February 20

OT – I am thinking that chapter 10 of Leviticus needs to be read at all ordination of preachers. Just as a cautionary tale, you know?
Aaron’s sons just had to try that fire out on their own, now didn’t they. I don’t know a single boy that isn’t interested in fire. So much so, that when my guys were little, we had a candle on the table for dinner every night and whoever’s day it was got to light and blow out the candle. I hoped!?! this would take away some of their interest in fires but we eventually had to work up to lighting camp fires and the grill to satisfy that. One year when I was teaching 5th grade Sunday School, I was amazed to find out that only one child out of the 15 in my class could light a match. The rest had no idea how to strike one much less safely light one. I think we have gone too far over the edge with ‘don’t play with matches’.
But back to Aaron’s sons. Rashi says that saying Aaron remained silent means that he was weeping and wailing but stopped when Moses gave the edict from God. The comment ‘still in their tunics’ meant that the fire consumed them from the inside (their soul) but left the outside intact. He also said that the caution on not drinking means that the boys HAD been drinking.
How incredibly hard it must have been to be the first priest. You sort of have to make it up as you go along and then Moses corrects you and says ‘hey, you WERE supposed to eat that goat’. Maybe our preachers are luckier than they know since they have generations of role models for the dos and don’ts of their positions. But one thing remains the same – stay away from the bottle before you light the match!

NT – Loved this animated message about the mustard seed.


Here in Georgia, mustard plants don’t grow to tree size but they do produce an overwhelming amount of greens, are virtually indestructible in the fall, winter, and spring, and then in summer, if you don’t pull them up, they ‘bolt’ or grow flowers and a seed head. These flowers are incredibly, brilliantly yellow, much like yellow mustard (although yellow mustard gets it color from turmeric, a spice, not the mustard seed). Being the somewhat lazy gardener I am, I have occasionally let a mustard plant go to seed and have always regretted it. The plant will come up anywhere and everywhere.
The Jesus in Mark always confuses me. In 3:11, he tells the people he healed NOT to say who he was. The man possessed by the demons name Legion he tells to go back to his family and give them the blow by blow. I heard a sermon one time that attempted to explain that the first was to the Jews and they didn’t believe in him and the second was to Gentiles (we know that because they were keeping pigs) and they DID believe. But the people who owned those pigs wanted to run Jesus off so that doesn’t really feel right to me.
Also, he tells the people only parables, only ‘what they can understand’. But the disciples got the full explanation. 6 verses later, they are totally stunned that he can calm a wind storm. In the words of a previous story (the paralytic lowered through the roof), which is harder – to heal a sick person or to calm the wind? Sounds like the wind would be fairly easy if healing also involved forgiveness of sins and all THAT entails.
My Harper’s Bible Dictionary calls Mark ‘the secret gospel’ because of all the secrets that are spoken, not kept, told to only a few, or seen by only a few.
In doing my research for today, I bumped into a great documentary “From Jesus to Christ”, a Frontline documentary. It is long, but it is so worth it. I watched this several years ago and while I don’t agree with all of their commentators (when have I ever???), it is very interesting and illuminating. I am putting the link here as well as up above in its on space on the sidebar.

From Jesus to Christ