Celebrate Shavuot With Us!

Shavuot is a complex holiday. Much like most other Judeo-Christian observances, it has portions which are strictly Biblical, portions which are tied to yearly cycles of seasons and life events, and portions of it which are, in all honesty, just silly.   The plan I'm posting here is what we do, borrowing some of the extra-biblical "tradition" of the Jewish celebration, to lend a sense of authenticity to the history of the holiday, and packing in as much Biblical symbolism as possible.

The Food: No holiday gets past "go" without food.  This holiday coincides with the barley harvest, and as such, much bread is baked and eaten.  It is also a peak production period for milk in Israel, so dairy is high on the list as well.  We start by baking bagels in the morning.  Recipes abound online. Pick one.  They take time to make, so don't make everyone wait for breakfast for them.  Have something quick to hold you over, then make these.  Enjoy the process. While they're baking, we make fresh homemade butter by shaking heavy whipping cream in cleaned out plastic ware or baby food containers.

Throughout the rest of day, food should be bread-and-dairy focused. We had homemade Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken last year for dinner (That's a no-no in Kosher food laws--combining dairy and meat in one meal--but we get to celebrate the fulfillment of the Law on our behalf, right? We also get to live on this side of Acts 10!).  

The Family Time: This is one of the three pilgrim feasts of the year.  In Israel, that means that Jewish men over the age of 12 must appear before the Lord in Jerusalem.  Usually, whole families went.  That means that families spent a lot of time together, talking about the Lord and learning from one another.  Find time to just talk about God with your family. Ask questions, answer them with scripture.  Marinade in the greatness of God together.

If you have younger children, as I do, google "Shavuot Crafts."  There are many.  Do something together to help them understand what this day is about.

The Scripture: Two sections of scripture are typically read on this holiday.  I'd suggest you may add a third.  First, sometime early in the day (perhaps over fresh homemade bagels and fresh butter) read the book of Ruth together.  It takes place during this time of year (the barley harvest) and is about the inclusion of foreigners (gentiles) into the plan of God's salvation through the Jew.  That's a pretty awesome fit for us gentiles who are celebrating this high Jewish holiday.

Later in the day (maybe as dinner is cooking), read the story of the 10 commandments from Exodus 19 and 20.  Talk about the meaning of the Law for the Jew and its fulfillment for those of us who follow Messiah.  In a typical Jewish home, this conversation, the studying and discussing of the law, goes all night.  I'd suggest you change subjects after dinner.

In the evening, at the conclusion of the day, read some of the New Testament scriptures which discuss Jesus' fulfillment of the Law and our ability to live in His perfect completion of the Father's demands.  Examples might be taken from numerous places in the book of Romans or Hebrews.  You may even read some of Jesus' own statements about His relationship to the Law in the gospels.

Read Acts 2 to bring the symbolism into the New Testament.  God has not only given us an invitation to relationship, but He has filled us with Himself! What an amazing truth in which we get to live!

Close the day by thanking God that He invites us to know Him, has given us His standard for living in the Law, and has fulfilled His own requirement by sending Jesus to live it perfectly for us!

Happy Shavuot!

Seventh Saturday of Omer: A Tale of Two Times

Mt. Sinai Today

In Exodus 19, the wandering people of God get to their destination. They arrive at Mount Sinai for the first Shavuot.  God has been teaching them all along that He is the initiator of relationship and its boundary-setter.  He freed them through Passover according to His rules.  He allowed them to cross the Red Sea according to his power.  He delivered spiritual food and spiritual drink if they would obey His plan, and He defeated Amalek through a very peculiar methodology, so that all would know that it was the hand of God that had brought the victory.  He invites.  He sets the rules.  That is nowhere more true than here, at the giving of the Law.

First, God lays out the invitation:

"The Lord called to him [Moses] out of the mountain, saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel:  You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.  Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;  and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.'” Exodus 19:3-6

"Come to me.  Know me,"  God invites them.  This is not a God who needs to be sought out, whose will and nature are hidden from mankind.  We are not working toward a relationship with the Almighty.  He has come to us!  The has born us "on eagles' wings and brought [us] to [Himself]!"  This is the God who calls to the Jew here but to all of mankind through Jesus' church and invites us all to come and know His love, His grace, and His nature.

The invitation does not come on our terms, though.  We are invited to know Him, but we cannot come any old way.  All roads do not lead to God.  In fact, only the one road that He has laid takes us to Himself.  The way is open, but narrow.  Notice the terms of the invitation: "If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant...."  Come everyone!  The invitation is open, and the road to fellowship is called, "obedience."

God then defends his holiness.

"Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.  And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.  No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.” Exodus 19:10-13

God's holiness is tied to His glory, and as such is closely guarded by the Almighty.  Over and over again, we are warned that sinful man cannot see a holy God and live.  Here, God is making a special provision for them.  Again, it's invitation and regulation together: "Purify yourself and keep away until you do." Then, when I tell you to, come into my presence.

God's instructions are obeyed, and the people prepare for an encounter with the Living God.  The smoke, fire, wind, and trumpet blasts increase until the end of the third day, when God descends to the top of the mountain, and a long blast on the trumpet is heard.  We know from the text's instructions that the trumpets were not the shofar horns of the Levites but were in fact the blast of heavenly instruments (think the rapture's announcement).  At the signal, the people assemble at the base of the mountain.

It is a point of contention among Rabbis if the people were meant to stay only at the foot of the mountain throughout the experience or if they were meant to ascend with Moses after the initial giving of the law.  God makes it clear to Moses that the initial decalogue is meant for Moses alone. He reiterates the prohibition against touching the mountain, and Moses conveys it again to the people, but if they were not to ever come up, why did God say, in vs 13, that they were to go "up to the mountain"?

In either case, when Moses comes down again, the people are terrified by what they have seen and heard.  If the point of this experience was an invitation into intimate relationship trough the law and then the sharing the Spirit with them (which is the opinion of the majority of Messianic Jews) to empower this obedience, the people only get half the gift.  Instead of the invitation being accepted, they reject the fullness of the gift on Sinai and settle only for the law.

"Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. Exodus 20:18-21

This is where many Rabbis believe that the people were meant to ascend the mountain and receive, along with the law, the indwelling of the Spirit to empower its obedience.  They don't follow through, though.  Moses tells them not to fear, that this display is meant to instill a holy fear into them, and he invites them up and in.  They reject the invitation, though.  Instead of intimacy, they choose distance, and instead of hearing God directly, they choose to use Moses as a mediator. They stand far off, and Moses draws near.

Thus begins the sad story of Israel's failure to obey the law.  They have the instruction, but they are lacking the strength--and even the desire--to obey.  Moses is standing on the hill alone, overlooking the battle, and there is neither an Aaron nor a Hur to hold him up.  No wonder Amalek wins over and over in their history.

In case you think that this is an aberrant belief, that the Jews would never reject an offer of intimacy with God made so plainly as an invitation up the mountain, remember what Jesus went through.  He came to bring the Kingdom of God on His terms--invitation and boundaries--and they rejected Him as well.

Several thousand years later, on the same day--Shavuot--the invitation was finally accepted.   The Law had not been written on stone, but on the hearts of Jesus' followers in fulfillment of Jeremiah 31.  The way of righteous living was not merely described to them, but actually lived in perfection before their eyes in the life of Christ.  They were not called merely to obey but to live in the power of the perfected obedience of Christ, applied to their account.  The followers had at first chosen distance when Christ was crucified, but His resurrection had brought them back together, and they were waiting in the upper room, in Jerusalem, on top of the Mountain of God.  They showed up, and so did the Holy spirit.

Read Acts 2 alongside Exodus 19 and 20, and you'll be astonished at the similarities.  God shows up, and miraculous fire declares his presence, accompanied by wind and strange voices (In Exodus, it is not just the "sound" of the trumpets and the lightning, but it is literally the "tongues" of the trumpets and lightning).  In both places, the manifestation of God comes with similar signs.  This time, however, the people are ready. The Holy Spirit comes, and they don't run away.  They are filled.

What the Jews of the Exodus rejected, the Jewish Apostles of Jesus accepted. Whereas the Jews after Sinai were condemned to run after obedience to a law they could never fulfill, Jesus' followers can live in the obedience already wrought for them by Christ. The law served then and still serves today as a reminder of our sin, but in Christ, we have been made new, and with the Holy Spirit's indwelling, we are free to live in obedience.  The picture, only half-rendered at the first Shavuot, was completed at the day that the church has chosen to refer to with its Greek designation: Pentecost.

How appropriate, then, that Peter should echo the invitation of God at Sinai when He declares that the church is, "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." 1Pe 2:9

Praise God that He has not only called us to obey (although that is no less true today), but He has been perfect obedience for us, so that in our failing, we are made whole by Christ.  Praise God that He has not expected us to obey on our own strength and by the power of our own will, but that He has provided the Holy Spirit to be our strength and the buttress of our will when it fails.  He has called us to perfection, but He has become the perfection for us. Bless the Lord!

If you are still trying to live "right" or be "good enough" for God, learn from the failure of the Jews for two thousand years between Shavuot and Pentecost.  It cannot be done.  Call out to God, give Him your failures, you sins, and accept the invitation of the Lord to intimacy through God-empowered obedience.

So, time for confession.  I started the Omer countdown too soon (eek!).  Next Sunday (June 8th) is Shavuot--Pentecost.  We're all learning, right?  If you'd like to know how to celebrate it in a way that honors the Jewish foundation of this holiday and the fulfillment that Jesus and the Holy Spirit brought to it in Acts 2, check back next Saturday, in time for your Pentecost Sunday celebration.  I'll have all the details for you.

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Sixth Saturday of Omer: The Lifter of My Hands

In the second half of Exodus 17, there is the little-known story of the battle between Israel and Amalek.  It's the first armed conflict for God's people in their wanderings.  There will come many more. These people, just a month before, were slaves.  When they left Egypt, they plundered their neighbors so that when the left, they were equipped for battle (Exodus 12:33-51), but they'd never before had to use the swords, shields, and spears with which they left.  

God brought a test of their resolve and of their faith in the form of Amalek and his soldiers.  These were a people who had been in battles before.  They had the upper-hand of experience and the upper-ground positionally.  All was in their favor.  All, that is, except for the God of the Universe.

Scripture does not record God giving the plan to Moses, but He must have.  Moses wouldn't have chosen this strategy himself.  The plan was simple-seemingly.  People would live or die--nations would rise or fall--on the strength of Moses' deltoids.

"So Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed." Exodus 17:9-11

If the battle were short-lived, Moses could have done this on his own.  Holding your staff above your head isn't exactly a crossfit routine.  The problem was stamina.  Battles are not won in five minutes, or even five hours.  After a time, Moses' strength began to fade.

"But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." Exodus 17:12

The real point of this story is the support that the body is to a person of God in times of difficulty, community, and the way God triumphed through seemingly impossible odds.  I'm seeing this passage, though, through the eyes of the Omer, through the season that we're in  where we look at the invitation to relationship that began at Passover and culminated at Sinai.  In that light, I'd like to make a few observations.

If the plan of God had been to have Moses stand on the top of the hill, raise his staff over his head, and God would send an angel to kill all the Amalekites, there wouldn't have been a need for Aaron and Hur to hold him up. If God had needed  an action in obedience and faith, Moses could have risen to the occasion on his own.  That wasn't the plan, through.  This called for protracted effort, for a seemingly impossible act of endurance, especially from an 80-year-old man.

God is about to give His people the law.  Up until now, they have had folk knowledge of God's requirement for living as passed down through oral tradition from the patriarchs, but there are not yet any of the "thou shalt not's" for which the law is famous.  God is about to call his people to obedience in a new, fuller, more life-altering way than they can imagine.  His call to obedience will not be something that they can accomplish short-term.  God does not call them to live righteously for an hour, a day, a season, or even for a span of holy days (think Mardi Gras before Lent).  Rather, God is calling His people to live differently for the rest of their lives, and for the rest of their generations to come.

"Honor Me Before All Others" FOREVER.

NEVER STOP "Keeping my Name Holy."

ALWAYS "Keep the Sabbath day."

AS LONG AS THEY LIVE "Honor your Mother and Father"

Every day. Always.  Never-Stopping.  Obedience.

We can't hold it up that long.  If it's up to our strength, Amalek wins every time.

This aspect of the enduring obedience of the Law is what makes it such a good schoolmaster for us regarding our sin.  Most people, if they knew it mattered, could live a day without breaking the 10 commandments.  Some would even stand a chance against all 613 requirements of the law for a few hours.  It's the fact that the record keeps going, that the time keeps counting.  You have to be perfect FOREVER.  Nobody's up for that task. I know I'm not.

So God sends two avenues for help to us.  We have our Aaron and our Hur, but they're better... because they're God.

The law has not passed away. Christ himself said that he had "not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it" (Matt 5:17).  So it's not that the battle is over.  Christ didn't come and remove Amelk from before us.  That will happen when we're glorified and enjoying the new Heavens and the new Earth.  No, for now, we still struggle against sin.

The Holy Spirit provides the first support.  He serves as our Aaron.  The Third Member of the Godhead is here to equip us to do rightly through "works of service,"  through gifts, and through the conviction of sin when our hands fall. He came in power at both Sinai and at Pentecost.  The first time He came, He was rejected by the Hebrews (we'll get to that next week), but He came to indwell fully at Pentecost.  The Jews were given the Law without the One who would empower them to live it out.  That is why so much of the OT is a train-wreck of sin that goes from bad to worse.  They couldn't keep the staff up in the air without their "Aaron."  They weren't that strong.  

Before you get too haughty--you aren't either.  Apart from the indwelling Spirit, you'd be bowing before Baal too.

The second support is Christ.  He came to fulfill the law, and He did it. Through the miracle of God's grace, Christ's satisfaction of the Law is credited to us when we fail, and our failure  is added to the account of Christ, which he paid on the cross.  When we lie, covet, take God's name in vain, steal, dishonor our parents, and work instead of worship, Christ is there, holding up our hand, and saying, "I got you.  I did that one right.  You can use my perfection here."

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2Cor 5:21

You see, on one hand, we are being constantly supported in our spirit by the Holy Spirit, who is speaking into our souls, "Live this way.  Say these things.  Meditate on these scriptures. No. Don't go there.  You shouldn't have done that.  You need to confess."  On the other hand, we have Christ, who is standing in the gap created between our best efforts and God's perfect standard.  He is speaking to the Father, "I have paid his debt. He failed here, but I am perfect.  Look at me for his righteousness.  Punish me for his sin."

Moses had Aaron and Hur to hold him up during a trying time that he could never have endured on his own, and an infant nation was saved.  We have God the Holy Spirit and God the Son holding us up and guaranteeing our inheritance for an eternal reward.  Praise be to God for His unfailing love!

The first step toward a relationship with God on his terms, according to His rules, is to know that you are flawed.  You can't do it on your own.  You are not good enough to keep the staff in the air.  God already knows this about you.  Do you know it about yourself? 

The second step is to invite the support of the Holy Spirit and the Perfect work of Christ to stand in the gap of your failure and turn the mission of righteousness from impossible to accomplished in you. God is waiting to help in your battle.  Will you let Him? 

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Community Bible Study Sermon, May 22nd, 2014

Please follow the link below for an audio recording on my sermon tonight over Luke 9:28ff, the Transformation of Jesus.

Follow the story of the Glory of God, starting in Exodus 13 and ending in Ephesians 2. When you see it all in context, you understand Peter's overzealous excitement at the Glory of God showing up after such a long absence, and you will see the promise of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a whole new light.

The Transfiguration, Luke 9:28ff

Follow the above link to download the mp3 file.

I hope this blesses you.

Jason

Community Bible Study Sermon, Luke 9:18-27

Hello, friends.

I am experimenting with ways to upload my Community Bible Study Sermons.  I'm not going to use this recording software again, as it only makes .wma files, but here's my first attempt.

Luke 9:18-27, May 15th, 2014

Clicking above will give you an option to download the file. Drive won't play it for you because it's a .wma file.  Next time, it will be an MP3 file for easier use.

Let me know what you think!

Jason

Fifth Saturday of Omer: The Living Water

In the Winter of 1999, just before I graduated from college, I went on a short-term field research class with Biola to Baja and stayed, for most of our trip, in a small fishing village on the sea of Cortez, called Bahia de Los Angeles.  Behind the field station, there was a mountain that rose several thousand feet into the desert sky.  We called it "Mike's Mountain," in honor of an old hermit who once lived there and was friendly to our professor.  It was once the tradition for the men on this trip to hike up with Mike and enjoy the views of the Sea of Cortez from his cave.  It was called "Hike with Mike."  Mike had died before the year I went, so the traditional hike had come to be known as "Hike Like Mike."

"Mike's Mountain" rising up over the Sea of Cortez

I was not a complete stranger to hiking when I went, but I was not ready for that steep trail that rose four thousand feet in six miles. I didn't bring anywhere enough water for the journey.  When I reached Mike's cave, I realized that I was in real trouble.  My bottle was almost completely empty, and I still had to get home.  My canteen was empty completely when I was still a long ways from camp, and the cramps set in.  My hiking buddy poured some of his precious water into my bottle, but it wasn't enough.  My head was pounding.  Every step was torture.  I'm not one to swear, but I think every few steps came with a curse out of my mouth for the last mile's hike back to camp.  When I got there, I laid down in the shade and guzzled nearly a gallon of water, sweating profusely, and kicking myself for my lack of planning.  

In Exodus 17, the people of Israel are having a "Mike's Mountain" experience of their own.  Once again, they are away from natural resources, and they again cry out against Moses and Aaron.  This time, they aren't hungry.  They're thirsty. The Bible tells us that they are hiking through "Rephidim," which doesn't mean anything to those of us not native to that land, but it's very inhospitable.  This is Rephidim, in what is today known as "Wadi Reyfayid."

There's not a lot of water here.  In fact, there's not much of anything here.  God is providing for their food, but they have run out of water, and they're thirsty.  In fact, they're in pain, and they're angry.  Their uproar against Moses is to such a level of hostility that he is in fear of his life.  When he turns to God for relief, he confesses, "They are almost ready to stone me!" (Ex 17:4).  

God instructs Moses to gather the elders of the people and go ahead of the multitude to meet the presence of the Lord at "the rock at Horeb."  There, he is to strike the rock with the staff that God has used many times to perform miracles thus far, and water will spring from the rock.  So Moses obeys.  Just a short walk (but agonizing if you're dehydrated, I'm sure) from the camp at Rephidim is a rock that multiple "experts" claim to be the rock Moses struck, and it looks the part.  

It's easy to imagine water flowing down from this imposing rock, and the people of Israel leaning down to drink as it pooled at their feet.  In fact, one artist has helped us with the image.

God again provides for his people in an astounding way, so that the people's question in verse 7, "Is the Lord among us or not?" was answered in a resounding "Yes!".  God is among His people, inviting them into a relationship with Him where they rely entirely on His provision for their needs!

The miracle is repeated again later in the story of the exodus, in Numbers 20.  This happens in a different location with similar limitations in natural resources.  Again, the people cry out to God, and again, Moses brings the problem to the Lord, who tells him to go to a rock, with the staff in his hand, and speak to it, commanding it to yield water.  God promises that it will.  

Moses almost obeys.  He takes the staff from before the presence of the Lord, gathers the congregation, and approaches a rock.  He fails in one detail, though.  He does not speak to the rock.  He strikes it.  Twice. We get the sense that Moses is angry at the people, and it felt a lot better to whack the rock twice than to ask it to produce water.  

No big deal, though, right?  The water came out.  People drank.  Cattle were saved, and everyone goes home happy--especially Moses, who feels a lot better after bashing the rock twice with his miracle-working staff. Actually, there's a big problem here.  God had a definite picture in mind that He wanted played out before the eyes of His people, and Moses ruined the picture with his anger.  God pulls Moses aside (we might say that He 'brought Moses behind the barn') and conveys a sentence on Moses for his disobedience.  

"Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them" (Num 20:12).  Wait.  Really?  You worked through me to do the 10 plagues, cross the red sea, give the law, and set up government, but whacking a rock with a stick disqualifies me from finishing the Exodus? What's going on here?  The Apostle Paul, writing thousands of years later, explains in 1 Cor 10:1-5: 

"For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness."

The rock was Christ.  How does that help us understand why Moses wasn't allowed into the promised land? Jesus was struck once for our provision.  The flood that poured forth from his body does so much more than satisfy our thirst.  His blood does not only restore our physical strength.  It regenerates our souls!  Jesus said so himself, In John 4:13-14, when speaking of the offering of his life to the woman at the well: 

"Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'”

Jesus was struck once.  He died once, and that was sufficient to provide atonement for all who would come to Him.  See Romans 6:10: "For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God."  He is not crucified again for the continued forgiveness of our sin.  He has been crucified once, and that is sufficient. Now, those of us who live after His death do not need to wait for him to come and die again for our sins, as if salvation is dispersed in batches.  The riches of Christ's forgiveness are accomplished and are waiting to be dispensed liberally on all who call upon Him--all who will speak to Him. 

Moses was to paint the picture of the striking of Christ and the flow of grace the first time and then to paint the picture of the church speaking to Him in confession of sin and receiving the grace that was in store for them, as we are promised in 1Jn 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Instead, Moses fell into a rut that felt good in the context of his anger and struck the rock a second time, ruining God's picture that He had meant to paint for our benefit. It is as if he would strike Christ a second time--crucify Him again. We are warned in scripture that this is a bad idea: 

"For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt." (Heb 6:4-6)

You see, God has invited us into a relationship with Him, and he provides all that we need to live and grow in the journey of faith with Him.  He provides spiritual food (as we saw last week) and spiritual drink, but in both cases He demands that we do it His way.  "Come and See," He calls to us, but do not think that you can enjoy the benefits of life while you live according to your own plan.  

God invites.  

God provides.  

God makes the rules. 

Jesus has died once for all. 

"But he was pierced for our transgressions;

    he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

    and with his wounds we are healed"  (Isa 53:5).

He has worked salvation once.  You cannot work it any other way.  

All that is left for you is to speak to the rock and be saved. 

"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Rom 10:9).

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Fourth Saturday of Omer: The Bread of Heaven

This Sabbath day marks the half-way point of counting the Omer. We are now midway between the celebration of God's judgement of and deliverance from the bondage of sin (Passover and Easter) and the celebration of God's invitation, parameters, and empowerment for relationship (Shavuot and Pentecost).

 In Exodus 16, the Israelites strike out into the desert of sin and journey toward their appointment with God at Mount Sinai. In so doing, they leave behind naturally occurring sources of food and water, and they are thrust firmly into the care and provision of God. Not surprisingly, they begin to grumble against Moses and Aaron (and by implication, against God) about the lack of provision for their needs in the wilderness. Moses prays to the Lord, and God provides for their needs with manna, the bread of heaven, every morning, and a flock of quail every night.

On the surface, the immediate provision for their food is merely a loving Father's response to the needs of His children, but there is more that comes pre-loaded with the gift of food. God wants his children to trust him, on a daily basis, for the provision that they need. He tells them explicitly not to gather more than they can eat in a day and not to keep any for the next day. They fail in trusting Him, and several people keep some for the morning, only to find that it has rotted overnight and is full of worms.

So the people learn to trust God for their daily needs and collect the manna every morning. Then, in Exodus 16:5, God embeds another test in his provision: "On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.” It's as if He was saying, "I know I said before to gather every day for that day's needs, but I want you to trust me in a new thing now. On day 6, gather food for day 7. I know you think it will rot. Trust me. I'm God."

God was calling his people to trust Him on the Sabbath, to rest in God and in obedience. The commandments of the law had not yet been given to the Jews (Shavuot is coming soon!), so the commandment to rest on the Sabbath day was not yet written in stone. Still, God had modeled it in the creation week, and He wants his children to obey and follow his model. It doesn't come easy.  Later in the passage, we read that the Hebrews did not at first trust that God's provision on day 6 would be enough for two days, so they went out to gather on day 7 and found that there was nothing to be gathered.

"On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, 'How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.'” Exodus 16:27-29

First, they were told to gather only what they needed each day, and they were grossed out by the results of their disobedience. Then, they were told to gather for two days, and they were hungry if they tried to find their food on the Sabbath morning. Which is it, God? Are we to gather and store up or are we not? The answer is neither of these clear-cut, easy-to-calculate formulas. The answer is that you must trust in God to provide and obey His commands.

The reason for this whole aspect of their journey, the reason that they were not allowed to provision themselves like other oriental nomadic people with herds and short-term farms, or by raiding and pillaging other peoples, is that God wanted then to know, on a daily basis, that they were His people and that He was the one leading them and meeting their needs. Three times in the course of the passage, God says that he is doing this so that the people will know that "I am the Lord who has led you from Egypt." Also, they are to keep a jar of manna in the tabernacle before the ark as a sign for all peoples that God had done this.

One more observation from Exodus 16: This was weird! Who has ever had morning dew settle on the ground and dry into bread? Who has ever had a flock of quail land at their doorway and settle in to be easily caught and slaughtered? If it was that easy, quail hunting wouldn't be called a "sport." This is not "the way it happens." There was no precedent for this. In fact, the Hebrews had no name for this method of feeding. There is no word that means, "the bread that is left when the dew dries up." Consequently, they had to come up with a new expression. What do you call that stuff? That's what they called it. The word "manna" means, "What is it?" Nothing like it had been seen before, and God has never repeated this miracle for any other people group at any other time in history. He sent the "what is it?" to the Hebrews (who may have called it the "whatchamacallit" today) and changed everything that they knew about how one derives nutrition and provides for their family.

Several thousand years later, Jesus of Nazareth did another miracle with bread, recorded in John 6, and created food out of his hands. He started with a boy's lunchable (three fish and five loaves) and turned it into a banquet that fed around around 20,000 people. This was weird! What do you do with a man who can do that? Why, He would solve the nutritional problems for any people group that he chose to rule! Imagine the benefits that could be enjoyed by a nation that didn't have to worry about what they would eat? Farming is a thing of the past. Just get in line, and get your bread!  Not surprisingly, the crowd wanted to make Him King. John 6:15 records that, "Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself."

Following this account, Jesus has to set both his disciples and the crowds following him straight about his intentions. In all four gospels, the feeding of the 5,000 (men) is followed by testimony from Jesus about his impeding death. In John's account, it is in its fullest form, and Jesus makes use of the similarity between the "bread of heaven" miracle of manna and his own recent miraculous provision.

Jesus declares that, more than being the source of bread from heaven, he is himself the bread of heaven which has come down from the Father.  The Jews of Jesus' day had a formula for relating to God (temple worship, law-keeping, law-extending, etc), and Jesus comes with an entirely new formula--eat Jesus' flesh and drink his blood!  

What?  That's weird! 

I know, but so is dew that dries into bread.  God likes weird.  It keeps us from thinking that what he does is "normal." 

Jesus instructs the Jews that the way to eternal life is through him alone, and not just through his teaching and observing more commandments, but through the sacrifice of his body that He is about to give.  The Jews get all upset about this wholesale replacement of their formula.  This isn't how it's done!  Jesus is very clear that the rules are changing, and that the way to God is only through Him. 

Just like in Exodus, when the point of the miracle was a daily reminder that God was behind their provision, Jesus mentions many times that his statements and actions come from God--his entire miracle ministry was so that people would know and believe that He was the one sent from God into the world.  

In the desert, manna brought physical life.  Jesus comes to bring life eternal--life entirely different from the continuance of physical existence. "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." Jn 6:49-51

Jesus foretells his suffering and death at this point in all four gospels, and in John's account, He even gives us the recast meaning of Passover in what we now call "The Lord's Supper." 

God sent bread from heaven once to continue our life physically.  Jesus has come to give us life spiritually. The first bread of heaven required a little trust.  The second requires all-in, soul-investing faith.  The first came to get Israel into the Promised Land.  The second came to bring all of mankind to heaven.

Jesus is the Bread of life, and while there is no precedent for Him, and while his invitation to eat his flesh is certainly weird, the life that He brings is secure and profound. 

"As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”  Jn 6:57-58

Have you eaten the bread that comes from heaven?

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Third Saturday of Omer: Already and Not Yet

Third Saturday of Omer: Already and Not Yet

The season of counting the Omer is about taking time to look at what it cost to redeem God's people and the value that the purchase puts on salvation and freedom from bondage and then moving into gratitude for the relationship with God that came about on Mt Sinai in the first Shavuot, 50 days later.  Next Saturday will mark the half-way point of the Omer, so it is appropriate for the transition to begin from looking back to Passover to looking forward to Shavuot.  The account in Exodus of Moses' psalm is a fitting way to begin this transition.

In Exodus 15, the first psalm of scripture is recorded.  In it, Moses declares the wonderful works of God and the mighty way in which God redeemed his people. Throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments, the delivery of the people of God from bondage in slavery is seen as a picture of His salvation. Egypt is a picture of sin and slavery to the flesh and the fallen nature, and Pharaoh is by extension the devil himself.  If Exodus 15:1-18 is read with this analogy in mind, it is a beautiful exaltation of the victory of God's saving love over the assault of the enemy of our souls.

Moses begins by praising God for having triumphed over the enemy in bringing salvation to the Jews. "I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea."

In Moses' case, of course, this is an undisputedly complete task.  The statement is obviously put in the past tense.  When you read this as a picture of our salvation, though, would you have written in that way?  Can you say, with Moses, that "the Lord has triumphed gloriously" in your own salvific story?  It doesn't always feel that way, does it?  I am tempted to say, of myself, that "the Lord WILL triumph gloriously" in my life.  I see the struggles in my heart between my new nature, and my fallen flesh that is still "at war within me" (Jas 4:1). I know that I will fall to a sin, repent of it, pray against the enemy's assault in this area, and invite the Holy Spirit into this area of my heart to heal my wounds and remove my sinful desires.  I still very much feel the war that rages there, and I can think, erroneously, that my salvation is still a matter of contention between the will and work of God and the draw of sin.  This is not the case, however.  When God saves, he saves completely.  There is still a part of our perfection that is "not yet,"  the glorification that can only come after our flesh is literally put to death and we are raised glorious and incorruptible (1 Cor 15:50-58), but the salvation from sin and the destination of my soul is a "fait accompli," a finished work, a "done deal." The "horse and rider" of the enemy has been drowned in the sea of God's judgement for my sin.  The punishment for all of the wickedness in my life has already been poured out on the Lamb of God, and none was reserved for my eternal soul to bear.

This is a wonderful truth that is sometimes hard for me to internalize.  I don't have a long list of besetting sins that I fall to time and time again.  God has graciously been working in my life for many years now, and He has claimed victory in many areas that were once opportunities for the enemy.  Still, I am by no means perfect.  Just this morning, I was convicted by the Holy Spirit of a failure in an area I've been working on giving to the Lord, and I felt the regret and self-reproach that comes with the awareness of sin in my life.   What I have to get better at doing in those moments is realizing that salvation is both a process and a finished work.  It is both an "already" and a "not yet."  I get the "not yet" intuitively.  I am reminded again and again that I have not yet been glorified.  What is less intuitive for me is that the real war over my soul is done.  I am a child of the King, and I have been bought with the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. I should be able to stand and say, with Moses, that the work of my salvation is a completed work.

Paul says the same thing, albeit in a different immediate context, when he writes that "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Cor 5:17).  The old is gone, and the new has come in the question of who I am.  It is a miraculous work of God in my life that the enemy of my soul is defeated.  The miracle of my salvation is, in fact, a greater one than the miracle that inspires Moses to write the first psalm. Throughout the psalm in Ex 15, Moses again and again lays out the details of the pursuit of the enemy and the conquest of God.   He doesn't tell the story in a chronological way.  Instead, he lists every aspect of Pharaoh's pursuit interrupted by a statement of God's glorious conquest.

"Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea,  and his chosen officers were sunk in the red Sea.  The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.... The enemy said, 'I will pursue, I will overtake'... you blew with your wind; the sea covered them."(Ex 15:4, 9, 10).  Moses can't even list his enemies and the intent of the adversary without interjecting that they are all canceled, in every aspect, by the work of God.

In my life, this psalm might have been written like this: "Satan paraded ill-dressed ladies through my store, but God has freed my from lust.  I was wronged by a friend and saw anger approaching, but Jesus let me see that person through His eyes.  I was tired of waiting for an answer to a prayer and could have given in to discouragement, but I know that God is not done with me yet, and that His timing is better than my own impatience."   Whatever the enemy brings into my life as a snare, whatever sin entices me, God has already won the battle.  The enemy is already defeated.  Fait accompli!

While the enemy has already been defeated in a permanent and sure way, never to ensnare the Israelites again, they are not yet in the promised Land.  They're in Arabia,  not Canaan.  God still has a journey to lead them through, and it still lies before them to know God and His ways at Sinai. Moses is aware of this, and testifies to the "not yet" aspect of their salvation as well, when he declares, "You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for our abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.  The Lord will reign forever and ever" (vs 17-18).   Even though Moses declares the "already" of Israel's freedom, he acknowledges that there is still a "not yet."

And that's where we find ourselves.  God has freed us from the bondage of sin.  He has won the war in a decisive and final way.  For those who have placed the blood of the Lamb on the doorposts of their heart and have had a mikvah as testimony of our cleansing by faith, the Red Sea, the line of demarcation between our current life and the life of sin that we've left behind is clear, broad, and irrevocable. We, the children of God in Christ are free forever from that life, and yet we are not in the "Promised Land" of Glory.  

Paul writes of the reality of salvation that, "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified" (Rom 8:29-30). We, the living church, live in the comma between "justified" and "glorified." We are already right before a Holy God, but we have not yet been glorified in our flesh. So we live on in this tension of already and not yet, wrestling with our old nature, which has been mortified and yet dies slowly. 

How shall we live in this age of tension? And from where is our strength derived to live out the "already" in the midst of all this "not yet?" Moses sets out the answer at the top of his psalm. 

"The Lord is my strength and my song,
    and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
    my father's God, and I will exalt him." Ex 15:2

We are to live in this tension on the strength that God supplies (This is the topic for next week), not leaning on the life we have known before, on the other side of the Sea.  We are to have our life and being in the power of God. He is the one who has brought us into the "already" and will bring us into what is still "not yet."  He supplies what we need for the journey and will show us the way. 

Meanwhile, we are to live in adoration, praise, and worship of God.  Notice the purpose of Moses' heart here.  He acknowledges the fact that his salvation has come only from God, and it drives him to worship.  The "song" flows immediately out of the context of the salvific experience he just had.  How can we live any differently?  We have been saved!  That should light the fires of worship and adoration so brightly that the world will know that we are worshiping, adoring, people of God. Those who do not have a desire to worship have not known salvation. To know who you were, the bondage you were under, and the destiny that awaited you, and then to know the Lamb of God who takes your place in the way of the wrath of God and gives you instead His love and freedom, is to be driven to your knees in adoration. 

So join with me in loving, worshiping, adoring, and laying down your life before the one who has decisively moved you, once-and-for-all out of the slavery and bondage of sin and into the "already" of freedom and who will, one day, move you into the "not yet" of glory.  Praise be unto Him!

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Second Saturday of Omer-- Mikvah

Second Saturday of Omer--Mikvah

Immediately after leaving Egypt, God begins leading his Children by way of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  Exodus 13 tells us that this pillar was, in fact, God--a Theophany.  God is leading his people, and he chooses to lead them, not the direct way to Canaan, through the land of the Philistines, but rather to a place where he will lead them through the Red Sea (Ex 13:17-18).  Why?  The scripture offers several answers in the immediate context: God will get glory by it, the people will be able to stand and See the salvation of God, and God will destroy Pharaoh and his elite guard in punishment for their enslavement and mistreatment of God's people.  In 1 Cor 10:1, though, we get an entirely different answer.  God is going to baptize Israel. 

In Jewish law, there is a ceremonial cleansing, called "mikvah" in Hebrew, whereby the worshiper comes to God and acknowledges his need for cleansing before a Holy God.  It isn't meant to actually clean the body.  You are, in fact, instructed to come to God already bathed physically. That wasn't the point.  This ritual bathing was to symbolize that you were aware of your uncleanness spiritually, that you needed God to make you clean, and that, by His sanctifying presence, you could be clean in his sight.  The mikvah is commanded throughout the law for many reasons--everything from demonstrating that an impurity has passed (your mildew-ridden belt has been replaced or a woman is no longer menstruating) to declaring a gentile's new found embrace of the laws and the God of Israel in his conversion to Judaism. The command to mikvah occurs no less than 50 times in the law.  Sometimes it is a game-changer, as in a gentile becoming a part of God's people.  Sometimes it is a routine part of the rhythm of life.

It became traditionally expected that mikvah always needed to be done in running water (it is specified in a few places of the law, but not in all occurrences) from a natural source, so that the blessings that it brought and the uncleanness that it removed could be seen as flowing from God to the believer and away from him to the destroyer.  This is why, by Jesus' time, communities of Jews living in the dispersion who were not large enough for the formation of a synagogue (requiring ten heads of households) would meet by streams and rivers, to pray and worship.  They still needed mikvah to be clean before their God.

This is the ritual cleansing that John the Baptist called people to and purposed to point people to Christ.  They were used to mikvah before they were allowed into the temple, mikvah after childbirth, after illness, after war, and after many other defiling events.  John called them to mikvah out of a knowledge of their sin in general and in anticipation of the coming of Messiah. 

Christ initially continued this kind of mikvah ministry early on after his own mikvah at the hands of John.  Jesus didn't baptize anyone himself, but his disciples were performing the mikvah cleansing for those who were coming to Jesus and confessing their sin.  By the end of his ministry--certainly after his resurrection-- the simple acknowledgement of sin and the need to be clean had been transformed into a sign of conversion greater than the gentile proselyte to Judaism.  You weren't asking for a general cleansing and relying on the mercy of God to get it done.  Christian baptism, as commanded in Matthew 28:18ff is wholesale reliance on the completed work of Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection, into which the baptized believer enters by metaphor and out of obedience.  It is done not simply looking at the sinfulness of the immersed, but at the complete revelation of God, as trinitarian (in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), judge, and mercy-bringer.  It is a fully-informed, fully-developed picture of what it means to be brought out of death and into life, out of bondage, and into freedom.   This fully-developed picture is different from the baptism of John and of Jesus' disciples in their early ministry.  That's why it was possible for people to have been baptized by the baptism of John to be re-baptized by Paul into the full Christian baptism of faith in Christ (Acts 19:1-4).  This was something much greater, much more fully-realized. 

What would become our Christian ritual of initiation, the first step in obedience required of everyone who has been saved by faith alone in Christ alone,  began so many years ago at the Red Sea.  The command to mikvah had not yet been given, and the people of Israel had just been redeemed from bondage and slavery by the blood of the Passover Lamb and the work of God.  They had much in common with the new believer.  Sin and bondage lie behind them, and God is leading them on the first steps of their faith journey.  He takes them straight away to mikvah.  It is the first priority for the newly freed from bondage and sin.  When they arrive at the moving waters, they are faced with a moment of crisis that tests their fledgling faith.  Sin is pursuing them in a very real way.  Pharaoh and his army are coming to bring them back to bondage, and God has told them to wait at the shores of the sea for His salvation to be demonstrated.  God let them leave Egypt prepared for war (Ex 13:18), but He does not require that the infant belief of the Hebrews be tested in war so soon.  He requires that they observe the salvation of their God.

Believer's baptism is trinitarian, but the mikvah of the Jew is not immediately seen in this light.  Here though, at the first mikvah, God the Father is present in the theophany of the pillar of cloud and fire (Ex 13:21), God the Son is present in the person of "The Angel of the Lord" (Ex14:19), and the Holy Spirit, whose name in both Hebrew and Greek means "wind," is sent to drive the sea back and make the corridor for the mikvah of the people of God (Ex 14:21).  The Israelites march across on dry ground, while God holds the Egyptians back with two manifestations of his presence (the pillar and an unapproachable darkness, see Psalm 18:11). Interestingly, the contemporary mikvah practice dictates that the person dip three times in the water. Why?  Tradition. Once they are across,  he takes back the barrier, and the Egyptians pour into the channel make through the waters, only for the waters to come crashing down on them and consume them. 

Baptism does not save the believer, but it does mark the moment in the person's life when they publicly testify that they have left sin behind and entered into the salvific act of Christ on their behalf.  They have left sin to die behind them, and they are a new creation, no longer in the land of slavery, bondage, and sin.  They are now on the road to new life, to a promised land that they will one day achieve.  They are lead along this path by the God of the universe, and there is still much to learn and experience in the journey toward relationship and perfection, but the line has been crossed, the decision made, and they are clean in the eyes of God.

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1st Saturday of the Omer

1st Saturday of the Omer

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him [Moses] there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands [of generations], forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.  (Ex 34:5-8)

This passage has been one of my favorites for a long time.  In it, Moses is blessed with the clearest picture of God that anyone will have until the Mount of Transfiguration.  Moses has talked with God before in the tent of meeting (Ex 33:7ff), and he had a powerful encounter with Him even earlier on the first Shavuot, when the Law was given.  Until this point, though, there has been distance between the presence of God and His people.  Moses asks to be brought nearer than ever before when he asks to see God's glory in the last part of chapter 33.  He's heard God's voice.  He's received God's law.  He's been within the cloud on the mountain and in the tent, but he wants to go deeper.  God allows it, to a point.  He allows Moses a greater access to his presence than ever before and lets the lawgiver see the "backside" of God--better understood to be the afterglow-- as He passes by.  As awesome as that would have been, Moses doesn't record the moment of seeing the afterglow at all.  We don't have any record of what it looked like.  What struck Moses more than whatever it is that he saw was what he heard.  God declared His goodness, proclaimed his name and His attributes as He passed by.   This is what stuck with Moses and what he recorded for us.

Have you ever been to a social function where you were given one of those, "Hi, my name is..." stickers?  If God had shown up, this paragraph is what would have to be written (in very small letters) in that space.  This is God.  He brings Moses closer than anyone has ever been (or ever will be again for another 2,500 years) and declares His goodness to Moses.  It's interesting, isn't it, that everything recorded in this paragraph is described by God at the end of chapter 33 as His "goodness"?  I think that we'd all agree that a God merciful, slow to anger, gracious, and forgiving sin is a good thing, but would you put the rest under that category?  God declares that he will not clear the guilty and that the sins of one man will impact the lives of his great-grandchildren. Really?  That's good too?

The first time I taught this passage, I did all kinds of gymnastics trying to not really have it mean what the language clearly states.  It bothered me that the same God who forgives transgression, iniquity, and sin would visit the sins of a man to his progeny.  Five years after the first time I taught this, I understand more of what that means.  First of all, it doesn't mean that I will go to hell because my great-grandfather rejected Christ.  Read Ezek 18 to put that fear to rest.  What it does mean is that God is Holy, and while He does forgive sin, He does not dismiss it.

I'll say that again.  While God does forgive sin, He does not dismiss it.

You see, sin is real, and it's a serious problem.  I think those of us in the Christian faith frequently run the risk of receiving grace as a "free gift" and think that it means "cheap."  Sin is a massive problem.  It is the insurmountable barrier between a fallen world and our creator.  It is inside each of us at birth, dominates our lives' activities, is the natural inclination of every heart, and cannot be put away on our own strength.  Sin is that bad.  It's so bad, in fact, that the only way for it to be dealt with, for it to be conquered once and for all, was for Jesus to take on flesh (a MASSIVE condescension and miracle in itself), live a perfect life (another AMAZING thing), and then die in our place. There was no other way.  Jesus asked His Father for plan B in the garden before He was arrested, and He resolved that there wasn't one.  That's how massive a problem sin is.  Jesus had to die to get it out of the way. God died.  Don't read that too quickly.

So God is willing to forgive sin, but it has to be on His terms--His methodology is all that there is.  He won't wink at your failings.  He won't turn a blind eye to your depravity.  You won't get into heaven on your charm, your looks, or your salesmanship.  God "will not clear the guilty."  It doesn't matter how much money you give your church, the homeless shelter, or the Republican presidential fund.  You can adopt orphans and kittens all day long.  You can pay your taxes on time, be elected to the city council, and run the boyscout troop in your home town and still go the hell when you die if you haven't dealt with your sin according to God's plan.

Passover and Easter are both beautiful portraits of both sides of God's nature as revealed in Exodus 34.  At Passover, God shed his grace and mercy broadly upon the children of Israel and freed them from bondage and oppression.  They left the land of slavery and set out for the land of promise.  God showered them with his enduring steadfast love, and they celebrate that moment every year in remembrance.   At the same time, though, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians died.  Most of them children.  How does that make you feel?  God showered one group of people with love and mercy, and on another He rained down death.  The same God did both.  How did people escape the one reality and flee into the other?  Through the sacrifice of a Lamb and the sprinkling of blood.  That was God's way.  If you followed it, you were spared.  If not, people died.

Easter is this same formula broadcast on a larger screen, with higher stakes.  Instead of merely dying physically, what we're talking about here is eternal spiritual existence in torment.  Instead of a promised physical land that someone may or may not enjoy for 60 to 80 years, God is offering an eternity in His presence and His paradise.  Instead of the death of thousands of lambs, God's way is more focused.  He will sacrifice One.  That Lamb will be His Son, Jesus, the Eternal Living Word, the Perfect Lamb of God, whose slaughter was declared from before the foundation of the world.  This is His way.  There is no other.

God is too Holy, to "good" to dismiss your sin, but He is willing to forgive it.  You just have to play by His rules and do it His way.  Are you willing?

An invitation to walk with us through the Passover-Shavuot Season.

Holy week is upon us.  Different faith traditions see this week (and the time leading up to it) in slightly different ways.  Catholics and Christians of the Anglican confession have been celebrating lent for the last 40 days.  While the origins of this observance are not biblical, the current practice of settings something aside as a partial fast to devote yourself more completely to God is a good thing. All Christian traditions acknowledge the time from Palm Sunday (just passed) to Easter (this Sunday) as an especially important and high holiday, as we remember the "passion week" of Jesus and all that he taught and suffered during this week for our redemption.  Different traditions may celebrate smaller events throughout the week (Maunday Thursday, for example), but we are all agreed that the cornerstone of our faith rests on what happened on Friday (His Death) and Sunday (His Resurrection).

The events of this week's celebration are anchored to the foundation of the Jewish calendar.  Have you ever wondered why Easter isn't the same weekend each year?  It's because Easter is always the Sunday after the beginning of Passover, and the Jewish festal calendar is a lunar calendar that does not line up with the Gregorian calendar that we are currently using. Very few Christian traditions acknowledge this foundation, and few Christians know that the "Lord's Supper" that we celebrate often in our church services, that we know came from the "Last Supper," is a truncated and re-purposed excerpt of the Passover meal.

Yahweh commanded the Jews to observe several holidays in honor of Himself, thanking Him for the numerous and varied gifts He bestows on them throughout the year.  Of these holidays, three of them are "High Holidays," times when all the males of the Jews are required to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem.  These holidays are Passover, Shavuot (in Greek: Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles).  While the pilgrimage requirement was not passed on to the church in the New Covenant, Jesus and the Apostles modeled the continued observance of these festivals. Also, we know that in the Millennial Kingdom, under the rule of King Jesus, He will require that all people observe His birthday on Sukkot, the festival of Tabernacles. For these reasons and more, our family observes these three High Holidays.

When God gave the command to the Jews to observe the three High Holidays, He gave them dates on which Passover and Sukkot begin, but He did not do the same for Shavuot (Pentecost).  He instead required that they count 7 Sabbaths (Saturdays) starting the Sabbath after the beginning of Passover and celebrate Shavuot on the day that follows (the 7th Sunday after the onset of Passover.  Current Judaism starts counting on the day that follows Passover, no matter what day that is (this year, it would be yesterday, Wednesday the 16th).  They will then count 7 weeks from that day and then celebrate the next day.  Since Passover always starts on the 15th of Nissan on the Jewish calendar, counting this way means that Shavuot is always on the same day every year.  This is not what God wanted us to do. If it was, He would have asked for it on a calendar day.  Instead, God asked for Shavuot to always be celebrated on a Sunday.  The date changes, but the day of the week does not. We count the biblical way. On the Christian calendar, the Sunday that Shavuot lands on is called "Pentecost Sunday."  We rightly celebrate that the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and birthed the church on that day, but do you know (As Paul Harvey would have said) "the rest of the story?"

Passover is about substitutionary death, atonement, punishment for sin, and the liberation from bondage.  These pictures were begun for the Jew at the first Passover and were completed in perfection in Christ.  Shavuot is about the introduction of a new way of living, of a clearer understanding of what it means to be God's people, of relationship, and of the presence of God among his people.  This was begun at Sinai, on the first Shavuot, and completed in perfection in Acts 2.

Between these two holidays, God asks us to mark the passing of time by counting the seven sabbaths between Passover and Shavuot.  He doesn't just give us the date for Shavuot because he wants us to live in the time gap reflecting back on the price of our freeedom and looking forward to the empowerment of His presence in our lives.  Last year, my family marked the two High Holidays, but we missed the experience of marking the time, which the Bible calls "Counting the Omer."  We're going to catch the blessings of this experience this year.  This is my invitation to you, my friend, to walk this season with us and drink in the fullness of these next 7 weeks.

My family celebrates the Seder meal together on the Thursday night before Easter, the night before Good Friday, no matter when Passover began that week, because that was the night at Jesus celebrated it.  This year, Passover began on Tuesday night, and observant Jews everywhere began the observation then.  We'll mimic Christ's Holy week.   It's short notice, but if you would like to celebrate the Seder tonight, here's a link to a Messianic order of service that we use: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/seder.html

I will be posting a devotional each Saturday of the Omer, helping to direct your thoughts toward this time.  I invite you to follow through it with us.