Tag Archives: Egypt

Chapter-a-Day

Choosing to Know

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Choosing to Know (CaD Ezk 30) – Wayfarer

Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and he brandishes it against Egypt.
Ezekiel 30:25b (NIV)

One of the changes in reality of life that I’ve observed along my life journey is how spread out family has become geographically. When my great-grandfather settled in northwest Iowa from the old country, his children all lived within a small geographical area their entire lives. My parents’ generation started spreading out around North America, My generation continued to spread, and our children’s generation has spread around the globe. While technology has made it easier and easier to communicate, there is no doubt that geographic distance makes it more difficult to know and be known.

Yesterday, Wendy and I enjoyed time with family. Our nephew, Elias, celebrated his first birthday. Wendy and I headed to Ankeny where we hung out with five of our nephews and nieces. Wendy’s sister and her two kiddos are back in Iowa from their home in Mazatlan, and we’re feeling really blessed to have them staying with us in Pella for a few days. It was our first opportunity to meet our niece Rosie, and only the second time we’ve been physically present with our nephew, Ian. Of course, the first order of business was for the two of them to get comfortable knowing their Aunt Wendy and Uncle Tom.

We have 15 nephews and nieces. We love them all, but have varying degrees of relationship with them. Some of that is proximity, but some of it is also choices that are made.

One of the overarching themes of the entire Great Story from Genesis to Revelation is God’s expressed desire to be known and to have a relationship with the pinnacle of HIs creation, human beings who have the free will to choose or refuse to be in a relationship. Complicating this is the nature of evil which sets itself up against such a relationship.

In today’s chapter, Ezekiel continues his seven-part prophetic rant against Pharaoh and Egypt. Four times God through Ezekiel says, “Then they will know that I am the LORD.” I was once again struck by the synchronicity with the story of the ten plagues (or “strikes”) against Pharaoh back in the story of Moses, which I talked about in my message yesterday among my local gathering of Jesus’ followers. Pharaoh refused to know or acknowledge the God of Moses, though he had over a thousand gods of Egypt and was considered a god himself. In this, Pharaoh becomes an example of those who choose personal empire over a relationship with the God of Creation. Seven times in the ten plagues God says “then you will know that I am the LORD.”

One thousand years later, Egypt is still refusing to know and be known.

Ezekiel’s prophetic message was fulfilled. The Babylonians did invade Egypt, did defeat Pharaoh, and did a lot of damage. It would be the Persians, however, who would finish the job and complete the prophetic message. Ezekiel’s prediction that “no longer will there be a prince in Egypt” was fulfilled when Pharaoh Nectanebo II became the last Pharaoh ever in 340 B.C. The Pharaohs of Egypt remain an example to this day of hearts that remain hardened in their refusal to acknowledge and know Yahweh.

In the quiet this morning, I fast forward my thinking to Jesus, the Son of God, who came to earth that we might know God. The Story is the same. God inviting His creation to know and be known in an intimate spiritual relationship.

““I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”
John 10:14-15 (NIV emphasis added)

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve come to understand that the degree to which I know God is proportionate to my willingness to choose into a relationship with Him and the degree of my refusal to do so.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Evil’s Refusal

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Evil’s Refusal (CaD Ezk 29) – Wayfarer

I will leave [Pharaoh] in the desert,
    you and all the fish of your streams.
You will fall on the open field
    and not be gathered or picked up.
I will give you as food
    to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky.
Exodus 29:5 (NIV)

For over a decade, my family would spend our two weeks of family vacation going to the boundary waters in northern Minnesota. We went to the same place, Camp Idlewood on Rainy Lake. There we would fish, ski, swim, and play. For a boy my age, it was an invitation to all sorts of adventures. I’ll never forget the year my father rented a 16’ john boat and a small outboard motor. I was able to explore the giant lake and its countless islands.

It’s funny how chores can become adventure when it’s something you don’t get to do every day. Every day families would return from a day of fishing and go to the “Cleaning House” which was a small shack designed to “clean” their catch. The fish were filleted and the heads, skins, and guts were dumped into five gallon buckets. Every day or so, those five gallon buckets had to be emptied. Fish guts are a natural meal for birds, especially seagulls. So, I would haul the buckets of fish guts to my little boat, and take them out to a small, uninhabited island not far from camp. There was a large are of rock along the shore and there I’d dump the guts as the seagulls began swarming in anticipation of their feast.

This memory came to mind this morning as I read today’s chapter, which opens a seven-part set of prophesies against Pharaoh and Egypt. In this opening prophetic salvo, Zeke metaphorically calls Pharaoh a “monster” in the Nile River with all the fish of the Nile stuck to his monstrous scales. He then tells Pharaoh that he and the fish stuck to his scales will be left in the desert, just like me throwing fish guts on the rocks, to be food for carrion fowl and scavenging beasts.

The Pharaoh at this time was Hophra (in Hebrew) better known by his Greek name Apries. Hophra made an unsuccessful attempt to rescue Jerusalem from the Babylonian’s siege. He attempted by diplomacy and force to raise a coalition of nations against the Babylonian Empire. When Nebuchadnezzar was laying siege to Jerusalem, Hophra brought his army up in an attempt to assist Judah, but quickly realized he was outmatched and shamefully fled back to Egypt with his tail between his legs. Eventually Hophra’s own people turned on him. The prophecies of both Jeremiah and Ezekiel proclaiming his downfall were fulfilled.

I was also struck by the fact that God’s message of doom for Egypt through Zeke ends with “Then all who live in Egypt will know that I am the Lord.” It struck me because I’m preparing a message for my local gathering of Jesus’ followers this Sunday regarding Moses and the ten “plagues” against Egypt in the story of Moses and the Exodus. Moses lived roughly 1,000 years before Ezekiel. When God tells Moses about the plagues He’s about to unleash on Egypt He tells Moses, “then the Egyptians will know that I am God.” (Ex 7:4-5). One thousand years and God is still trying to get through.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about the nature of evil. At the core, the Great Story is a story of conflict between good and evil, God and Satan, the Kingdom of God and human empire. As I’ve observed before, the Great Story ends in Revelation with Satan gathering “the kings of the earth” in a final battle against God. The presumption here is that as long as there is evil there will always be those who refuse to know, or at least acknowledge, that God is God. Egypt is a recurring reminder of that in the Great Story. Evil always refuses to know and/or acknowledge Good. When I see evil in the events and the headlines of my daily news, I am reminded that this is the Story. This spiritual conflict will continue with all of the tragic aftermath in its wake.

The question for me is which side will I serve? The answer is not in what I say, but in how I live this day.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Trust the Story

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Trust the Story (CaD Ezk 17) – Wayfarer

“‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain.’”
Ezekiel 17:22 (NIV)

As I write this, the 2024 Presidential election is 47 days away. Yesterday morning, Wendy and I found ourselves finding other news to read. We are so tired of reading about the election and the prognostications about what will or won’t happen if one candidate or the other wins. There’s also the daily clairvoyant journalistic pieces about our enemies and what they must be thinking and preparing for should one candidate or the other win. It reminds me of 2004 when The Guardian published a piece about official predictions that in less than 20 years major European cities will drown under rising seas and Britain will become a Siberian-like climate. Well, it’s now 2024.

Editors know fortune telling and doomsday predictions always make good click-bait.

The political intrigue is, of course, real. Nations and empires are always posturing and looking out for their own interests. This has always been true in human history. Ezekiel’s prophetic message in today’s chapter is predicated on it.

Jerusalem and the nation of Judah happened to lie right at the crossroads between empires. Egypt to the southwest, Babylon and Assyria to the northeast, and the infant Greek and Roman empires soon to be birthed to the northwest. Empires, of course, compete with one another in a global game of King of the Mountain to control the most territory and wealth. As Ezekiel is writing the two super powers are Babylon and Egypt. Babylon has the upper-hand and Jerusalem is a vassal state of the Babylonian empire with a treaty to be loyal subjects.

The king in Jerusalem is a man named Zedekiah. He’s playing political poker and has gone all-in with Egypt, breaking his treaty with Babylon. Interesting to note that some scholars claim that treaties like that between the king of Babylon and the King of Judah were vows made to their respective deities, such as, “May my Lord slay me if I break this treaty.”

What’s fascinating about Ezekiel and the other prophets of his day, is that God is spiritually at work behind the scenes of the history taking place. The book of Daniel makes it clear that God is at work in the person of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar. God is taking an intimate interest in the individuals and the empires.

In today’s chapter, Zeke’s message is an allegory addressing Zedekiah’s betrayal of his treaty with Nebuchadnezzar. God takes Zed’s betrayal personally and considers that Zed had broken a covenant with God himself, lending credence to the notion that when he swore an oath of loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar it was an oath made to the Lord. Once again, Zeke is delivering bad news. Jerusalem and Zedekiah will pay the consequences for Zedekiah’s bad gamble.

For the second chapter in a row, however, Zeke’s message ends with a Messianic prophecy of hope. God declares that He Himself will plant a sprig on top of the mountains of Israel that will grow into a proverbial Tree of Life. It’s branches will bear fruit (sound familiar?) and “bird of every kind” will nest in it and find shelter in its branches.

As a disciple of Jesus, I once again find in Ezekiel’s prophetic message some comfort in our own crazy political climate. I do believe that all of human history is part of the ebb and flow of the Great Story that God has authored from Genesis to Revelation. I do believe as a disciple of Jesus that my citizenship is ultimately in God’s Kingdom, and that I have a responsibility on this earthly journey to respect the human authority under which I reside. I’m called to honorably live and participate as a citizen. If I really believe what I say I believe, then I can trust that no matter what happens 47 days from now it is part of the Story.

I trust the Story.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Explicit Sin, Explicit Message

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At every street corner you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty, spreading your legs with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by.
Ezekiel 16:25 (NIV)

Jerusalem is a fascinating city. It is a city filled with tensions. And it is amazing to experience. It’s crazy to think that a tiny little Canaanite town thousands of years old became, and remains to this day, the most political and religious hot spot of the entire world.

Today’s long chapter is a prophetic message God gave to Ezekiel specifically about the city of Jerusalem. To make sense of Ezekiel’s message, it helps to know a little about Jerusalem’s history.

Jerusalem began as a Canaanite village. It was David who made it his Capital city. At the time he did so, it was a Jebusite city. Only after David’s reign was it considered Israelite. Its multi-cultural history made it a city of political and religious tension from the beginning.

Ezekiel’s message is a long metaphorical story about a non-Jewish baby girl thrown into a field and left to die. God wills the girl to live, cares for her as she grows, and when she flowers into a woman He marries her. She, however, is unfaithful to God, her husband. She becomes an adulterer and a temple prostitute for pagan worship. She sacrifices her children in pagan rituals. Eventually, she then runs after her clients and freely gives herself to them seeking their protection.

If you read the chapter, and I encourage you to do so, it gets rather graphic in its descriptives of her “spreading her legs” for her neighbors and even describes one of them, Egypt, as having an – ahem – very large penis. I confess my curiosity this morning and, just for fun, I pulled up that verse in Bible Gateway and compared every English translation to see how translators handled the reference. Fascinating, some ignored it completely. Some disguised it in vague euphemisms such as “great of flesh” and “lustful.” Others went with a little more specific “well-endowed,” “large member,” or “large genitals.”

Of course, Ezekiel was pulling no punches and the people of his day would have known exactly what he was talking about. He was accurately describing actual Egyptian fertility idols, common in that day, depicting an Egyptian man with a protruding giant erect penis.

And this is the point. The prophets like Ezekiel get very graphic in their messages because the extreme nature of the sins that they were addressing, including ritualized sexual immorality and ritual child sacrifice.

I have to remember that Ezekiel is living in Babylon and the Babylonians had their own version of sex and fertility cults and rituals. The Ishtar Festival, in particular was known for its sexual and moral debauchery. This may very well have fueled the metaphorical rawness of his message.

The adulterous wife was an apt description of Jerusalem. While it had become the chosen city of God’s people, the city itself remained the hometown of both Jews and pagan Canaanites. The pagan residents may have politically gone along with prevailing wind of Jewish authority, but it would always struggle to be faithful to the God of David.

God’s judgment on Jerusalem is pronounced as the just consequences of her adultery, prostitution, infanticide, and social injustices. What is fascinating, however, is that this judgment is not final. God promises to remain faithful, to restore, and to redeem His bride. Not only that, but God declares that He will personally make atonement for her sins:

So I will establish my covenant with you, and you will know that I am the Lord. Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done…

Fast forward about 500 years and this is exactly what Jesus did when He died on the cross outside the very city of Jerusalem, over which He lovingly laments:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.”

With Jesus, the metaphor switches from Jerusalem being the bride to Jerusalem being the prodigal child. Jesus moves the bride metaphor and applies it to His followers. Which, for me, means that as the bride I find in Ezekiel’s explicit message to Jerusalem both a warning and a comforting truth. If I stray from Jesus, I can expect to experience the consequences of my thoughts, words, and actions. However, while it’s easy to focus on Jerusalem’s sins, the most amazing and important piece of the message is God’s sacrificial love and faithfulness in spite of those sins. This reminds me that no matter how much I stray or how deeply I may fall into sin, His sacrificial love and infinite grace will always extend further and deeper.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Blind

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Blind (CaD Ezk 12) – Wayfarer

I will spread my net for him, and he will be caught in my snare; I will bring him to Babylonia, the land of the Chaldeans, but he will not see it, and there he will die.
Ezekiel 12:13 (NIV)

I have been experiencing acute frustration of late with multiple situations in life. Despite stark differences in the situations, there is a common thread woven into each one. People who are blind to the implications and consequences of their own words and actions. At best, this leads to foolishness. At worst, it can be incredibly destructive.

The ancient King Zedekiah had a similar malady. Babylon had already successfully attacked Jerusalem. Ezekiel and his fellow Hebrew exiles in Babylon were part of the spoils of the first defeat. But the Babylonians didn’t destroy Jerusalem at first. They wanted to control it as a vassal state, squeeze more money out of it in taxes and tributes, and command the remaining Hebrews. Zeke and the first wave of exiles were, in a sense, hostages to help ensure the loyalty of the Hebrews still living in Jerusalem.

Zedekiah, the King back in Jerusalem was a poor leader who was blind to his own foolish actions. First, Zedekiah refused to heed the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah and others. He continued to allow the Temple to be used as a carnival of pagan idols and worship despite God’s warning of the consequences of His wrath for doing so. Second, when a new Pharaoh rose to power in Egypt, Zed saw it as an opportunity to create an alliance with Egypt to win independence from Babylon. It was one of the most foolish miscalculations in history.

In today’s chapter, God tells the prophet Ezekiel to act out a little performance art piece in front of all his fellow exiles. He packs his things as if he’s going on a journey, digs a hole in the wall, crawls through it, with his things and wanders off. And, God tells him to cover his face while he does it so that he can’t see.

God anticipates, the reaction of all his fellow Hebrews as he acts out this strange pantomime. He tells Zeke to prepare for them to ask, “Dude! What are you doing?!”

The prophesy was about Zedekiah. He will pack his things and be taken into exile, but “he will not see it.”

2 Kings 24-25 tells the rest of the story. When Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, learns of Zedekiah’s treachery, he acts quickly. The Babylonians march on Babylon for the second time, lay siege to it, and eventually take it by force. This time, the city is completely destroyed along with Solomon’s Temple, and most of the citizens are slaughtered. As for Zedekiah? He is forced to watch the Babylonians murder his children with his own eyes. They then plucked out his eyes so that it was the last thing he ever sees. The Babylonians then bring the blinded Zedekiah back to Babylon.

There are different kinds of blindness. Zed was spiritually blind to the terrible consequences that pagan worship had wreaked on the culture and life of Jerusalem. He was deaf to the prophets trying to get him to open the eyes of his heart to see the truth. Zed was situationally blind to the political realities around him. The new pharaoh was never going to be strong enough to defeat the Babylonians, and he wasn’t strong enough to protect Zed from Nebuchadnezzar’s wrath. His physical blindness was a tragic reminder.

In the quiet this morning, as I meditated on these things, I heard the words of a confidant yesterday as I vented my frustration with one of those situations I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

“He doesn’t see it,” my friend said to me emphatically referencing an individual whose blindness to the consequences of his actions were making me want to pull my hair out. “He doesn’t see it,” my friend repeated, adding, “and he never will.” Wendy made the same observation.

Ugh!

I am reminded this morning that even Jesus experienced similar frustration with His disciples and His people: “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus said, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?

It gives me a little comfort to remember that Jesus knows my frustration even as He calls me to exhibit the spiritual fruit of patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control with those who frustrate me. It also reminds me that I have had my own bouts with spiritual and situational blindness along the way, and God has always been patient with me.

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

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Kings in Heat

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“Ephraim is like a dove,
    easily deceived and senseless—
now calling to Egypt,
    now turning to Assyria.”
Hosea 7:11 (NIV)

Wendy and I live on the outskirts of our little town with a giant field behind us. As such, we get to enjoy a proximity to wildlife that can be both beautiful and annoying. As we have our morning coffee and smoothies, we often get to enjoy the sight of wild turkeys grazing in our backyard. We’ve heard the eerie sound of coyotes and their kits on the hunt in the evenings. And, the fire bushes we’ve twice planted along our back fence row have struggled to survive because the deer consider them a tasty snack.

Just last week we were driving home late in the evening and came upon a gorgeous eight-point buck. We see does, fawns, and yearlings on a regular basis, but it’s extremely rare for a male to show himself.

The following morning, we were on our way into town and it suddenly became clear why the male had been so bold to show himself. As we were driving, a doe shot across the road about ten yard ahead of us running at full speed and paying no heed to the fact our car was right there. I hit the brakes as the same buck we’d seen the night before lustfully tore after the doe.

“I know what he’s after,” Wendy exclaimed. We giggled and watched as the buck pursued and the doe did her best to evade him through the field on the other side of the road and into the tree line.

In today’s chapter, Hosea uses a stealthy double entendre describing the rulers of ancient Israel. The prophet describes them in culinary terms as “burning like an oven whose fire the baker need not stir.” He writes that they are “inflamed with wine” and “hot as an oven.” Of course, he’s describing the heat of passion. Their base appetites were out-of-control driving lustful behavior unbridled from reason.

It’s helpful to know a little history of ancient Israel to understand Hosea’s message. When the ancient kingdom of Israel split in two, the southern Kingdom of Judah continued to place on their throne direct descendants of King David. The northern Kingdom of Israel, however, had no such loyalties. The throne of Israel was constantly up for grabs to any bully or usurper who had a lust for power and the cunning to pull it off. Ten different dynastic “houses” ruled Israel in less than 300 years. As such, the kings and rulers of Israel tended to be self-centered tryants with a lust for power and wealth. Their children and their administrations were filled with similar ilk. These were not the type of men and women who were spiritually sensitive or possessed hearts of generosity, justice, and the things of God.

Hosea then describes these power-hungry, lust-driven rulers as easily deceived and senseless. They understood the blunt force power of being a local bully and seizing power of a relatively small kingdom, but when it came to the international diplomacy of dealing with empires, the seemingly endless string of usurpers were out of their league.

Hosea says,

“Ephraim is like a dove,
    easily deceived and senseless—
now calling to Egypt,
    now turning to Assyria.”

History records that Hoshea (not to be confused with Hosea), the last king of Israel, had made an alliance with the Assyrian empire. When, however, there was a change of leadership on the Assyrian throne, Hoshea followed his lusts and tried to cut a better deal with Egypt. The betrayal caused Assyria to make an example of disloyal Israel. Assyria attacked, destroyed, and took Israel into exile and captivity. Just as God predicted through Hosea, the heat of Israel’s unbridled appetites would be the achilles heel that would lead to her destruction and exile.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself bringing the national-level lessons of ancient Israel down to personal-level application.

My grandfather used to be fond of saying “I’m king of my castle,” and as I’ve made my way on this earthly journey I recognize the truth of the matter. I am ruler of my own personal kingdom. Just like the kings of Israel, I can rule over my kingdom like a buck in heat following my base appetites for wealth, power, control, and pleasure. I can also rule over my kingdom with love, reason, humility, generosity, and justice. For me, the difference has been the acknowledgement and understanding of who is really on the throne of my personal kingdom. Many years ago, I agreed to submit my own personal kingdom to the Lordship of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. That has made all the difference.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Flash Flood

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Flash Flood (Cad Jer 47) – Wayfarer

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.

Chapter-a-Day

The Slave’s Return

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The Slave's Return (CaD Jer 44) – Wayfarer

“We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord!”
Jeremiah 44:16 (NIV)

Jeremiah is an old man.

Consider with me all that he has witnessed.

He began his prophetic ministry under the reign of the reformer King Josiah. Josiah heard the Book of Law read, and he followed the God of Abraham and Moses faithfully. He outlawed idolatry and destroyed all of the idols and shrines. He did what was right. Jeremiah was right there in the palace, and in Solomon’s Temple to witness it all for the first twenty years of his ministry.

Then Josiah died.

His successor, Jehoahaz, immediately turned back to idolatry and the people of Judah with him. Over the next thirty years, Jeremiah witnessed a succession of four kings and the people of Judah harden their hearts in idolatry despite Jeremiah’s persistent warnings of judgement at the hand of the King of Babylon.

Jerusalem is destroyed.

The palace is destroyed.

The Who’s Who of Judah are all living in captivity in Babylon.

God’s Temple is in ruins.

The nation of Judah is no more.

The old man Jeremiah wakes up to find himself in Egypt, the nation where it all began for his people. They started as slaves in Egypt. That’s where God came to rescue them from their chains. God freed them from Egypt, made a covenant with them, and led them back to the land promised to them through their ancestor, Abraham. All God asked in return was faithfulness. Worship him alone. Live differently than all the other nations and peoples. Bless others. Show them a different way.

They refused. They broke covenant. They chose to be like everybody else. They refused to listen to Jeremiah. More than that. They mocked him, beat him, imprisoned him, and tried to kill him.

Jeremiah gathers with all the Hebrew expatriates in Egypt. I imagine him looking at this rag tag crowd. In some fifty years he’s witnessed the long, steady decline from a good King on the throne determined that his people will be faithful to the God who delivered them from slavery in Egypt and raised them up there to small remnant, wandering, lost sheep without a shepherd living back in Egypt. How ironic. These Hebrews have come full circle. The former slaves return to the land of their slave master.

These chapters about Jeremiah after the destruction of Jerusalem are striking for a couple of reasons.

First, Jeremiah is still proclaiming God’s Word and the message hasn’t changed.

Next, the leaders of this group of remnants have become increasingly defiant to anything Jeremiah has to say. They started by at least asking the prophet if he had a word from the Lord. Now they are simply telling the crazy old man to shut-up.

Also, the women have decided that the destruction of Jerusalem and all of the troubles were not the result of God’s judgement, but because they stopped worshipping Asherah, the “Queen of Heaven.” It wasn’t their unfaithfulness to the God of Moses who freed them from slavery in Egypt that brought all of the calamity but their unfaithfulness to Asherah. God no longer registers for them at all.

Jeremiah, the crazy old man, stays on message. God proclaims that He will give His people in Egypt one more sign. Pharaoh will die at the hands of his enemies. Indeed, in 570 B.C. (The remnant likely fled to Egypt sometime around 576-575 B.C.) Pharaoh was deposed and killed in a military coup.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on this big picture irony of the former slaves returning to their slave masters. In His first public message, Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.”

He was speaking of freedom from sin, as Paul so beautifully explains in his letter to the followers of Jesus in Rome:

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

The lesson of the Hebrew remnant is a lesson for me. Am I spiritually growing in freedom toward a more intimate relationship with God and an increasing measure of love, joy, and peace in my daily life? Or, am I time and again returning to the shackles of pride, fear, shame, and the behaviors they produce in me?

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

Chapter-a-Day

Meaning in the Metaphor

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Meaning in the Metaphor (CaD Ps 80) – Wayfarer

You brought a vine out of Egypt;
Psalm 80:8 (NRSVCE)

I have celebrated Christmas as a follower of Jesus for almost forty years, and I can tell you that the most forgotten storyline of the Christmas story is found in the second chapter of Matthew.

King Herod was the regional ruler operating under subservience to the Roman Empire. It was Herod to whom the Zoroastrians (that we call the “Three Kings” or “Magi”) went to find out where the Jewish Messiah was to be born. Herod got the answer for them and sent them on their way to Bethlehem. Herod was a blood-thirsty man, however. A shrewd monarch with boundless ambition, Herod’s successful reign was made possible in part by his ability to assassinate any rival. This included members of his own family.

Matthew shares that Herod, wanting to make sure the newborn Messiah would not grow up to threaten his worldly power, ordered all the baby boys in Bethlehem two years and under killed. Warned by an angel in a dream, Joseph and Mary flee with the baby to Egypt. When Herod died a few years later, they returned to Joseph in Nazareth.

In telling this piece of the story, Matthew quotes the prophet Hosea, who said: “Out of Egypt I have called my son” (Hosea 11:1). In my podcast A Beginner’s Guide to the Great Story (Part 7) I talked about prophecy and the fact that part of the mystery of the prophetic is that metaphor can be layered with meaning. Hosea was writing about the Hebrew exodus out of Egyptian slavery, but Matthew sees that Jesus, God’s son, was also called out of Egypt.

In today’s chapter, Psalm 80, we have a song of lament written somewhere around 725 BC. The Assyrians were attacking the northern kingdom of Israel. Refugees from the northern tribes were flowing into Jerusalem, and Asaph laments that God brought the nation out of Egypt and planted them in Canaan only to let foreign countries attack them. In this case, Asaph uses the metaphor of God bringing a vine out of Egypt only to let foreign powers like Assyria and Babylon pick “the fruit” of God’s hand.

As a follower of Jesus, I am immediately reminded of Jesus’ words to His most intimate followers the night before His crucifixion:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. John 15:1-5 (NIV)

When Asaph writes his lyric: “You brought a vine out of Egypt” he was being as prophetic as Hosea was when quoted by Matthew, but here’s where I found added meaning in Asaph’s metaphor. Asaph metaphorically envisions that he and the fellow Hebrew tribes were the Vine. When Jesus came, Asaph’s misunderstanding becomes clear. Jesus is the Vine, and his followers are the branches. If you’re not connected to the Vine, then you get pruned back and cut-off.

The Hebrew prophets made it clear that the Hebrew people had disconnected themselves from God. They worshipped foreign gods and were unfaithful to the covenant they made through Moses. The prophets made it clear that the Assyrians and Babylonians were God’s pruning shears, because contrary to Asaph’s lyrics the only fruit left on those branches was rotten.

In the quiet this morning I wondered how often I, like Asaph, lament the fact that life isn’t going so well. I feel empty, depleted, and attacked like someone plucked everything from me when my real problem is the same as the Hebrews: I’m not connected to the Vine. There’s no spiritual nourishment flowing from the Living Water deep in the root structure. There’s no support from the Vine and no protection from the other branches. The fruit my life is bearing small, tasteless, impotent, even rotten.

As another Christmas approaches, I’m thinking about the least discussed event of that first Christmas. The Son of God, emptied of Heaven and dependent on a young mother, goes into exile in Egypt. Out of Egypt God will call His Son, the Vine. If I miss that connection, then I’m missing the Life, not only of the Christmas story, but the entire Great Story itself.

Chapter-a-Day

Doing Something

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Doing Something (CaD Ex 12) – Wayfarer

…on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
Exodus 12:12 (NRSVCE)

We are living through strange times.

Yesterday Wendy and I attended our local gathering of Jesus’ followers which was meeting corporately for the first time in months. With everything set up and following social distancing rules by local and state authorities, it just felt weird and disconcerting. This physical and relational reality only intensified the spiritual and emotional turmoil Wendy and I found ourselves in as we grapple with the inexcusable murder of George Floyd and the intensity of reactions it sparked across our nation and the world.

As worship began I fell to my knees as the emotional dam burst within me. Wendy and I wept together. Like almost everyone else with whom we discuss the situation, we are sad and angry. We agonize over what we can and must do in the wake of this crime and the evil, complex, vast, and multi-dimensional injustice of racism that continues to perpetuate in our nation, as it has for hundreds of years.

As I read today’s chapter, I felt the synchronicity that often comes in the morning when I open to the chapter that has fallen onto my schedule that day. It felt like no mistake that I was reading of the Hebrews’ climactic escape from their slavery in Egypt. What struck me this morning, and which I never internalized in the countless times I’ve read and studied it, is that the event is more than just the freedom of the Hebrews out of the chains of their slavery. Their escape took place amidst the wailing cries of their oppressors. God arranged for the oppressors to experience the pain, suffering, and loss that they and their system had visited on others for hundreds of years.

I also cannot help but mull over the fact that this same Hebrew/Arab conflict has lasted for millennia. The hatred and acts of aggression, oppression, and violence have gone back and forth and lasted for so long that I personally consider it impossible to completely plumb the depths. Guilt and innocence, oppression and suffering are found on both sides throughout history. From ancient tribal disputes to the settlement disputes on the West Bank today. How strange to read today’s chapter and to realize that the events lie at the root of yet another vast, complex, multi-dimensional human conflict that continues to perpetuate to this day.

So where does that leave us?

Wendy arranged for us to have a Zoom meeting with our children yesterday afternoon. From their homes in South Carolina and Scotland, we all talked and shared about our thoughts, feelings, experiences, struggles, and desire to do something. Every one of us shared our thoughts and intentions around what we can do.

In our local gathering of Jesus’ followers, we heard a humble, vulnerable, and honest message from Kevin Korver who, to his credit, passionately addressed the situation head-on. In the end, he led us in this corporate action list:

As we remain and abide in the circle of love, the divine dance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we will:
Repent and confess
Bear good fruit
Listen, hear, and pray with love
Bless not curse
Love sacrificially
Become a bridge builder
Seek new friends.

Will it make a difference? It’s not a miraculous answer to the evil, complex, vast, and multi-dimensional injustice that continues to perpetuate in our nation. But, perhaps if I who profess to be a follower of Jesus actually and intentionally do these things it will make a change in me and those around me.

I’m reminded this morning that Harriett Tubman led approximately 70 slaves to freedom on some 13 missions. Seventy out of some 6 million slaves. She courageously and intentionally did what she could.

There’s no reason I can’t expect the same from myself.