Tag Archives: Baptism

Chapter-a-Day

Purpose & Timing

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Purpose & Timing (CaD Acts 2) – Wayfarer

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
Acts 2:1 (NIV)

One of the things I’ve observed throughout the Great Story is the fact that God does things with both purpose and timing. The purpose and timing happening in today’s chapter can easily go unnoticed by the modern and casual reader.

In reading and meditating on the first two chapters of Acts, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern:

Before His ministry began, Jesus spent 40 days of preparation fasting, and praying. He was then baptized by John, the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and His ministry was effectively launched.

Before their ministry began, Jesus’ disciples spent 40 days of preparation. According to their own testimony, the risen Jesus appeared to them during this period and taught them. They were then baptized in the Holy Spirit and their ministry was effectively launched. (FYI: At this point, the disciples [“follower”] became known as apostles [“sent”]).

But that’s just the top layer. The pattern gets even deeper and better, because the events of Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and the outpouring of Holy Spirit are purposefully timed. They correlate to events and festivals God established through Moses back in Exodus and Leviticus at the time God established His law. What God was doing through Moses and the Law are linked to what God was doing through Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The Passover festival was a celebration of God’s deliverance of His people in the final climactic plague on the Egyptians that led to the end of their slavery and the beginning of their freedom. In that plague, death came to the first-born male of every household unless the blood of a sacrificial lamb was spread across the door. The spirit of death “passed over” the households whose doors were covered in the blood of the lamb.

Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection at the time of the Passover festival marked God’s deliverance for any who believes, leading to the end of slavery to sin and the beginning of spiritual freedom. Jesus became the sacrificial lamb, His blood poured out for all. His victory over death and resurrection made it possible for death to pass over any and all who would believe.

Pentecost was another ancient Hebrew festival, known as the Festival of Weeks. The first fruits of the harvest were celebrated and brought to the Temple as offerings. It was also traditionally commemorated as the day when God gave Moses the Law back in the book of Exodus.

So on the day of commemoration of God giving the Law through Moses, God gave the Holy Spirit to all believers. In His Message on the Mountain, Jesus said, “I didn’t come to abolish the Law (of Moses) and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.” The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was this fulfillment. To the believers in Corinth Paul wrote: “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (emphasis added).

In kicking off the harvest celebration by the bringing of first-fruit offerings, Jesus has all of the disciples, the first fruits of His early ministry. As He once told them, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” With the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the launched ministry of taking Jesus’ Message to the world, it is a celebration of a spiritual harvest of souls reaping eternal life.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself comforted in the reminder that God works with purpose and timing. I believe this is not only true in the events described in today’s chapter, but in my life, as well. There was a lot that the Apostles still didn’t see or understand about what was happening. In the same way, I often find myself on life’s road without clarity or understanding of what God is doing or where I’m clearly being led. Nevertheless, I know God works with purpose and timing, and I will continue to trust that today as I press on in the journey.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Best of 2023 #2: Death-to-Life

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I’m on vacation for three weeks. While I’m gone, please enjoy the top 15 posts from 2023 based on total number of page views and podcast plays. Cheers!

Death-to-Life (CaD Rev 21) – Wayfarer

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Revelations 21:5 (NIV)

Yesterday among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers I witnessed three teenagers and an adult being baptized. These baptisms were by immersion in which the four publically professing their faith stepped into a small pool of water. They were plunged into the water and brought back up out of it. It is a metaphor. The Greek word baptizo means to “plunge forcefully.”

Buried with Christ in the likeness of His death.
Raised with Christ in the likeness of His resurrection.
Sin washed away.
A new creation.
A new start.
A new life.

Life and death. Resurrection. Death-to-Life.

It is the meta-theme of the Great Story. Metaphors are layered with meaning, and God layered this theme in creation itself as every year we experience the death of winter and experience resurrection and new life in the spring. It is revealed in Jesus’ story: born in the darkness of exile, dying as darkness covers the land, and raised to new life at the dawn of a new day, the first day of a new week.

God revealed it to His people at the beginning of the story.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live… Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV)

It is revealed spiritually in the life of every one who follow Jesus.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 2 Cor 5:17 (NASB)

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. Romans 6:3-5 (NIV)

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. 1 John 3:14 (NIV)

The end of the Great Story is a new beginning. John’s vision reveals that earth and heaven as we know them “pass away” and a new heaven and new earth are created. I’m always surprised that I rarely hear these final chapters of the Great Story discussed, even among believers, given that it is an epic grand finale that so perfectly captures the grand theme of the Great Story itself.

Today’s chapter describes the vision revealed to John of an eternal city, a New Jerusalem, in which God and His people dwell. The city described is not novel. In fact, it’s an epic culmination of what God revealed from the beginning. The City is square like the camp prescribed through Moses for the Hebrews as they made their way to the promised land. The City is a giant cube, just like the “Most Holy Place” in the tabernacle and temple. The old “Most Holy Place” was an exclusive place for God’s holy presence, and only the High Priest entering once a year. This new “Most Holy Place” is for God and His people to dwell together. No sun or moon, because the Light of God’s glory illuminates the city in perpetuity. No more darkness, or crying, or pain. The old has passed away, the new has come.

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking of the baptisms I witnessed yesterday. Parents, family, loved ones gathered as witnesses and even participating in the ritual. An individual’s choice to make public profession of his/her personal faith. An outward sign of an internal spiritual reality. Old things have passed away, new life has begun.

It is the meta-theme of the Great Story.

It is where I’m headed, this wayfaring stranger. Today, each day of this earthly sojourn I’m traveling through this world of woe. One day I will cross over to a place where “everything is made new.”

But there’s no sickness, no toil or danger
In that great City to which I go.

Chapter to read for tomorrow’s Best of 2023: Job 34

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Preparing the Way

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Preparing the Way (CaD Lk 3) – Wayfarer

[John the Baptist] went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Luke 3:3 (NIV)

One of my mother’s first cousins passed away recently. She and my mother were dear to one another, and the fact that the two of them both descended into dementia and died in the same year doesn’t surprise me in the least. Along my life journey, I’ve observed that there can be unexplainable “connections” of spirit between certain family members. Our families got together on an occasional basis when we were growing up, and when it happened it was always a major event. There was so much fun and so much laughter. I have so many good memories with my cousins.

My mom and her cousin, and my childhood memories of our families, came to mind as I meditated on today’s chapter in the quiet this morning. I find John the baptist to be one of the most intriguing people we meet in the entire Great Story. Luke provides us with more background information about John than Matthew, Mark, and John put together. Much of it in today’s chapter.

The fact that John and Jesus were related through their mothers Elizabeth and Mary (exactly how they were related is not explained) and that Mary stayed with Elizabeth during their pregnancies leads me conclude that John and Jesus spent time together growing up. How fascinating to think of the two playing together and hanging out as boys when the families got together.

The connection between John and Jesus was more than DNA. God made clear from their respective miraculous births and angelic pronouncements that they were an integrated part of the same chapter of the Great Story.

As I meditate on the person of John, there are two major themes that come to mind. First, the adult John is the archetype of the Lone Stranger that is already established in the Great Story before in persons like Melchizedek, Elijah, and Elisha. In fact, Jesus makes clear that John is the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophetic words that conclude the Old Testament:

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes….”

John the Baptist is like the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophets. He represents the ending of one section of the Great Story as Jesus is about to usher the beginning of an entirely new section. Jesus repeatedly noted that God’s people murdered the prophets God sent to them. John became the last living example.

The other things that comes to mind as I think about John is water. The act of ritual baptism was prevalent in those days. Even at the base of the Temple mount, archaeologists have uncovered baptismal pools about the size of a modern hot tub. Three steps in and three steps out. It is likely that people would be ritually baptized or “cleansed” before ascending to the Temple mount. In the area of the wilderness around the Dead Sea where John operated, a sect known as the Essenes lived in caves in which there were vast networks of these ritual baptismal pools. Baptism was not a novel ritual concept that John created. It was a well-known ritual in which individuals cleansed themselves as a form of spiritual preparation.

That’s what John was doing. His baptism, Luke tells us in today’s chapter, was a baptism of repentance. John’s baptism was a preparation for Jesus and the forgiveness He would bring through His death, as well as the baptism of Holy Spirit that would follow His resurrection.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about the season of Advent that we are in. John and Jesus are connected on multiple levels, but primarily in John I find God modeling for us the importance of spiritual preparation. Like John’s baptism, Advent is spiritual preparation for what has done in Jesus first coming, for what God is doing in my own heart and life in this season, and for what God will do when Christ comes again in the climactic end of this Great Story.

I can’t help but believe that the better my preparation, the more transformative the full-fill-ment.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Death-to-Life

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Death-to-Life (CaD Rev 21) – Wayfarer

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Revelations 21:5 (NIV)

Yesterday among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers I witnessed three teenagers and an adult being baptized. These baptisms were by immersion in which the four publically professing their faith stepped into a small pool of water. They were plunged into the water and brought back up out of it. It is a metaphor. The Greek word baptizo means to “plunge forcefully.”

Buried with Christ in the likeness of His death.
Raised with Christ in the likeness of His resurrection.
Sin washed away.
A new creation.
A new start.
A new life.

Life and death. Resurrection. Death-to-Life.

It is the meta-theme of the Great Story. Metaphors are layered with meaning, and God layered this theme in creation itself as every year we experience the death of winter and experience resurrection and new life in the spring. It is revealed in Jesus’ story: born in the darkness of exile, dying as darkness covers the land, and raised to new life at the dawn of a new day, the first day of a new week.

God revealed it to His people at the beginning of the story.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live… Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV)

It is revealed spiritually in the life of every one who follow Jesus.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 2 Cor 5:17 (NASB)

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. Romans 6:3-5 (NIV)

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. 1 John 3:14 (NIV)

The end of the Great Story is a new beginning. John’s vision reveals that earth and heaven as we know them “pass away” and a new heaven and new earth are created. I’m always surprised that I rarely hear these final chapters of the Great Story discussed, even among believers, given that it is an epic grand finale that so perfectly captures the grand theme of the Great Story itself.

Today’s chapter describes the vision revealed to John of an eternal city, a New Jerusalem, in which God and His people dwell. The city described is not novel. In fact, it’s an epic culmination of what God revealed from the beginning. The City is square like the camp prescribed through Moses for the Hebrews as they made their way to the promised land. The City is a giant cube, just like the “Most Holy Place” in the tabernacle and temple. The old “Most Holy Place” was an exclusive place for God’s holy presence, and only the High Priest entering once a year. This new “Most Holy Place” is for God and His people to dwell together. No sun or moon, because the Light of God’s glory illuminates the city in perpetuity. No more darkness, or crying, or pain. The old has passed away, the new has come.

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking of the baptisms I witnessed yesterday. Parents, family, loved ones gathered as witnesses and even participating in the ritual. An individual’s choice to make public profession of his/her personal faith. An outward sign of an internal spiritual reality. Old things have passed away, new life has begun.

It is the meta-theme of the Great Story.

It is where I’m headed, this wayfaring stranger. Today, each day of this earthly sojourn I’m traveling through this world of woe. One day I will cross over to a place where “everything is made new.”

But there’s no sickness, no toil or danger
In that great City to which I go.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Death-to-Life

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Death-to-Life (CaD Rev 21) – Wayfarer

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Revelations 21:5 (NIV)

Yesterday among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers I witnessed three teenagers and an adult being baptized. These baptisms were by immersion in which the four publically professing their faith stepped into a small pool of water. They were plunged into the water and brought back up out of it. It is a metaphor. The Greek word baptizo means to “plunge forcefully.”

Buried with Christ in the likeness of His death.
Raised with Christ in the likeness of His resurrection.
Sin washed away.
A new creation.
A new start.
A new life.

Life and death. Resurrection. Death-to-Life.

It is the meta-theme of the Great Story. Metaphors are layered with meaning, and God layered this theme in creation itself as every year we experience the death of winter and experience resurrection and new life in the spring. It is revealed in Jesus’ story: born in the darkness of exile, dying as darkness covers the land, and raised to new life at the dawn of a new day, the first day of a new week.

God revealed it to His people at the beginning of the story.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live… Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV)

It is revealed spiritually in the life of every one who follow Jesus.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 2 Cor 5:17 (NASB)

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. Romans 6:3-5 (NIV)

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. 1 John 3:14 (NIV)

The end of the Great Story is a new beginning. John’s vision reveals that earth and heaven as we know them “pass away” and a new heaven and new earth are created. I’m always surprised that I rarely hear these final chapters of the Great Story discussed, even among believers, given that it is an epic grand finale that so perfectly captures the grand theme of the Great Story itself.

Today’s chapter describes the vision revealed to John of an eternal city, a New Jerusalem, in which God and His people dwell. The city described is not novel. In fact, it’s an epic culmination of what God revealed from the beginning. The City is square like the camp prescribed through Moses for the Hebrews as they made their way to the promised land. The City is a giant cube, just like the “Most Holy Place” in the tabernacle and temple. The old “Most Holy Place” was an exclusive place for God’s holy presence, and only the High Priest entering once a year. This new “Most Holy Place” is for God and His people to dwell together. No sun or moon, because the Light of God’s glory illuminates the city in perpetuity. No more darkness, or crying, or pain. The old has passed away, the new has come.

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking of the baptisms I witnessed yesterday. Parents, family, loved ones gathered as witnesses and even participating in the ritual. An individual’s choice to make public profession of his/her personal faith. An outward sign of an internal spiritual reality. Old things have passed away, new life has begun.

It is the meta-theme of the Great Story.

It is where I’m headed, this wayfaring stranger. Today, each day of this earthly sojourn I’m traveling through this world of woe. One day I will cross over to a place where “everything is made new.”

But there’s no sickness, no toil or danger
In that great City to which I go.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

In the Flow of Life

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In the Flow of Life (CaD Ps 1) – Wayfarer

They are like trees
    planted by streams of water
Psalm 1:3 (NRSVCE)

I have never been much of a plant guy. I can’t tell you the number of times in my life I’ve told myself I need plants in my office, only end up weeks later with an office that’s an homage to botanical mortality. It’s really strange that the past few years have witnessed the development of a bit of a green thumb in me.

The change began a few years ago with the landscaping of our yard and the planting of several rose bushes in the back yard. I grew up with my mom tending rose bushes and it’s a bit of a sentimental soft spot for me. I like cutting fresh roses and having them around the house. The nice thing about roses is that, once established, they’re a pretty hardy perennial. Even for someone as experienced in “botanicide” like myself, there’s not much you can do to keep them from blooming.

With this summer of COVID, in which we’re at home more than ever before, Wendy and I kicked things up a notch by adding several patio pots, a handful of potted herbs, and a jalapeño plant. I’m happy to say that every thing is alive and well. I’ve already harvested jalapeño peppers and we have fresh herbs drying in the pantry.

One of the things that has fascinated me as I tend our little garden is learning the water requirements for the different plants. Which have an insatiable need for water, and which seem to do pretty well even when we’ve been at the lake for a long holiday weekend.

I’m kicking off a journey into the Psalms this morning, which most people know is an anthology of ancient Hebrew song lyrics that were collected and compiled in antiquity. The first psalm is a simple instructional psalm. In six lines it contrasts those who are “blessed” with those who are “wicked.” Three lines are given to each. I was struck by the metaphor of a “blessed” person being like a tree along the river.

In Egypt, where the Hebrews were enslaved, and in the land of Canaan where they settled, there’s a lot of desert. The most fertile soil is along rivers like the Nile, and in many cases it’s the only place where things will grow. Rivers are a consistent theme throughout the great story. There was a river that flowed out of the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:10) and John described eternity where “The River of Life” flowing from God’s throne (Rev 22).

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve experienced and have read about there being a “flow” to God’s Spirit. Artists talk about being in “the flow” and athletes describe being in “the zone.” Gospel songs are rife with references to “take me to the river” where God’s Spirit flows. Jesus used the metaphor when He told the Samaritan woman at the well that He offered “Living Water,” an artesian spring of gushing out fountains of eternal life. The metaphor of baptism is all about being plunged, buried, immersed in the flow of that artesian spring.

The contrast to that solid, established, fruitful tree planted by the flow of Living Water, is chaff. The fine, dry, scaly dead plant material that gets blown about in the air. It’s Dust in the Wind to quote they lyric of Kansas’ modern psalm. Living in Iowa most of my entire life, I can’t help but see in my mind’s eye autumn evenings during harvest when the air is thick with the dusty chaff of harvested corn and beans.

The intention of today’s psalm is simple. What do I want my life to be? Established, fruitful, rooted, alive, continually nourished in the flow of living water? Or, dusty, dry, void of life, blown about chaotically by every gust of circumstance and trending fear? And, how do I become the former rather than the latter?

The first verse answers the question and the direct translation from Hebrew to English says that the “blessed” are those:

…who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
    or sit in the seat of scoffers;

I like the way Eugene Peterson paraphrased the verse in The Message:

…you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon,
    you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,
    you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.

The further I get on life’s road, the more I just want to be in the flow of God’s Spirit.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

An Ancient Ritual; A Fresh Perspective

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When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too.
Luke 3:21 (NIV)

Last week when our family was in South Carolina to celebrate the marriage of our daughter Madison to our new son-in-law, Garrett, we attended their local gathering of Jesus’ followers on Sunday morning. It was a celebration Sunday and several believers were baptized by immersion in a large baptismal pool that had been set up in the middle of the auditorium. It was fun to hear their stories about faith, following, and how Jesus had transformed their lives. The baptisms took place right in the middle of a loud, raucous, worshipping crowd singing and praising at dangerous decibel levels. There were so many people it was standing room only. Inspiring to say the least. Madison said it’s her favorite Sunday of the year, and I’m glad we experienced it.

My visit to the Holy Land many years ago changed the way I understood and experienced the Great Story. One of the things that changed drastically on that trip was my understanding of baptism. In Jesus’ day, ritual baptism was widely practiced by the Jewish people. In the wilderness around the Dead Sea there lived a colony of the monk-like ascetic priests, a Jewish sect called the Essenes. They believed in poverty, simplicity, benevolence, and daily ritual baptism. In the caves where they lived, you can still see the intricate system of baptismal pools in which their daily baptism was practiced.

Scholars believe that the Essene priests were celibate, and it is believed that they took orphans into their community to be raised in their ways and to grow their community. In yesterday’s chapter, Dr. Luke shares the story of John the Baptist’s miraculous conception to the elderly priest, Zechariah, and his wife, Elizabeth. In today’s chapter, the good Doctor fast-forwards to an adult John the Baptist living simply like a hermit in his camel-hair robe in the wilderness around the Dead Sea, preaching repentance, contentment, and baptism. He sounds exactly like an Essene. Born to elderly parents, it doesn’t take a huge mental leap to envision John being orphaned at a young age and his priestly family sending him to be raised by the Essenes, or perhaps a young John choosing to join the sect.

Being raised in the institutional protestant tradition of the Western church, baptism is considered one of the significant sacraments. Babies are sprinkled or adults are immersed. Most Christian theological traditions hold to baptism being a once-in-a-lifetime event. There are very strong feelings about the theology of baptism. Along my life journey, I’ve come to a very different conclusion than the tradition in which I was raised, especially after my visit to Israel and my exposure to the ancient tradition of ritual baptism that preceded and informed the Christian sacrament.

Baptism is a ritual of metaphor just like the sacrament of communion. It’s a sign and a visible word picture. Jesus said, “I am the water of life.” When a believer is plunged into the water it signifies dying to self and being buried in the likeness of Jesus’ death. When the believer rises up out of the water it signifies being raised to a new life in the likeness of Jesus’ resurrection, their sins washed away. It’s a ritualistic way-point on one’s spiritual journey, a fresh start, a new beginning, and an external, public proclamation of an inner-spiritual transformation.

Along my own spiritual journey, I can tell you that my spiritual path has wound itself through some pretty dark places. I’ve experienced my own periods of wilderness wandering. I have found myself the prodigal in far-away lands. I’ve discovered that my own spiritual journey is not a linear, straight-and-narrow interstate but a cyclical, meandering footpath. There are spiritual fits and starts. There are periods of stagnation, moments of repentance, and periodic commitment renewals. I think a ritual cleansing is a perfectly appropriate metaphor for important way-points along the journey. Just as the bread and cup can be a regular reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice, baptism can be a personal statement amidst a supportive community that marks an important shift in one’s spiritual trek.

In my spirit this morning I am still hearing the shouts of celebration, the screams of joy, and the ear-splitting worship that I witnessed with Madison and Garrett’s faith community in South Carolina. I had the opportunity to watch as some of those who were baptized walking out of the auditorium, dripping wet, wrapped in towels as they went to change into dry clothes. Every one of them was smiling, laughing, and visibly ecstatic. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “that’s the metaphor of baptism!” Washed clean, made new, old things passing away, and a fresh start on the right path in a good direction.

Who couldn’t occasionally benefit from that along a long spiritual journey?

Take me to the river.

Chapter-a-Day

Outside the Systems

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Bronze prutah minted by Pontius Pilate. Revers...
Bronze prutah minted by Pontius Pilate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, 20 Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.
Luke 2:1-2;19-20 (NIV)

In yesterday’s chapter, Luke related the story of Simeon who told Jesus’ mother that Jesus would cause the “rising and falling of many.” Now he lays out the political landscape of the day. The land at that time was under Roman occupation, so the Roman emperor (Tiberius Caesar) ultimately ruled along with the Roman governor in charge of the occupational force (Pilate). Then there was the local civic leaders, the sons of Herod the Great who operated the region as a client-state of Rome. For the people of Israel, they also answered to the religious authorities led by the high-priest Annas and his son-in-law, Caiaphas. Talk about a political mess.

Into this midst of this mess strides John, the cousin of Jesus. Luke introduced us to John’s story in the first chapter. John is out in the wilderness. While visiting Israel years ago I visited an archaeological site in the wilderness of southern Israel. At the time of Jesus, there was a community residing there who lived frugal, hermitic lives very similar to the monks in medieval monasteries. This community preached and practiced baptism and archaeologists had unearthed baptismal pools. Because the men were celibate in this community, they took in orphans as both a community service (orphans were a huge societal problem in that day) and to perpetuate their ranks.

Luke does not delve into the particulars of John’s life, but we know that his parents were old when he was born. It is quite possible that they died while he was young and he was sent to this community to be raised. There, he would have been taught to live off of the land, would have been educated in the scriptures, and they would have instilled in him the importance of ritual baptism.

I find it interesting that Luke lays out the landscape of political power, then introduces us to John who suddenly appears on the landscape like an ancient prophet out of the desert.  John is not from inside any of the political or religious systems of that day. He is an outsider, preaching against the corruption and greed which the political systems bred. It would land him in prison.

Today I am thinking about the systems in which I live and work. Political systems, corporate systems, religious systems, and family systems. It’s amazing how we live within these systems and are influenced by them constantly without giving them much thought. I find it fascinating that both John and Jesus were outsiders. The Kingdom of God, which Jesus would preach to the world, is not an earthly Kingdom or system. Despite humanity’s constant effort to institutionalize it (which always leads to corruption), it remains a calling for those who are willing to follow a path outside of earthly systems.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Numbers 19

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“Anything the ritually unclean man touches becomes unclean, and the person who touches what he touched is unclean until evening.” Numbers 19:22 (MSG)

“Wash your hands,” we are told incessantly from the time we are young children. We are told to do it before we eat, after being outside, when we’ve been around someone who is sick, and when we are preparing food. It’s a matter of hygiene, but even the most menial of daily tasks carries with it a spiritual word picture.

Things that make us sick, both physically and spiritually, have a tendency to spread their ill effects. We can either become fanatical about avoiding anything that might make us dirty, or we can learn the self-discipline of washing ourselves of those things which may make us sick.

Throughout God’s message, water is used a physical word picture of spiritual cleansing.

  • God cleansed the earth with a flood.
  • Israel walked through the water of the Red Sea when escaping Egypt, and then those who enslaved them were washed away in the waters.
  • Ritual cleansing and washing was prescribed in the laws of Moses for anything that made people “unclean” both physically and spiritually.
  • Jonah tried to rebel by escaping God’s call over water, then was carried through the deep to the place of obedience.
  • Baptism, literally defined as plunging forcefully, is prescribed as a public sign of their spiritual transformation for anyone who has cleansed their hearts by placing their faith in Him.

Jesus washed His followers’ feet, then told them to do the same for one another. The word picture is clear. We are expected to follow Jesus’ example. We are to walk through this world and actively love others in tangible ways. The journey carries us through some dark and dirty places. It is important that we are regularly cleansed and refreshed by one another. Otherwise, the dirt may pile up and have gravely ill effects.

Today, as I wash my hands, I’m reminded of the deeper meaning of being cleansed.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Jeremiah 41

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Ishmael’s reason for dumping the bodies into a cistern was to cover up the earlier murder of Gedaliah. Jeremiah 41:9a (MSG)

In my study group, we’ve been utilizing an exercise called Morning Pages. It’s really simple. First thing, when you get up in the morning, write three pages long hand. Just write whatever comes to your mind. Keep the pen on the paper and keep writing. Don’t think. Don’t filter. Don’t stop. Just write.

One of the men in my group commented that the first time he’d done this study, when he first used this exercise, he was shocked at what came out in his Morning Pages. I understood. In my own experience of doing Morning Pages over the years, I’ve experienced the same thing. We are often unaware of what we have stuffed in the cracks and corners of our soul.

Our souls are deep cisterns. Over time, like Ishmael, we throw a lot of nasty stuff in. Then we pile stuff on top to hide the stench and cover it up. Eventually, it gets piled so deep that the flow of living water gets stopped up. Maybe there’s something seeping to the surface, but there’s definitely not a steady flow from the source. Sometimes our well clogs completely. It dries up. Morning Pages is an exercise that purges the soul and helps return the flow.

Jesus said “repent and be baptized.” What a great word picture. Purge yourself of the rotting, dead stuff in your soul, then plunge yourself into living water so that your well is filled. It’s not a momentary event, but a life long process.

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