Emma of Pensacola, meet Simon of Cyrene — part 2

The Word for today:
Judges 2:6–3:6

Our schedule says we are in the book of Judges, but we’re still talking about Simon of Cyrene from the gospel of Mark. So what gives?

We were detained by an important question from Emma of Pensacola concerning Simon of Cyrene, so we decided to answer it before moving on to Judges. Emma’s question was prompted by the article we published two days ago. The first part of our reply was posted yesterday. We will catch up to the Judges tomorrow.

***

Q. I am intrigued by Simon of Cyrene and I would like to know if there are any “theological implications” that we should know about.

A. First let me say that Stand in the Rain does not consult theological textbooks. We just look to see how a character fits into God’s great Story. The Bible is a storybook, not a textbook—and when we begin to see it that way, these questions often answer themselves.

So that’s what we want you to do. We want you to see scripture as a story, and from the story derive the answers yourself…

1. We told you in yesterday’s article that Simon and his sons had traveled to Jerusalem all the way from Cyrene (in North Africa) for the Feast of Passover. This is your biggest clue from the story of scripture.

2. Now go to Exodus 12:1-7 and read what each family was required to provide for the Passover.

3. Now turn to John 1:29 and see through the eyes of John the Baptist as he identified the fulfillment of that “thing” required for Passover.

4. Now consider that it was the Law of Moses which required that this item be brought for the Passover ritual. In Simon’s brief story, can you find any representatives of “the law” --

A man named Simon from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was coming from the fields to the city. The soldiers forced Simon to carry the cross for Jesus. (Mark 15:21)

Train yourself to see the Bible for what it is -- a Story good and true, not a textbook of systematic theology. Work hard to overcome the mistaken notion that the “moral of the story" is the point. When reading the Bible, the point of the Story is the Story itself. Let me repeat that:

The point of God's Great Story is the story—its plot, and especially its great Character-- itself!

That’s why we were disdainful of reducing Simon of Cyrene to a theological precept. He is representative of way more than that…

When the solders of Rome (representative of the law) compelled Simon of Cyrene to bring Jesus to the place where his blood would be spilled on a cross, it was a virtual re-enactment of Passover.

At Passover, the Mosaic Law required that the blood of a lamb be applied to the posts and the lintel (the upper crosspiece) of a door frame. When the blood was applied, the death angel passed over the sins of those inside (who were said to be “under the blood.”)

Simon of Cyrene, then, is representative of the person who brings Jesus, the Lamb of God, as his sacrifice for sin. Simon, with the cross slung over one shoulder and Jesus, at times, slung over the other shoulder, isn’t representative of a dry idea, but of all the people who are under the beams and under the blood. And that means you, Emma of Pensacola.

And so we’ll end today’s article where we met you two days ago, when we said that you must no longer see yourself as just a Bible reader, on the outside looking in.

“There you are on the page with Jesus,” we wrote, “so walk right into the Story and become one with it.”

Simon of Cyrene, meet Emma of Pensacola. Emma of Pensecola, meet Sinon of Cyrene. Simon and Emma, meet Jesus of Nazareth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Simon of Cyrene, meet Emma of Pensacola -- part 1

The Word for today:
Judges 1:1-2:5

Stand in the Rain is gratified by the response to yesterday’s article about Simon of Cyrene.

One faithful reader made the following request, with which we are happy to comply:

Dear Sir,

I read Stand in the Rain every day, so I think I’ve earned this request. I know that tomorrow we leave the gospel of Mark and turn to the book of Judges. But could you please delay your Judges introduction for a day in order to respond to my question…

Your Simon of Cyrene article contained this quizzical comment:

“I’m not sure of the theological implications of helping God get up so he could die on a cross instead of the street. I’m not sure there are any theological implications. And, to tell you the truth, if there are I don’t really want to know.”

With all due respect, Sir, I am intrigued by Simon of Cyrene and I would like to know if there are any “theological implications” that we should know about. Your comment “begged the question,” so now I’m “begging for an answer.”

Thank you,
Emma of Pensacola

***

Dear Emma,

We’d be happy to delay Judges for a day in order to reply. So taken are we, in fact -- by both you and your question -- that we have decided to honor this teachable moment with a two-day article. The Judges will just have to cool their heels ‘til we get there…


We’ll begin our answer by looking at your question again:

Q. I am intrigued by Simon of Cyrene and I would like to know if there are any “theological implications” that we should know about.

A. First let me say that Stand in the Rain does not consult theological textbooks. We just look to see how a character fits into God’s great Story. The Bible is a storybook, not a textbook -- and when we begin to see it that way, these questions often answer themselves.

So that’s what we want you to do. We want you to see scripture as a story, and from the story derive the answers yourself. We will help you find the answers about Simon of Cyrene by first giving you some questions to ponder (and look up in your Bible) overnight:

1. We told you in yesterday’s article that Simon and his sons had traveled to Jerusalem all the way from Cyrene (in North Africa) for the Feast of Passover. This is your biggest clue from the story of scripture.

2. Now go to Exodus 12:1-7 and read what each family was required to provide for the Passover.

3. Now turn to John 1:29 and see through the eyes of John the Baptist as he identified the fulfillment of that “thing” required for Passover.

4. Now consider that it was the Law of Moses which required that this item be brought for the Passover ritual. In Simon’s brief story, can you find any representatives of “the law” --

A man named Simon from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was coming from the fields to the city. The soldiers forced Simon to carry the cross for Jesus.
(Mark 15:21)


Ponder these questions overnight, Emma. We can answer them tomorrow, but by then you will already know exactly who it is that Simon, theologically, represents. I daresay, Emma, that you will even know her middle name--and even some of her secrets!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

just for an afternoon

The Word for today:
Mark 16: 9-20

And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. (Mark 15:21)

In my footloose, bohemian days, I went to New York City all the time. Maybe a dozen times a year, I used to go to New York just for an afternoon.

When I say “just for an afternoon,” I’m not referring to the length of my stay. I mean that the afternoon was what I went there to do. And New York was the perfect setting for an afternoon perfectly played.

Beginning in the wee hours of Saturday morning, I’d drive from Buffalo to New Paltz, where there were college friends who would take me in for the night. Then I’d take the train to New York, where I did what I came for—the afternoon.

Then I’d get on the train back to New Paltz and sleep through what was left of the night. Then I’d drive back to Buffalo on Sunday. Ahh, youth.

As I said, I didn’t just spend the afternoon, I did the afternoon. It was sort of like performance art before there was such a thing.

Most of the time I did much of nothing, which was the best part of the whole production.
But sometimes I actually went somewhere specific. I sometimes went to the public library, which is my favorite place in New York. I went to the Metropolitan Art Museum. I sat in the bleachers in right field at Yankee Stadium, which is a lot like going to the zoo and a baseball game at the same time.

Now and then I went to experimental theatre or improvisational comedy clubs. One time I walked into an improv place and I had no sooner gotten a beer and was making my way across the room to an open table when I was whisked away by two extremely attractive women!

They sort of guided me between the tables towards a storage room behind the stage.

When we got there they wanted to know, “Are you ready to be a star?”

“I was ready to drink this beer.”

“Oh, we’ll get you more of those if you’ll play a part in our play.”

Those were fair terms, so a deal was struck. I was to play a rather artsy professor. I was given a tweed coat, eyeglasses without lenses, a black beret, the gist of a plot, and a few examples of the situations that might arise. Then they told me to put on the coat and the glasses and “become” the character. “Respond with a sentence to whatever sentence we speak,” I was told. “Say the first thing that comes to mind.” So I did. And for 20 minutes, I was a star, with two free beers to boot.

***

Simon of Cyrene was impressed into duty in much the same way. From his home in North Africa, he’d come all the way to Jerusalem for the Passover. He’d brought his sons along for their very first time.

Turning a corner, they were met by a gruesome procession. Battered and bloodied men were making their way through the narrow streets, carrying heavy beams that must have weighed 50 pounds.

Though he himself was a very big man, he was suddenly nearly lifted off the ground by two burly centurions, one at each side. They hustled him forward until at his feet was a man who’d been so severely beaten that his face was a featureless pulp.

He was ordered to carry the beaten man’s beam. So he placed one of its ends over his left shoulder. Then he offered his right hand to the condemned man.

The heat was rising, the road was uphill, and the suffering man was unable to stay on his feet for more than a few minutes at a time.

Over the final steps of their ascent, Simon had to carry the man in the same way he’d sometimes carried his sons when they were too tired to walk.

With a beam over one shoulder and a man over the other, it was almost more than Simon could bear, but there were just a few steps remaining. Then he dropped the beam to the pavement and slowly lowered the man to the ground.

***

I’m not sure of the theological implications of helping God get up so he could die on a cross instead of the street.

I’m not sure there are any theological implications. And, to tell you the truth, if there are I don’t really want to know.

What I do know is that there will come a day when, suddenly, you are offered a part in God’s Story. You’re no longer just an onlooker, just a Bible reader. There you are on the page with Jesus.

Above all else, take the cue. None of us, in any cosmic sense, are playwrights. We are bit players at best, who know not the whole, just our role. So you will not understand what is going on as you are swept along into circumstances that are neither of your making nor of your choosing.

There will be time to ask questions later, but for now just play the part you’re called to play. Play that part with all your heart. Lend God the hand he gave you. Put your back into it if need be. Walk right into the Story and become one with it, even if it’s just for an afternoon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the church of Barabbas

The Word for today:
Mark 15:42-16:8

Now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them, saying, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, "Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?" And they cried out again, "Crucify him." And Pilate said to them, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they shouted all the more, "Crucify him." So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. (Mark 15:6-15)


I usually don’t feel comfortable in a church. I’m probably wrong to think this way, but whenever I go into a church I feel that I’m among a bunch of squeaky-clean people who will never know me.

I once had a long talk with a pastor who was reputed to be doctrinally and personally pure. Over the course of a long afternoon, I guided him through a tour of the twisted passages in my mind. Attempting to empathize, he confessed to me that he, too, was a sinner.

This was not news to me, but it sounded like news to him. “I have searched my past,” he began, “and it reveals that I am a glutton. That’s my sin.”

He had a nearly perfect physique and could probably beat everyone his age in a 5k race, but he looked right at me and told me his besetting sin was common gluttony. In confessing his sin, he was patting himself on the back.

I waited for his confession of other sins. He was visually struggling to come up with something—anything—else to confess. But, honest as he was, he could not tell a lie! There was no other way in which he could admit that he had fallen short of the glory of God.

I wish he had asked me, because I knew a long list of ways that he fell short. And over the course of the next year or two, I got around to telling him some of the items on that list. I even got around to telling him that the only sin I could think of that he had not committed was gluttony!

Churches are full of people like that, who mange to pat themselves on the back even while, ostensibly, in the act of contrition.

That’s why I spend more time in my Bible than in a church. In my Bible are some people who understand me. For example, both thieves on the cross understand me (though only one of them understood Jesus.)

In my Bible live a whole congregation of ne’er-do-wells like Samson and Rahab and Jacob and David and Nadab and Abihu and Ananias and Sapphira and Barabbas. I’m at home when I am with them.

Barabbas, especially, understands me. He is a notorious sinner like I am, and the cross Jesus died on was literally meant for him. I mean that if they were to find the true cross of Jesus Christ, on the back of the beam somewhere they would find Barabbas’ name bespattered by the blood. I feel more than just a kinship with him. We might as well be twins.

If ever I were to start a church, I would call it the church of Barabbas. In order to be a member, you would have to verify that somewhere in the Kidron Valley, beneath the accumulated garbage and rubble of twenty centuries, lies a cross with your name on it.

If you meet that single criterion, you are always welcome to join. I hope you do, ‘cause you will love the church of Barabbas. You will swear it’s exactly like heaven, where only a “Barabbas” ("son of Abba”) is allowed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the alchemy of God

The Word for today:
Mark 15:22-41



Supposedly, Jesus was on trial. But you’d never know it by his regal and disdainful demeanor. By the time the trial was over, the reader has the distinct impression that the guy in the chains—the one who was blindfolded, beaten, mocked, scourged, spit upon, and then crucified—was in charge, even in command the whole while.

In order to account for this remarkable role reversal, Stand in the Rain has endeavored, over the last few days, to view the trial of Jesus through the King’s eyes.

We believe that Jesus had already witnessed his trial via the prophetic scriptures. It is our hypothesis that his calm assurance throughout the entire ordeal originated in his utter trust of God’s Word, which showed him that the accusers, not the accused, were on trial—and that their indictments would ultimately indict themselves.

***

A well-known Bible verse tells us that God is not mocked (1). Believe it. No matter how much you may hear God being ridiculed, he is ultimately never demeaned—because somehow or another, mockery of God actually transubstantiates into his glory:

Surely the wrath of man shall praise Him. (Psalms 76:10)

Jesus had already seen his trial played out in scripture:

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
"Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill."
I will tell of the decree:
The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Psalms 2:2-9)

He held them in derision, knowing that their accusations would one day turn against them:

The wicked plots against the just,
And gnashes at him with his teeth.
The Lord laughs at him,
For He sees that his day is coming.
The wicked have drawn the sword
And have bent their bow,
To cast down the poor and needy,
To slay those who are of upright conduct.
Their sword shall enter their own heart. (Psalms 37:12-15)

God says the same about us. When enemies ridicule us, they are only heaping the coals of their penal fires higher:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God,
for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."
To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." (Romans 12:19-20)

We should not set out to pick a fight with the enemies of God. Instead, we must – as Jesus did -- remember the concept of spiritual alchemy:

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12)

Alchemy was the medieval quest to turn baser metals (lead, tin, etc.) into gold. The alchemists never succeeded, but (just as in salvation) what we cannot achieve, God can. God has already turned the wrath of Jesus’ enemies into praise. In the same way, any derision we face for his sake he will turn into gold:

Do not fear what you are about to suffer… Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. (Revelation 2:10)

The prophetic scriptures say that you will inherit a crown. So, in the meantime, walk like the King:

The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?
The LORD is on my side as my helper; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. (Psalms 118:6-7)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Galatians 6:7

I wouldn’t do that if I were you.

The Word for today:
Mark 15:1-21

Yesterday, we saw Jesus turn the tables on his accusers. Suddenly, in the midst of his interrogation before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, Jesus made it perfectly clear to them that they were the ones who were on trial...

When Caiaphas, the high priest, asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" Jesus answered,

"I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." (Mark 14:61-62)

Jesus' answer was far more than just a “Yes” to Caiaphas’ question. It was also a terrible warning, alluding to three Old Testament messianic passages to tell them that he was their coming Judge!

“You will see…”
Isaiah 52:8 says, “When the LORD returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes.”

“…the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power…"
Psalm 110:1 adds, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’”

“…and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Daniel 7:13 records, "I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.”

“You are judging me, but I will judge you,” Jesus was saying to Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin

***

A well-known Bible verse tells us that God is not mocked (1). Believe it. No matter how much you may hear God being ridiculed, he is ultimately never demeaned -- because somehow or another, mockery of God actually transubstantiates into his glory:
Surely the wrath of man shall praise Him. (Psalms 76:10)

Jesus had already seen his trial played out in scripture:

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill."
I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Psalms 2:2-9)

He held them in derision, knowing that their accusations would one day turn against them:

The wicked plots against the just,
And gnashes at him with his teeth.
The Lord laughs at him,
For He sees that his day is coming.
The wicked have drawn the sword
And have bent their bow,
To cast down the poor and needy,
To slay those who are of upright conduct.
Their sword shall enter their own heart. (Psalms 37:12-15)

Mankind presumes to judge God. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Galatians 6:7

I am; and you shall see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power.

The Word for today:
Mark 14:53-72

 

Here’s a tough one for ya:

Q. That’s my picture on the one-dollar bill. Who am I?

Congratulations! If you answered “George Washington,” then you are not brain-dead.

On the other hand, if the answer to that question somehow eluded you, then you are as brain-dead as the people who insist that Jesus never claimed to be God.

Jesus consistently and persistently said he was God, and in a variety of ways. He said it directly and indirectly, prosaically and poetically, plainly and metaphorically. Even more impressively, he repeatedly demonstrated that he is the Creator God -- who made something out of nothing -- when he fed the 15,000; that he is the Sovereign God of the natural realm (when he calmed the sea and walked on the water); that he is the Lord of the supernatural realm (when he expelled the demons); that he is the Redeemer God (when he died and rose again).

But if it’s words they want, then let’s consider a single verse from today’s reading. When Caiaphas, the high priest, asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" Jesus answered,

"I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." (Mark 14:61-62)

First, Jesus answered plainly, directly, and prosaically: “I am.”

Then he answered more powerfully. When he evoked famous images from the Old Testament, it was (for his listeners) the cultural equivalent (in our day) of being asked, “Are you the Father of our Country, the First President of the United States?” and replying—

“I am; that’s my picture on the one-dollar bill.”

***

Jesus' answer was far more than just a “Yes” to Caiaphas’ question. It was also a terrible warning, alluding to three Old Testament messianic passages to tell them that he was their coming Judge!

“You will see…”
Isaiah 52:8 says, “When the LORD returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes.”

“…the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power…"
Psalm 110:1 adds, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’”

“…and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Daniel 7:13 records, "I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.”

***

“You are judging me, but I will judge you,” Jesus was saying to Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. He’d turned the tables once again, putting them on trial. They were the words of God Himself, passing sentence on the leadership of Israel. They are the only words he spoke to them.

A person today, just as Caiaphas then, can deny that Jesus is the Son of God. But they can't deny that Jesus made that claim. And they can't deny that the Bible teaches Jesus' divinity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

so much for the halo

The Word for today:
Mark 14:27-52

And immediately, while He was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, with a great multitude with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.
Now His betrayer had given them a signal, saying, "Whomever I kiss, He is the One; seize Him and lead Him away safely."
As soon as He had come, immediately he went up to Him and said to Him, "Rabbi, Rabbi!" and kissed Him.
Then they laid their hands on Him and took Him.
(Mark 14:43-46)



You will notice in the passage above that Judas had to pre-arrange a signal that would identify Jesus to a multitude who were sent to seize him. So much for the halo.

A sharp-eyed reader will note that Stand in the Rain rarely shows anything other than a stylized picture of Jesus—perhaps a line drawing, or an indistinct abstraction of his features.

We are not avoiding pictures of Jesus because we are super-duper saints who wish to remain doctrinally pristine. No, the real reason we don’t use pictures of Jesus is because we rarely find any that we like.

Every Jesus picture I have ever seen bothers me in one way or another. Half of them make him out to look like my fairy godmother. Of the half remaining, half of those make him out to look like my hairy godfather.

Of the remaining quarter, half of those stick a halo on his head.

And the remaining one-eighth are just bad art.

We mis-characterize Jesus when we give him a halo or in some other way make our Redeemer look any different than we shmoes whom he redeemed. In fact, there are theological imperatives (kenosis, incarnation, vicarious substitutionary atonement, etc.) that leave us with just one true picture of Jesus. William Blake, the great Christian mystical poet, drew that picture with these modest and half-humorous words:

The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision’s greatest enemy.
Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
Mine has a snub nose like to mine… (1)

The only time you and I see a scripturally-authorized picture of how Jesus might have looked is when we are brushing our teeth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) from “The Everlasting Gospel,” circa 1818

"Is it I?"

The Word for today:
Mark 14:1-26


I am always astonished by this scripture:

And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me." They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, "Is it I?"
(Mark 14:16-19)

“Is it I?” Every one of the disciples knew they were sinners capable of betraying Jesus. To which I must say, on behalf of myself and the American church, “Look how far we have fallen!”

Most of the Christians I know see someone else in these lines. Their reactions, upon reading this passage, sound something like this:

“Why those dastardly disciples…those traitors…those fair weather friends…”

But until this passage causes us to reflexively echo “Is it I?” then the blessings of the First Beatitude -- "Blessed are the poor in spirit” -- are not yet ours.

Those men that were in the Upper Room with Jesus became the core of a cohort that was about to turn the world inside out and upside down.

They were soon to witness the resurrection and be imbued with the Holy Spirit of God. Then they would shake the planet to its foundations.

You and I have all the proof of the resurrection that they had, and we have been imbued with the same Spirit. What we don’t have is the sense of spiritual poverty that caused each disciple to ask Jesus, “Is it I?”

To a man, the disciples all fled from Jesus that night (1); the unspoken answer to “Is it I?” is “Yes it is.”

Unless the church reaches the point where we ask the same question and become convinced of the same answer, then we will never light up the world like those dastardly disciples did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Mark 14:50

the spirit of prophecy -- part 2

The Word for today:
Mark 13:24-37

Chapter 13 of Mark is known as the "Olivet Discourse" (1), so called because Jesus answered these questions while he was on the Mount of Olives:
Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?"   (Mark 13:3-4)

Yesterday, we learned that God verified the words of his prophets with a simple test. They had to predict local current events so that the people would know they were genuine.

Isaiah, for example, told King Hezekiah that not an arrow would enter the city, even though there were 200,000 trigger-happy Assyrian soldiers surrounding the city's walls.

The prophets were to be listened to because they told the truth; the truth that would prepare the people to hear--and believe--the final messenger, Jesus Christ:
"For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." (Revelation 19:10)

***

People ask, "Why doesn't God reveal himself today?"

Because, in the person of Jesus Christ, God put the period at the end of the sentence:
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.   (Hebrews 1:1-2a)

God hasn't any more to say to this world than he has said in Jesus Christ. He is God's ultimate, full, and final revelation to man. If God were to speak out of heaven at this present moment, he would just repeat himself.

As the final prophetic message of God's ultimate prophet, the Olivet Discourse completes many prophetic strands that weave their way all the way through scripture.

Even its setting has prophetic significance. The Mount of Olives is the place from which the Shekinah glory had departed, the place (unbeknownst to the disciples at the time) where Jesus would ascend, and the place to which he will return.

Furthermore, the arrivals and departures of Israel are clarified in the Olivet Discourse. Scripture prophesies three times of dispossession (when Israel would be forced to depart from the Promised Land) and three re-possessions, when they would return (2).

The first dispossession (to slavery in Egypt) was prophesied to Abraham in Genesis 15:13. The next dispossession was the Babylonian captivity, which is prophesied throughout scripture, most prominently in Jeremiah. The third dispossession is the one forced upon them by Rome, which began (just as Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse) with the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. --
"Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down."   (Mark 13:2)

Altogether, scripture prophesies three dispossessions and three returns. Of these six prophecies, five have been literally fulfilled. We can be certain that the final repossession (which may or may not be in its initial stages right now) will be just as literally fulfilled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Parallel versions of the Olivet Discourse are found in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.
(2) Deuteronomy 28 gathers many of these prophecies together.

the spirit of prophecy -- part 1

The Word for today:
Mark 13:1-23

"For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."  (Revelation 19:10)

***

Chapter 13 of Mark is known as the "Olivet Discourse" (1),  so called because Jesus answered these questions while he was on the Mount of Olives:
Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?"  (Mark 13:3-4)



From the Mount of Olives, Jesus and the disciples were looking across the Kidron Valley at the buildings on the Temple Mount. Jesus had already told them that the Temple would not stand:
"Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down."  (Mark 13:2)

It was Jesus' final week. The cross awaited him. The Garden of Gethsemane was nearby, just a stone’s throw away from where he sat as he gave his farewell prophecy.

Stand in the Rain has previously addressed some of the specifics of the Olivet Discourse.  So over the next few days we will endeavor to leave you with a sense of where the Olivet Discourse fits into biblical prophecy at large.

***

One of the unique characteristics of the Word of God is that it moves beyond the future. (Many people consider fulfilled prophecy the greatest proof that the Bible is, indeed, the Word of God.)

God alone can predict the future, for it belongs to him. The future is an area in which man has never been given dominion. To be sure, some present-day “prophets” have predicted certain future events, but none of them have proved to be 100% correct.

False prophets, seeking the status and position that belonged to the true prophet of God, arose in Israel as well. So God laid down a test by which the people could be certain whether a prophet was genuine or phony.

Let’s look at an example. Isaiah prophesied that a virgin would conceive and bring forth a son. He then clearly marked out the coming of the Christ—his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection and their significance.

Suppose someone had asked Isaiah when all this would take place. He would have answered that he was not quite sure, but that it could be hundreds of years. (Actually it was seven hundred years.)

The crowd would laugh and say that they would never be around to know whether he was telling the truth or not. So the test was this: all the prophets had to speak into a local situation that would come to pass right away.  Any “prophet” who was not completely accurate was summarily stoned to death.

We can look back and know that Isaiah was completely accurate about the Christ to come. But the proof for the people of his day was that Isaiah went to King Hezekiah to tell him very specific details concerning a local current event...

There was a great Assyrian army of “trigger-happy” soldiers surrounding the city, but Isaiah said that not one arrow would enter the city:

"And this is what the LORD has said about the Assyrian emperor: 'He will not enter this city or shoot a single arrow against it. No soldiers with shields will come near the city, and no siege mounds will be built around it. He will go back by the same road he came, without entering this city. I, the LORD, have spoken."  (Isaiah 37:33-34)

Hundreds of thousands of Assyrians, and every one of them had a bow and arrows. You’d think that many of them would shoot arrows into the city for the sheer hell of it. But if even one arrow were to fly over the wall, Isaiah was not speaking for God.

All the prophets passed similar tests. They were to be listened to because they told the truth; the truth which would prepare the people to hear--and believe--the final messenger, Jesus Christ:

"For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."  (Revelation 19:10)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Parallel versions of the Olivet Discourse are found in Matthew 24 and Luke 21

that's all

The Word for today:
Mark 12:28-44

Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. (Mark 12:29-30)

For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her poverty did cast in all that she had, even all her living. (Mark 12:44)

***

Yesterday, Jesus encouraged us to spend our lives. Naturally, the question arises: How much of our lives should we spend?

Today he answers that question with a story concerning a poor widow. The widow is an inspiration, for she in her own way is a picture of God.

She gave absolutely everything she had. God did no less, giving Jesus, who is all in all (1) as a ransom for sinners like you and me.

If you want to emulate Jesus Christ, throw away the calculator and decide, once and for all, that you are not going to deal in percentages and half measures any more. You will hardly believe how free you will feel on the day you decide to give it everything you’ve got.

My favorite word in the Great Commandment goes almost unnoticed, even though it appears five different times. Let’s see if you can find it:

Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. (Mark 12:29-30)

Let’s see if you can find the same word in Jesus’ praise for the widow:
For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her poverty did cast in all that she had, even all her living. (Mark 12:44)

We may not have a lot to give, but we can give our all. No one has more than that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Ephesians 1:23

spend your life

The Word for today:
Mark 12:1-27

Then they sent to Him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians, to catch him in his words. When they had come, they said to him, "Teacher, we know that you are true, and care about no one; for you do not regard the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Shall we pay, or shall we not pay?" But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, "Why do you test me? Bring me a denarius that I may see it." So they brought it. And he said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?" They said to him, "Caesar's." And Jesus answered and said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they marveled at him.
(Mark 12:13-17)



Stand in the Rain will be very brief today, because we want to leave you with time to think. So let’s put on our thinking caps and fill in some blanks…

“Whose image is upon this coin?”

“Caesar’s”

"Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.”

***

We’ve all heard that part, but Jesus purposefully leaves a more important question hanging in mid-air, with its answer unspoken. He expects that we will fill in the blanks that he left us. So let’s do it:

“Whose image is upon you?”

(“___’s”)

“Then render unto (___) the things that are (___’s).”

***

Just as Jesus did, we’ve left the blanks for you to fill in. If you are stumped, bring this riddle to the attention of an experienced Bible student.

After you fill in the blanks and grasp Jesus’ unspoken message, then your assignment is to spend your life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Have the faith of God." – part 2

The Word for today:
Mark 11:20-33


And Jesus answered them, "Have the faith of God." (Mark 11:22, literally rendered)

Yesterday, we saw that at the cross Jesus took all our sin--including any degree of unbelief-- and credited to our accounts all of God's righteousness--including his perfect faith.

The faith of God has been made over to us. It’s in the bank, so to speak, just waiting to be withdrawn.

So when Jesus, in Mark 11:22, tells us to "Have the faith of God,” he isn’t telling us to search for something we’ll never possess. It’s already ours, just waiting to be claimed.

Other Bible passages allude to this precept:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:8-9)

Another remarkable passage tells us that the people of Israel were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. (1 Corinthians 10:2)

Here, it is helpful to understand that baptism means “to identify.” (When we go under the water, we identify with Christ’s death and burial. The water merely helps us to visualize this spiritual precept.)

So what could it mean that they were “baptized into Moses”?

Hebrews 11:29 says that by faith they passed through the Red Sea. Whose faith was it? It certainly was not theirs! They wanted to go back to Egypt, and blamed Moses for bringing them out into that awful wilderness. It was Moses’ faith that brought them through.

“Baptized into Moses” means that they identified with Moses’ faith. Indeed, God identified them with Moses' faith. Moses' faith, in God's eyes, was theirs!

In the same way, at the cross all the righteousness of Jesus Christ, including his faith, has been credited to our accounts. Jesus' faith, in God's eyes, is ours!

So why should we count on our measly faith, when we can count on faith that knows no bounds? Just as Israel identified with Moses’ faith, we are to identify with Jesus’ faith until it becomes the operating principle of our lives.

So go ahead and start to see with his faith, start to walk by his faith, start to think with his faith. Keep on practicing until you can’t tell the difference between Jesus' faith and your own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Have the faith of God." – part 1

The Word for today:
Mark 11:1-19



Let’s take a look at Mark 11:22:
And Jesus answered them, "Have faith in God.”

Nothing there, it seems, that the Bible doesn’t tell us a thousand times.  But if we render the original Greek words literally, Mark 11:22 reads:

And Jesus answered them, "Have the faith of God”.

Do you notice the difference?   Does the difference make any difference to you?

It makes a lot of difference to those who struggle with faith and unbelief, like this man did:
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

I pray that prayer often.  I have faith in Jesus, so I am saved.  But I do not have the faith that walks on water.  I, like the disciples, am of little faith (1).  So what can I do about it?

What we can do is appropriate God’s faith as our own.  That may sound way out there, so let’s look to the cross for the explanation.  On the cross, we gave Jesus our sin, and he gave us the righteousness of God:
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus took the entire list of our sins. One of those sins is our unbelief—to whatever degree we have it.  What we received, among other attributes of God’s righteousness, was God’s faith.

So when Jesus, in Mark 11:22, tells us to "Have the faith of God,” he isn’t telling us to search for something we’ll never possess.  It’s already ours, just waiting to be claimed. 

Other Bible passages allude to this precept:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
(Ephesians 2:8-9)

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:8-9)

The faith of God has been made over to us.  It’s in the bank, so to speak, just waiting to be withdrawn.

Tomorrow, we’re going to the bank.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1) Matthew 6:30; 14:31, etc.

face to face with the light of the world

The Word for today:
Mark 10:32-52

Now they came to Jericho. As He went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Then many warned him to be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. Then they called the blind man, saying to him, "Be of good cheer. Rise, He is calling you." And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus. So Jesus answered and said to him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" The blind man said to Him, "Rabboni, that I may receive my sight." Then Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your faith has made you well." And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.   (Mark 10:46-52)



The first thing Bartimaeus ever saw is the face of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World:

"Go your way; your faith has made you well." And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road. (Mark 10:52)

The scene is laden with metaphorical and spiritual beauty. Let me count (a few of) the ways…

Let there be Light.
In a replay of creation, Bartimaeus’ world was dark and formless. Then, in an instant, at the say-so of God, appeared the Light of the World.

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  (2 Corinthians 4:6)

For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.  (Psalms 36:9)

Let there be sight.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.  (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Let there be glory.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  (1 John 3:2)

***

On a literal level (the level on which the Bible is written) we cannot enter into the story of blind Bartimaeus.  Because we are not literally blind, the story is about somebody else.

But on a literary level (the level on which the Bible is written) we are all Bartimaeus, following Jesus down the road:

"I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life." (John 8:12)

We are not Bartimaeus, and we are not blind.  But we are, and we were -- until Jesus came down the road.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a rich young ruler meets a rich young ruler

The Word for today:
Mark 10:17-31

Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?"
So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Do not defraud,' 'Honor your father and your mother.' "
And he answered and said to Him, "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth."
Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me."
But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:17-22)



One day, a rich young man met a poor young man.

The poor man was Jesus. We don't know the rich man's name, so over the years Bible scholars have called him "the rich young ruler." As they spoke, Jesus looked upon him with both sadness and love.

Jesus spoke patiently, attempting to draw the very best out of him. He steered him toward understanding--that only God is good; that we cannot meet the high demands of the law by our own efforts.

Then Jesus invited the young man to follow him:

“Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me."

But to follow Jesus would have cost him too much:

So he went away very sad, for he had great possessions.

***

Once upon a time there was another rich young ruler. He ruled the whole universe, because the whole universe was his.

One day he found his Father brooding, looking over a world far away. He and his Father shared the same Spirit, so the rich young ruler knew what he had to do:

"I will go. I will seek them and save them and bring them home."

His Father looked at him with both sadness and love, all mixed up together. "You'd have to give up everything to do that," He said.

"And so would you, Father."

So it happened that both of them gave away everything they possessed:

The Father so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

The Son made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:7-8).

Then, just as he promised, he went in search of his lost brothers and sisters and led them back home.

Overwhelmed with joy, his Father highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name (Philippians 2:9).

Thus it came to be that the rich young ruler who gave it all away, now has more treasure in heaven than ever there was before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you're not the you you used to be

The Word for today:
Mark 10:1-16

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise…

(excerpted from “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas, 1945)

***

When the Pharisees tested Jesus with questions about common practices of divorce and remarriage, Jesus responded by pointing back to the origin of marriage at creation:

And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away." And Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." (Mark 10:2-9)

Jesus took them way past the law of Moses to the very beginning of time, before promises and hearts had been broken, before man had rent the design of God asunder.

I am a covenant breaker in many areas, including this area of divorce. You are a covenant breaker, too. It may not have been divorce, but in some way we all have broken the tablets.

We have regrets and sorrow over our sins, but there comes a time when we have to take ourselves way back to a time before our hearts were broken, to a time before we’d broken another’s heart, to a time when we were brand new and at play under the approving eye of God in the splendor of his garden.

That time is now. All of our regrets will never pay for even one of our transgressions, so for many of us it’s time to lay them aside. We have regretted enough.

It is time now to leave all of our baggage at the cross and turn to the newness that Jesus purchased there.

He wants the re-born to approach him now as a child does, without a care or a tear or a fear:

"Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” (Mark 10:14)

Very often, you will find that the only person thwarting the brand new you from approaching your Redeemer is the you you used to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

falling short

The Word for today:
Deuteronomy 38: 48-34:12


For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
(Romans 3:23)

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day. Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit… (Deuteronomy 34:5-9a)

 

And so we say goodbye to Moses. Five books and forty years later, we leave him atop Mt. Nebo, looking across the Jordan River, past Jericho, all the way to the hills of Jerusalem—even to Calvary itself. He fell just short of the Promised Land.

Technically, the reason he could not enter the land was because he struck the Rock when God told him to speak to it.

But typically, the reason he could not enter was because the Rock was a type (prophetic picture) of Christ:

For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:4)

The Rock had already, by God’s command, been smitten (see Exodus 17:6) and Christ the Rock is smitten only once—at the cross.

Thus God, in Numbers 20:8, tells Moses to only speak (a picture of prayer) to the Rock.

Moses was not careful to preserve the rock as a type of Christ when he struck it. Thus Moses is forbidden to enter the Promised Land, because he believed God not, to sanctify Him in the eyes of the children of Israel (1)—which is to say that God jealously guards his prophetic pictures of Christ to come. No one, including Moses the friend of God, is ever allowed to distort a picture of God’s only one.

***

Ironically, these incidents turn Moses into a type himself. By leaving Moses on Mount Nebo as Israel entered the land, God makes Moses, the Lawgiver, a perfect picture of the law itself -- which can lead us towards Christ but can never, in and of itself, deliver us:

Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:24)

It is left to Joshua to be the picture of Christ the Savior.

When you think “Joshua,” think “Jesus.” The names Joshua and Jesus derive from the same Hebrew name, Yeshua, which means "Jehovah Saves." (See Matthew 1:21)

So just as Joshua succeeds Moses and gains the victory that Moses could not deliver, Jesus succeeds the Mosaic law and wins the victory over sin and death that we cannot achieve:

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
(John 1:17)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Numbers 20:12

proclamations and parades

The Word for today:
Deuteronomy 32:1-47



Stand in the Rain devotes itself, day after day, to the eternal Word of God.

So, compared to our subject, the primaries and the polls and the proclamations of our prime ministers and presidents seem insignificant (and downright tedious) at best.

But when our readers voice contemporary concerns that warrant a public response, we do not shirk.

Yesterday, two letters reached us via email. The first referred to the President’s proclamation in support of gay marriage. The second referred to the North Carolina referendum, just one day before, on the same issue.

Most of us are already aware of the President’s pronouncement, so we will lead into our response with the letter we received from North Carolina:

Here in NC I have been thinking about the whole gay marriage issue after the voters approved an amendment to the state constitution banning it. Back in the day, I would have agreed with them, thinking that "being gay" was some sort of chosen lifestyle. I have come to believe that people who are gay were just born that way, the same way I was born to be straight. From that point of view I can't see how God would want to exclude them from the Christian community. I know that the Old Testament had specific prohibitions against same sex relationships, but the New Testament doesn't address it all that much, and Jesus not at all as far as I know. What do you think about the issue? (Thomas B., Chapel Hill)

***

It's a sin, Thomas, no different than any other sin -- and there's the rub. The gay community has made it into a lifestyle. They march with the mayor down 5th Avenue.

It's a sin that is no different from my pride, my two decades of drunkenness, my divorce, my you name it.

But the prideful don't hold parades. Nor do the drunks, or the divorced.

God excludes no one from the Christian community. The excluded exclude themselves. God went to great lengths, to the ultimate measure at the cross of Jesus Christ, to bring every sinner back home.

But only sinners qualify for salvation. Sin, in fact, is the only prerequisite for salvation (Luke 5:32). The gay community has determined that homosexual sex is not a sin. The Bible says, very clearly, that it is.

The Bible does not try to list every sin. Jesus used catch-all words like "fornication" to imply sexual immorality of all sorts, which (his listeners knew) included adultery, incest, homosexuality, pedophilia, etc. (Jesus was not condoning child molestation just because he did not specifically say the word!)

He did say (Matthew 5:18) that not one jot or tittle of the O.T. law (which specifically mentioned these sins) would be relaxed. Moreover, in the Sermon on the Mount he repeatedly ratcheted up the Old Testament law to include even the thoughts we harbor in our hearts. (Matthew 5:21-32). Jesus made the Old Testament laws look lenient.

Jesus spoke specifically and unmistakably of homosexuality when he said that Sodom would have repented if they had heard and seen what Capernaum had heard and seen from him. (Matthew 11:21-23)

This is a clear reference to Sodom's need for repentance from their signature sin--homosexuality. To his audience, "Sodom" was as unmistakably a reference to homosexuality as "Vegas" is to gambling.

The Christian community is the gay person's best and truest friend in this culture. They are the only ones who love the gay person enough to tell him the truth. They are willing to be despised themselves in order to bring the gay person back into a relationship with God. But in return for their compassion they are called homophobes and haters. In return for their concern they are despised.

Ironically, to me they are more Christ-like in this--for which they are so roundly reviled--than in other spheres. Anyone who reads these articles knows that I am not a cheerleader for the church. But I can testify to their earnest and constant prayer on behalf of the homosexual community. So I applaud the church in this regard. It would be so much easier to just let the cookie crumble.

Which the cookie will, unless the course we’re on is altered. Throughout history, where homosexuality has proliferated, it has accelerated demise. God just seems to let decadence run its course (Romans 1:26). He doesn't lift a hand; he just withdraws it – which is the most terrifying prospect of all.

***

That's the biblical perspective, Thomas, which is the only perspective I trust. I hope that begins to answer your questions. You have a big, big heart. Please feel free to bring any further question to our attention.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the secret things

The Word for today:
Deuteronomy 31

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)


I don’t receive many text messages, so the other day I almost jumped when, out of the blue, my cell phone started buzzing and flashing and chirping and all the other things it does when it has a message for me.

All the sound and fury was startling enough, but even more startling was what the message said. It was from Shelley, of course (no one else knows my cell phone number) and it was a love note of the type you might have received in the 8th grade on a slip of paper while the teacher’s back was turned.

I do not receive many love notes these days (nor did I in the 8th grade, to tell the truth) so it was a very special moment. I even saved it on my phone so I’ll always have proof that someone besides God loves me.

Anyway, after my special moment came and went, I started thinking about the mechanics of such a sweet sentiment. (I know, it takes a real winner to reduce a love note to its mechanics.) I started thinking about how it got from Shelley at work (across town) all the way to me (across town from her).

I was thinking mechanically, but not technically, so I don’t really know the precise vocabulary for whatever it was that carried that message across town. Maybe it was a radio wave, or an electromagnetic impulse, or a light beam for all I know.

What I do know is that neither you nor I nor Copernicus nor Kepler nor Newton nor Einstein nor Marconi nor Alexander Graham Bell nor Steve Jobs nor all the nerds at NASA and MIT had anything to do with creating (or even inventing) whatever it was that carried that message across town.

We may have discovered radio waves, or infrared, or particle beams, but we had nothing to do with thinking them up or making them. God made the goldmine, so to speak, and we more or less fell into the shaft.

***

That led me to thinking about how miraculous all these things would seem to a person born 100 years ago. Which in turn led to thinking about what gold mines (so to speak) God has made that we haven’t discovered yet.

Which led me to thinking that maybe someday you and I will be able to zip all the way across town in the time it took Shelley’s little love message to zip its way to me. You might laugh, but 100 years ago it probably seemed less likely that a message would ever fly through the air on nothing than it seems (to us today) that we will ever get from here to there in the time it takes to think of where we’re going.

***

Such thoughts do not emanate from science fiction but from biblical fact:

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

Q. What secret things?
A. We don’t know; if we did they wouldn’t be secret!)

Q. How many of these secret things are there?
A. My guess is that an infinite God has thought up an infinite amount of things not yet revealed. My further hypothesis is that infinity isn’t long enough to unveil all of God’s secrets. It’s not that God is secretive; it’s just that forever is too short a time.

But let’s not strain our brains over such questions, because here’s another Bible fact:

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)

We don’t even have imaginations that can enter into the things God has prepared, so rest your weary heads my little buckaroos.

We see through a glass darkly, with eyes and ears and imaginations that aren’t capable of perceiving things right in front of our faces—let alone the things God has made that are even farther out.

So for now, let’s just send him a message the way we know how. Let’s tell him we love him and let our words ride his sound waves all the way to wherever they will find him.

The message won’t take long to get there. According to the Bible (1), if we send it today, it will get there yesterday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Isaiah 46:10

harps in the midst -- part 2

The Word for today:
Deuteronomy 29, 30

In his attempts to get through to us, God will stop at nothing.

First, he uses words. What we call the Ten Commandments, Israel knew as the Ten Words.

When they broke his Words, God resorted to prophetic pictures. They could view these prophecies as a painting is viewed, from a distance. From a detached perspective they were shown what their continued disregard for his Ten Words would bring them:

From Deuteronomy 28:15-68:

(15) But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.
(36) The LORD will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone.
(37) And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.
(41) You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.
(64) And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
(65) And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.

Despite these pictures, they continued to break his laws. So God placed them inside the pictures; they themselves became the fulfillment of his prophecies. Suddenly they found themselves transported into the very midst of the scene. There, from Babylon, they looked back upon the land they had lost:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land? (Psalms 137:1-4)

***

The same progression –from word to graphic warning to fulfillment—had already occurred in the Garden of Eden. First, God gave Adam just one Word, not Ten:

"Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. (Genesis 2:16-17a)

Then he showed them what disobedience would bring upon them:

For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:17b)

Then they found themselves banished for their disobedience, in fulfillment of his word and warning. As they departed, they looked back upon the Paradise thy had lost:

So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)

For their disobedience, Adam and Eve found themselves outside the garden’s east entrance.

For his fratricide, Cain found himself in the land of Nod, further east of Eden (Genesis 4:16).

Old Testament Israel found herself banished to Babylon, even further east of Eden.

Subsequent to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, New Testament Israel found herself dispersed throughout the earth, just as Jesus had foretold:

"But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near.
For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people.
And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” (from Luke 21:20-24)

One of them, a rich man who lived sumptuously, found himself in hell, looking back upon what he had lost:

And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.' But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.' Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.' " (Luke 16:23-31)

***

God has given us his word and his warning; we’ve been shown what lies ahead.

We can either test his word with our faith, or we can test his word with our disregard. Either way, his word will pass the test and we shall find ourselves relocated into a picture already painted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

harps in the midst -- part 1

The Word for today:
Deuteronomy 28:15-68

By the rivers dark,
In a wounded dawn,
I live my life
In Babylon.

Though I take my song
From a withered limb,
Both song and tree,
They sing for him.

Be the truth unsaid
And the blessing gone,
If I forget
My Babylon.

I did not know
And I could not see
Who was waiting there,
Who was hunting me.

By the rivers dark,
Where it all goes on;
By the rivers dark
In Babylon.
                      --Leonard Cohen, 2001

In his attempts to get through to us, God will stop at nothing.

First, he uses words. What we call the Ten Commandments, Israel knew as the Ten Words.

When they broke his Words, God resorted to pictures, called prophecies. They could view these prophecies as a painting is viewed, from a distance. From a detached perspective they were shown what their continued disregard for his Ten Words would bring them:

From Deuteronomy 28:15-68:

(15) But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.
(16) Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
(20) The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.
(21) The LORD will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
(28) The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind,
(30) You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit.
(32) Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, but you shall be helpless.
(36) The LORD will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone.
(37) And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.
(41) You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.

(49) The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand,
(50) a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.
(52) They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.
(53) And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.
(64) And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
(65) And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.

***

Despite these pictures, they continued to break his laws. So God placed them inside the pictures; they themselves became the fulfillment of his prophecies. Suddenly they found themselves transported into the very midst of the scene. There, from Babylon, they looked back upon the land they had lost:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,
     yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land? (Psalms 137:1-4)

***

Tomorrow, you and I will enter the picture.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

in Jerusalem, in Gerazim, in spirit, and in truth

The Word for today:
Deuteronomy 27:1-28:14


God told Israel to destroy "the high paces" (mountaintop shrines) of the pagan religion in the new land (Deuteronomy 12:2).

He then informed them that he would lead them to the "the place the LORD your God will choose to put his Name there for his dwelling." (Deuteronomy 12:5)

Eventually, the designated place was Jerusalem. But even before that, Israel was to worship in one place only.

The Israelites first set up the Tabernacle at Shiloh. Later, when David captured Jerusalem, he made that city his capital and brought the Ark of the Covenant there in preparation for the construction of a temple for God.

The single temple in Jerusalem unified their worship until the Samaritans challenged the idea of a "proper" place to honor God and, in 400 B.C., built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim (the "mount of blessing" in today's reading.)

This point of contention became a subject for discussion when Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:19-24). Jesus' response to her denominationalism was that God seeks those who worship him "in spirit and in truth."

Many of us still think of worship in the way the woman at the well thought about it. Some of us are still tied to a place of worship, even when that place starts to depart from the Person of Jesus Christ.

Believers no longer meet in one place but around one Person. We can worship in Shiloh, in Jerusalem, in Gerizim, in Luckenbach, Texas, or in Outwater Park, as long as we worship in spirit and in truth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Righteousness and peace have kissed.”

The Word for today:
Deuteronomy 26


Does the Bible contradict itself? Consider:

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them,
then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives,
and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.'
Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear. (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

There was a man who had two sons.
And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.” And he divided his property between them.
Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.
But when he came to himself, he said,
“I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you…’”
And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. (Luke 15:11-20)

Why isn’t the son in the book of Luke punished, as the book of Deuteronomy demands?

This apparent contradiction is no contradiction at all to the student of the entire word of God. The passage from Deuteronomy comes from the Law. The law demands that we get what we deserve. The passage from Luke is an example of God’s grace. Grace is when we get good things that we don’t deserve.

The purpose of the law is to lead us to God’s grace. The law is a tutor, showing us that we have fallen short of God’s standard, taking us by the hand to ask for God’s forgiveness:

Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (Gal 3:24/NKJV)

You can see the law at work in the life of the Prodigal Son. The son tells the Father that he does not deserve to be called his son. The boy is right. So we see that the law is right. And it is for our good.

But the law cannot restore us to the inheritance we have forfeited through sin. Only God’s grace makes it possible for Him to shower His blessing upon us. The Father restored all that the boy had squandered, and more.

Is the Law still in effect? Absolutely. The wages of sin is still death (Romans 6:23).

The Good News is that God has a Way back home! Jesus took upon Himself the demands of the law for all those who look to Him for their salvation. That's what Jesus meant when He said, “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.” (Matthew 5:17)

Jesus paid it all, so God’s law in Deuteronomy is fulfilled to the last letter. And His love is showered upon us, just as the story of the Prodigal Son describes. There is no contradiction in the Bible, or in the character of God.

The seeming contradictions--between the Old and New Testaments, between God's law and his grace, between the prodigal boy in Deuteronomy and the prodigal boy in Luke--are reconciled at the cross of Jesus Christ, where God combined uncompromising wrath against sin with unconditional forgiveness. There at the cross, in a display of the entire spectrum of His character,

Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed. (Psalms 85:10)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aaron is us

The Word for today:
Deuteronomy 24, 25


Aaron is often overlooked by Christians. We know him, vaguely, as Moses’ brother, but other than that he gets lost in the background.

So if Aaron is lost to you, find him! We have a whole lot to learn from Aaron, because Aaron is us.

Moses foreshadows Jesus Christ as the lawgiver and the Deliverer:

Moses pronounced the law at Mt. Sinai; Jesus pronounced the enhanced version of the law in the Sermon on the Mount.

Moses led the people of Israel out of their captivity in Egypt; Jesus led captivity itself captive:
When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men. (Ephesians 4:8)

1. Aaron, as Moses’ prophet (1), foreshadows the church, who proclaim the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.

The church-era prophet is a forth-teller, proclaiming the Word of the LORD which was already spoken through Moses, Samuel, David, Matthew, Paul, Peter, etc. The church-era prophet, then, is very much in the position of Aaron the prophet.

2. Aaron as priest foreshadows the church, who are a kingdom of priests (2).

How can we be both prophet and priest?

When I write this blog, or when you tuck your kids in bed with a Bible story, or when you stand for God’s Word in a discussion at work, then we are functioning as prophets like Aaron.
When we pray for someone, we are functioning as priests like Aaron.

3. The tribes were given an allotment in the Promised Land. But as a Levite (the tribe assigned to religious duties) Aaron received no inheritance in the Promised Land. Instead, God was his inheritance. That is the position of the believer today.

God has promised us spiritual blessings; He Himself is our inheritance. The church is never promised temporal blessings. Be sure that he will feed and clothe us, like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. But we should not direct our prayers or expectations toward material blessings. Our prayers and expectations should be focused on an ever-closer relationship with God. He is our portion and our cup.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Exodus 4:15-16; 7:1; (2) 1Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6