Tag Archives: Constantine

TGIF

March 20, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“‘There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the Lord.’”
Leviticus 23:3 (NIV)

It has been so woven into the fabric of our lives for so long that we don’t even think about it. It is universal. It is unequivocally a basic human right.

The weekend.

It wasn’t always so. For most of human history, the toil of daily survival and commerce ground on mercilessly without fail. There was no stop. There were no weekends, or PTO, or rest from the grind. It was just as God poetically told Adam it would be after he and Eve ate the forbidden fruit:

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground…”
Genesis 3:17-19 (NIV)

And so, the painful toil had been going on for the ancient Hebrews all the days of their lives. As slaves in Egypt, they toiled seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, every year of their miserable existence in chains.

Then God showed up.

God introduced Himself to Moses, delivered them from Egypt, and is now instituting a fresh start with them. He is going to live with them at the center of their camp. He is going to teach them a new way of living in community with Him and with each other.

I’ve observed along my life journey that God gets generally characterized as a tyrannical killjoy. I’d like to refute that generalization by offering as Exhibit A today’s chapter. For the record, God has laid down plenty of rules to live by so far. The most repeated rules have been don’t commit child sacrifice and don’t have sex with your own family members. Other rules include don’t drive your daughter into prostitution. Then there’s If you’ve got a festering sore, you might want to spend some time in quarantine outside the camp. Oh my goodness, what a killjoy.

We get to today’s chapter and God demands of His people a series of festivals, celebrations, and it begins with A DAY OFF FROM WORK EVERY WEEK! A day of celebration and rest EVERY WEEK!

What a tyrant.

The “sabbath” was a radical social concept in 1500 B.C. Take a day off every week. Rest from your labor. Gather with your loved ones, your community, and with God. This pattern, by the way, had already been set when Father, Son, and Holy Spirit finished creation in six days and then took a day off to rest, celebrate, and enjoy what had been created. God is teaching His people to follow His own divine example.

But it doesn’t end with just a weekend day off. God goes on to establish annual festivals and celebrations for the whole nation to rest, gather, celebrate, mourn, and remember. Once again, NO WORK! There are eight in total when you break it down, which we’ve already learned in this chapter-a-day journey through Leviticus is an important metaphorical number. Seven is the number of completion (e.g. seven days of creation) and eight is a new beginning after the completion. So the annual festivals God ordains follow the flow of His peoples annual trip around the sun and then the beginning of a new one. God is teaching His people about the flow of life and time, and God is all about flow. It’s an essential part of who He is.

So, when we get to the end of the work week and say, “Thank God it’s Friday” we can take that literally. Sabbath was a particularly Hebrew tradition until the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine, learned about God’s Sabbath and decreed that the entire Roman Empire would get one day off each week. With that, what became the modern weekend was born.

By the way, the two-day weekend would not be firmly established until the 1800s in the midst of the industrial revolution. This time it was the British Empire (which had become, and remains, the largest empire in human history) that became the source of the social change. While the additional day of rest evolved over time and the lobby for it came from a host of sources, church leaders were on the front line of the crusade arguing that having Saturdays off would lead to a refreshed workforce and higher church attendance on Sundays.

So, in the quiet on this Thursday morning as I approach the end of another work week, I find myself feeling grateful for God who by His very nature enjoys rest, celebration, gathering, and festivity. I’m consciously thankful for something I have always taken for granted. I am reminded once again that the God I encounter in the Great Story stands in contrast to the killjoy tyrant that others have perceived Him to be, often twisted by humanity’s own fundamentalist religious perversions of His intended guidelines for life.

Tomorrow morning, when my eyes open and I climb out of bed, I can truly, sincerely, and genuinely utter, “Thank you God. It’s Friday.”

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

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Chapter-a-Day

Walking the Talk

December 19, 2023 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

“In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!”
Luke 13:33 (NIV)

I’m excited this Christmas to see the movie Freud’s Last Session with Anthony Hopkins. It’s an adaptation of an amazing little one-act play that imagines a conversation between a dying Sigmund Freud and a young Oxford professor named C.S. Lewis in 1939 London. Sadly, my friend Kevin and I were preparing to produce the show in conjunction with a college theatre department a few years ago until an individual got us cancelled. It remains a huge disappointment we never got to do the show.

There are several scripts and books that have been written over the years imagining conversations between different historical figures or imagined events around historical characters. I’ve always found the genre fascinating. When I was just a kid, the youth of our local church performed a play in which Pontius Pilate is placed on trial for Jesus’ murder. Members of the audience acted as the jury. If I remember correctly, my father was the Jury foreman. They acquitted Pilate.

Sadly, the death of Jesus was historically used as a reason for antisemitism. In our current wave of public and institutional antisemitism, I feel it important to acknowledge this sad historical fact. It is rooted in the Roman Emporer Constantine’s decision to make Christianity the official religion of Rome in the early fourth century. It was one of many bad things that happened after the organic Jesus Movement became the Holy Roman Empire. Constantine planted the seeds of antisemitism that would lead to centuries of Jewish persecution by the institutional church.

As I have studied the final days of Jesus for many years, I’ve concluded that the death of Jesus was the result of a perfect storm of antagonist power brokers representing the earthly kingdoms of politics, commerce, and religion. (A few years ago I presented my review of Jesus’ arrest and trials in a Good Friday message, FWIW)

A few chapters ago, Luke records that Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” Jesus has been traveling toward Jerusalem and is getting close to His destination. In today’s chapter, Luke foreshadows the three key players who will have Jesus crucified.

It begins in the first verse of today’s chapter as Jesus hears news of the Roman governor’s cruelty. Pontius Pilate represents the Empire, and in the political powder keg of Jerusalem, Pilate is not afraid to use force and violence to quell issues. There was a group of people from Galilee who ended up creating trouble. Their offense is not known, but Pilate had them slaughtered and their blood was mixed with their sacrifices. It was a highly blasphemous act of imperial power, intended to send a message to the many zealots who sought to defy Rome.

The next episode Luke records is the religious leaders who continue to antagonize and oppose Jesus. He heals a crippled woman on the Sabbath day of rest, and the religious leaders call Him out for it. Jesus turns the tables on them and Luke records that Jesus’ “opponents were humiliated.” As Jesus continues to humiliate and threaten the power and wealth of the religious establishment, those religious leaders with the most to lose are motivated to have Jesus eliminated.

But Luke also records that “the people were delighted with all the wonderful things He was doing.” Even some of the religious establishment became fans and followers, and Jesus was drawing crowds that numbered in the thousands. The crowds alone were a threat.

At the end of Today’s chapter, Luke mentions the third piece of the unholy trinity of power brokers who will have Jesus’ killed. Some Pharisees who were fans and followers of Jesus told Him to change course and avoid Jerusalem because Herod had already put a price on Jesus’ head. Herod was the regional ruler who had John the Baptist murdered because John had antagonized Herod and turned the crowds against him. Herod had heard the rumors that Jesus might just be John the Baptist risen from the dead. Herod had learned from his father, Herod the Great, that remaining in power means the swift and violent elimination of potential threats, like having all the baby boys two years or younger slaughtered because of rumors the messiah had been born in Bethlehem.

Jesus, however, remains “resolute” in His trek to Jerusalem. He has no illusions about what is going to happen. In fact, everything that He does and says in public only pushes the hands of these political, religious, and commercial power brokers. Jesus states that He must press on to Jerusalem “for surely no prophet can die outside of Jerusalem.”

Jesus knows He is going to Jerusalem to be killed.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about my post yesterday in which Jesus implores me and all of His followers to approach our earthly realities in context to the larger eternal realities of God’s Kingdom. Jesus is walking the talk.

How can I follow in His footsteps today?

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

Chapter-a-Day

Life “by the Book”

February 15, 2023 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.
2 Kings 22:10 (NIV)

I’ve been geeking out on some history of late. Over the years, I’ve often referenced one of the most significant inflection points in human history, when Roman Emporer Constantine unexpectedly declared his faith in Jesus Christ in 312 A.D. Almost overnight, followers of Jesus went from being illegal, hunted, persecuted, and scapegoated dregs of the Empire to having the most powerful earthly patron and protector imaginable. Over the next century or so, the Jesus Movement would become the most powerful institutional empire in the world. This ushered in many good things, but it ultimately also laid the groundwork for some of the most heinous and tragic events in history.

Initially, Constantine’s faith led him to do many positive things as Emporer. He established a day off for everyone in the empire, every week, as God had commanded in the Ten Commandments. Other than the Jewish sabbath, a day off each week was unheard of in the ancient world. Every weekend I can whisper a thank you to God, Moses, and Constantine.

Another thing Constantine did as the Emporer was to invest in creating copies of the Bible. There was, of course, no printing press in those days. Everything was copied by hand. A new copy of the entire Bible, both old and new testaments, would cost the average person 30 years’ wages. Copies of the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the letters of Paul were few and far between. By funding the creation of new copies, Constantine helped ensure that more and more people had the opportunity to hear the Great Story.

The Hebrew people, and later the followers of Jesus, have long been known as “people of the Book” (btw, the phrase is also used in reference to Muslims and their Quran). This Great Story is the foundation of what I believe as a disciple of Jesus.

Today’s chapter contains a historical inflection point similar to Constantine’s faith in Jesus. In 622 B.C., young King Josiah of Judah orders that repairs be made to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. In the course of events, the high priest discovers a copy of the Law of Moses. For a couple of hundred years, the people of Judah worshipped other idols and pagan gods, even going so far as to set up altars to other gods within Solomon’s Temple. Along the way, they put the books of Moses on a shelf in the junk room and forgot about them.

When the books of Moses were read to King Josiah, they had an immediate, spiritual effect. It spurred a spiritual revival on a national scale.

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking about this chapter-a-day journey I started 17 years ago next month. That feels like a long time, but it’s rooted in 25 prior years of being a “person of the Book.” For over forty years I’ve been reading, studying, memorizing, contemplating, meditating, and endeavoring to live each day “by the Book.” Paul wrote that the words are “living, active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” I’ve experienced that. It pierced King Josiah’s heart in today’s chapter when he heard it read for the first time. It pierces my heart again and again, deeper and deeper, the further I get in my spiritual journey.

I can’t imagine what it must have looked like for the people of Josiah’s day to live in complete ignorance of what the Books of Moses actually said.

I know a very different reality; A reality in which virtually every follower of Jesus I know has the luxury of having the Book, perhaps multiple copies, readily available.

It’s one thing for The Book to be a rare treasure that’s lost. It’s another thing for it to be an overlooked luxury ignored.

May it be said of me that I was “a person of the Book.” Not just in my reading, my blogging, or my podcasting, but in my life and relationships.

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