Every day someone, somehow, tries to create In us a preference for someone or something. Because of the choices we have in cars, peanut butter, and paper towels, advertisers set out to show why we should prefer one to another. We have even come to label people according to their preferences. For instance there are folks that prefer to reduce taxes and those who want to tax water from the tap. There are those who have a preference for confiscation of everyone’s stuff to hand it out among the great masses of poor folk, who strangely enough have to drink water too, and those who prefer equality of opportunity.
In the constant political positioning it is sad to watch how stuff is carried forward and carried in the front. Right now being carried to the front in political arena are folks who think that you are actually interested in learning all about them as they have their teeth cleaned and there are other folks who have such white teeth that the cannot pronounce the word “administration”, Check that out some time and watch how among that chattering classes the ones with the whitest teeth can not pronounce anything ending with “istration”. They must have some kind of appliance in their mouths that won’t let them talk properly. They have real trouble with the word ministration which means the provision or assistance of care. These folks are being carried to the front and set up for whatever ruling class will ultimately gain power and it is a bit frightening. Preference is being shown for, and people are being brought forward who, I would not want to have lunch with. That is what the word preference means – bringing something or someone forward, look around and pay attention to who or what gets pushed forward in the so called public discussion. Right now there is a man being pushed forward to be President who thought he was raised in Wales and that his family worked in coal mines. He wasn’t and they didn’t.
Yesterday we watched as God pushed His Son forward at the baptism in the Jordan. He is pushed forward out of a mass of sinful humanity and baptized, not because he needed to be but to fulfill all righteousness and sanctify the waters of our baptism. Luther said that God pushed Him forward and Jesus stuck himself into the water so that when we were baptized and came out of the water Jesus came with us and is with us forever. God showed preference for His Son and pushed Him forward into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. God pushed Him into the world to be a servant and Savior and now Jesus should be preferred by that mass of sinful humanity as Lord and Savior.
In 2 Corinthians 3 we read this –
7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8 how will the ministration of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministration of condemnation had glory, the ministration of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. 10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels.
God showed His preference in a Servant Messiah that would save all men and bring mercy and grace to all. He should ne our preference in this life and we should push him forward in our conversation and in our deeds.
