The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Associate Pastor
When you are reading your bible to yourself, or to your children, or listening to it, keep your eyes and ears perked to listen to repeated phrases and words.
For example, we all know from Genesis 3:15 that Jesus is going to crush the “head of the serpent.” But then throughout the scriptures, you read about all these evil people, who get crushed heads: Sisera (tent peg to the head), Abimelech (mill stone head-wound), Goliath (rock to the forehead), Absalom (tree fork head crush), and many others. But they are all consummated in Jesus’ death on the cross, where as King, he crushes the serpent on the head, putting death to death. All the while with his feet over the “place of the skull”! His actual death pictured this victory!
Another theme to listen for is “thorns.” That’s part of the curse upon Adam for not faithfully listening to God’s word. He rebelled. Guess what? Throughout the scriptures rebellious people are linked with thorns and the curse. Jotham gave a story to the rebellious who followed Abimelech after killing the sons of Gideon: they would be led by bramble/thorns to their death. Gideon had whipped 77 elders of Succoth after refusing to help him in pursuit of the enemy kings. Throughout the Proverbs the lazy are surrounded by thorns. But in the end? Jesus has a crown of thorns on his head, in his death, signifying he’s taken the curse for us!
Here’s one more: spears. King Saul is always portrayed as carrying a spear. We are told, though, in 1 Samuel 13:22, that most people are without spears. Later on, the first character with a spear is Goliath, a Philistine, who wants to kill David. David, by contrast, never uses a spear. The spear, in this section of the bible, is an oppressive power tool, and it’s linked with the wicked king Saul, acting like the kings of the nations around him, like a Philistine. So how does this “spear” motif point to Jesus? I’ll let you meditate on that!