THE LOT OF LOT
Remember Lot? Remember that he was
the Mayor of Sodom? Remember that he lived at the gate, the entrance to the
city? I believe that means he reside (literally) between things: between the
wicked city and the lands outside the city gate.
These tidbits remind me of Kadmus,
who, in the Euripidean tragedy Bakkhai,
is sentenced to perpetual shepherding of the damned. Why? Because he was
lukewarm in his earthly life., literally standing between the tangible world and the world unseen.
So I return to Lot: he was
lukewarm, too. Perhaps it is no coincidence that his wife ended up looking back
as they fled God’s destruction of their former city. She had been warned about
this. But, like Eve, she was tempted and turned into a pillar of salt. In
Revelation 3, Jesus speaks to the churches about leaving their First Love and
to the church of Laodicea about being neither cold nor hot. “As many
as I love I rebuke and chasten. Therefore
be zealous and repent (Revelation 3:14-21).”
God is not mean, but I believe He
means what He says. And He says, in Matthew 14:25-27 that we are to keep our
eyes FIXED on Jesus, who stands beyond the “boat” in which we are located, and
He is beckoning us to come to Him. “Therefore Jesus… suffered outside the gate. So, let us go out to
Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting
city, but we are seeking the city which is to come (Hebrews 13:12-14).”
No comments:
Post a Comment