Lent 2025 Day 16: Sat 22 Mar
Judges 2:8,10-23
8 Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten. 9 And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 15 Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. 17 Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands. 18 Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. 19 But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshipping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
20 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said, ‘Because this nation has violated the covenant I ordained for their ancestors and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk in it as their ancestors did.’ 23 The Lord had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.
The recurring theme in the history of the people of God, be it what is recounted in the Old Testament, our own history books, or even in our lived experience is one of wandering away from what is best, and ending up somewhere that is not great. This is particularly the case of the generation that is described in this reading: a people who had not just strayed a little bit, but had ended up so far away that they had no memory of the path they had left!
The fact the previous generation was described as faithful also gives us an insight in our human nature: even with the most shining examples easily graspable within living memory, we are easily distracted and wish to be left to our own devices.
God allows this, true it is the nature of God to wish not the death of a sinner, to always call us back into relationship with him, but it is also in God’s nature not to force our hand when we are obstinate, to let us carry out the devices of our own hearts if we are so resolved.
This is what Scripture often calls (in human terms) “wrath”, our understanding of the term needs to be formed by the wider witness of the whole library of books that form our Bible, the example of Jesus, and the wisdom of the earliest Church. Those who experienced these events first-hand probably did feel like God was angry with them, but we know our Father “ causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45), and thus we need to look at such events not with human eyes but with Jesus’ eyes, recognising that the consequences of sin come from sin itself and not from God.
Abba, Father, when our own actions bring us stones, help us remember that You are the one who gives us bread.
1:00:07 Sind Blitze, sind Donner (Chor)
27b. Chorus I & II
Are lightning and thunder
extinguished in the clouds?
Open the fiery abyss, O Hell,
crush, destroy, devour, smash
with sudden rage
the false betrayer, the murderous blood!
28. Evangelist And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and struck a servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him:
Jesus Put your sword back in its place; for whoever takes the sword will perish through the sword. Or do you think that I could not ask my Father to send me more than twelve legions of angels? How would the scripture be fulfilled then? It must happen thus.
Evangelist At the time Jesus said to the crowd:
Jesus You have come out as if to a murderer, with swords and spears to take me; yet I have daily sat among you and have taught in the Temple, and you did not arrest me. However all of this has happened in order to fulfill the writings of the prophets.
Evangelist Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.
Ends at 1:03:38
Paul