Mismatched socks

Stoning people sucks. It's a really bad way to go, from what I understand. It involves everyone, not just one guy chopping a head or pulling a trap door. Death doesn't come quickly either...it hurts bad, well unless you got some big guy with a giant rock and really good aim or a slingshot. So why does this God of Love, this Person of infinite mercy and forgiveness use capital punishment?
Pushing it aside isn't an option if I believe this Bible, I cherish, is the actual Word of God, the Living and Active Sword of the Spirit. Nopers, got to face it head on.
Let's start with the very first guy who deserved capital punishment, well yeah, I guess, Adam sort of did for taking the bite, 'cause he knew just what he was doing...Eve didn't. She was deceived but that's other lesson.
I'm talking about Cain, Abel's brother. According to a Bar Mitzvah speech I heard once, there are times when death is the deserved punishment or necessary in defense. But God doesn't do that He lets Cain live and walk the earth... But here's the kicker. He puts some kind of mark on him. He lets everyone know this was bad, don't do this.
Gen. 4:13 Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." 15 But the Lord said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.
16 So Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Okay so I'm choking up when I read these verses. Baby, it's worse!!! It's worse than getting stoned (ha, ha..yes..I mean with rocks). Cain knew the Lord's Presence, really knew it and was sent out from the Lord's Presence. I know lots of us choose that everyday, but Cain really knew intimate fellowship with the Lord and then he was banished from it. The one thing we were truly created for is taken away from him. Just get a picture of the anguish he felt. I know a little tiny bit of what it means to me in His Presence it's awesome and amazing and everything good.Oh, to be cast out of that All encompassing Love, acceptance, and desire for little me...I can't imagine how horrible it was for Cain.

Gen. 6:5 The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

So God does it. It carries out the first execution in the Bible. And it's the biggest ever...everyone except Noah and family, everyone and little bunnies too. Was this result of having no capital punishment, no law, allowing people like Cain to have a whole bunch of babies? I don't know. I do know that Cain's great, great grandson kills someone too and keeps on living and having babies.
This post isn't about having all the answers. This post is about not pushing anything in this book aside. Maybe I will raise more questions than I answer, that's good thing!

So God takes out all of these people with hearts that can't do anything but dwell on evil. It's like they are already dead. Living, walking, baby-making zombies of wickedness. What happens to them after they are killed in the flood? I don't know. Is it better to be drowned than to be a living wicked Zombie, we all know the answer to that if we've seen even one Zombie movie.

Genesis 9:6--"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."

So God does make a few rules and later He makes a few more on Mt. Sinai.

Ex. 19:12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, 'Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. 13 He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live.' Only when the ram's horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain."

for touching a mountain? What is going on here?

Okay so it's hard for me to explain what I see and feel when I read these verses. But I love you so I'm gonna try.

Ex. 19:16 On the morning of the third day
This often repeated refrain, 'on the third day' which was first pointed out to me by the kibbutz choir speaks clearly to me of Jesus' resurrection from death. He is alive and that means life for me.

..there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.
This all happening on Shavuot, Pentecost, the first one after the first Passover. On Pentecost the Holy Spirit was first given to Peter and a bunch of believers and it changed them. (For more, check out my other blog.)

17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. 20 The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up 21 and the Lord said to him, "Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the Lord and many of them perish. 22 Even the priests, who approach the Lord, must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out against them."

Loud and clear to me like that shofar, we can't do it ourselves, we can't force our way to the Lord. There's this one guy who can go up and this one guy just comes back with more rules.


23 Moses said to the Lord, "The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, 'Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.'" 24 The Lord replied, "Go down and bring Aaron up with you. But the priests and the people must not force their way through to come up to the Lord, or he will break out against them." 25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.

All those rules, all that consecrating and the people just can't keep 'em...more and more rules given:
Ex. 21 and Lev. 20 tell us of capital punishment for murders, cursing at parents, sexual sins, for idolatry and blasphemy and breaking the Shabbat.
really harsh punishment for these offenses.
Let's look at the times when God actually said, "Okay so do it!"

In Lev. 24, the first blasphemer is stoned to death, in Num. 15, the first Shabbat breaker is stoned. In Joshua 7, Achan is stoned to death for taking plunder that God forbid. God makes sure he gets caught.
Josh.7:19 Then Joshua said to Achan, "My son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and give him the praise. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me." 20 Achan replied, "It is true! I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel.

Each of these happens once in the Bible. I don't see it as vengeance but as warning.

Now this one...oh this one hurts me, not gonna cry, deep breath...

David is so happy. He's bringing the Ark of the Convanent to the city of David. He got 30,000 guys to come along and a new cart and there is praising and music and dancing and....

2 Samuel 6:6-11
6 When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. 7 The Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God. 8 Then David was angry because the Lord's wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah. 9 David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, "How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?"

We can't force our way to the mountain. His Holiness is so beyond us that just touching the Ark to keep it from falling caused Uzzah to die. David realizes this is totally beyond him.

Then one of my most favorite stories in the whole Bible happens:

2 Sam. 6:13 When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, 15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. 16 As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart. 17 They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord. 18 After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord Almighty. 19 Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.
20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!" 21 David said to Michal, "It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord's people Israel--I will celebrate before the Lord. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor." 23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.

David now understood his own unworthiness, he calls himself undignified and humiliated in his own eyes. That is the reason for this harshness of God. We have to get it. We have to see our need for a Messiah. That's why the Law was given that's why death happens.

But oh thank God, He comes and changes all that. The Pharisees (super religious Jews) are trying to trap Jesus. They catch a girl committing adultery (wonder what happened to the guy?) and bring her to Jesus demanding He uphold the Law of Moses. Jesus does away with capital punishment in one sentence.
John 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Done. He lifted himself up (cross reference there, no pun intended) and said "whoever is good, go for it!" There was only One there good enough to throw that stone and that was Jesus and He says, John 8:11 "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. "

He took death on Himself and gives us eternal life.

But if I'm not gonna shove anything aside, I've got one more...

Ananias and Sapphira... they sell their property then lie to Peter about how much they got so that they can give 'all' of it to the disciples and look all coolio. The Holy Spirit doesn't put up with it. They die on the spot. This again is a first. God is showing the seriousness of their deception. Is anyone else ever stuck dead for deception? Well, I know I haven't been and I have deceived. Once I gave up deception for lent (I thought I'd try that strange tradition that's not in the Bible.) Baby, I failed. But because of Ananias and Sapphira, I really understand that I don't want to do it.

As for mismatched socks, I'm pretty sure that's about the verse in Deut. 22:11 Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.
Shoot,, but that just drips with meaning for me too. I'm such a Bible-nerd! Wool is sheep, baby. Sheep is the lamb of God. The lamb of God is Jesus and His supreme sacrifice. Linen are the garments we get after Jesus blood of the sacrifice covers us, linen is the garments worn by the priests in the temple and Aaron in the tabernacle... the attempts to "force our way to God." Attempts that by His very nature must fail. We cannot approach that mountain without His Holiness breaking out against us. We need the Lamb.

Here's another picture that pops in my mind when I read this rule:

John 19:23 When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. 24 "Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it." This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said, "They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." 24 So this is what the soldiers did.

We cannot mix our works of righteous in with the Messiah's once and for all, Work on the cross. This Anointed One paid the price He did it all. He was like that garment perfect, seamless, leaven-less, without sin.

and from that same Psalm that John speaks of here...
Ps. 22:31
They will proclaim His Righteousness to a people yet unborn-- for He has done it.

Oh He has done it. All the terror of the Law our school-master has been done away with. He has done it! Death no longer has a sting because we have been returned to His Presence, we have no longer been cast out from our Lord, and will dwell in the House of the Lord forever, Va'ed, Amen.