Today’s Scripture Reading
(September 6, 2018): Exodus 27
There is a stretch of
highway near where I live that has a different kind of streetlights. The string
of lights doesn’t last long, but for a short distance,
the top of the lights are polished and silver in color. And as I drive the
highway during the day, it always amazes me the way that the lights shine –
even though the “lights” are off. In fact,
to look at the lights can almost be a blinding experience during the daylight
hours. The sun reflects strongly off of the polished surfaces.
It is these lights that I
think of as I read this passage. The posts around the courtyard of the
tabernacle were to be built with silver
tops. I can only imagine what those silver tops would have looked like under
the hot desert sun. The courtyard of the tabernacle, surrounded by these posts
with polished silver on the top, must have shone out in all directions to
anyone who would have dared to look in the direction of the Tabernacle. If you
were in the area, you probably couldn’t miss where the tabernacle was standing.
But the silver was just on
the top. The base of these pillars was to be
made of bronze. Bronze could only be made
through a refining process. The silver would shine, but it was the refined
bronze, which had passed through the refining fires, that would provide the
strength. Because of this fire, bronze is often
associated with judgment.
While all of this is
descriptive of the pillars around the courtyard,
it is also descriptive of us. I am convinced that we are created to shine. When
people look at the Christian Church, the last thing that they should see is a
bunch of cranky, judgmental people always looking to rain on someone else’s
parade. We are created to shine. We should love freely. People should look at
us with an attitude that says “I have no idea what they have been drinking, but
I want some.” Christians should shine.
But, that shining only
happens because the core of who we are has passed through the fire. This is judgment, but not the judgment that we
often think of when we hear the term. This
is not the sheep and the goat's judgment;
it is not a judgment that decides who
gets to go to heaven and who is consigned
to hell. This is a judgment of
discernment. We have passed through the fire, and
we have separated the important from the unimportant, or as another passage says, we have separated the
wheat from the chaff (See Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17). We know what is
important, and have placed that at the center of our lives. All else has been discarded through this fire and this judgment.
So all of this leaves us
with one thought, what is it that we have kept from all that has been discarded. What is it that has not been burned in the fire. For me, the answer to
that question is fairly easy. It is love that remains and love that allows us
to shine like a fire among the nations. We should possess a love that is unconditional
and extended to anyone who dares to enter into our midst. After all;
God
is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have
confidence on the day of judgment: In this world
we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But
perfect love drives out fear, because
fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love
(1 John 4:16b-18 NIV).
So go and shine in the world. Go and be Jesus in your
world. Because the core of who you are has passed through the fire, and all that has been left by that process is
love.
Tomorrow’s Scripture
Reading: Exodus 28
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