Saturday: The Backward Look and the Forward!
WEEK 8
SATURDAY
THE BACKWARD LOOK AND THE FORWARD!
1 Peter 1:14-19
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke begin with genealogies, a dying kick of an ancient custom. That was the backward look. It ceased with these two writers. For the Gospels are really interested not in origins but in destinations. Mark and John strike the new note. Mark 1:1: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s Son”; it looks not back but up—and then out. And John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That too looks up—and then out.
All life was based on the new heredity—the divine heredity and the new destination—”it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him” (1 John 3:2). The human blood heredity was irrelevant, a dead leaf that dropped off.
But it hasn’t dropped off with us. We cling to these grave clothes, literally, dressing ourselves up in the clothes of our dead ancestors. The best part of some people is like potatoes—underground! And we base life upon it. Kings and queens comb the world to find royal blood for suitable marriages. Character and ability are secondary; blood is first. And some of the blood is very doubtful blood when the outcome in intelligence and ability is considered. We pass on huge fortunes to children without any thought of their character and ability to handle the fortunes for their own good and that of humanity. Heiresses flit from husband to husband, each getting a rake-off as he departs, and all this for no other reason than the heiress has certain ancestral blood in her veins.
These doubtful customs make us inwardly squirm with uneasiness, for we feel the pressure of the incompatible principle laid down by our faith, when all blood privileges were canceled and nullified by the fact that the mother of Jesus and his family did not ask for and did not get any special privileges or rights before God or people or society. The position of our faith holds the future; our customs are based on a dying order.
O Christ, we thank you for the glory of our faith. We feel our feet touch rock—the Eternal Rock. Our faith holds the Rock upon which we must build or go to pieces. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I belong not to a dead past but to a living present and a more living future.