"Design patterns” in narrative are strewn
throughout the story of the Bible's grace;
hence “Jonah’s story” quite reflects, as moon
reflects the sunlight from another place,
or time, or ethnic group, it reappears
in other settings: God “relented and
did not bring on disaster threatened clear”(1).
at first to his folk, then another land.
Another one, from Moses story too,
is when (before God makes him Ruler/Judge)
a fight between two “brothers” had ensued:
the pow'rfull one asks, and he will not budge,
he asks of the young Moses, “Who made you
a ruler and a judge who's over us?(2)
And then another Joshua asks too
by using those “same” words re. two brothers.
For when you know the story's irony
you know the answer to the question well.
and Jesus/Joshua is over me,
with whiff of God's own Cosmic Leader's “smell”.
And later on when talking “leadership”
of God's own people, he makes sport 'o the
self-centred leaders who would take a sip
of God's good wine, but turn to water the
good celebration of a faithful wife
and husband who would be true to the end.
So when Yeshua's ‘sign’(3) starts married life
he's tuning to design patterns, my friend!
(1) ‘I have seen these people,’ the Lord said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.’ But Moses sought the favour of the Lord his God. ‘ Lord ,’ he said, ‘why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance for ever.” ’ Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. Exodus 32:9-14 NIVUK
At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord told me, ‘Go down from here at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made an idol for themselves.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed! Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.’ So I turned and went down from the mountain while it was ablaze with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. When I looked, I saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your eyes. Then once again I fell prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord ’s sight and so arousing his anger. I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord , for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me. And the Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too. Deut. 9:11-20 NIVUK
“When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.” Jonah 3:10
(2) "One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no-one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, ‘Why are you hitting your brother Hebrew?’ The man said, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and thought, ‘What I did must have become known.’ When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. See Exodus 2:11-15 NIVUK
Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’ Jesus replied, ‘Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’ Luke 12:13-15 NIVUK
‘When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. He saw one of them being ill-treated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defence and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realise that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, “Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?” ‘But the man who was ill-treating the other pushed Moses aside and said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?” When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons. Acts 7:23-29 NIVUK
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