What is the church? Awaited to be fêted.

What is the church?  And what can we liken it to in Genesis 45 still?

"Come down to me and do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen so that you will be near me, you and your children and your grandchildren, and your flocks and your herds and all that you have. And I will provide for you there..."

i know people who don't get the Old Testament.  They don't like it.  They think it portrays an angry God, so unlike Jesus.  But Jesus is all through out it!  It is the Old, the First, Testament, Testimony!   We are to read it looking ahead, because God was giving hints and shadows and foretastes of all to come in it.  Joe sat down on a throne and from there, through all his sufferings, he had come to a place of humility and love for those who had wronged him.  And when given the opportunity, he saved them!  He loved them!  He brought them to himself, where He was enthroned, and ate with them and fed them and cared for them all the days of his life!  

Not unlike some other guy i know.

"...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the originator and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."  Hebrews 12

"And on this mountain Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples a rich feast,
    a feast of aged wines, fat filled with marrow, filtered aged wine.
And on this mountain he will destroy the face of the shroud,
    the shroud over all peoples,
    and the woven covering over all nations.
He will destroy death forever,
    and the Lord Yahweh will wipe off the tears from all faces,
    and he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth,

for Yahweh has spoken.

And one will say, on that day,

“Look! This is our God! We have waited for him and he saved us!
    This is Yahweh; we waited for him!
Let us be glad,
    and let us rejoice in his salvation.”  Isaiah 25

The unlike Joe's brothers who had no idea what was coming, we have not one, but two Testaments set before us, the church therefore are those who endure the sufferings and afflictions and shame of their little crosses here for the joy set before them THERE!

Bathtime for Comet

(For any christian who, like me, is sometimes just sick to death of their own shyte.)

Here we go again,

Face down in a bowl of vomit

Oil on canvas heroin

Familiar ground for Joshua’s comet

Bath time again,

Cause I dragged us through the mud

Fur’s all matted with sin

I’ll get the washtub, you pour the blood

Sorry about this, Master

I wish there was more I could do

Than just sit in the holy water

While you scrub me good as new

Wish I really felt clean

Since you treat me like best in show

It’s hard to be a champ’een

When in the back of my mind I know

Your puppy with the golden tags

Will sneak back through that hole in the fence

And with my tail between my legs

Happily commit some same old, new offense

Time heals all wounds

What about wounds of guilt and shame

Is it just an ego bruised?

That makes me cringe when you call my name

I guess I thought

That some things were going to get better

But every time I’m caught

The baths just feel that much wetter.