SILENT WITNESS TO MISTRUST

 Genesis 31:43-55
It was also called Mizpah, because he said, "May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other" (Gen. 31:49).

SILENT WITNESS TO MISTRUST
Duane Brush

 Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" pictures neighbors reparing a stone wall between their fields. Frost's character wonders why the wall, which requires constance maintenance, is even necessary. The neighbor replies, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Mizpah, another heap of stones, marked an agreement between two men who could never trust each other- Jacob and Laban. Both were shrew scoundrels who could stretch the truth like salt water taffy. They had "history," and most of it was good. Mizpah witnessed their covenant that neither would cross to the other's side.

Every fence, every wall, every lock, every contract, every law, every nation's army is a testimony to our fallen nature. Since we cannot find security in ourselves, we seek to guarantee it by force or law.

Jesus Christ has given us a "ministry of reconciliation" (2Cor. 5:18). "For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations" (Eph. 2:14-15a). In Jesus, every barrier will one day be torn away. His cross is our "mending wall".


 Many promising reconciliations have broken down because, while both parties came prepared to forgive, neither party came prepared to be forgiven (Charles Williams).


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