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 priests are to perform my service in such a way that they do not become guilty and die for treating it with contempt. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.’” Leviticus 22:9 (NIV)
As I have shared before on this chapter-a-day journey, I was raised in the Methodist church that was steeped in the “high church” liturgical tradition. Robes, candles, pipe organ, two choirs, processionals, recessionals, lectern, altar, pomp, and circumstance. Every Sunday morning was a pageant.
Along with the pageantry, I remember being taught as a child about certain things being sacred. The minister was a special individual. He was special and you treated him as such. The altar in the church was special and children weren’t to be playing around it. The pulpit, which stood higher than anything else at the front of the sanctuary was reserved for the minister giving his message. On the opposite side was the lectern which was just like the pulpit only lower. This is where the lowly common people could read from or lead in worship. Above the altar was a giant cross from which hung a candle-holder. I was taught that this was the “eternal flame” that shone at all times over the altar.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the “eternal flame” was just a 40-watt light-bulb that sometimes when out until the janitor replaced it.
I couldn’t help but think about all of the pageantry of my childhood worship experiences as I read today’s chapter. God is addressing the High Priest, Aaron, and his sons, and He makes it clear that the offerings and sacrifices are to be taken seriously. He warns them about the propensity for perpetual human rituals to lose their luster and become so routine that they are no longer held sacred. When that happens, God warns them, it’s easy to begin treating the whole process with contempt.
“It’s just another sacrifice, like all the other sacrifices I’ve offered every day like the day before. Whatever.”
“It’s technically supposed to be an offering without defect, but hey, I’ve seen worse. I’m sure this isn’t the first lamb with a blemish to sneak through. Won’t be the last. Plus, the guy slipped me a couple of shekels to look the other way. Whatever.”
When this attitude prevails, it empties the entire ritual of its intended meaning. The whole thing becomes profane.
After responding to God’s call on my life, I wandered from the religious, liturgical traditions of my childhood. My journey led me through very different worship traditions that weren’t at all like what I experienced growing up. I’ve experienced and participated in all kinds of worship traditions along my journey. I have some observations.
First, much of the high-church traditions that developed out of the Holy Roman Empire have nothing to do with scripture or following the teachings of Jesus. Jesus and his early followers met together in people’s houses. They shared a meal together around the table and sang songs like you do around the campfire. Other than some relatively loose leadership structure mentioned by Paul, there is nothing in scripture that hints at anything like what “church” became once Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire was both a church and a government, which the empire had learned over the centuries required social order. Having proclaimed itself the one-true Christian church, religion added a whole new arsenal for maintaining law and order. First, they took the existing structure of church and created an official authoritarian class (popes, cardinals, bishops, priests) who alone held the power to control God’s word, grace, and the eternal status of a persons soul. Then, with all of the financial resources of the empire, they built breathtaking churches and cathedrals that were unlike any places most people had ever imagined. Inside these opulent edifices they created the mystery, metaphor, and pageantry of ritual worship that daily reminded every day commoners that there was the sacred or “clean” (the authoritarian class) and the common or “unclean” (everybody else).
“Clean” and “unclean.” Sound familiar? The Holy Roman Empire took the basic playbook that God had established in Leviticus and updated it for the purposes of political, social, and cultural control. Leviticus, however, was given to and for humanity in the toddler stage of development, teaching fledgling humanity about basic things like what is sacred and holy, how to live in community with God and others, and being different than those who indulge their sinful nature and chase after every base human appetite without restraint.
By the time Jesus arrived, humanity was ready for something new from a spiritual perspective. Humanity had grown and matured. An age of accountability had been reached. Jesus taught His disciples that the plan after his death and resurrection was for His Spirit to pour out and indwell each and every believer. Every believer’s body would now become the temple, the cathedral, and the Most Holy Place. No longer would people come to God in some physical cathedral fixed at a central location in every town, God would go out to everyone in the world through millions of flesh-and-blood temples, enlightened with the eternal flame of God’s Spirit, interacting daily with those stuck in darkness.
The institutional church of the Holy Roman Empire recreated a worship and societal system that perpetuated the spiritual day-care we’re learning about in Leviticus. As a child growing up in the liturgical high church, I learned the same lessons God is teaching the Hebrews. I learned that God is in the church on 49th street. The sanctuary and altar are “sacred” and to be considered “holy.” The minister is a special, holy person who alone can serve Communion, who can alone stand above us all in the sacred pulpit, and who alone can share with us God’s word. I am just a common, lowly sinner who should stay away from the holy altar and be awed by the mystery of the eternal flame (pay no attention to the janitor behind the curtain getting ready to change the light-bulb to LED and save the church a few pennies).
It’s no wonder in my mind that the “the dark ages” were soon to follow, both in history, and in my own personal spiritual journey.
Still, in the quiet this morning, I find myself reminded that Jesus said He came to fulfill what God started in Leviticus, not abolish it. He was not throwing spiritual babies out with the bath water the way humans have repeatedly done throughout the history of Christianity. The mystery, metaphor, and pageantry of the liturgical high church did, and does, have important spiritual lessons for me to learn and experience. Along my spiritual journey, however, I’ve had to learn to be spiritually discerning regarding the differences between what God says and prescribes in-and-through the Great Story, and what human religious traditions have chosen to do with it.
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!
Then he measured the temple; it was a hundred cubits long, and the temple courtyard and the building with its walls were also a hundred cubits long. The width of the temple courtyard on the east, including the front of the temple, was a hundred cubits. Then he measured the length of the building facing the courtyard at the rear of the temple, including its galleries on each side; it was a hundred cubits. Ezekiel 41:13-15 (NIV)
For the recently freed Hebrew slaves, everything about life had changed. All they knew about the God of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was what Moses had told them. But they’d witnessed what God could do in the ten plagues that had been inflicted on Pharaoh and Egypt. They’d seen God part the waters of the Red Sea so they could cross and then bring the same waters crashing down on the Egyptian army.
But they still know relatively little about God. But in Exodus 19, they are about to learn a whole lot more. Moses goes up on a mountain by himself. From below they watch as lightning strikes, then smoke starts billowing, and the whole mountain trembles. When Moses descends, he not only has the Ten Commandments, but he has the blueprints and instruction manual for a Temple, a priesthood, rituals, and sacrifices that prescribe an entirely new way of living with God and with one another in community.
One of the things that became quickly clear to the ancient Hebrews when God, through Moses, gave them instructions for a temple and its rituals is that God made distinctions. Again, this parallels the Creation poem in Genesis 1 and 2 where God made a distinction between “this” and “that” parts of creation. There are consistent structural designs from the tent tabernacle, to Solomon’s Temple, and to the Temple Ezekiel sees in his vision. With each, there were distinctions of space. There were spaces between the common and the sacred, the space that was everyday people, and the “most holy” space where God’s presence resided.
The Most Holy Place, sometimes called the “Holy of Holies” was a perfect square. The only person who could enter was the high priest.
Fast forward to Jesus, some 400 years after Ezekiel. In Luke 9, Jesus takes his three inner-circle disciples and goes up a mountain. Suddenly, Jesus is transformed into blinding, bright light. There is lightning and then there’s smoke everywhere and then Moses shows up in his glorified, heavenly body along with Elijah. Does this sound familiar?! Jesus would descend that mountain and consequently usher a completely new blueprint and new distinctions that build on the old.
Jesus subsequently told His disciples that the Temple would soon be reduced to rubble, and 40 years later it was. After His death and resurrection, Jesus sent His Holy Spirit. This is an important new distinction. God’s presence was in Jesus’ people. The human soul became the “Most Holy Place” where God’s Spirit dwells and the body is its Temple.
But wait, we’re not done. The night before Jesus’ was executed, He told His followers, “I’m going to prepare a place for you.” When John is given a vision in Revelation this place is revealed as a new Jerusalem. Just like with Ezekiel, John had to watch as it was measured and wouldn’t you know it, this heavenly city is perfectly square just like the Most Holy Place. The distinctions from beginning to end have been transformed and flipped inside out. What began as a small (about 15 feet square) Sacred Space with the distinction that only God’s Presence is holy enough to be there, becomes at the end of the Great Story a “Most Holy Place” that is 1200 miles square where all of God’s people dwell together with God because, through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus, they have been made holy, as well.
In the quiet this morning, I am reminded that the tremendously precise and ordered details that Ezekiel describes are a part of how God metaphorically reveals Himself to us. He is a God of detail and distinctions who transforms chaos into order, death into life, and the common into that which is holy. Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth that if anyone is joined with Christ, that person is a new creation, old things pass away and new things come. In other words, I am a microcosm of the very thing that God is doing throughout the entire Great Story, transforming that which wasn’t holy into that which is eternally holy.
I am in process, and as my local gathering of Jesus’ followers continues to remind everyone, this journey is about progress, not perfection.
And so, I progress into another day of the journey.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. Ezekiel 10:18-19 (NIV)
When I was a young child, I went through an intense period of time when I never wanted to be separated from my mother. I have very specific memories of freaking out, especially in situations that were strange to me. In one instance, my mom was attending some kind of meeting at place I’d never been before. She dropped me off in the room for child care. Once again, the room was unfamiliar, the people were unfamiliar, and my mother was no where to be seen. I felt abandoned. I had such an intense emotional meltdown that they found my mother to take me home. I’m glad to say that this period eventually ended. I grew into an independent and self-assured child.
Feelings of loneliness, isolation, and abandonment are very real sources of human fear and anxiety.
In today’s chapter, Ezekiel’s vision in Solomon’s Temple continues. First he saw all of the idolatry that was taking place inside the Temple. Next he saw a man placing a mark on the forehead of those faithful to God, while six others destroyed anyone who didn’t have the mark. Now, Zeke watches as the “glory” (e.g. radiance, presence) of God rises and leaves the temple.
It’s important to note that in the ancient Near East, there this was a common theme across pagan religions, as well. There is a genre of lamentation literature around gods who abandon their temples, which then explains why enemies were able to conquer, plunder, and destroy the structures. Ezekiel’s audience would have heard/read today’s vision of God’s glory leaving the temple and they knew exactly what it meant. Without God’s presence, the temple will be plundered and destroyed.
As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, I couldn’t help but think of a message I gave earlier this summer. One of the things that I’ve observed along my spiritual journey is how often I hear people praying for God to be present and asking for God to come and show up. I have come to believe that these prayers channel the same human fear of abandonment and I felt as a child and that Ezekiel’s vision is tapping into. When bad things happen, we feel that God must have abandoned us. When we feel anxiety or loneliness was assume it’s because God isn’t present.
If I really believe what I say I believe, then this is the most illogical and unreasonable assumption to make and prayer to pray. In my message I talked about three types of God’s presence.
In Colossians 1:17 Jesus is described as both the agent of creation but also that “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” If Jesus is the force holding all things together (i.e. I’m thinking of what Physics refers to as Dark Matter), then David is correct in the lyrics of Psalm 139 when he declares there isn’t a place in the universe where you can flee from His presence.
Second, Jesus told His followers on the night of His arrest that He would be leaving, but would never abandon His followers. His Holy Spirit would indwell us and make us part of the circle dance of oneness between Father, Son, and Spirit. As a disciple of Jesus, the Spirit of God lives in me. My body is a temple. He said He’ll never leave me or forsake me. Praying for God to be present makes no sense in this context.
I have come to believe that what many people mean when they ask God to come and be present is that they want to experience and outpouring or a filling of God’s Spirit. There are many examples of this in both the Great Story and even in current events. It happened just a year ago on a college campus in Kentucky. I have personally found it an important distinction to remember that an outpouring of God’s Spirit doesn’t mean He wasn’t there before and suddenly arrived. I refer back to the previous two points. There are, however, times when His omnipresence is infused with momentary power and intensity.
In a time when anxiety and fear are wreaking havoc on the mental health of people in our culture, I find Jesus’ assurances of living in me, never leaving me, and being present wherever I find myself in the universe to be a source of comfort, confidence, and peace. I simply have to have the faith to believe it and the discipline to acknowledge it in each and every moment.
For anyone interested in the extended version, here it is:
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
When [Paul] would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.” Acts 21:14 (NIV)
The great German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him ‘Come and die.’”
That’s not the kind of sentiment you’ll find stamped on key chains and coffee mugs at your local Christian bookstore. Nevertheless, the path of discipleship is one of surrender and obedience to go wherever I might be led. Along my life journey, I’ve observed that people love Jesus’ statements about knowing the truth, loving little children, and being set free. His statement that no one can be a disciple unless they are willing to suffer and die doesn’t get as much airplay.
In today’s chapter, Paul makes his return to Jerusalem despite the fact that it was a tremendous risk for him to do so, and Paul knew it. In yesterday’s chapter, he was convinced he would never see his friends in Ephesus again. In today’s chapter, a prophet proclaims that he will be arrested and bound if he goes there. Everyone tries to convince him not to do it. Paul will not be deterred. He declares to his friends that he’s willing not only to be arrested but also killed if it comes to that. Indeed, this will be a fateful trip that will set the course for the rest of his earthly life.
Luke does not record Paul’s reasoning for being so adamant about going to Jerusalem. From his letters, it is obvious that Paul was constantly seeking divine guidance regarding his travels and ministry. His stubborn determination and resignation regarding his fate can only lead me to believe that he believed, without a doubt, that this was what God was leading him to do.
Having just been through the season of Lent and having just completed our chapter-a-day journey through John, I am reminded that Jesus went to Jerusalem with equal determination. Jesus was urged not to do so for fear of being arrested. Jesus literally pushed the buttons that led to His execution. Paul is doing the exact same thing.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on this core tenant of being Jesus’ disciple in which one comes to understand that an earthbound perspective is all wrong. God’s eternal kingdom is the ultimate reality while this earthly existence and journey is but a shadow of that reality. Paul understood that well. He wrote to the disciples in Corinth: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” He wasn’t afraid of what might happen to him. He welcomed it.
There’s always a tension for me in contemplating this sense of ultimate surrender while readily acknowledging that I live in the most free and affluent human society that the earth has ever known. Nevertheless, I think it worthwhile to honestly contemplate how surrendered I really am. If I really believe what I say I believe, then death is not to be feared but embraced as a gateway to the realization of eternal reality.
Note: I will be out the next two days, returning to this chapter-a-day journey next Monday.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Acts 8:1 (NIV)
This year marks a couple of anniversaries for my family and me.
January 1 was the 135th anniversary of my great-grandfather Vander Well’s arrival at Ellis Island. He arrived on the Holland America Line, though I suspect his ship wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the HAL Eurodam that Wendy and I enjoyed a couple of months ago. He was traveling by himself. It is believed that the death of his father, followed by his mother’s marriage to an older man who’d once been her teacher, angered him enough to leave his family and emigrate to America as a young man all by himself. It’s wild for me to think how fleeing his family’s issues changed life for both himself and his descendants.
This year is also the 20th anniversary of my move to Pella from Des Moines, which is my hometown. To be honest, moving to Pella was not my idea, nor did I initially want to make the move. The reasons for doing so are intertwined with no longer important issues in my first marriage. Like my great-grandfather, it was family issues that propelled the move. It is wild for me to think just how much the move to Pella has changed the course of my life, ultimately for the positive, in so many ways. At this point, I can’t imagine ever leaving Pella.
In today’s chapter, the resentment of the Jewish Temple establishment finally spills over against the growing Jesus Movement. With the stoning of Stephen, the Temple rulers began a crackdown in which believers in Jerusalem were sought out, arrested, and thrown in prison. As a result, many believers fled Jerusalem to find refuge in other towns throughout Judea and Samaria.
What’s fascinating is to reflect back on Jesus’ commission to the first disciples before His ascension: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Jesus made it clear to His disciples that the mission was to spread out from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Yet, through the first seven chapters of Acts, there’s no evidence that the Apostles and the exploding number of new believers had any intention of leaving Jerusalem. In fact, as the persecution breaks out, the Apostles (Jesus’ original disciples) stay in Jerusalem while the other believers flee. Were they waiting for Jesus to send them instructions? Whatever the reason, today’s chapter makes it evident that it was persecution that moved believers with Jesus’ message to Judea and Samaria as Jesus originally intended.
Along my own life journey, I’ve learned that God sometimes uses difficult circumstances to propel me to the place I’m supposed to be, where God has purposes for me I could never have known or expected. When unexpected and uncomfortable events arise, I have to remember that God may ultimately have purposes for me in the pain that I couldn’t possibly imagine.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
“As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:20 (NIV)
I gave a message yesterday to our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. As I got up to deliver the message I realized that the page with the message I had prepared and all my notes was still back in my home office sitting on my desk. Believe it or not, I didn’t freak out. The truth is that I have forgotten my message at home before. I just started speaking. The words just came to me. It’s always been this way.
In today’s chapter, Peter and John are arrested and thrown into the Temple jail overnight. The next morning they are brought before the Temple rulers. Luke is careful to document the names of the leaders who were there because for his contemporary readers, it was a who’s who of the Jewish authorities.
Annas was like the godfather of the Temple and its lucrative financial operations. The Temple wasn’t just a religious system. It was a business, which is why Jesus got righteously angry, turned over the tables of the moneychangers, and declared that Annas and his mob had turned the Temple “into a den of thieves.” Annas had been the high priest, but the Romans deposed him. So, Annas did what the head of all mob families do. He made sure a string of his sons and sons-in-law held the office of high priest, but everyone knew that it was Annas pulling the strings. On the night Jesus was arrested, the first place they took Him was Annas’ house.
Luke also takes care to note that the Temple leaders who arrested Peter and John were from a religious Jewish sect known as Sadducees. The Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection or an afterlife, and it was Peter and John’s claims that Jesus was resurrected and they had witnessed it that made the Temple leaders want to shut them up, and fast.
The following day, when Peter and John are brought before the same men who conspired to have Jesus crucified, the two former fishermen from Galilee boldly and articulately repeat their message. Jesus, whom they had killed a few weeks before, had been risen from the dead. The religious leaders were in a bind. Peter and John had clearly performed a miracle, healing a well-known, local man that everyone knew had been lame his whole life. Peter and John were unschooled blue-collar deplorables from Galilee, but when they opened their mouths, they spoke with boldness and authority, reciting scriptures like they’d been to the finest rabbinical schools. So, they did the only thing they could do. They tried to bully Peter and John with threats and commanded them to keep their mouths shut.
Peter and John respond by making it clear that they can’t shut up. What they heard, saw, and experienced with Jesus compels them to speak. That’s just what they’re going to do.
As I read Peter and John’s message in the previous chapter, and their defense in today’s chapter, I could not help but remember Jesus’ words to them: “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”
In the quiet this morning, I think back to when I was a young teenager and I surrendered my life to Jesus. In an experience I can’t ever forget, God told me I would proclaim His Word. From that moment on, I found that I could just start talking about Jesus, and the words would come. I have multiple people have asked me how I write these posts every weekday. It’s the same way. Some mornings I stare at a blank screen with no earthly idea what to write. I start typing, and the words come. And, what Peter and John said to the bullies who tried to shut them up in today’s chapter resonates with me. I can’t stop. I’m compelled by what I have seen, heard, and experienced following Jesus.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
“You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.”
“Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders.”
“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord…” Acts 3:15, 17, 19 (NIV)
About the time I was in college, I remember the coffee shop phenomenon began to explode. It was my grandfather who first introduced me to a daily cup o’ Joe. I was in high school and I spent that week drinking Taster’s Choice instant. Coffee was the pot of Folgers my parents made, or else it was whatever they were brewing at the greasy spoon or the 7-11.
Suddenly, there were specialty coffee shops popping up everywhere offering different varieties and flavors of coffee beans made in special ways. Freshly roasted coffee beans from exotic places were freshly roasted and brewed for you in comfortable and intimate spaces where you wanted to hang out and enjoy your java.
In those days, everyone was talking about “a third place.” You had your home, and you had your workplace, but everyone needed “a third place” to hang out, to meet with others, and to enjoy being. Coffee shops became popular third places to be and they remain so to this day. Even in our small town here in Iowa, you can choose from three different coffee shops within a few yards of one another.
In today’s chapter, it is still the early days of the Jesus Movement. Before His ascension, Jesus told His disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Jesus told them to start in Jerusalem. There, on the day of Pentecost and the beginning of the Festival of Weeks, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit happened. Jewish pilgrims from all over the known world had come to Jerusalem for the festival. When the Holy Spirit poured into the disciples, they began proclaiming Jesus’ message in all of the various native tongues represented in the crowd. About three thousand people believed in Jesus and were baptized that day. And, most of those three thousand would go back to their native lands throughout the known world when the festival was over and tell others about Jesus, His message, and the amazing things they’d experienced.
Talk about effective word-of-mouth marketing.
For Peter and the core group of disciples. They are still in Jerusalem, and each day they go to the Temple. The Temple wasn’t just a building. It was an entire complex with courtyards and areas where people gathered. The Temple was their third place. It’s where everyone went, not only to worship and follow prescribed offerings and sacrifices, but to hang out, to converse, and to socialize. It is where Jesus hung out when He was in Jerusalem. It’s where everyone hung out when they were in Jerusalem. And so, it is where Peter and John go.
When I go to a coffee shop uptown or to the pub, I typically always run into people I know. There are usual crowds that I can make a safe bet will be there. Friends and acquaintances will pop in for a pour-over or a pint and stop to chat.
The Temple would have been the same way. In today’s chapter, Peter and John heal a beggar at one of the Temple gates. It became a sensation because everyone knew that beggar. He was there begging every day at the same place. He was a regular and all the regulars passed by him. In the Temple courts, Peter and John would have recognized regulars. Some of the religious leaders who tried and convicted Jesus would have been there, and perhaps the very Temple guards who arrested Jesus in the Garden and were the first to strike Jesus’ face with their unjust blows. All of these people would have been in the Temple when Jesus was teaching there just a few weeks before. Peter and John probably even knew people by name. They had gotten to know certain individuals when they were there every day, all day, with Jesus. That’s what happens when you hang out regularly in a “third place.”
It is this regular crowd of good religious Jews that crowds around Peter, John, and the ecstatic, jumping-for-joy, and formerly lame beggar from the Beautiful Gate. When the crowd of regulars gather around, Peter delivers to them his message.
Peter doesn’t mince words. He calls out this crowd of regulars with the leaders and soldiers listening in. Peter states that they, this group of regulars, had rejected, wronged, and killed an innocent Jesus. But this isn’t a message of anger and condemnation, it is an offering of a second chance. Peter proclaims Jesus’ resurrection, which he and John had witnessed. “You and the religious leaders were ignorant,” Peter says. Now, he offers forgiveness, redemption, and salvation if they will simply repent and believe.
In the quiet this morning, I think back to my early days of being a disciple. In those days I was taught that being a “witness” involved standing on street corners, knocking on doors, and parroting a scripted and well-rehearsed pitch to strangers. I won’t deny that some people responded. The Lord works in mysterious ways, as they say.
But today’s chapter reminds me that being my witness begins at home, in my third place with all the regulars just as the Jesus Movement began with Peter and John’s witness in Jerusalem, in the Temple. My witness is woven into all the “third places” I frequent. It is in the way I greet people with kindness. It is my patience with the barista or pub tender who is so busy I feel ignored. It is my generosity in the tips I leave or the pint I buy for the person next to me. It is in the gentleness and mercy with which I relate to individuals who may have wronged me, or who simply rub me the wrong way.
The institutional church I grew up in loved to cram being a “witness” into programs, processes, and prescribed pitches. But, the further I get in my journey, the more I have come to realize and embrace that my “witness” as a disciple of Jesus is how I interact with the regulars in my life. It begins at home with my most intimate loved ones, at my place of work with my colleagues, and in the third places I frequent with friends and community. If my witness doesn’t start here, it will never make it to the ends of the earth.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Acts 2:1 (NIV)
One of the things I’ve observed throughout the Great Story is the fact that God does things with both purpose and timing. The purpose and timing happening intoday’s chapter can easily go unnoticed by the modern and casual reader.
In reading and meditating on the first two chapters of Acts, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern:
Before His ministry began, Jesus spent 40 days of preparation fasting, and praying. He was then baptized by John, the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and His ministry was effectively launched.
Before their ministry began, Jesus’ disciples spent 40 days of preparation. According to their own testimony, the risen Jesus appeared to them during this period and taught them. They were then baptized in the Holy Spirit and their ministry was effectively launched. (FYI: At this point, the disciples [“follower”] became known as apostles [“sent”]).
But that’s just the top layer. The pattern gets even deeper and better, because the events of Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and the outpouring of Holy Spirit are purposefully timed. They correlate to events and festivals God established through Moses back in Exodus and Leviticus at the time God established His law. What God was doing through Moses and the Law are linked to what God was doing through Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The Passover festival was a celebration of God’s deliverance of His people in the final climactic plague on the Egyptians that led to the end of their slavery and the beginning of their freedom. In that plague, death came to the first-born male of every household unless the blood of a sacrificial lamb was spread across the door. The spirit of death “passed over” the households whose doors were covered in the blood of the lamb.
Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection at the time of the Passover festival marked God’s deliverance for any who believes, leading to the end of slavery to sin and the beginning of spiritual freedom. Jesus became the sacrificial lamb, His blood poured out for all. His victory over death and resurrection made it possible for death to pass over any and all who would believe.
Pentecost was another ancient Hebrew festival, known as the Festival of Weeks. The first fruits of the harvest were celebrated and brought to the Temple as offerings. It was also traditionally commemorated as the day when God gave Moses the Law back in the book of Exodus.
So on the day of commemoration of God giving the Law through Moses, God gave the Holy Spirit to all believers. In His Message on the Mountain, Jesus said, “I didn’t come to abolish the Law (of Moses) and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.” The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was this fulfillment. To the believers in Corinth Paul wrote: “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (emphasis added).
In kicking off the harvest celebration by the bringing of first-fruit offerings, Jesus has all of the disciples, the first fruits of His early ministry. As He once told them, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” With the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the launched ministry of taking Jesus’ Message to the world, it is a celebration of a spiritual harvest of souls reaping eternal life.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself comforted in the reminder that God works with purpose and timing. I believe this is not only true in the events described in today’s chapter, but in my life, as well. There was a lot that the Apostles still didn’t see or understand about what was happening. In the same way, I often find myself on life’s road without clarity or understanding of what God is doing or where I’m clearly being led. Nevertheless, I know God works with purpose and timing, and I will continue to trust that today as I press on in the journey.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
Peace that's Not of this World (CaD Jhn 14) –
Wayfarer
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27 (NIV)
Judas Iscariot is in the process of his betrayal of Jesus. The wheels are in motion and the climactic event that Jesus has clearly stated is about to take place. Jesus knows that He will be arrested, He will suffer, and He will be executed. The religious leaders and the Romans? They’re just the pawns. What’s about to happen is the result of a larger spiritual conflict that has been brewing since before the beginning. As Jesus finishes His last meal with the disciples and prepares, He even says to His disciples, “The Prince of this World is coming.”
I find it fascinating that amid these impending events, Jesus declares that He has peace. In fact, He has enough peace that He will generously give it to His disciples. He also clarifies that His peace is not “as the world gives.”
This got me meditating in the quiet this morning about how I’ve observed the world offering peace.
I watch politicians on both sides screaming of the aisle that their side is the only path to peace and prosperity. The other side will bring only death, destruction, and the end of democracy. So both sides claim they will bring peace if the other side is obliterated, subjugated, and goes away. Peace comes only through the absolute and total destruction of your political enemies.
Last October, a group of terrorists tortured, raped, and slaughtered 1200 human beings. They took others hostage. I’ve been told that this all happened to bring peace to one group of people and will be achieved if the other group of people they terrorized are wiped off the face of the earth. Both groups continue to kill one another to achieve peace.
When I was a young man, it seemed that the world promised peace if you had certain things. Those things could be tangible like money, cars, designer gear, etc. They could also be intangibles like success, popularity, fame, status, and power. This is still the Prince of the World’s game. In fact, it fuels our economy and continues our seemingly endless need for more. If I just add that thing everyone’s talking about to my pile of personal possessions I’d probably feel so content as to never needing another thing.
In my lifetime, I’ve observed that the world’s promise of peace has gotten more insidious with its intangible paths to inner peace. Thanks to social media, the world convinces children and their parents that peace will be yours if you have followers and likes, or because you have a sudden case of Tourette’s or gender dysphoria that makes you special. Peace is promised for the latter at the end of hormones, drugs, and life-altering surgeries.
Jesus promised peace that is spiritual in nature. He said it would come with spiritual oneness that happens when I surrender, follow, believe, and obey. Jesus promises His Spirit to indwell me. That’s the source of the peace. The following, believing, and obeying are rooted in His teaching that there really is something much larger going on in my life in the same way there was something larger going on in the events of His arrest. If He is in me, and I am following His teaching, there is peace that comes with His presence and with seeing the larger, spiritual, eternal perspective which allows me to view my momentary troubles in a very different way.
Peace, my friend.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
