Unclean! Unclean! -- part 1

The Word for today:
Luke 5:12-26

mark this:  Luke 5:12-13
Behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus; and he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately the leprosy left him.


(Over the next two days, Stand in the Rain will range between Old and New Testaments in order to look closely at the subject of leprosy, which is the Bible's most prevalent--and most instructive--picture of sin.)

 ***

Leprosy is illustrative of the hopelessness and stench of sin. Of all diseases, scripture uses leprosy to represent sin more than any other.

The Messiah has power to deliver from the effects of sin.
Jesus healed physical disease in order to show before the scribes that he could forgive sin:
Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--he said to the man who was paralyzed--"I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home." And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. (Luke 5:23-25)

Two birds: The ritual for cleansing lepers. (See Leviticus 14:4-7, 49-53.)
The first bird is slain. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Heb. 9:22).
The blood is poured into an earthenware vessel--a jar of clay. (See 2 Cor. 4:7)
The second bird, dipped in the blood of the first, flies free.
[The Bible student will see a prophetic picture of the gospel--the death and resurrection of Jesus--in this ritual (1 Cor. 15:3-4). He will also see himself here--as the leper upon whom the blood is sprinkled.]

Full of leprosy. (Luke 5:12)
Leprosy is a painless hell. Leprosy-today known as Hansen's disease--is not a rotting infection. Hansen's disease destroys the body's warning system--the pain. It is an anesthetic that numbs the nerves, so that the leper might wash his face with scalding water, or grip a tool so tightly that a hand is traumatized, or reach into charcoal embers for a baked potato. Then infections take place and pretty soon the appendages are damaged. In third world countries, vermin will chew on lepers.

The poor man in Luke 5 had not been able to feel for years, and his body, mutilated from head to foot, was foul and rotting. If we could see ourselves apart from Christ, we would see that sin has invaded every part of our being.

"Unclean! Unclean!"
The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp. (Lev 13:45-46)
Apart from Christ, we are excluded from the fellowship of the family of God. (See Eph. 2:12-13.)

Dead men walking.
Lepers were treated as if they were the dead. But the leper is no more sinful than anyone else.

According to Ephesians 2:1, we are dead in our transgressions and sins. The spiritual world sees us shot through with the horrifying effects of sin. Even our righteousness--our three-piece suit, so to speak--is as filthy rags and make us waste away (Isaiah 64:6-7).

The featureless, faceless, anonymity of sin.
The ears and noses and fingers of the leper would fall away.
Sin is neither distinctive nor self-expressive. It robs beauty, uniqueness--and lumps us in with the rest. The extremities of the absolutely individual "snowflake" fall off, leaving an indistinguishable middle, a stump.

And God saw that it was not good.
Sin is life by man's design, man by his own hand. Death is by man's design, by his own hand.

(to be continued tomorrow...)

at your word, I will let down the nets

The Word for today:
Luke 5:1-11
 
mark this: Luke 5:4-6
And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."
And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets."
And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.



Sometimes--like right now, for instance--it all gets away from me.  
 
The Bible gets way too big for me.  And faith starts to seem like the differential equations that I could never solve in high school; there are just too many variables.

Even Jesus, heart of my own heart, can sometimes seem so deep and so smart and so together that he simply outdistances my intellectual and spiritual grasp.

When I was first a believer, someone gave me one of those rubber bracelets that asked, "What Would Jesus Do?"

I always knew, back then, what Jesus would do. But now, sometimes, I don't have a clue.

When I start to get paralyzed like this, I have a special spot where I go.  If you have your Bible open to our passage for today, then you can see my special spot from where you are:

"Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!  But at your word, I will let down the nets." (Luke 5:5)

I've heard the life of faith described in so many ways, in too many ways. But the only definition that makes sense to me is this one:

At your word…
Just keep your nose in your Bible!
…I will let down the nets.
To the best of your understanding, just do what it says.

So whenever the life of simple faith begins to elude you, don't forget to come back to this special spot. Odds are, we'll run into each other, 'cause I hang out here a lot.

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bound by nothing

The Word for today:
Luke 4:31-44

mark this: Matthew 8:16
That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

 
Your Bible, especially the four gospels, comes equipped with supplementary materials to aid your understanding! They are called parallel passages, because they describe an event from another vantage point--as if it were observed from the other side of the tracks.

In Matthew 8:14-17, the parallel description of Luke 4:38-41, Jesus cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

With a word. Martin Luther (in his hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God") put it like this:

And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.

***

But many aren't aware of the power of God's Word. Jesus said so:
"Your problem is that you don't know the Scriptures, and you don't know the power of God." (Matthew 22:29/NLT; cf. 1 Cor. 1:24)

Well then, let's take a brief review of the power of God's word:

God spoke the cosmos into existence (Genesis 1). And he maintains the cosmos in the same way:
He upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:3)

The faith which activates salvation is but an after-effect of his word:
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  (Romans 10:17)

Indeed, the Savior himself is the Logos, the Word:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:1, 14)

***

But what does the word of God mean for us today, as we stand, inherently powerless, to face the dragons we must face. It means different things to each of us, as Jesus said: those who weakly know the scriptures know a God who lacks power; while others, established in scripture, know an all-powerful God.

But no matter who you are, if you are considering these thoughts, then you are wrestling with the Word of God and, like Jacob, you're not going to let go until you get a blessing. (Genesis 32:26)

So here's the blessing I can convey. It's something we know, but we forget to remember:

It's not a paper Bible that we bring to the battle; it's not like we're going to "throw the book" at evil or at our problems!  No, but we're bringing Jesus, the embodied Word, alive and active. (Hebrews 4:12)

We're told to arm ourselves with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (1).  That doesn't mean we bring words on paper, or even words we've committed to our memories, or written on our hearts.  We do not arm ourselves with concepts.

We're bringing no papier-mache` sword. We're bringing no paper tiger to this fight.

We're not showing up with a word bound in leather. We're showing up with the Lion of Judah--unleashed, undefeated, unconquerable, and bound by nothing.

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(1) Ephesians 6:17



on a mission from God

The Word for today:
Luke 4:14-30

mark this: Luke 4:17-20

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

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Stop!  Look!  Listen!--
Luke 4:18-19 quotes Isaiah 61:1-2.  These passages are crucial to understanding the Big Picture--the overall plan--of God's Kingdom.
The Bible student should understand why Jesus stopped, in mid-sentence, as he read from Isaiah 61:2.  Stand in the Rain explained the significance of this abrupt ending when we were studying Isaiah (in January, 2010).
If you are unsure of the significance of these verses in Isaiah--and the way Jesus applied them in Luke--then it is imperative for you to turn here and, especially,  here. 

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

Churches have mission statements. You'll find them proclaimed atop their websites and their stationery.

Corporations have mission statements. Committees will meet over the course of years, parsing each word in order to come up with just the right phrasing for their statement of purpose.

Do you have a personal mission statement? Could you summarize, in a sentence or two, your life's purpose?

An old adage states that "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." A mission statement exists to combat that kind of aimlessness, to keep us heading straight toward a well-defined goal so we won't waste time by meandering among the side issues on the side streets.

I think Jesus had a mission statement. Appropriately, he used it as the text of his first sermon:

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. (Luke 4:17-20; cf. Luke 4:43)

When I first read the Bible and became a believer (which were simultaneous occurrences for me) I was struck by how "little" Jesus was in our culture--and even in our churches--when compared to the Jesus I'd just met in scripture. So years later, when I took up Bible teaching, I constantly stressed a "bigger" Jesus, to the extent that the quintessential Q & A of my classes has become--

Q. How big is Jesus?
A. Bigger!
Q. How big is "bigger?"
A. Bigger!

For me, then, my mission pronounced itself first and I found the perfect scriptural statement of it much later. I found it in the first line of Mary's Song:

"My soul magnifies the Lord." (Luke 1:46)

That's my mission.  I use that verse to remind me what the target is, because I've found through experience that it is very easy to get sidetracked amidst all the trappings--the traps--of churchiness and phony religiosity and self-aggrandizement.

***

So much for Jesus' mission statement, and so much for mine. But what about yours?

I hope that you take some time to give it some thought. As you do, remember that a mission statement can differ from your "life verse" in this way:

A life verse usually says what you believe.
A mission statement says what you're going to do about it.

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Get growing!--part 2

The Word for today:
Luke 3:23-4:13

We know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (John 14:6)

We also know that Jesus didn't come fully formed; the Bible says that he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.  (Luke 2:52)

So we--who are in the process of becoming more like him--should pay close attention to anything that scripture has to say about Jesus' formative years, when the Way was on the way.  How did he become the person he would be?  Let's take a look at the little we've been given to see:

1. We see him in the Temple among the scripture teachers at age twelve:
When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.  (Luke 2:42-46)

2. And we see him in relentless, habitual dependence upon the Holy Spirit as he enters into his adult years and embarks upon his public ministry:

When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." (Luke 3:21-22)

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert. (Luke 4:1)

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. (Luke 4:14)

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…"  (Luke 4:17-18)


The scarcity of information that we have about Jesus' adolescence serves to emphasize that God's Word was his only counsel, and that the Spirit was his only Counselor.

So how did he confine himself to the Word and the guiding presence of God alone?

Listen carefully as he settles--in his own mind and in the hearing of others--the relative priority of his influences:

So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, "Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously."
And He said to them, "Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?" (Luke 2:48-49)

And it was told Him by some, who said, "Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see You."
But He answered and said to them, "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it."   (Luke 8:20-21)

Jesus said unto (his mother, Mary), "Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come."  (John 2:4)

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple."  (Luke 14:26)

And a scribe came up and said to him, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."
Another of the disciples said to him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead." (Matthew 8:19-22)

***

Jesus' followers must always remember that these radical scriptures have to be placed in the context of the very loving words that Jesus spoke to these same people!  With his dying breath, for example, he arranged for his mother's care.  (John 19:26-27)

But any way you slice them, they are cutting remarks.  So make no mistake about it.  If you really mean business with God, you've got to commandeer your influences.  You've got to put your family, your culture, and your past in their places relative to God.  You've got to recalculate, reconfigure--and, yes, renounce:

 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:33)

The Bible refers to Jesus as the Bridegroom, and to his followers as the Bride.  Long, long ago, in the Bible's opening chapters, God spoke prophetically about this special relationship to come, hinting that it would cost the Bridegroom everything:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.   (Genesis 2:24; see Ephesians 5:31-32)

Jesus left it all behind for you.  If you want to grow up to be like Jesus, then go and do the same.

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of onions and scripture

The Word for Today: Luke 3:1-22

Mark this: Luke 3:1-2

Nothing can stick in your mind better than a good metaphor.

We know that from experience- from songs or poetry or even commercials.

I think that's part of the reason that Jesus spoke in parables. It's part of the reason why we still talk about mustard seeds, and rocky soil, and lost sheep.

In the first movie of the popular Shrek series, the following exchange occurs between the ogre Shrek and his talking Donkey (pictured above).

Shrek:  For your information, there's a lot more to ogres than people think.
Donkey: Example?
Shrek: Example... uh... ogres are like onions![holds up an onion, which Donkey sniffs]
Donkey: They stink?
Shrek: Yes... No!
Donkey: Oh, they make you cry?
Shrek: No!
Donkey: Oh, you leave 'em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sprouting' little white hairs...
Shrek: [peels an onion] NO! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers. [walks off]

Ogres are not the only things that have layers. In fact, may I be so bold as to declare that the Word of God is like an onion. (It certainly can make you cry.) There is much more to it that at first glance or reading. It's the only kind of onion that gets bigger and deeper as you peel it back. In today's passage, we see this first hand.

This first layer Luke gives us is the facts and details. The chapter starts off with a list of names- the "Who's Who" of Palestine around 29 AD. We've got an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs, and two high priests. While these names may not mean much to you and me, we are grateful that the Word of God has it's facts straight. We know from earlier on, Luke has claimed to "have carefully investigated everything from the beginning(1)." Praise God that he really did!

The Gospels and the rest of the Bible can stand up to whatever questions or scrutiny that people may have. We can be confident that what we have is both truth and true. We know from outside sources that these people and places and titles are accurate historically. If you so desired, you could look up information regarding any of them. So go ahead, and utilize multiple tools and disciplines to better understand the Word- (i.e. history, geography, archaeology, linguistics etc.). There are multiple layers on these items alone.

But in the end of verse two, we see another layer emerging. The verse ends with the simple and yet profound statement: "the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert."

God bypassed the most powerful political man on earth ruling in Rome, He skipped by the rulers who were dominating God’s chosen people politically or religiously. Instead, He brought His message through a rather eccentric man whose choices with clothes and food and appearance and especially words would have made all of us very uncomfortable.

This deeper layer confirms to us that God’s ways are not man’s ways. He chose an unlikely time an unlikely place, and an unlikely person to be the forerunner to the Messiah! I guess God really does "save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty (2)."

Everyone else on this list is a footnote in history, but we are still talking about John- his legacy lives on. His story is a reminder to all of us not to limit God to mere human conventions, nor think that anyone of us cannot be used by God.

And that's just the first few layers, so keep digging!

*************************

(1) Luke 1:3

(2) Psalm 18:27

Get growing!--part 1

Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers.
(Luke 2:46)

The Word for today:
Luke 2:41-52

mark this:  Luke 2:52
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.


How do we grow up to be like Jesus?  The opening chapters of Luke show us Jesus' formative years, and serve as our example for spiritual development.  Today, in part 1, and the day after tomorrow, in part 2, we will take a closer look at how God takes a child from "here" to "there."

***

I am a big student of process in scripture. I am avidly interested in how we make progress in this new life Jesus purchased for us--because I don't want to stay a spiritually immature brat all my life.

How do we proceed? How do we progress? How do we get from here to there in the spiritual realm?

The key to these questions lies just ahead of us, in the chapters we are about to read. These are crucial chapters because they present our model for growth.

Here's what we must remember:

1. You might be 57, like me; or you might be 17, like my son Frankie turns today as I write this; or you might be 97, like my mother. But according to the Bible, as a believer, you are a child:
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12)

So, stop acting so mature all the time. You are not! And this mature act you're foisting upon yourself is getting in the way of your progress. It's stifling God's re-creative flow! We can't grow until we admit we've got a lot of growing up to do.  Some of us have got to "grow down" before we can grow up!

2. Jesus was once a kid like you, in the process of growing up:

The eternal Son of God, Jesus, actually became a baby. God became an embryo. Deity in diapers! Once Jesus arrived on earth, He went through a learning process, just like anyone else. Luke tells us that, "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature." (Luke 2:52)  Some hear this and say, "Hold on! If you are God, then you're omniscient, which means you know all things. So how can you learn anything?" That's a valid question. And here's the biblical answer: Jesus continued to possess his divine attributes without choosing to use them. In the words of Scripture, he "emptied" Himself and "humbled" Himself. But self-emptying is not self-extinction. In coming to earth He did not lay aside His deity--that was impossible--but rather the privileges of deity. He emptied Himself, not of His essential being or character, but of His right to draw upon the staggering privileges of His deity.
--from "START: The Bible for New Believers." Greg Laurie, General Editor. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2010.

3. God devotes the beginning of Luke to the essentials of our growth, modeled in the life of Jesus, our pattern in this and all else. (When Jesus says, "Follow me," he means in every way!)  God goes to great lengths in this section of scripture to make it clear that Jesus grew into himself--just as we are to do.

4. God very carefully illustrated the way and the means of our growth:
a. Scripture (Luke 2:41-52)
b. the Holy Spirit (Luke 3 and 4)

("Scripture and the Spirit"--We hope you'll hold that thought until the day after tomorrow, when we will conclude this article...)