Read Psalm 78:38-43. 38Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath. 39He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again. 40How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! 41They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel. 42They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe, 43when he performed his signs in Egypt and his marvels in the fields of Zoan.
If yesterday’s passage was law (they still sinned…He killed them), then today’s passage is pure gospel (He…atoned for their iniquity).
What made the difference, you ask. Because he is compassionate. Because he remembered that we are but flesh.
And that brings us to Christ. God didn’t just remember that we are flesh and feel pity; he became flesh. The transcendent, eternal, infinite God became as a wind that passes and comes not again. Like a vapor, Jesus lived less than 40 years on the earth. But that short life was also an infinite life, a divine life, the only life that could atone for every sin. Finally Jesus was raised to live forevermore in the flesh. What compassion. What understanding. What patience. What grace. What love.
If the Israelites were admonished to remember the Exodus, how much more must we who are in Christ remember the invasion of Jesus into humanity, and the redemption of our souls from our slavery to self? How much more does to live is Christ remind us that we can trust the one experienced the flesh in our place?
Prayer. Jesus, console my heart in my failures with your never ending compassion for me. May I never forget what it took for you to redeem me, the price you paid. Amen.
To Live is Christ 