A highly appreciated part of my education has been to learn how to decipher that part that is secular, belonging to a mortal life and habitation, and that which is spiritual, belonging to an immortal life and habitation. The twain, existing together, and if valid, comprise the most important consideration of the functioning of the mind and soul of a person. One is concerned with nature’s evidence, the other with spiritual evidence. There is an overlap so that the two venues provide wholeness for one’s life, a matter demonstrated as complete in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In Christ, the two factors that encompass our lives and experience are demonstrated, even to birth, growth, life and death, and the recovery of resurrection. Christ was endowed with both human and divine natures, an issue troublesome to earth bound minds. (Luke 2:52) It is acknowledged as mystery, even when it is explained.
I began occupational Christian ministry earlier than most. I was twenty years of age, soon married (with my mother’s permission for one under age at that historical juncture), and full of vigor for my work. I read a great deal from books, magazines, newspapers. During the seventy years since I began to fill files with items that I thought might be useful in some remote future date. I have gained a fairly good idea about world politics, economics, religion and values in society. With some confidence, I could form general statements about many dimensions of human society. I have been instructed that nearly every election is the most important of history, that each year the world is on the edge of ultimate disaster, that families have declined in meaning for individuals and society, and that collapse of this or that is imminent. However, from many old articles I could change a few words and dates and have a relevant item to share today.
Moses and Israel were in deep trouble, in a wilderness, no visible means of support, no good land of their own – nothing but God, freedom, manna and a handbook for living that embellished both natural and supernatural subjects, and an effective leader in Moses. The only real barrier would become the people themselves, including their leaders on occasion, who did not always follow teachings and directions. The guidelines for living were put in the form of commandments, because that was the best way to do it when a million persons were without institutions, moving through a parched land. It was something like the American Indian tribes, mostly Plains Indians, with their chiefs and laws, moving like Bedouins through the American countryside, but with order and acceptance within themselves. They followed their chiefs.
So it was that Moses gave the rules of the society – to keep it simple. Don’t get mixed up. This animal will not serve well with this other one; this garment will serve well, at lower cost, and without undue ostentation if of one flax; and, this word from God is complete in itself, not needing any eclectic distortion by another god or source. There is enough for all, if there is mature treatment of a complex world – so do not make it more complex. Make your decisions sensibly. Why would you develop unnatural styles, why would you choose a mate unfitting to your context, why would you not find friendship as a means for getting on with each other, and would riches be permitted to prevail over values? The questions increase in number. Follow righteousness, avoid manufactured complexity, and find your way. Regardless of your personal preferences, follow balances of: moderation, love with empathy and nature. This nature pattern is in families, and social community. When these rightly exist almost any general plan can work, for earth with service and good will from each person to the other. For God’s kingdom goodness and success are not enough for God. That heavenly vision was necessary to the preservation of their identity, so to give courage in the hard daily life, and vision for life beyond the grave. This last was the main factor in pressing on for themselves and their children. They followed the gestures led by Aaron so to keep alive the belief and reality that God was their redeemer from the life of nature to that which would follow, as a caring God would provide. Their actions, vested in the priests’ message, foreshadowed the redemption of God. In this the Messianic vision was formed, and became the center piece of the Tabernacle worship in the desert. Their worship centered on a Messianic coming as ours does on his coming again. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020