Thursday, 19 December 2024

… and gather the entire assembly at the entrance to the tent of meeting. – Leviticus 8:3

Today's Scripture Reading (December 19, 2024): Leviticus 8

About forty-five years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Youth Retreat in the mountains of Colorado. We gathered at a big Rock every morning to hear Reuben Welch speak to us. Welch was a university professor and chaplain, and for this week, he challenged our Christian Walk. Did we understand this thing to which Jesus had called us? It is a subject matter that Reuben has written about in several books. As I sat listening to Welch speak while standing on a rock that had affectionately become known as "Reuben's Rock," I started to think about what I had already read from Reuben. The first book I ever read, which was penned by Welch, was a little book entitled "We Really Do Need Each Other." The book is an Exposition on 1 John 1. In the book, written fifty years ago, Welch comments that if he could think about anything more important, he would write about that. But this was the most crucial subject that he could imagine. And then he leads us into 1 John. John writes,

    We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And     our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy                complete.

    This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no               darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do        not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one        another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:3-7).

Okay, I highlighted the word fellowship because that is what Reuben does. The Greek word for fellowship is Koinonia. The idea behind Koinonia is something that we do together. Maybe a better phrase might be joint participation.

    We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have joint participation with         us. And our joint participation is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3).

    If we claim to have joint participation with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live        out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have joint participation with one            another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:6-7).

I get it; it is easier to do it alone. But we are designed not to just to do church together but to journey through life together. This gets back to the title Welch gives to his book and the most important message that Welch could think of as he wrote the book, "We Really Do Need Each Other." 

And it isn't just in 1 John. Over and over, the Bible says that serving God is about community. In his gospel, John tells the story of the woman at the well. He meets her and converses with her, and eventually, she believes in Jesus. 

Maybe one of the factors of the story that we miss is that the woman at the beginning of the story is living outside of the community. She comes to the well at noon because she knows no one else will be there. In fact, she is frustrated that Jesus is there. She is not all that friendly to him; after all, he is a Jew and a man and wrong on both accounts.

But by the end of the conversation, two things happen. First, and the one conclusion we recognize, the woman realizes that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah who had been prophesied would come. However, the second thing we sometimes miss is that she rejoins the community because she believes in Jesus. 

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world" (John 4:39-42).

As Moses prepares to ordain Aaron and his sons, he is instructed to call the community of Israel together. The celebration of ordination required everyone because Israel existed as a community. And every person needed to understand what God was expecting of the community. Ordination couldn't be just a celebration celebrated by the participants and those close to them. It had to involve the whole community because, in the end we journey together, and we really do need each other.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Leviticus 9


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