3:15 But even to
this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their
heart. 16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken
away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with
unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of
the Lord.
It was a painful time back then when Paul was living. The
once proud Jewish nation was now in tatters. It wouldn't be long before the
Romans would march in and destroy the temple pretty much ending any last bit of
national pride and unity. The children of Abraham, the people of Moses, the
kingdom of David, were a mere shadow of what they had once been. Under Solomon
monarchs came from distant lands to see the splendor of his kingdom. Now they
live under the thumb of Rome and a cloud of confusion. There was this guy who
hailed from Nazareth. He gathered a following. John the Baptist announced Him
as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world. Not even His own
disciples were sure what that meant at the time. As the months passed it became
impossible to ignore Him. Lepers were being healed. Blind people were getting
their eyesight back. The lame were walking, the mute were hearing and the dumb
were talking. He even raised people from the dead. On the flip side He showed
compassion to unclean foreigners, He respected women, He broke the Sabbath, and
had ideas and teachings that just didn't wash with what the Jewish religion
taught.
In the end the tension boiled over and even though some felt
He was the long awaited Messiah, the Seed promised through the line of Abraham,
they killed Him.
His followers opened to the leaders and the people the
writings of Moses and the prophets showing that He was the Promised One but it
was like they were the ones who were blind and deaf. Their traditions and ideas
clung to them like leprosy and they could walk in the light that was blazing
all around them.
Decades later Paul wrote to the Corinthians that still some
read the writings of Moses with the same veiled eyes. They just couldn't see
the obvious.
But. And there is always a but. But those who opened the door
even a crack to let in the fresh winds of the life generating Spirit of the
Lord caught a glimpse and that glimpse began to pulse within them. They were
able to taste and see that the Lord is good. Just as Lazarus was raised from
physical death and unwrapped and set free from the grave cloths that bound him,
so does the life giving Spirit of the Lord set us free from every false idea
that has bound us. That's the freedom Paul is talking about. The freedom to see
God as He really is. To hear what He has been trying to say for millennia. To
ascend the same mountain again yet catch an entirely new view of what we
thought we already knew.
Freedom to see, hear, think, process, understand, and embrace
Him as fully as we can, only to discover there is more and yet more. If you are
on that journey keep going. If it sounds foreign to you, open the door of your
heart and let the fresh winds of His Spirit bring new life to your soul!
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