I walk among you, I will be your God and you shall be my people.
In the religious sense, the word "will" literally means "alliance" . On this day of National Day, the Lord's promise that He made this covenant with a chosen people first, whose ancestor was Abraham (Gen. 12:2,3), takes on special meaning.
History teaches us that there are almost 720 years, three cantons united and gave birth to what became the Swiss Confederation.
The Bible teaches us that the descendants of the Patriarch Abraham become the people God chose for his people "I am your God and you shall be my people" . God's people suffered as slaves in Egypt. After many attempts to Pharaoh to win freedom, Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land. The encounter with the Lord is always in motion, walking in, long, painful and sometimes discouraging.
Closer to us, Christ came. He, too, many market to announce a coming Kingdom, to heal those excluded from society "good thinking". Jesus gave up his life to justify us before the Father, like many soldiers, past and present, will give up their lives for an ideal they believe is right.
Jesus Christ came to fulfill the Law, the Law of the Covenant, this exclusivity between a God very different from the gods of neighboring peoples, and a people, not so different. But Jesus did more: he opened the way for God to all peoples, all those circumcised or not, Jewish or not, children are recognized, the son and daughters of the God of Love.
On this day of National Day, we celebrate the patriotic values, we remember that if our country can enjoy peace and justice between men on, he had to fight, it took itself apart from external powers. The birth of Switzerland has been at the forceps!
not forget that if today we can count on the covenant that God made with a small people doomed to slavery, because the Lord had a plan: the make all mankind one people like children by him. To achieve this, men have suffered, fought, Christ died on the cross, but God has remained faithful to his promise: "I will walk among you, I will be your God and you shall be my people" .
Image source: personal photo (c) in July 2008.
