2347AFC112423 – King of the Anawim
Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.
Ezekiel 34:11-16 – God, the True Shepherd
11 For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12 As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
Psalm 23:1 – 1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
1 Corinthians 15:22-26 – [ … ] 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Matthew 25:40-41 – 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, in truth and love. Ah, Belovéd, it’s “Black Friday,” (↔ Click Link) and I hope you’re enjoying preparing leftovers from yesterday as you hunt for great bargains. We all want to be careful, however, that we remember to provide for the poor, downtrodden, marginalized, and afflicted. These are the people who are named in the Bible as the anawim (ענוים or עֲ֝נִיִּ֗ים anayim). That word is also translated as the humble, the weak, the wretched, the lowly, and the oppressed. God continually directs his people – even us, ʻŌmea – to be mindful of the poor, the widows and orphans, and all those who have no standing or rights under the Law.
Jesus pointed out the foolishness of putting on a show of importance in a public gathering in the Parable on Humility and Hospitality in Luke 14:7-14. He told the guests at the banquet that the host might come over and ask you to take a less preferable seating if someone more important showed up. Jesus was not all that kind to people who tooted their own horns (or had someone do it for them on the street corner). Jesus himself was poor. Born in a stable not belonging to his family, raised in a community ruled by a vicious 
king and an occupying world power, threatened with death as a toddler so that he had to become a refugee, brought back to a tiny village as a youngster, raised to work in the construction industry and an apprentice to his foster father, and never had anything he could call his own except his name. He was even murdered in the cruelest possible way, crowned with thorns on his throne of the cross. He fit right in with the anawim. That is, until his Resurrection.
As the Resurrected Christ, he exchanged the cross and his crown of thorns for a seat at the right hand of God, his father, and a Crown of Everlasting Glory. He never gave up his love and care for the meek and lowly as he had always done. Take a look at our Key Verses from Ezekiel. God is addressing his ire to the Priests in Ezekiel’s time and telling them they are lousy shepherds of his chosen people. In that line there in verse 16 that says “but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice,” God is declaring that he will call out the ones who are bullying his sheep, pushing them around and being all rich, fat, and self-important.
These shepherds – who are also among God’s sheep – must undergo God’s discipline because they act differently, disappointingly, and wrongly toward those whom God has given over into their care. They are fat because they are selfishly-overindulgent in their appetites willing to steal or even destroy the property and/or reputation of others. They abuse the power of their authority and suffer no pangs of conscience for it. Their power in the community of the Israelites they are consecrated to serve is corrupted to the point of absolute abhorrence. They are useless shepherds, endangering the flocks entrusted to them for protection. These shepherds “forgot” they were answerable to the Creator who is the King of Israel: Isaiah 43:15 –
15 I am the Lord, your Holy One,
the Creator of Israel, your King.
Our God is the God who loves and protects the underdog, who favors the youngest or the second-best, who commands that we who are not relegated to the bottom rungs give preferential assistance to all who are less fortunate. When we bless them, we bless God, and God in turn blesses us. It is an Absolutely Perfect Plan – when we follow it. We recently called to mind one of God’s anointed who was called by name 150 years before he even existed: Cyrus. (← Check it out!) He was a worthy ruler because he ruled as God directed. He ensured that “everyone had a shot at being better.” He kept an appropriate balance in the nations by keeping the powerful in check while promoting the standing of the powerless. We pointed out in that study that Cyrus – and all kings of God’s people – were referred to as anointed – מָשׁוּחַ “mashiach.” God himself named and anointed Cyrus with the Holy Spirit. Now, consider what it means when we say that Jesus is King of the Anawim, King of the lowest, And King of the Universe.
That is a king who is King of kings and Lord of lords. (See Revelation 19:16 – 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” (↔ Music Link) God has made his Christ (which means Mashiach which means Anointed) the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the refulgence of the Glory of God, and an exact image of his Father. (See Colossians 1:3-a – 3 He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being) That is some King who rules over everything from land and sea to our galaxy and the entire Universe … ALL OF WHICH HE CREATED. That is a power beyond any earthling’s power and beyond any mortal’s understanding. We are broken in our spirits and blinded by our sins of jealousy for such power. There are people who want and respect power more than truth. All of us know a guy like that. He convinced Eve and Adam they should follow his example and try to be more than God had created them to be. They got that for which they lusted – the Knowledge of Good and Evil – but the wrapping on that package was not something they expected:
Wisdom 2:24 – 24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his company experience it. And there’s the admonition we must heed when we accept or reject the Kingship of The Christ of God, because “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Our King of Everything has done that.
If we pledge our loyalty and accept him as our King – of everything from the anawim to the Universe – then we are blessed to dwell eternally in his Kingdom. Conversely, if we reject his claim to our loyalty, we reject Eternal Life and instead experience the bitter pain bound upon us by the effect of the Devil’s envy: Death Everlasting. Thus spake The King: 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one (↔ Music Link) of the least of these who are members of my family, [ἀδελφῶν – my brethren – adelphon] you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; and only The King of kings has the Authority to speak those words. Perhaps we can give him this reply:
“My King and my God, I will always praise you, love you, adore you, worship you, and thank you for revealing your Great Glory through Christ Jesus you Son. Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son of the Everliving God, have mercy on me – a miserable sinner – forgive me my sins and bring me to Everlasting Life. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me so that , in your presence, I will always remember Our God Reigns. (↔ Music Link) AMEN. Jesus, let me be always and everywhere among my brethren, the anawim to whom you give yourself and all else, for you show us that ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’”
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
