Mar 25 – Thoughts on Josh. 19-21 & Luke 2:25-52

“Sovereign Lord, as You have promised, You may now dismiss Your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared in the sight of all people;
a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

Simeon is one of my favorite characters in the bible.  There is little we know about him, yet much we can infer.

Simeon was tsadik, “a righteous one”.  This title was not just nicety but was a title given to those who most closely followed God’s law, lived with the intention of being righteous above all else.  Jesus’ father Joseph was tsadik until he agreed to marry Mary, that was.  Marrying a pregnant woman lost him the title.  But Simeon was one who lived his life completely for God and His righteousness.

Simeon was most likely Anawim.  The Anawim were the pious poor of Israel, those who awaited the coming of Messiah like no others.  Both Mary and Joseph, along with Elizabeth and Zechariah, were most likely of the Anawim.  These people were most often found around the temple where they worshiped and prayed for the coming Christ.

But Simeon was one more thing.  He was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Big deal, we think, since we are ALL filled with the Holy Spirit.  But at this time, before Christ’s ministry, before Pentecost, being filled with the Holy Spirit was rare.  And rarer still in the centuries since the prophets stopped prophecying.  The Holy Spirit “B.C.” would come upon a person for a God-given task and once the task was complete, would leave them.  Few if any could be said that “the Holy Spirit was on him.”

Through the Spirit, Simeon had been told that he would not die before he saw the Messiah, and here Jesus was.  And so, with the completion of his ministry, Simeon gives us this beautiful hymn, a hymn we’ll look at more closely tomorrow.

/0 Comments/by

Mar 24 – Thoughts on Josh. 16-18 & Luke 2:1-24

Today I’m pondering armies.  Someone has said that nobody should read Joshua until they are adults, and even then only sparingly.  It’s a hard book for us in 21st century America to stomach let alone understand.  It’s the story of warfare, of driving people off their land, of armies.  Another person asked me once, “What’s the difference between what Joshua and the Israelites did in the book of Joshua and what is happening in the Middle East today?”  We decry people groups who would attack another group and drive them out of their land, but our own spiritual ancestors did just that.

How do we deal with our God commanding His people to do such a thing?  How do we worship a God of love who would direct armies to do what armies do – war?

Perhaps the bigger question is about faith, about trust.  Can we trust God even when we don’t have answers?  Can we put our faith in God when we don’t understand?  Can we follow a God who rules armies and conquers lands, even lands promised to His people centuries before?

There’s another army in our reading for today, but it’s in the New Testament and it has a very different role.  We are so familiar with Christmas pageants and carols that we’ve missed an army walking through the very story we recite, some of us from memory, year after year.  It’s because the scriptures don’t call it an army; they call it a host.  “The heavenly host” literally means “the heavenly army”, and they never sing a note; they shout a battle cry.

So what is up with an army appearing in the sky above the shepherds and battle-crying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will toward all on whom His favor rests”?  This army is welcoming it’s commander, the one who will ride before it in the last battle.  This army is not there to conquer but to celebrate!

So, God uses armies for lots of reasons, some we understand and some we don’t.  The question is whether we will still follow Him, the God whose armies celebrate and conquer, or whether our own lack of answers will drive us away.

/0 Comments/by

Mar 23 – Thoughts on Josh. 13-15 & Luke 1:57-80

Was John the Baptist Elijah reincarnated?  Obviously not since we don’t believe in that sort of thing, but also because Elijah wasn’t dead.  If you remember his story, he was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, making him one of only two people assumed to have never died.  The other is Enoch early in Genesis.  It was this fact that he never died that led to the belief that he would return to proclaim the Messiah’s coming.  This belief was so strong that it made its way into both the Seder meal and Jesus’ own teachings.

At the Seder meal, the annual celebration of the Passover Feast through which we celebrate our exodus from Egypt, there is a special place set at every home for Elijah.  He has his own special cup which is not drunk until he returns, and even a portion of the celebration where a child runs to the door to see if Elijah has come this year to proclaim Messiah’s coming.  It is to this that Jesus refers in Matt. 11 when He states, “And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.”

Even Zechariah seemed to make the connection long before John donned his camel-hair robe and began his insect diet.  Here before John’s birth, Zechariah proclaims that he will “go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him…”  This was a direct quote of Mal. 3 which foretold Elijah’s coming.  He recognized that John would be a prophet of the Most High God, which John proved true by acting the prophet, from his life with the Essenes in the desert to his odd dress and cuisine to his message.

And just what the message?  What was it he preached that prepared the way for Jesus to come?  His was a message of repentance, forgiveness, and preparation.  Maybe that’s a good place for us to begin with non Christians when we introduce them to Christ – with repentance and forgiveness and preparation.

/0 Comments/by

Mar 22 – Thoughts on Josh. 10-12 & Luke 1:39-56

“There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a human being.”

I believe we deeply misunderstand prayer.  We believe and have been taught that prayer is about asking God for things.  We justify this with a few commands in scripture about asking what you want in God’s name and getting it.  But there is exceedingly more example in scripture of seeking God’s will, God’s plan, and praise in prayer than in asking for stuff.  But we are Americans, living in an individualist, capitalist society, and so it makes sense that we would see God as a Djinn, a Genie granting us wishes.  In fact, the most common reason I’ve heard from people for their disbelief is that “God didn’t answer my prayer”.

If prayer indeed is about God answering our requests, “listening to us” in terms of obeying our commands or granting our wishes, then what do we do with a verse like this?  I don’t think we can reconcile it or frankly this whole story, which is a miracle more because God gave Joshua what He asked than that He stopped the sun.  I think our only option is to change our assumption about prayer.

What if prayer was about listening to God’s will rather than trying to change it?  What if prayer was about taking orders rather than giving them?  What if prayer should be more about silence than about words?  Try that for the next week and see if prayer changes for you, and change things for you.

/0 Comments/by

Mar 21 – Thoughts on Josh. 7-9 & Luke 1:21-38

I often have to both teach my kids and remember for myself this simple life rule:  I can’t dictate, change, or control the behaviors of others, only of myself.  I cannot blame someone else for my mistakes, nor can I base my behavior on their actions or worldviews.  This comes up in today’s text as Joshua and the Israelite face off with the deceptive Gibeonites.

Joshua and company could have decided that because the Gibeonites deceived them, they weren’t bound by their oath and were free to kill them.  However, they knew that their oath was their own and regardless of the Gibeonites behavior, they were bound.  And so they found another solution – make the Gibeonites their slaves, fulfilling their vow not to kill them but also making them pay for their deception.

The real problem, however, wasn’t that they made a rash vow.  It was that they made a vow without consulting the Lord.  We all have tricky decision to make and paths to choose in life, and if we choose without prayer and wise Godly counsel, we will almost always choose poorly.  And when we choose poorly, no matter that all the evidence points to the fact that these visitors are from far off, we will have consequences that have nothing to do with others’ deception.

So before you make any major decisions, whether about a life choice, a theological position, or a personal request, take the time to consult God and Godly people first.  Though you may be seen as less than decisive because of your slow process, you will choose correctly only if you choose the way of God.

/0 Comments/by