Well, Yes, It Was Quite Tasty

Zeal for your house will consume me.

Heard it before? John 2:17, or Psalm 69:9. John takes the psalmist into a future tense though…

I think in the past I’ve been too metaphorical in how I’ve read this. Consume doesn’t actually mean ‘keep me interested’ or ‘be a priority’ or ‘occupy quite a large percentage of my attention’. It means ‘eat’.

It actually fits the context better to take it literally – in the psalm, and in John. Jesus’ concern for God’s house, for a meeting place between God and humanity, led him to the cross. On trumped up charges, of course, but they were based on what he said a mere two verses later.

He was consumed. And so the one who tabernacled amongst us became the one who was the temple, permanently.

 

Now, the really odd thing was how I was led to this thought by myself. Well, sort of. It was an accident. But something I wrote ten years ago (on this passage, without having understood this element properly) sent me off down the path less travelled, and it brought me out into a better place.

I can be a little slow sometimes.

Coulds, Woulds, and Wills

Richard made a nice pickup in Bible study tonight. We were looking at the cross as it reveals what’s going on in the Trinity, working our way through Matthew 26.

In the Garden, of course, Jesus prays ‘Not my will but yours’. He submits his own desire to please the Father he loves. This, we kind of expect. He’s a good Son.

But the fact that he prays it is suggestive. Could he have been more insistent and got out of the crucifixion? Would the Father have honoured such a request?

The answer comes soon afterwards. v. 53:

Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

The Son could, it seems. And the Father would. The Father would submit his own desire to please the Son he loves.

It’s a marvellous moment – when we realise that the Son is prepared to serve the Father, just as the Father is prepared to serve the Son. Not for our sake (though this is also true!), but for the sake of the other.

Either of them could pull the pin. The other would submit to it. And the world, the whole of creation, would miss its moment and be lost.

But neither did, because neither willed it. The love within the Godhead spills over into a love for that which lies outside the Godhead.