Today’s Scripture Reading (August 5,
2015): Exodus 31
Mark Cuban
says that he is surprised that Tom Brady’s four game suspension for “deflategate”
was not lengthened. The reason: because of Brady’s behavior after the accusations
that the future Hall of Fame quarterback was involved, or at least possessed the
knowledge of, the fact that that the game balls were being deflated. The
problem is that it is assumed that a ball with less air in it is both easier to
catch and easier to carry. There are many who question that assumption, but by
the letter of the law the New England Patriots and their quarterback cheated –
thus the four game suspension to Brady. But when the NFL subpoenaed Brady’s
cell phone to get a record of the texts that Brady had sent and received, Brady
destroyed his cell phone and any possibility of confirming what it was that he
knew. And according to Cuban, that action is worse than the original crime –
and the reason why he believed that suspension might have been increased.
But that also
presents a problem. There is a paradox to life as we begin to move through the
digital age. Nothing is permanent, and yet everything is. Once anything is released
into the digital environment, it never disappears, but on the other hand it can’t
always be retrieved. It is a paradox that we are just learning to deal with. Maybe
one of stating the paradox is to say that nothing, and yet everything, is
written in stone.
The origin
of the phrase “written in stone” or “set in stone” or “carved in stone” comes
from this passage. The idea is that these laws that God had instituted were
intended to be permanent, but unlike information from our digital age, it is
meant to be easily retrieved. God wrote the laws into stone where his
instructions could not easily be erased (although Moses in anger did break the
first set of tablets – maybe something like Brady’s destruction of his cell
phone, but with a very different purpose in mind.) The two stones were to be placed
in the Ark of the Covenant where they would stay as evidence of God intention
for Israel for the generations of the nation that were yet to come. It is
likely that the original tablets, which were most likely rectangular in shape
rather than having rounded tops as we have come to imagine them, were lost when
Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. But the information that the
stones contained were placed in the collective memory of a nation.
Although the
tablets are long gone now, we believe that what they contained was the Ten Commandments.
There is a bit of disagreement over how the commandments were placed on the
tablets. Some believe that there were five on each tablet, others believe that
all Ten Commandments were placed on each tablet, making a duplicate copy of the
first as would be common with any legal document. The law given by God for all
time.
For the
Christian, it is interesting that the Christian Testament reinforces nine of
the Ten Commandments. The only commandment that the Christian Testament omits
is the command to keep the Sabbath Day holy. And there is a reason for the omission.
For the Christian, the Sabbath (seventh day) has become the Eighth day – the day
that Jesus rose from the dead and changed everything. And this is the reason
why the Community of Jesus followers from the very beginning have decided to
celebrate Sunday as our holy day – not the first day, but rather the eighth
day, all in honor of the God who came to us and defeated death on our behalf.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus
32
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