, Dad!" vs. "No!"; not quite getting around to keeping our commitments vs. sighing after complaining and just doing the right thing…
• Of the Wicked Tenants, with the heartbreaking words of the Father: "They will respect my Son" (v. 37).  Note:  We need to talk about "supercessionism" and the tendency that Christians have had over the years to cast "The Jews" of their day as "The wicked tenants" and thereby justify terrible persecution.

And the chapter concludes with another reference to Jesus as a PROPHET  (21:46).