The Gravity of Understanding (Pt 5)

(Please read the previous posts, por favor)

“’This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law.” (Vs. 9)

The people heard and understood the law because of the interpretation provided by the Priests and they were broken by it. The full gravity of what was read to them fell fully on them.

Do you know what I mean by ‘gravity’?

The weightiness of fully realizing your position; the brokenness brought about by the understanding; the pain of the issue being fully known to your heart; let me do my best to help you understand what I mean by using this word.

When there are no words. When there is no consolation for one is inconsolable. When a shoulder could not bear the weight of ones grief. When one’s suffering is indeed inconceivable to other naïve hearts, when the blackness of the veil across ones face is thick and wretched. When the falling of one’s heart is a thud in one’s diaphragm. When the lump in one’s throat chokes one’s breath away. And the simple idea of present suffering doesn’t comparing to anything but sickness.

This is what I mean by ‘gravity’. This is the best way I know how to develop the idea of the people morning and weeping at the hearing of the Law. To show you a picture of pain and say this is where the people of Israel were while the law was being read.

For Scripture is steel. It is hard, it is sharp, and it hurts. Indeed it is living and active.

I often think it makes sense to do our best to stay away from the Bible. Because it does hurt, and everything within our animal flesh says stay away from those things, which hurt you, do not willingly go into a situation that would bring you pain. We don’t go around grabbing hot irons or looking for a wreck to get into, but with Scripture you are looking to be reproved, to be rebuked, to be broken, to -- at times -- leave mourning and weeping.

This is how the people of Israel reacted to the Law, the felt it’s full gravity, they felt it break them, they felt the pain of the cold steel cutting them.

But Scripture is not simply cold steel; it is also soft and warm velvet. It is velvet steel, to use a Piper-ism. For the Bible brings encouragement and hope not simply reproof.

Inside it we find the freedom to run under its authority. Inside it we know ourselves as what we are, and we see the cure. Inside it we feel the welling of our hearts and the beauty of that which is all around. Inside it we see God, we feel God, we hear God, we touch God, we know God. This is truly a great thing! This not one of thousand other “great things,” this is the one, of those genuinely great things. That God has spoken to us in his word clearly and that we are now capable, by his grace of knowing him for who he really is! What more could we want? What else could inspire?

There is satisfaction and joy found in the understanding that comes from Scripture. In the knowledge of understanding your wretchedness and the peace in knowing God’s grace. In the fear of the Lord there is wisdom to be gleaned. In the brokenness there is wholeness. In the weakness there is strength. So look at the people’s response to the priest’s prodding away from sadness.

“And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing. Because they had understood the words that were declared to them.” (Vs. 12)

It is clear from the people’s response that they were joyous.

Again let me explain the word joy, as I understand it. Joy is not simply happiness, nor is it simply excitement. For in joy there is sadness and there is brokenness, happiness and sorrow. Joy is an idea held within the heart that transcends all aspects of life, from the devastating to the amazing. Happiness is fleeting and sadness will not last, but joy goes right through the heart of both of these feelings.

“And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing. Because they had understood the words declared to them.”

Do we understand the words declared to us and are we joyous because of it? Or do we simply ascent to the facts because a man with a microphone said them? These are questions, which must needs be answered. Is there truly faith in your heart or is there nothing more than a vain heart wanting to be seen as a good thing?