Tag Archives: Connected

Chapter-a-Day

Shift in the Story

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Shift in the Story (CaD Lk 9) – Wayfarer

While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.
Luke 9:34 (NIV)

I have a friend whose story intersected with mine in college. As happens, our paths on life’s journey took us in different directions. A few years ago, our paths brought us back together. My friend is going through a particularly painful chapter of his personal story. As we have talked over the last few years, my friend regularly mentions one of our college professors. This professor meant a lot to him, and he always expresses how he would love to connect and what an encouragement it would be to him.

Yesterday, that very professor posted a comment on my blog and said that one of my blog posts unexpectedly “popped up” and prompted him to send a “remember me?” comment to the blog post.

Hmmmm.

In yesterday’s post/podcast, I talked about stories. My story. Your story. How my story has intersected with countless other people and their stories. They become part of my story and I become part of theirs whether it is for a moment, a season, a few different seasons, or the whole earthy journey.

I believe that every person’s story, and our respective intersections with each other’s stories, are ultimately about our respective intersections with the Great Story that God is authoring in the grand scheme. I believe they are all connected in ways we can’t humanly fathom.

The further I get in my spiritual journey, the more I recognize that everything is connected.

Today’s chapter marks a definitive shift in Luke’s version of the Jesus Story. We’re less than halfway through, but having given a broad brush summary of Jesus’ first two years of ministry he’s going to shift to the climactic final months. Here’s how the good doctor clues us in:

First, Jesus asks The Twelve who they think He is. Peter says he thinks Jesus is God’s Messiah. Jesus warns them to keep this to themselves and immediately tells them what is going to happen: He will be handed over to the religious institution, be killed, and rise from the dead. (vs 18-27)

A second time Jesus tells The Twelve that He will be “delivered into the hands of men.” (vs 43-45)

Dr. Luke then states that as these events approached Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem” where all these things would take place. (vs 51)

Smack dab in the middle of this setup (vs 28-36) is one of the funkiest episodes of the Story, also referenced by both Matthew and Mark in their versions.

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to the top of a mountain. The three amigos start to nod off, and when they wake up Jesus is standing there shining like the sun talking to two others talking to Him. The two others turn out to be Moses and Elijah and they are talking to Jesus about His “departure.” Then a thick cloud appears and the boys are freaking out. The cloud is so thick they can’t see anything and a voice from the cloud says, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; Listen to Him.”

What most casual readers miss is that this entire episode is rooted in the ancient story of the Exodus (you can read it in Exodus 20), when God delivers the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and makes a covenant with them, that they will be His people and He will be their God. Everything in the Great Story is connected. If I don’t learn the whole Story, I’ll always miss the connections. Let me break it down:

Moses was the appointed deliverer of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, just as Jesus is about to be the deliverer of all humanity from slavery to sin. Both episodes happen on mountains, Moses on Mount Sinai, Jesus on an undisclosed mountain (probably Mount Hermon). In both cases, a cloud covers the mountain and God speaks from within the cloud. Moses (the Lawgiver) and Elijah (representing the Prophets) speak to Jesus about his impending “departure” (literally, the Greek word “exodos”) from this earth to establish a new “covenant” in which all who believe are His people, and He our God.

Everything in today’s chapter is a foreshadowing of the rest of the story. The mysterious mountaintop miracle connects what’s happening to Jesus’ story to what God was doing thousands of years earlier. The events are connected. It’s all part of one big story.

As I sit in the quiet this morning, I’m simply resting in the connections and flow of this Great Story. Daily circumstances so easily take up so much of my mindshare and they demand so much of my emotional reserves. It’s easy to forget the bigger picture. These momentary circumstances are connected to a larger story – my story – which is connected to other peoples’ stories – which is connected to the Great Story. If I lose sight of this, the daily circumstances easily become overwhelming, meaningless, futile even. Jesus reminds me that I need to shift focus and pull back on the camera to see the larger story.

And, I need to trust the Story.

I’m looking forward to connecting my dear friend with his beloved professor today.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Part of the Family

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“The following came up from the towns of Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon and Immer, but they could not show that their families were descended from Israel….”
Nehemiah 7:61 (NIV)

A few years ago, I signed up on a site called WikiTree. It is a free online effort to create one massive family tree. The volunteers at WikiTree are not just trying to find their family, but to connect their family to all other families in the realization that, ultimately, we all came from the same woman.

I’ve dabbled in my family’s history for decades. The reality is that I come from pretty common, everyday people. Carpenters, farmers, and poor immigrants who left for the new world to make a better life for themselves and their descendants. That’s my lineage.

WikiTree, however, has a feature in which you can discover how you are connected to various historical people. It’s not a direct blood relationship, but because it’s one massive global family tree you begin to realize that through marriage connections and sibling connections there aren’t that many degrees of separation between you and royalty. For example, there are only 18 degrees of separation between me and King Henry VIII:

In today’s chapter, Nehemiah goes to great lengths to record the returning exiles. Interestingly, he doesn’t do it by name but by families and genealogical records. In the Hebrew system, your family of record was a huge deal. Your career and your social standing had everything to do with your family tree. You’ll notice that some of the exiles were labeled as descendants of “the servants of King Solomon.” Those who had no genealogical record are found at the bottom of Nehemiah’s list. They were the poor dregs.

One of the paradigms that Jesus came to radically change was this genealogical system. In the system that Jesus established, a person’s standing in this temporal, Level 3 world was of no value at all. In the radically new paradigm, Jesus established “the first will be last and the last will be first.” In the introduction of his Jesus biography, the disciple John writes:

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

John 1:12

For those in the entrenched Hebrew family system of genealogical records and social status, this turned the systemic realities of their society upside down. And, from a spiritual perspective, it’s absolutely life-changing. Anyone, anyone, anyone, anyone can be a child of God, a member of the family, and a partaker of the divine inheritance through simple faith in Jesus. No more pecking order. In fact, interestingly enough, if you look at the family records of Jesus listed in Matthew and Luke you’ll find both Jews and Gentiles, men and women, kings and prostitutes. It’s like a word picture of the spiritual family Jesus came to introduce us to.

In the quiet this morning, I am mulling over that which WikiTree regularly reminds me: We’re all connected. I think that Jesus, the Author of Creation, understood that more than anyone. I’m also pondering on the spiritual, systemic paradigms that I so easily forget and am so quick to corrupt:

“Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.”

Jesus
Chapter-a-Day

“It’s Boring!” (Until You See the Connections)

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Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David.
2 Chronicles 3:1 (NIV)

When I began this blog over 12 years ago I called it Wayfarer because  a wayfarer is one who is on a journey, and anyone who has be the most casual reader of my posts knows that I reference my journey in almost every post. Life is a journey, for all of us. If I step back, I can also see that history is a journey in a macro sense. Humanity is on its own life journey from alpha to omega. I am connected to what has gone before us, and I am a micro part of the on-going trek of life through time.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks I’ve observed when it comes to people reading what we refer to as the Old Testament, or the ancient writings of the Hebrew people, is that it appears so disconnected from my life, my reality, and my daily journey. The further I get in my journey, however, the more I realize how everything is connected.

In today’s chapter we have a fairly boring recitation that an ancient Chronicler wrote of the design of Solomon’s temple. It’s actually a re-telling of an earlier recitation in the book of 1 Kings. It was likely written at a time after the exiles taken to Babylon returned to Jerusalem and were faced with the task of rebuilding Solomon’s Temple which had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Have you ever observed how when there’s a current event on which everyone is focused (i.e. the royal wedding) and then all of a sudden there’s a ton of magazine articles, books, documentaries, and shows about royal weddings? The writing of Chronicles describing how Solomon built his temple, was likely written because everyone was focused on rebuilding that temple.

But wait, there’s more:

  • The Chronicler mentions that the temples was build on Mount Moriah, which is where Abraham obediently went to sacrifice his son, Isaac and then was stopped by God. So the temple they are building is also connected to the past and the founder of their faith.
  • For those of us who follow Jesus, we also see in Abraham’s sacrifice a foreshadowing of God so loving the world that He sacrificed His one and only Son. So today’s chapter is connected to that as well.
  • And the temple design parallels the design of the traveling tent that Moses and the Hebrews used as a worship center as they left Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for years. So, the temple is connected to that part of the story as well.
  • Oh, and then it describes “the most holy place” where only the high priest could enter once a year as a 20x20x20 cubit cube (a cubit is an ancient form of measurement, roughly 21 inches). When you get to the very end of the Great Story at the end of Revelation there is described a New Jerusalem. It is without a temple because Jesus dwells at the center but the entire city is designed as a cube. The word picture connects back to the design in today’s chapter. The entirety of the New Jerusalem is “most holy” because Jesus, the sacrificial lamb (there’s a connection back to Abraham’s sacrifice and the sacrificial system of Moses), has covered everyone’s sins and made everyone holy. The whole city and everything, everyone in it is holy.

Once you begin to see how everything being described in today’s chapter connects to the beginning and the end of the story it suddenly begins to get really interesting.

This morning I’m thinking about my Life journey. In the grand scheme of things it’s a little micro particle. It’s seemingly insignificant when you look at just the surface of things. But, then I begin to see how it connects to other people and their journeys. I begin to see how my journey has been made possible by everything that has gone before. I begin to see how my little, seemingly insignificant life journey, like a tiny atom in the body of time, is contributing love, life, energy, peace, kindness, goodness that will propel the story forward.

I’m just trying to walk my journey well. Connected to all that’s come before. Doing my part for those who will walk their journeys after. And, believing what Jesus taught and exemplified in His death and resurrection: when this Life journey is over an eternal Life journey will just be starting.

I hope you make good connections today.

Chapter-a-Day

Breaking the Cycles

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Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord would be moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they would relapse and behave worse than their ancestors, following other gods, worshiping them and bowing down to them. They would not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.
Judges 2:18-19 (NRSV)

Everything is connected and each thing affects every other thing around them. Every one is connected and each person affects every other person around them. That’s the general idea behind Systems theory. Things happen systemically.

There is, perhaps, no other section of God’s Message that reveals how systemically God’s creation is than the book of Judges. On a macro level, Judges is about patterns of social behavior. These generational patterns are systemic over centuries and in today’s chapter, the scribe of Judges reveals the pattern before getting into the details of the history:

  1. Joshua, the leader, passes away.
  2. The people abandon God and worship idols.
  3. God gives them over to their ways, they are defeated by enemies and enslaved.
  4. The people repent and cry to God for deliverance.
  5. God raises up a leader (e.g. Judge) to deliver them.
  6. The delivered people follow God.
  7. The leader passes away.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Along life’s journey I’ve found that what we see on a macro level in the book of Judges is found in countless ways on a micro level in our lives. We follow patterns of behavior without recognizing it. It’s systemic:

  • A person in my life does/says (A) which…
  • Triggers reaction (B) in me which…
  • Leads me to do/say (C) which…
  • Elicits response (D) from the other person which…
  • Lead the person to do/say (A) again…

“‘Round and around she goes, where she stops nobody knows.”

Today I’m thinking about patterns of behavior, patterns of thought, and patterns in relationships. Jesus made a habit of calling people out of their destructive spiritual patterns of behavior to walk in new spiritual directions. There are some things that can only be broken and transformed by a work of God’s supernatural grace.

Many people have a big conversion experience in which God calls them to leave their hopeless, destructive systemic cycles toward new Life giving behaviors. I’ve come to understand that this is only the first of many conversion experiences that happen along life’s journey. Time and time again God calls us to break systemic and destructive patterns of thought and behavior to follow His prescription for peace, joy, and love.

Where is God calling me to break the destructive cycles I’m in?