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.