As we celebrate Thanksgiving once again this year, how grateful are you? If I asked you to rank your level of thankfulness on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, what number would you pick? Are you on the lower end? A 3 or 4? You’re grateful, but you’ve had a rough year financially or physically or personally? Are you on the upper end? A 7 or an 8? The investments did better than expected and your cholesterol is down?
A close look at many beloved children’s stories reveals something quite interesting. Certain common elements seem to occur and reoccur. Very often the stories will involve a kingdom; a villain who rises and brings suffering and oppression; a hero, many times a king’s son, a prince; the defeat of the villain; a wedding at the end; and the final refrain so often is, “…and they lived happily ever after.”
In order for us to understand our text this morning, we have to spend a moment reviewing something that was a huge part of the religious life of God’s Old Testament saints. And that thing is Yom Kippur, also known as The Day of Atonement. In particular, we need to review what the High Priest did on that day. Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) was the one day of the year when the high priest, and ONLY the high priest, entered into the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple.
The Lord has a soft spot in his heart for widows. Time and again in the Bible, the widow is specifically mentioned as an object of God’s attention and concern. Already at the time of Moses, the Lord said to his people, You shall not take advantage of any widow. (Exodus 22:22). Later, through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord would repeat the thought, Do not oppress the alien who lives in your land, the fatherless, or the widow. (Jeremiah 7:6) God’s concern for the widow is not just an Old Testament thing.
I want you to imagine that you are looking into your closet at all your clothes hanging there. Can you picture it? Okay, find me something you would wear to work. Find something? Now pick out something you would wear for dinner out with friends at a nice restaurant. Got it? All right. Now, grab what you would wear to a wedding. Find something nice? All right. Last one. Pick out what you want to be buried in.
It is said there are two things that are absolutely certain: death and taxes. While this is generally quite true, on the basis of our text today, this Reformation festival, we might want to add a third thing to that list. And that is the preaching of the Gospel. Jesus says in our text, The gospel must first be preached to all the nations. (v. 10)
What is the biggest sacrifice you have ever made for someone? Have you given up your seat so someone else can sit down? Have you given up sleep to tend to a sick child? Have you given money to help someone in need? Have you given up a bite of your dessert to your spouse? Have you given one of your kidneys so someone else can live?
On of the techniques used by Jewish rabbis when teaching was the use of hyperbole, or exaggeration. We often do the same. It is not uncommon for us to engage in hyperbole in our own conversations. When we say someone has “tons” of money, we do not literally mean if we weighed all their money it would weigh thousands of pounds. But we would all understand the point being made: that person has a lot of money.
There is something jolting about the opening words of our text, “It is not good for the man to be alone. (v. 18) It is jolting because it is the first time we have heard that something wasn’t good. Up to this point in Genesis, we have only heard the word “good.”. Six times in Genesis 1 we are told that God saw what he had made and it was good (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). And once we are told things were very good (1:31). That word “good” is like a drumbeat in the story of creation, beating out a steady cadence.
A number of weeks ago, our theme for worship was “spiritual warfare.” Remember that? We were reminded about our unseen enemy in the spiritual realm, the devil and the demons. We spent some time considering Paul’s encouragement to put on the full armor of God from Ephesians 6. Our arsenal includes truth and righteousness and faith and the Gospel of peace and prayer. Remember that? One of the things we did not talk about that day was the unseen army who fights for us. We are talking now about the holy angels.
