Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Luke 18:39 (NIV)
When I was in college studying acting, my professor sent us on an unusual assignment. He sent us a few miles up the road to a busy shopping mall. We were told to sit in the middle of the mall for at least two hours.
Watch people. Really observe them. How they move. Their unusual tics. The particular way they behave with others.
The goal was to teach me as an actor about creating a realistic and believable character on stage. It’s more than memorizing lines and regurgitating them on stage. It’s about creating a real person.
With a particular gate to his walk. Mannerisms unique to his character. A specific way he reacts and responds physically.
That lesson profited me far beyond my training for the stage. The importance of observation was an entire life-lesson. It had spiritual implications.
In my daily life. On this chapter-a-day journey. I keep the eyes and ears of my heart open. Observing. Watching for patterns, repetition, and surprises.
As I read and meditated on today’s chapter, I noticed something.
The chapter is book-ended with a parable and an episode. There’s a connection.
The parable concerns a judge and an old widow. A widow in the culture of Jesus’ day was a nobody. Marginalized. Poor. Zero social status. Everyday she begged the judge to hear her case. Everyday. She made herself annoying. Until the judge heard the case just to shut her up.
At the end of the chapter, Jesus is walking through a crowd. On the side of the road was a blind man. A beggar. He shouts, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” Again. And again. And again. Annoyed, those around him tell him to shut up. He yells louder. Jesus stops. Calls the man over, and heals him.
The widow knocked on the judge’s door. The blind man shouted into the crowd. Different scenes. Same audacity.
A week or so ago, I was struck by a similar parable Jesus told. The neighbor who begs for bread at midnight. Shameless audacity. Socially inappropriate.
What struck me as I meditated on these things this morning was that I was observing a pattern in the parables and stories that are lifting off the page for me in the quiet.
Prayer. Pleading. Persistence. A holy refusal to be ignored.
It’s a Holy Spirit whisper.
“Pray Tom. Keep praying. Be bold. Be audacious. Don’t stop. Try to annoy me.”
And so in the quiet this morning and observable pattern informs me of my marching orders.
And with that, I will finish this post.
I have some praying to do.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
[The chief priests and Pharisees] looked for a way to arrest [Jesus], but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. Matthew 21:15 (NIV)
In theatre, it’s called the Chorus.
Every major theatrical production has a Chorus. It’s where almost every actor begins their journey on stage. For me, it was the musical Mame my freshman year in high school. Craig got the lead as a sophomore because he was over six feet tall and the only dude in school who could naturally grow a full beard.
I was in the Chorus.
I was a minion switching costumes for each of the big production numbers. An anonymous party-goer at Mame’s New York City penthouse apartment in one scene, then suddenly a mint-julep sipping southern gentleman in a tux later in the show. A face in the crowd.
As I studied acting in college, I was taught the importance of doing a character study for any role I’m playing.
But what if I’m a member of the Chorus?
It’s a legitimate question. It’s a legitimate role.
In today’s chapter, the crowd plays a significant role.
The crowd welcomes Jesus to Jerusalem in a triumphant parade in which they shout His praises, wave palm branches, and spread their cloaks on the ground before His donkey.
The crowd has Jesus #trending. He’s who everyone is talking about. He’s all the buzz. So much so, in fact, that the religious leaders are indignant.
Later in the chapter, the indignant religious leaders try to trap Jesus in a debate. Jesus skirts His way out of the trap by leveraging his enemies’ fear of the crowd.
A third time (there’s that number three again) Matthew mentions Jesus’ enemies were so upset that they became determined to get rid of Him, but they were afraid of the crowd.
By the end of the weekit will be a different scene in a different Act. The crowd will have switched costumes and will be calling on Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus.
It’s easy to be dismissive of the Chorus in any musical, but it has a significant role to play. In the same way, it’s easy to pretend the crowd doesn’t exist in life, but it plays a larger role than I care to admit.
The number of “likes” and “comments” I get on social media from the crowd.
The movies, shows, and songs that the crowd is buzzing about.
The fashions and styles everyone in the crowd is wearing.
The fickle winds of popular opinion being tweeted, chanted, and shouted by the crowd online and in the media.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself wrestling with my own relationship with and participation in the crowd of life. I can’t escape it anymore than Jesus could escape it. He rode His donkey through the crowd shouting His praises. He knew the crush of the crowd following Him wherever He went for three years. He will feel the sting of the crowd turning on Him in the end. There is a Chorus in life whether I choose to recognize it or not. Sometimes I’m a part of it. Sometimes I’m on the outside being influenced by it.
As I ponder, I’m reminded of an observation that John made about Jesus and the crowd of Jerusalem:
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. John 2:23-25 (NIV)
I might not be able to escape the Chorus in my life’s production, but I can certainly be mindful of the role it’s trying to play in my story. I can be discerning. I can choose not to take the role when it’s offered. I, like Jesus, can choose whether to entrust myself to it or not. The further I get on this earthly journey, the more I think it wise to do so.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV)
On a shelf in my office you’ll find some notebooks. The notebooks contain character studies of different parts I’ve played as an actor. When I trained as an actor in college, I was taught that being an actor is not so much pretending to be a character (like putting on a costume, from outside in) but understanding a character so thoroughly that you transform into that person from the inside out. A great performance on stage begins, not on stage, but in my study with a notebook, the script, and all the resources I can muster. Understanding why my character makes certain choices, says the words he says, and does the things he does requires a cocktail of psychology, imagination, investigation, and meditation. The “why” is critical to the “what.”
Along my journey, I have found this to also be a spiritual truth.
Today’s chapter contains two verses that are foundational to an understanding what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Ephesians 2:8-9 are well known verses:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
I have found, however, that this is one of the most difficult truths for people to truly believe. Not just cognitively understand, but experientially understand. Throughout my life journey I have continually observed believers who pressure themselves (and their children) to do the right things, say the right things, and keep up appearances of goodness in order to conform to religious social pressure, avoid being ashamed, and to hopefully live a good enough life to be welcomed into eternity with a “well done, my good and faithful servant.”
The problem with this scenario is not in the what but in the why.
As I meditated on the chapter in the quiet this morning, it struck me that I’ve heard Ephesians 2:8-9 quoted regularly my entire life. Not once, however, have I heard someone quote verse 10 with it:
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Yet this is a critical and essential context! The “good works” flow immediately out of being “saved bygracethrough faith.” If I were an actor doing a character study of a sincere disciple of Jesus, I would dig into the “why” of their good works and find that the motivation is gratitude for Jesus’ kindness, grace, and mercy. I have observed in others that their good works are motivated by ingratiation — both the hope of maintaining acceptance and social status among the religious set and also punching one’s ticket of admission into heaven.
This distinction of “the why” is critical for any true understanding of Jesus and His teaching. I make certain choices, say the words I say, and do the things I do “because of his great love for me, God, who is rich in mercy, made me alive with Christ even when I was dead in my transgressions.” The good works don’t flow into salvation but out of it.
If I, in my heart and soul, don’t get the “why” right, then all of my good works are simply a shitty performance on the stage of life.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
The next day we landed at Sidon; and Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends so they might provide for his needs. Acts 27:3-4a (NIV)
I have always loved being on the water, and have dreamed of being at sea. As a kid, I planned to join the Navy so I could sail around the world. There was a period of my childhood when I wore a sailor hat all the time. My mom loved to tell stories of me wearing my sailor hat so much that I would forget it was on my head. I’d go to bed with it on or jump into the swimming pool with it still on my head. That love is still with me. I’d rather be on a cruise ship on the ocean than any other kind of vacation.
Today’s chapter is a fascinating and dramatic retelling of Paul’s ocean voyage to Rome in order to face trial before Caesar. I find it riveting simply because of the details Luke provides about what a voyage by ship was like at that period of history. Luke was on board with Paul, so the chapter is a primary source description of the events. The fact that they got caught up in a raging storm, spent 14 days adrift, and were eventually shipwrecked makes for exciting action. I seriously had sea shanties going through my head as I read.
After finishing the chapter and reflecting back on the events, there was one thing that stood out amidst all of them.
Paul is still a prisoner of Rome, and there were a number of other prisoners who were being transported to Rome at the same time. There was a centurion named Julius who was in charge of the prisoners and the other Roman soldiers guarding them. Early in the voyage, the ship makes port in Sidon. Julius allows Paul to disembark to meet with friends there.
This is a tremendous risk for Julian. If a prisoner were to escape, Julian would be killed for allowing it to happen. In letting Paul off the ship and trusting him to return, Julian was putting his own head on the line. Even Luke is careful to note that this was an act of incredible kindness. Later in the chapter, as it becomes clear that the ship is about to fall apart, the soldiers under Julian’s command want to execute all the prisoners in order to ensure no one would escape so as to save their own necks. But Julian, “wanting to spare Paul’s life” vetoes the idea.
As I meditated on Julian’s actions, I was reminded of Paul’s words to the disciples of Jesus in Thessalonica:
“…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (NIV)
Paul had obviously lived and conducted himself as a prisoner in such a way that he won the respect of Julian the centurion. The fact that Paul’s disembarkation in Sidon was to meet with fellow believers “to provide for his needs” was an example of Paul’s ambition to “not be dependent” on Julian or the Roman Department of Corrections. Paul earned Julian’s respect, and in doing so Paul saved his own life and the lives of all the other prisoners on board with him.
In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but be instructed by Paul’s examples in both word and deed. Yes, the story of his voyage and shipwreck makes for fascinating reading. The real story of Paul’s survival, however, is rooted in something far more significant. Paul had lived and conducted himself as a prisoner in such a way that a Roman centurion twice risked his own neck for him.
May my daily life win the respect of outsiders.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
Then [the criminal crucified next to Jesus] said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Luke 23:42 (NIV)
When I was young and involved in theatre, like most people I always wanted the starring roles. I’ve been blessed to have gotten lead roles in a number of great shows. As I studied theatre and began to direct shows myself, I was always struck by individuals at auditions who made it clear that if they didn’t get the lead role, they didn’t want to be in the show. As time went on, I found this sentiment increasingly sad.
The more time I spent on stage, the more I began to realize the joy of playing a “bit” part. It requires less time learning lines, which provides more time for playing with the lines, developing the character, and experimenting with the role. I’ve always loved the process of character development. Even with small roles of only a few lines I will do an entire character study and develop a full back story for the character in order to bring that character to life for the audience. There’s a ton of fun to be had in crafting a bit character who “steals the show.” I think the best role, by far, in Hamilton is King George. He’s only on stage for a few brief moments, but he’s stolen the show every time I’ve seen it.
As I read through the Great Story, I find that my theatre experiences lead me to contemplate those who have bit parts in the narrative. In today’s chapter, Jesus is tried, sentenced, crucified, dies, and is buried. There are a host of bit players in the event. There’s the terrorist and murderer who is pardoned instead of Jesus, who had done nothing wrong. There’s the foreigner traveling to Jerusalem who is forced to carry Jesus’ cross. Luke twice references the women who had traveled with Jesus all the way from Galilee and had the courage to witness the crucifixion while most all the male disciples were hiding in fear. And, there’s Joseph, a member of the ruling council who conspired to have Jesus killed now asking for the body of Jesus and placing it in his own tomb.
All of these bit characters have a story to tell, and I can only imagine how compelling those stories might be as they unpacked the events that led them to be there at that moment on that day. I wonder how the events of that day may have changed their lives.
Of all these bit characters, it was the thief crucified next to Jesus who commanded my attention as I meditated on the chapter in the quiet this morning. First, I found it fascinating that he knew enough about Jesus to be convinced of Jesus’ innocence, and he seemed to know what Jesus taught. Was he among the curious crowds who gathered to listen to Jesus in the Temple earlier in the week? Was he convicted of his own blaring mistakes and poor life choices as he listened?
I also found it fascinating that the thief knew Jesus’ teaching enough to acknowledge that Jesus was a King with a Kingdom. Did he overhear Jesus’ conversation with Pilate when Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world”? At what point did the thief decide that Jesus was exactly who He said He was?
Finally, I love that the thief owns his own sins and the painful consequences he is experiencing. Shakespeare’s tragic thieving character, Bardolph, comes to mind when he says to Prince Harry, “When thou art King, don’t hang a thief!” The thief on the cross has no such hopes of escaping with a royal pardon. With the eyes of his spirit, the condemned man sees with perfect clarity what is happening at this moment. He and the angry criminal hanging on the other side of Jesus are getting what they deserve. They committed their crimes and they are paying for it. With the same clarity, he sees that Jesus is an innocent man suffering like a lamb being slaughtered.
At that moment, the nameless thief has one request: “Remember me.”
There is something I find so purely humble and gut-wrenching honest in this ask. He accepts his fate and embraces the certainty that he deserves the eternal punishment to which he knows he is headed. I’m reminded of Jesus’ parable of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus. The rich man languishes in Hades and looks across the spiritual chasm to see Lazarus in heaven. This is the reality the thief fully expects. He will be in eternal anguish as across the great spiritual divide Jesus takes up His throne in His eternal Kingdom. He accepts this fate.
“Please. Just think of me. That’s all I ask.”
How magnificent, how beautiful, that in this grand, climactic, spiritual moment in the history of all creation, one undeserved, poor thief finds a mustard seed of faith and the grace that flows freely from it.
When, as an actor, I make an entrance to play a bit character on stage, I am that person in that moment. In the quiet this morning, I find myself similarly hanging on my cross next to Jesus. I know my sins. I know what I deserve. I know that Jesus does not deserve what I deserve. In the quiet, it is my soul whispering, “Remember me.”
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
This is what the Lord says: “See how the waters are rising in the north; they will become an overflowing torrent. They will overflow the land and everything in it, the towns and those who live in them. The people will cry out; all who dwell in the land will wail…” Jeremiah 47:2 (NIV)
It was early summer in 1993 and I made a quick trip to a car dealership just a mile or two up the street from my house with the whole family in tow. I don’t recall being there very long. The girls were just toddlers at that point, so it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes to look at whatever car it was that we were interested in seeing.
By the time we started pulling out of the dealership a creek the runs just a hundred yards or so to the south of the dealership had risen to flood the intersection between the dealership and our house. Over the next hour, I drove for mile and miles trying to find an open route that would get us safely home. I eventually had to drive about ten miles north and east of our location to successfully connect to the interstate that was still open and could get us back home.
Floods are an ominous thing. As I look back on my life journey, I realize that floods are the most consistent natural disasters that I’ve had to deal with throughout my life journey. What’s crazy is that you can’t always see them coming before the floodwaters start wreaking havoc. I’ll never forget waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of rushing water and discovered water pouring through a basement window. Talk about feeling helpless. Ugh!
Today’s chapter is another one of the prophet Jeremiah’s one-off prophetic messages to people groups in his region. This one is directed to the Philistines who lived to the south and west of Jerusalem. Like Jeremiah’s own people, the Philistines were caught in the no-mans-land between the two warring empires of Egypt and Babylon. Like Jeremiah’s people, the Philistines would have felt the tension of who they should side with in the conflict in order to avoid disaster.
In the message God gives to Jeremiah for the Philistines, it opens with the metaphorical imagery of a devastating flood coming from the north (that would be the Babylonian army) which the Philistines will be helpless to stop. In the ancient Near East, treaties often included curses for the people who broke the treaty. The curses were sometimes a “flood.” In surviving treaties from this same century, the Assyrian empire made vassal treaties with weaker city-states and promised destructive floods should those city-states break the treaty. This adds some context to Jeremiah’s message to the rising “flood waters” to the north.
The Philistines have been part of the geo-political landscape in this area for centuries. It was the Philistines who gave Samson troubles back in the time of the Judges. King David was always at war with the Philistines some 500 years before Jeremiah. What’s ominous about Jeremiah’s prophetic prediction of destruction for “all the Philistines” is that it turned out to be true. After Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon storms through the region in 605 B.C. the Philistines disappear from the historical record.
In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but think about floods in life. Along this life journey I have observed that sometimes troubles rise like floodwaters, and I am helpless to avoid them or prevent them. In those instances, the crucial question is how I will handle the reality of them. Jesus taught His followers to expect troubles. Those followers quickly learned that it was those troubles that required the production of character qualities such as faith, trust, perseverance, character, maturity, and hope. I have found the same to be true in my own life.
When troubles hit like a flash flood and the waters are rising, faith is the Life preserver that allows me to rise with them.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
“Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching, and say to them, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired.” Jeremiah 19:10-11 (NIV)
This past weekend, I took a couple of days to spend with my friend Matthew at the lake. We both have April birthdays, so it was a mutual birthday celebration.
One of the things I love about the lake is that the combination of quiet and separation from daily routines allow for a level of contemplation and conversation that normal daily schedules don’t afford. In those conversations this weekend, Matthew and I peeled back deeper layers of knowing and being known.
One of the things I love about my Enneagram Five friend, Matthew is his natural curiosity that leads to a depth of knowledge and understanding about how humans feel, think, and behave. This feeds his work as a therapist. Matthew unpacked for me some of the things being studied on the cutting edge of his field in the area of neurobiology, the study of the brain.
Matthew shared with me how the brain, like a computer, has both hardware and software. In our earliest years, our experiences and the feelings they stir in us lead to the hard-wiring which becomes our mental hardware. As we grow, the emotional center of our brain (how we feel) and the resulting hardware center of the brain (how we think) combine to determine how we see everything around us (what we believe). As he described this, it sounded awfully hopeless to me. If my brain becomes hard-wired in these patterns at an early age, is re-wiring it even possible?!
“Yes!” Matthew answered emphatically. “God made our bodies with the ability to heal, and that includes the brain. But there is one ingredient that is essential in facilitating the rewiring process: pain.”
In today’s chapter, the ancient prophet Jeremiah is told by God to take a clay jar from the local potter, gather some civic and priestly elders, and take them to the “Potsherd Gate” of Jerusalem which overlooked the Valley of Hinnom. The Potsherd Gate was so-called because the area right outside the city wall was a garbage dump for people’s broken and useless pottery. The Valley of Hinnom had long served as an area where citizens of Jerusalem met to worship pagan deities like Baal, which included the sacrifice of first-born children to the god Molech.
Having reached the gate and overlooking the Valley, Jeremiah smashed his clay jar and prophesied that God was going to lay waste to Jerusalem because of her unwillingness to turn away from the worship of their false gods and their detestable practices. This prophetic word picture had a layer of meaning for the elders he brought along with them. Rulers in that region, particularly Egypt, would write the names of their enemies on pottery and then smash them as a curse.
God was sending His people through a painful siege followed by a painful captivity in Babylon. God ultimately wanted to rewire His people’s thinking and beliefs, their minds and hearts, which had become hard-wired to hold fast to their duplicitous worship system while stubbornly rejecting God’s ways. As I read this in the quiet this morning, I heard Matthew’s words echoing in my own heart: “…there is one ingredient that is essential in facilitating the rewiring process: pain.”
Matthew and I spent some time talking through some of the most painful experiences in our respective life journeys. In doing so, we learned some intimate details about one another, things we’d never shared before. We were not only able to extend grace to one another, but we were able to appreciate and articulate how God used those deeply painful experiences to teach us important qualities like faith, endurance, patience, joy, and hope.
In the quiet this morning, as I get ready to head into another work week, I am reminded that God repeatedly reminds me throughout the Great Story that I am to rejoice, exult, and “consider it all joy” when life gets shattered like an earthenware jar. If I am willing to respond to those painful stretches of the journey with spiritual openness, God will use them rewire my heart and mind in ways that are otherwise impossible.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
Many years ago, I found myself in circumstances I could never have imagined. I found myself in the middle of a divorce and living in a new community. My world had suddenly turned upside down and inside out. It was a scary, tenuous, anxious, humbling, and stressful season of life.
Along this life journey, almost everyone experiences a period of wilderness. Life as we know it experiences a tectonic shift. Things get turned upside down and inside out. Wilderness could be brought on by unforeseen tragedy, the death of a loved one, war, natural disaster, divorce, loss of a job, financial loss, conflict, illness, or any number of similar life-changing events.
The psychologist Carl Jung and the scholar Joseph Cambell did a lot of work in the 20th century studying and revealing the archetypes and patterns in the epic stories of humanity. Our greatest stories reflect the core of our human experience. They resonate with us because there is something in the story that connects deeply with our human experience. I would submit that the patterns and archetypes are found in our stories because they are found in our lives.
Wilderness is one of these common themes. Here are the first five steps of the hero’s wilderness journey as Jung and Campbell outline it:
The hero’s journey starts in the Ordinary World. The hero—male or female—is “stuck,” but he or she senses some powerful, tectonic energy moving beneath the surface.
The hero receives a “call.” This may be positive—an invitation to climb Annapurna—or negative … we’re arrested and thrown in jail. Or, like Odysseus, the hero commits a crime against heaven and is “made to” undergo an ordeal of expiation. But one way or another, you and I are ejected from Normal Life and flung, willy-nilly, into Something Totally New.
The hero “crosses the threshold.” She moves from the Ordinary World to the Extraordinary World (also known as the Inverted World.) Like the children in The Chronicles of Narnia, we pass through a portal and enter a realm unlike any we have known.
The hero encounters allies and enemies, undergoes challenges and heartbreaks, temptations and overthrows. The hero suffers. The hero loses her way. The hero has been caught up in an often hellish adventure (though with some good moments too), from which no escape seems possible. The stakes are clearly life and death.
The hero perseveres. Reckoning that there’s no turning back, the hero pushes on, often blindly, almost always wracked by despair and self-doubt, seeking he or she knows not what. Escape? Redemption? A conclusion of some kind to this crazy, upside-down enterprise?
It may be lost on modern American readers, but today’s chapter is one of the most life-changing historical events in the history of the Hebrew people. The Babylonian siege of Jerusalem was a violent, horrific event. Jeremiah, who lived through it, poetically describes the carnage in the five short chapters of Lamentations. The entire nation, the King and the priests, are taken into captivity and exile in Babylon. Among the exiles were the prophet Ezekiel and a young man named Daniel. Their stories, respectively, are rooted in their experiences in the Babylonian wilderness, along with the story of Esther.
The wilderness, Jung and Campbell explain, always has a purpose in making the hero the hero. It is in the wilderness the hero faces the darkness, the villain, their own fear, and/or seemingly insurmountable odds. It is in the wilderness that the hero experiences an “all is lost” moment, and it is in the wilderness that the hero eventually experiences an important epiphany and is ultimately led back home, a different person with a “gift.” Judah’s return from wilderness and exile is told in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra.
In the quiet this morning, God’s Spirit has brought to mind people I know who are experiencing seasons of wilderness in their own life journeys. I look back on my own season of wilderness and I can see the things I had to face, the lessons God had for me in it, and what a positive difference it ultimately made in my life and my spiritual journey. If I could write a letter to my past self in the midst of that wilderness, I would tell my struggling self to trust the story God is authoring in my story, to persevere one step at a time, and to know that good things, redemptive things, lie ahead.
My seasons of wilderness have taught me that God is more interested in developing my character than in facilitating my comfort.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
Elijah: a Pivotal Character (CaD 1 Ki 17) –
Wayfarer
Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”
Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” 1 Kings 17:1-2 (NIV)
One of the things that constantly amazes me in my ongoing journey through the Great Story is how events separated by hundreds and thousands of years and recorded by different authors are so interconnected.
Today’s chapter launches one of the most exciting and action-packed episodes in all of the Great Story. King Ahab is on the throne in the northern Kingdom of Israel. The Kingdom of Israel has abandoned Yahweh, the God of Moses and David, and has embraced one of the most popular regional deities, a fertility/storm god named Baal. This had been largely a business strategy for Israel which desired lucrative trade alliances with their neighboring Kingdoms (who all worshipped Baal). Ahab marries a Phoenician princess named Jezebel, who is a faithful advocate for the worship of Baal and other regional deities. The marriage was also a strategic trade alliance.
Out of nowhere there arrives a lone stranger, a prophet of God named Elijah. Elijah proclaims that there will be no rain, nor dew, except by his word. A catastrophic drought and famine begin.
What was fascinating for me in the rest of the chapter was the way that the events point back in time to earlier events and foreshadow future events of Jesus and His followers.
First, there’s the drought, which is a powerful metaphor for spiritual decline and need. Jesus said that He was “living water.” Water is a repetitive metaphorical theme God uses throughout the Great Story to communicate spiritual nourishment, abundance, and life. In the Garden of Eden at the beginning of Genesis and the new heaven at the end of Revelation I find the “river of life” watering the Tree of Life. Drought and the subsequent famine were, therefore, living word pictures of the spiritual consequences (lack, need, thirst, starvation, decline, death) that the Kingdom of Israel faced in giving themselves over to Baal worship.
God tells Elijah to go “east” beyond the Jordan River. East is the direction God told Adam and Eve to go out of the Garden of Eden. East is the direction of exile that the people of God at the hands of Assyria and Babylon. Elijah is also going into exile, into the wilderness across the Jordan where Moses and the Hebrew tribes wandered while seeking the Promised Land. For the Israelites of Elijah’s day, this was a stinging rebuke that the man of God was metaphorically separating from God’s people in the Promised Land and returning to the wilderness. I couldn’t help but also see this as a foreshadowing of Jesus, His followers, and the early Jesus Movement. When the Hebrew religious institution rejects, executes, and persecutes Jesus and His followers, their ministry expands to the non-Jewish Gentiles.
Elijah is fed by Ravens in the wilderness. They bring him bread and meat every morning and every night. This points back to God providing manna (bread) and quail (meat) to His people during their wilderness wanderings in Exodus. Ravens, however, were “unclean” for the Hebrew people as would be any food that came out of their mouths. This also foreshadows events of the early Jesus Movement when God tells Peter and the rest of Jesus’ followers that every food is “clean.”
Meat was a luxury in the diet of common people of Elijah’s day. Kings were among the only ones who could afford this luxury. And, there was a famine in the land. This meant that the King of Israel was likely going hungry in his palace while Elijah feasted on meat twice a day at Yahweh’s table.
Elijah is led to go to a Gentile widow’s house in Zarephath, foreshadowing the early Jesus movement being led to take Jesus’ message to the Gentiles like Peter being led to a Roman Centurian’s house in Acts.
There is a drought and famine going on, and Elijah has the audacity to ask a Gentile widow for water and bread. This foreshadows both Jesus asking a Gentile woman from Samaria for a drink of water and the audacity of Jesus telling his disciples to feed a crowd of thousands with a couple of loaves and a few fish. Elijah goes on to tell the woman to make bread from her flour and oil jars, explaining that the jars will miraculously never be empty just like the baskets of bread and fish that Jesus’ disciples passed around the crowds.
Elijah then raises the widow’s son from the dead, foreshadowing the same miracle that Jesus would perform on multiple occasions.
The prophet Elijah himself is a pivotal figure in the Great Story, and today’s chapter is a great example of this. Elijah hearkens back to earlier chapters of the Great Story, he is a lead character in the chapter of history in which he lived, and he foreshadows John the Baptist, Jesus’ earthly ministry, and where God will ultimately lead the story in future chapters. Elijah’s life and experiences metaphorically point to what God has done, is doing, and will do later in the story.
In the quiet this morning, I’m once again amazed at how the Great Story ties together across multiple sources and across time. I’m also once again reminded that the story is still being told, and that I have a role to play.
And with that thought, I enter my day.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. 1 Kings 14:25 (NIV)
I have observed that every life journey is marked by a certain amount of both difficulty and tragedy. The amount is relative. The difficulties and tragedies can be the consequences of foolish choices and behaviors. In some cases, they may be directly related to system patterns inherited from previous generations. In other cases, a difficulty or tragedy simply originates in what insurance companies still call the random “act of God.”
Another observation I’ve made along my life journey is the way in which people respond to difficulties and tragedies in life. It is not uncommon for people to get mad at God, blame God, conclude that God does not exist, or conclude that if God does exist they want nothing to do with a God who would allow such things to happen. Yet others find that the difficulties and tragedies lead to greater faith and dependence on God in whom they find comfort, peace, and presence as they work through the natural stages of grief that accompany hard times.
In today’s chapter, the author of Kings gives a brief summation of King Rehoboam’s reign. He first states the Rehoboam led the Kingdom of Judah astray in the pagan worship of local deities and the detestable things they practiced in their religions. He then notes the most important event of Rehoboam’s reign after the division of Israel into two Kingdoms. The Egyptian King Shishak laid siege to Jerusalem and plundered the vast wealth of Solomon’s treasury in both the palace and the Temple. The event is corroborated in an inscription listing the successful campaigns of Shishak in a temple in Thebes. The plundering of Jerusalem was a terrible and tragic blow to the nation of Judah which was already struggling from the split with the northern tribes and the loss of lucrative trade routes. Politically, it was a terrible blow to Rehoboam’s power, wealth, and approval ratings.
What the author of Kings does not mention, is an important tidbit that the author of Chronicles made sure to mention. For the first three years of his reign, Rehoboam followed the ways of the God of Israel and was faithful to the ways of his grandfather David. It was during and after the political and military difficulties with Egypt and the plundering of Jerusalem that Rehoboam abandons his faith in God and leads his people in embracing pagan deities.
In the quiet this morning, I have to wonder whether Rehoboam was angry with God for allowing such a blow to his kingdom and his reign. When tragedy struck, did he simply choose to walk away from God because he blamed God for the tragedy? If so, he was certainly ignoring the rather major role he played in putting himself and his tribe in a weakened position that led to easy defeat. Having lived his entire life in luxury, privilege, and power, it would not surprise me that Rehoboam would have difficulty in humbly accepting his own part in the difficulties he experienced.
And of course, that leads me to consider my own reactions and responses to life’s difficulties and tragedies. My spiritual journey has taught me what I mentioned earlier, that every person will experience difficulties and tragedies in life. Nowhere in the Great Story does God promise a person a life free of it. In fact, God promises I’ll have difficulties and tragedies in this fallen world, and it is through them I develop the character qualities He desires and I progress toward spiritual maturity.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
