A Suffering Freedom

Texts:
- Psalms 37-40
- Matthew 20-21
- Ezra 1-3

I think that control has been getting away from me during the last several days. That's a hard thing to recognize at times. It's a little disappointing as well, because that is what I spent much of my fast focusing on in prayer and such. But Lord, help me continually realize that this is not one of those character traits that you develop and then have forever. As every character trait, it is one that must be lived. So, help me remember the lessons of the fast and live in self-control.

As Exodus Community, especially in teaching meetings, we've been throwing four major points to organize ourselves around. They are in order:

1. Deliverance
2. Covenant Community
3. Knowledge of the Lord
4. Land

Now obviously, these are not entirely obvious on the face of things how they play out into our lives. But we are under a sincere belief that these four points sum up much of what God is doing in the world. So of course they've been rolling around in my head for a long, long amounts of time. So, today as I'm reading I'm reminded and intrigued by a specific thought that I've had about deliverance, the first point that helps set the rest in perspective.

As You, Jesus walk into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, everybody was crying out to You to deliver them, and to deliver them with power. You calmly made Your way through the crowds to the place of religious deliverance, the temple, and turned it upside down. In one week You went from hero to hated villain of the city. How?

Because, it seems to me, that You needed to bring about the deliverance that God is paradoxically working in. The deliverance of weakness. Deliverance of the weak by the humble and the meek. By the ones who, just like You did, are willing to point others upward instead of to themselves or to their congregations.

You deliver people. You deliver them in any way You choose. But it seems to me that one of Your favorite mediums is weakness. The Israelites are delivered by wandering through the desert for forty years, You specifically do not take them out in a show of their power, nor do You deliver them by leading them immediately into mighty battles. Instead, it is a weak wandering freedom.

Elijah, in one of the more uplifting deliverances, slays 400 prophets of Bail after a confrontation and test against them in front of all the people. But Elijah's deliverance? He is chased into the desert for fear of losing his life. Indeed, great things happened, and a people were led into freedom from a false god, but the one who bought that freedom suffered.

Even Moses, the leader of the great Exodus, suffers as a provider of deliverance. He suffers his own people indeed, but in 2nd greatest slap in the face in all of Scripture he is not allowed to enter the promise land.

Your delivers are broken and poured out for those they deliver. They, just like You, Jesus, are body and blood spilling out for those they bring freedom to. Teach me to expect and accept this. It is good to see freedom, it is reality that it will be a suffering freedom for someone.