1747AFC112415 – DDIY
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Ezekiel 34:11-12 – 11 “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for 
my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.'”
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Are you enjoying the endeavor of finishing up the Thanksgiving Feast? We did our “Turkey Day” on Sunday, the 19th, as a combined birthday and Thanksgiving celebration. Crucita and Timothy picked up a nice small turkey for three bucks at Safeway. Then Crucita worked for hours preparing the turkey, the cornbread-and-pecan stuffing, the homemade pumpkin pies, scalloped potatoes, turkey-stock gravy, Orange-Marshmallow Glazed Yams, and I opened the can of cranberries. She and T did amazing work and most of it from scratch. They did it all themselves, and it was good; it was very good. It was quite a creation.
Do you remember what God said about his “homemade” creation? Genesis 2:1 – Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. In Hebrew, that word looks like this: וַיְכֻלּ֛וּ The Hebrew word for finished is וַיְכֻלּ֛וּ way-ḵul-lū which comes from the root word כָּלָה (kalah) { kaw-law’}. The expression finished here means “consummated” or “to perform the last act which completes a process, to accomplish, fulfill.” Everything that needs to be done has been done. It is a fully-completed, made-to-order, exactly-right process concluded properly and correctly in every possible way. Whatever can or needs to come next can succeed because the perfect preparation for it has been completed. Remember? The verse immediately before this one says 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31) All the other days of creation ended with “And God saw that it was good.”At the end of the sixth day, indeed it was very good, so good in fact, that God could rest for a day after all the work he had done creating the Heavens and the Earth and all that is in them. It was the perfect ending of all he had done. And he did it all himself; we know because he told us so. Check it out.
In another passage he declares that he, and he alone, is God: Isaiah 43:11-12 – 11 I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior. 12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed – I, and not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.”
God loves us so much he decided that he, and only he, could save us from sin and death. There are many passages in the Bible where the Lord uses this emphatic reference – I, even I or I myself – to describe the punishments he will mete out for those who are disobedient. God also uses this strongly-reflexive idiom when describing how he will protect, love, and comfort his people as in our key verse today. God did all of that himself because we could not do it at all. He began this Great Work of Salvation in Eden, and God himself proclaimed its completion from the Cross saying “It is finished.” (More on that shortly.) God himself cared for his people as a shepherd cares for the sheep of his flock. He promised them restoration to the good things they lost through their disobedience and lack of love. They – we – cannot do that ourselves. We cannot restore our lives which are lost to the wages of sin. We cannot bring salvation. There are no animal sacrifices, not a single sacramental holocaust, no redeeming acts or prayers that we can perform which will accomplish what only God himself can do. But, we still try anyway, and God himself still loves us as the sheep of his flock.
This was an image well-understood by the Children of Israel. For the nation Israel, livestock was a central component of everything from worship to shelter to clothing. Animals were important, and they were cared for as the investments they truly were. We know the story of the lost sheep. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to realize that losing one lamb would be a bad setback. Losing a ewe and her unborn lamb would be far worse. God says that he himself will be the shepherd to Israel, and for the Israelites that was a brilliant illustration. God’s “hired hands,” the Priests who were supposed to lead and protect the people, had failed in their job, so God announces, “I will do the job myself because I care about my sheep so much I don’t want them to suffer like this any longer.” Then he promises to send another Davidic Shepherd, the heir of David’s throne, and like the shepherd David, this Good Shepherd will lead God’s people in the right way, defeat God’s enemies, and establish a Kingdom where God and his Shepherd rule with justice and equity for ever.
Beloved, that is – of course – the Kingdom of God, and you and I already live there. So does every living soul on this earth. All of us live in the Kingdom of God, but not all of us are part of the Kingdom of God. If Jesus is your Shepherd, you are part of His Kingdom. If Jesus is not your Shepherd, you live in the World, but not in the Kingdom. No one is excluded from the Kingdom by the Shepherd. The only way to be excluded is to ignore the Shepherd. And if Jesus is your shepherd, then you have to go where Jesus goes; that’s what we mean when we say, “follower of Jesus.” We go where he goes, and conversely, we do not go where he does not go. God himself went to the ultimate end of it all to finish what he himself began “In the beginning,” and we must also go there, because that is where it is very good. It is where redemption is finished by God himself, and he alone can make it וַיְכֻלּ֛וּ way-ḵul-lū – completely finished. When God finished the universe, he took a rest. Then came sin, and God had to end his rest and start the process of redemption. That work was completed by God himself. How?
John 19:30 – 30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.”Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
“It is finished.“In Greek, this is Τετέλεσται, (Tetélestai) {teh-TEH-les-tie}. Some translations read, “It is consummated, “which is another appropriate translation of the word Τετέλεσται. This expression comes from a Greek word τελέω teléō {tel-eh’-o}, which also means consummation, or to complete a process all the way through the final step which means everything that needed to be done has been done. It is a fully-completed, made-to-order, exactly-right process concluded properly and correctly in every possible way. Whatever can or needs to come next can succeed because the perfect preparation for it has been completed. Wait. That sounds familiar! So, could it be that way-ḵul-lū in Hebrew and teh-TEH-les-tie in Greek have the same denotative and connotative meanings? Certainly! Jesus was there when the words of Genesis 2:1 were spoken (think of John 1:3a – All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.) God did all of it himself. We don’t have to do it – in fact, we can’t do it. We seem to have a hard time remembering that even now. Many times Israel was briefly able to toe the line, to repent and do what God had commanded; but then they forgot and went right back to ignoring good and enjoying their own version of This is MY Life. We believe we can compromise- broker a mutual agreement – with God and get a better deal.
Compromise is not a biblical word, it is not a Biblical concept, and it is not an acceptable approach to living with God in his universe; he made it, so he gets to make all the rules; we don’t. The word compromise is pretty difficult to find in the Bible. In all the versions I have, I could only find it in one – the New Jerusalem Bible, and then in only 1 verse: 2 Corinthians 6:16-18 – 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
We still believe we can substitute our idols, our ideas, our points-of-view for what God himself has decreed. Belovéd, DON’T Do It Yourself! God has already done it. It is finished. And God is uncompromisingly clear about what we must do to be what he created us to be – wholly holy. (See Leviticus 19:2 and 1 Peter 1:15-16) Come away from the World with all its compromises. Abhor and avoid what is unclean. Don’t try make a deal that will land you in the Devil’s condo at the end of time when the King separates the sheep from the goats (See Matthew 25:31-46. Seriously! Go read that while you listen to this (↔ Music Link)). God has a mansion for you that he himself has made. It’s yours for the asking because that’s what God does – he does it his way for us, with us, and about us but never without us. Why? Because he loves us!
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.
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
