Today’s Scripture Reading (December
21, 2015): Judges 1
Christmas is
just around the corner. In popular culture, it is, of course, the night that
Santa takes the idea of an eye for eye to a new level – judging between those
children who are naughty and those who are nice. There is a scene in the
Christmas movie “Arthur Christmas” where the elves use their nice-o-meter to
judge what it is that the child should receive. In one house, the meter tips to
the mostly naughty side, and the elf shines the meter on himself to get it to
shift to the nice and side and give the child presents that he really doesn’t
deserve. And that is a pretty good illustration of what we believe that Jesus
has done on our behalf.
The story of
Adoni-Bezek may seem like a strange and twisted Christmas story, but it
actually highlights an aspect of Christmas that I think we forget. Adoni-Bezek
was a Canaanite king who dealt with his conquered enemies in a very cruel way.
The seventy in this passage should probably just be interpreted as “many,” but
the actual number does not change what he did. Adoni-Bezek was known for cutting
off the thumbs and the big toes off of the kings he defeated. They lived, at
least for a time, but they would never be able to hold a sword or be able to
run in battle ever again. All they were able to do was pick up the scraps under
the kings table like unwelcome rodents.
Tradition
holds, based on this verse, that Israel then did for Adoni-Bezek, what he had
done to his many kings – they cut off his thumbs and big toes and sent him to
the newly conquered Jerusalem as a slave. There he died, according to
tradition, in the city within months of his arrival, most likely due to an
infection from the mutilation that he had suffered. Essentially. Adoni-Bezek
was judged to be naughty and he received his appropriate reward.
But while
Judah and Simeon had fought and defeated Jerusalem, apparently they could not
hold it. Later in Judges 1 we are told that the Jebusites were still living
there (Judges 1:21). David would take the city and make it his capital, but
only for a period of time. Eventually the Babylonians would level the city. The
Maccabees would free the city and place it under Jewish rule once again, only
to lose it to the Romans. Today the city exists in a state of tension between
Palestine and Israel. Both lay claims to the city, yet neither possess the
city. Historically it would seem that the status of Jerusalem has always been
either temporary or in question.
So Jesus
came, not as a military leader who would finally free Jerusalem and Israel from
the hands of their oppressors, but rather as a child born in a manger in
Bethlehem, not far from the City of Jerusalem, and who would die in Jerusalem
for the sins of the many (insert Adoni-Bezek’s seventy here if you wish.) He
gave to us his righteousness so that we would forever be known as his children.
What Jerusalem could only know for periods of its history, we can know
permanently – that we are in the possession of God and that we have become his
city. And this is something that an eye for an eye has never been able to produce.
It only happens because we have been given the righteousness of the child born
in a manger and not what was due to us – as was given to Adoni-Bezek.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Judges
2
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