Category: Bible

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The Great Miracle of Forgiveness

She crashed the dinner party, just to get to Jesus. It was an embarrassing moment for the religious man who’d extended the invitation to the Son.

Yes, Jesus chose to eat at the house of Simon, a Pharisee, even though He had pronounced woes upon these religious ones. He was more than the friend to publicans and sinners. He also sought to be the friend of those who despised publicans and sinners. The Son was the friend to men such as this man, men who prided themselves on their right living and rigid law-keeping.

These, too, needed the saving grace of God. Jesus did say that He would be lifted up on the Cross to draw all men unto Him and to the Father through Him. All means all. Those who fail to see themselves as sinners are still trapped in their sin and in need of redemption, even though they are blind to their desperate state.

What to do about her? The Pharisee had to wonder. She was a woman known for her life on the streets of town.

Jesus had just taken His seat and there she was. And what she was doing only made matters more uncomfortable for the host Pharisee and his distinguished company. I must say for myself that the scene would be disconcerting to just about anyone who had just sat down to take a meal.

Something had moved this woman to tears, and she let those tears fall on the feet of Jesus. She carried no towel with which to dry His feet so she used her hair. She let loose her locks and they fell upon His toes. This is how she wiped them clean.

She proceeded to a most public display of affection by kissing those feet. Her finishing touch was to pour out on Him an expensive flask of fragrant oil. If, as some think, this woman was a prostitute, this ointment likely was a tool of her trade as a sex worker. In anointing His feet with this, she declared that she was turning away from her line of employment in coming to Christ.

Just before this encounter, Jesus gave an invitation of His own, one we can read in Matthew 11:28-30:  “Come unto Me, all you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

She heard this and answered His call to repentance.

Tale of Two Sinners

What we really read at the conclusion of Luke 7 is a tale of two sinners. One had become very much aware of her need for forgiveness and mercy; the other, as far as we can tell, remained restless and confused at the power and propriety of Jesus.

First, consider the inappropriateness of a woman – any woman – openly lavishing such endearment on a man – any man — in plain sight. Jesus had status in the community. He had gained a measure of respect as a Rabbi, and Simon was contemptuous that Jesus did not move away from her, nor did He move to stop her. “… [Simon] said to himself, ‘If this Man were a Prophet, He would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner’” (Luke 7:39).

Jesus would reveal just how much of a Prophet He was. He did know this woman and her ways. He also knew Simon and his thoughts. He exposed what was going on in the Pharisee’s head. He also took issue with his manner of decorum.

This moment was one of supposed hospitality, but Simon treated the guest of honor rather shabbily by the standards of the day. Jesus noted what went missing from his welcome.

The Son got no kiss of greeting. No water was provided for His feet. No oil was offered for His head. All of these would have been standard courtesies extended to a visitor.

Simon’s casual treatment of Jesus was a matter of heart. He possessed a curiosity. Perhaps, this whole setup was to be just a little meet-and-greet session, a get-know-you time. On another level, maybe this was part of the Pharisees’ investigation of Jesus. The Son was known and followed and this made the religious establishment anxious and envious.

Jesus knew Simon better than he knew himself. He was blinded to his true need and to the Truth about the Messiah sitting before him.

Jesus offered a brief parable about two debtors and their responses to the cancellations of what they owed. The one who owed much more was the more grateful one, as Simon pointed out.

Notice, both people in the story had debts they could not pay. The woman and Simon were in the same condition – each needed the forgiveness that comes from above through the Son.

It was most clear to the woman and so she seized the opportunity to express gratefulness. Her heart overflowed for the love and grace she had sensed from the Savior. None of the disfavoring glances were going to hinder her.

Who would squelch such joy? Certainly not Jesus.

This was a revelation. A life made right and clean was rejoicing before the One who set her free.

How long had she labored enslaved to her sinful lifestyle? Finally at peace, she let herself go to extremes in her thanksgiving, regardless of those present.

Set Free and Grateful

Forgiveness; it is the greatest miracle of them all. The result of it was there for all to see in the midst of a “holy” man’s house.

This chapter, Luke 7, began with a powerful turn of events. A Roman centurion, a Gentile magistrate, sought healing for the servant boy whom he loved. And Jesus marveled at his faith, his understanding, and the recognition of the Son’s power and authority.

With His Word, Jesus made that boy well at the request of a soldier.

With His Word, the Son next raised a widow’s only son from the dead and out of his coffin.

With His Word, Jesus brought this woman to Himself and His wholeness; He made her new and alive again.

Let he who has ears, hear and hear well. May we hear and believe.

Simon thought he was doing Jesus a favor with a seat at his table. Instead, it was Jesus who offered this Pharisee the greatest invitation of all, the invitation to be free from his debt, small as it may seem to him.

Forgiveness was there for the taking. Pardon must be received. Mercy extended must be mercy accepted.

This woman got the message. Did Simon get it, too? That remains a mystery. We are not told whether his unbelief was helped at all by what happened here.

Jesus brought the message of salvation home to this man.

And He brings it home to us, over and over. We are forgiven and free. Let us weep before Him. Let us pour out praises to Him.

Our faith saved us. May we go in peace.

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Think Joy

I want to talk about Paul, a man who wrote a good deal of what we know as the New Testament in our Bibles. From this man’s mind and heart came pictures, great and eternal illustrations, of how we are to see Christ and His Church.

From this early missionary, pastor and teacher, we learn to view Jesus as the Head of the Church and of us, as members of His Body active and at work in this world. We learn many things from Paul:  the necessity of spiritual armor for the warfare, the power of love, and the importance of prayer, just to name a few.

A careful look at Paul’s letter to the Philippians reveals in its tone, a collection of words that is relevant to us today. His writing points us to joy as a practice of life.

Paul was a man who underwent a radical change in his point of view about Jesus. He was not one of the Apostles who walked and talked with Christ during His public ministry on earth. For sure, he came to know of the Man from Nazareth and of the people who had been transformed by the Gospel.

He grew up in the university city of Tarsus, situated in the southeastern part of what is now Turkey. There, he became acquainted with both Greek thought and Roman methods. Added to his Hebrew identity and his connection to the true God, these things made Paul one of the truly unique people in all of history.

At some point, Paul became an unyielding, orthodox follower of the ways of the Law as it was given from God to Moses. He would come to identify himself as a “Pharisee of the Pharisees.” He committed himself to strict rabbinic school led by Gamaliel and entered into a life devoted to the restoration of Israel as a Kingdom and world power with the Temple as its religious center.

Encountering Jesus

This man is introduced to us in Acts 7, a chapter that describes the stoning of Stephen, one of the original church deacons. Stephen, a Jewish believer in Christ, delivered a stinging rebuke to those whose hard hearts kept them from seeing the reality of Jesus as the promised Messiah. Stephen admonished them for they had always resisted the Spirit and ignored the message of the Lord whether the word came from Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, or any other spokesmen sent to them.

Stephen’s sermon fueled rage that sparked a mob to seize and beat him. As the attackers gathered and began to hurl rocks, their cloaks were laid at the feet of Paul.

He watched Stephen sink to the dust. He no doubt also heard Stephen as he testified to seeing an open Heaven complete with Jesus standing at the right hand of Glory, ready to welcome His besieged, battered saint. This faithful deacon punctuated his departure with a word of prayer:  “And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:60).

Did Paul ever forget that scene? I don’t think so.

For a season, he became one of the chief agents of persecution toward Christians as their movement gained a foothold during the late 30s and 40s of the first century AD. He poured all of his restlessness and agitation into stamping out the spread of the Message of Jesus. He engaged in the forceful suppression of the Way. He delivered believers of Jesus over to jail, scourging, and even to execution.

Then, Heaven opened to Paul. Down came the Light from above. He encountered Jesus en route to Damascus. With him, he carried arrest warrants for any Jew who had come to follow the Savior.

Christ spoke:  “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? … I am Jesus whom you persecute: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (Acts 9). What were those goads that jabbed at Paul? I am convinced that they were memories of Stephen and how he perished with a prayer for his enemies and killers.

From this moment forward, Paul’s passion for God was turned toward telling everyone about Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

A Letter of Love and Joy

One of the stops on his missionary journey was Philippi. In Acts 16, Luke recorded how Paul conducted a “beach reach” and discovered a women’s prayer group that included Lydia, a seller of purple, a businesswoman of some means since purple cloth was costly and much desired among the wealthy in Roman society.

Lydia became a believer in Jesus and a supporter of the work of Paul at once. She pressed him to start meetings in her home, and this group grew into the central church in the city.

While Paul was imprisoned, awaiting a hearing before Nero, the Caesar of the Empire, he wrote his Song of Solomon to the saints at Philippi. This, in my mind, is a love letter of the best kind.

The syntax in these sentences is free, wild, and loose. Paul’s giddiness overflows in the fashion of the Bridegroom who gushed “Behold, you are fair, my love; behold, you are all fair. …” (Song 4:1). Of the Philippians, Paul said, “I thank God upon every remembrance of you…For God is my witness, how I yearn and long and desire for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:3, 8).

The pages literally burst with joy as Paul considers the people of this place. The words “joy” or “rejoice” appear at least 19 times throughout the four chapters of Philippians.

The important thing Paul emphasizes is that joy goes beyond feeling. His instruction is that joy is a mind thing. Happiness comes and goes with circumstance and situation. Joy, however, remains because joy comes through thinking with God.

Partakers of Grace

The opening part of Philippians 1 features a string of thoughts he’s having about his beloved flock. He’s a caring shepherd who, while apart from the sheep, sets his mind on the memories of them in order to warm his heart.

The fellowship at Philippi in the Gospel was rich and real from the start, he recalled. There was Lydia, but there was also the jailer of the city. This man’s family came to Christ after he heard the hymn sung by Paul and Silas and it summoned an earthquake that shook the dungeon and rattled off their chains. The man became suicidal until Paul called to him and told him of the Way and the Truth – Life broke forth there and then.

This was all God. Paul possessed a mindset of victory because he constantly considered the power of Christ at work in him and in others.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.  It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace” (Philippians 1:6-7).

Confidence comes to us as we think in grace. Love abounds as we gain “more and more knowledge” and discernment from the Word and the Holy Spirit. (Philippians 1:9).

To those who may have sorrowed over Paul’s status as a prisoner, he told them to understand this:  “the things that have happened to me have fallen out for the furtherance of the Gospel” (Philippians 1:12).

Think God. Think Gospel. Think mission. Think Jesus and take joy.

Be sure of this, Paul wrote to the Philippians, there will be victory through your prayers and the supply of the Spirit. “Christ shall be magnified in me, whether it by life, or by death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21-22).

Even the prospect of death could not dampen the joy in the heart of Paul. What kept his heart and mind was the “earnest expectation and hope” that in nothing he would be ashamed; the life to come would be beyond anything we could imagine (Philippians 1:20).

Thoughts of this expectation and hope are the fuel for our joy. Let us hold fast these promises for He shall hold us fast, and hold us fast forever, “so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,  filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:10-11).

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The Final Word and the Order of Angels

Jesus came as the Final Word from Heaven to earth. God got down in the dirt with us, as one of us.

There was no other way to say what needed to be said, and so God took a Body prepared and lived the life in Person, under the sun and upon the waves. A top down operation it was not, as we read in the first chapter of the book of Hebrews. He did not ride into the world followed by a mass of angels, though He truly could have as the Captain of the host of Heaven.

Instead, God entered the horizontal plain. He came to see us eye-to-eye. In doing so, He spoke as the truest Prophet, served as the highest Priest, and claimed the surest of all crowns as King of kings.

Through the ages, prophets were raised to deliver the messages. They came and went. A few were heard and their words were heeded at certain seasons.

Voices for God

Samuel, for one, was called by God to bring Israel back to right worship after the disastrous era of the Judges. They had left the tribes fragmented and defeated in their distance from the One who had delivered them from bondage in Egypt.

Samuel’s ministry was one of restoration. The Word came to him as a youth serving in the Tabernacle. A time of renewal and victory was the result of his ministry, as his preaching and teaching touched the people and moved them nearer to God.

But Samuel grew old and this prophet’s sons were weak men who did not walk in his ways. Thus, the people, in a foolish fit of human reason, demanded to have a king set over them like all the other nations.  The Lord gave them over to their request. A throne was established and a king was set upon it.

This arrangement of rule did not make life better for Israel. The kings proved to be all too human. The majority of them governed with selfish ambition. Their ways are recorded in histories that relate a nation plagued by ups and tremendous downs.

And yet God kept sending His Word through people who chose to fear Him and hear Him.

Most prophets wound up like Jeremiah. He preached consistent and true words, but those words were dismissed and mocked. He suffered much and sang out sad laments as the nation and its royal city Jerusalem slid into deep judgment and heathen occupation.

Jeremiah told of the faithful Lord, the One whose mercies never end and are ever new. He delivered the promise of the new and living Covenant to come. This “expected end” would satisfy and replenish every weary soul as the Word would be written upon hearts rather than tablets of stone. “And I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” said the Lord (see Jeremiah 31:31-34).

To understand all of this and how it came to be, we have to read the book of Hebrews. In these pages, we get a clear presentation of who Christ is in His fulfillment of Old Testament truth.

The Throne Claimed

At last, the Son was sent. He did more than talk. He lived out the sentences written from eternity past. And He lived them out as one of us. He fulfilled all the Law of the Lord in word, thought, and deed.

Christ entered into Creation, His Creation, with all of its definition and decrees and limitations. Yes, God took on a body of flesh. He lived in this body according to the leading of the Spirit. The radiance of His glory was seen only briefly and by just three – Peter, James, and John – on the Mount of Transfiguration (see Matthew 17:1-2). Jesus lived within the confines of the universe He formed and upholds by the Word of His power, to the letter.

Why? He came to be the Man of all men to die the death for all men. And by His death He “by Himself purged our sins” (Hebrews 1:3).

After He finished this work of His, He ascended to take His seat at “the right hand of the Majesty on high.” We read of how the disciples watched Jesus rise through the clouds in Luke 24 and Acts 1. Here, in Hebrews 1, we are told where He went.

The Son of Man became superior to angels through all of this, according to this passage. The royal order of the universe was now restored because of Jesus’ accomplishment as the last Adam (see 1 Corinthians 15:45).

The first Adam’s failure disturbed the original order established. Man was meant to exercise dominion through operating in the image of God as Heaven’s designated leaders of life on earth.

To reclaim the kingly position first assigned to man, Jesus became Man. God the Son redeemed all things and regained man’s superiority above the angels. Psalm 8 reveals that man was designed to be crowned with glory and honor and given “dominion over the works” of God’s hands (see Psalm 8:5-6). This status had been forfeited by the fall at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Son became a fellow of ours. He experienced humanity to the full, even unto death.

Reestablishing the Order

More than raising us into right standing with God, Christ’s obedience and offering of Himself also put the angelic realm back into its proper place.

The rebellion of Lucifer, referred to Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, spawned division. This bright, wise, beautiful being sought an exalted status; he lusted for the worship due only to the One Most High. Others sided with him and became demonic affiliates with this fallen prince who possessed power over the world system and its kingdoms, a point noted by Satan to Jesus in the wilderness temptation (see Matthew 4, Luke 4).

Hell lost. The devil was defeated.

Jesus the Son conquered the grave; the curse of death could not corrupt His perfection. As the fully resurrected Man, as a true Son of David, He inherited the Throne of Majesty.

Jesus came from Heaven and situated Himself underneath the cosmic realm of the air. He ambushed Hell and triumphed over the power it possessed by taking all wrath and rage as penalty for sin upon His Person. The fear of death that once imprisoned us was crushed.

All authority belongs to Him. And since we’ve been made one with Him, His authority is ours also.

What of the angels and their power? What are they to us? They are our servants as stated rhetorically in Hebrews 1:14:  “Are not [angels} all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

Yes, the angels are our ministers, as they were always meant to be. They serve God and because we are His joy, these beings are all around us. Let us therefore be wise, watchful, and kind according to this instruction:  “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2).

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Getting the Whole Story

Life doesn’t seem to make sense. Surely you have had this thought. More than that, you’ve probably said this, out loud. Admit it; you have said this, a lot – to whoever would listen.

Leave it to the Lord, via the Holy Spirit, to inspire a book that puts a series of such thoughts into the Scriptures. That’s just like God. He knows us in absolutely every way possible. And because of this He has given us words to read, ponder, consider, and utter for every mood imaginable.

In Ecclesiastes, the result is a stream of consciousness, a run of sentences, poems, declarations. Its verses can leave you scratching your head sometimes. The writer, who I believe to be King Solomon, lets loose, framing his frustrations over and over.

The book opens this way:  “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities. All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The Hebrew word for vanity is hevel. This is the word for smoke.

Smoke, smoke, smoke, all is smoke. I imagine the writer choking on these words as he ponders them. But it is an honest assessment of the world as he is seeing it at the time.

This is all that comes from the toil of those living under the sun.  Burn the midnight oil; work dozens of hours of overtime and what do you have to show for it all?

Smoke, that’s all. One way or another, it all goes up in smoke.

Welcome to life lived based on what we take from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Lord warned Adam and Eve not to eat of its fruit. Here, in Ecclesiastes, I think that we read of the outcome of their disastrous decision.

Knowing Too Much

Job wrestled mightily with the problem of his pain. His grief and affliction brought him low, but he refused to stop seeking God. We read of how Job held fast to his integrity and clung to the hope of his Redeemer and resurrection.

The writer of Ecclesiastes faced another type of wrestling – the mental turmoil that can come from knowing too much.

Yes, Solomon knew more than anyone alive. This how the Word described him:  “And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people…he was wiser than all other men” (1 Kings 4:29).

To go with this remarkable breadth of knowledge, Solomon also had health, wealth, and peace in his days. He faced very few challenges–that is, on the outside of himself. This would leave him open to trouble as find out at the end of his days, when foreign wives turned him toward idols (see 1 Kings 11:4). There’s a great truth expressed by the writer in Psalm 119:71:  “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”

Internally, Solomon tossed and turned. He admitted his restlessness. He struggled with feelings of confusion. Things as he saw them did not add up. And it exhausted him.  “All things are full of weariness. …” (Ecclesiastes 1:8).

These doubts and questions kept coming. Solomon kept thinking and over-thinking, and these mind games he played led to projects and pursuits and entertainment and academic searching.  He had this written down. He had to have a detailed record of it all.

And because he made sure this happened, we have these pages in our Bibles. The Spirit kept him honest. He strings together words that, if taken by themselves, would make us think that life on earth is just a big zero.

Priceless Pearls

Don’t give up on Ecclesiastes. Put your hand to the plow. Push forward and read carefully. Exercise what Eugene Peterson described as “The Forbidding Discipline of Spiritual Reading.” By this effort, words read can become words lived as we let them sink deep into us.

Faith does come by the Word of God, as our eyes let the Light in and our minds allow us to hear the Voice as He is walking toward us, seeking us, calling us.

Press on and join yourself to the Preacher and his provocations. In the midst of the tangle of rough and haggard sentences, you will find that there’s something small and round and luminous. There are pearls to admire, a precious gem of thought that should give us pause.

Here’s one of them for us to think over:  “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In the Psalms, the writers tossed in the imperative Selah at strategic points. The exact meaning of this term has been debated, but most scholars agree that Selah indicates a suggested pause or quiet moment or musical interlude is to be observed.

I am saying that we can read well and learn to insert Selah at times into our reading, especially into our reading of the Bible. Otherwise, we can just get all caught up in racing along through the syllables, reading but not recognizing or relating to the text and its context.

Reading is something I do a lot of. I am usually working through two to three books at a time in a addition to the daily Bible reading regiment I have. This means that I can get so revved up in the midst of it that the words on the pages do little to touch and nourish my heart.

Three Words

Selah. Sabbath. Shalom. These are three words that I want to better understand as I go through the fourth quarter of my life. I want to obey what Psalm 90 tells me:  “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Selah–we need to pause and consider.

Sabbath–we need to rest and talk and sit at tables enjoying food and company. God established this after the first days of Creation. I believe that the Lord wanted us to know that our existence is not about being busy, busy, busy. The devil’s the one who is constantly roaming and looking to devour.

Shalom–we interpret this word to mean peace. But actually, it speaks of being whole and complete. Jesus finished the work of our redemption at the Cross. There’s nothing more for us to do. We are made one with Him in our salvation when call upon Him.

After all of the ranting and raving and muttering that we read in Ecclesiastes, we do get to enjoy a finishing touch that is clear and right. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:  Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

These are the words we must hold fast in our hearts. Think on them. Rest in them. And see yourself as whole in Christ.

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Resurrection Words

“These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name” (John 20:31).

John the Apostle gave us the story of Jesus as he saw it and heard it. He said that he could have written so much more. The other gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – were already circulating through the Christian communities by the time John got around to telling his version of the events. The timing of this gospel was likely the 90s of the first century, so this Apostle, the only one alive at the time, chose to tell things in his own way from the vantage point of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:2).

I am grateful to John for giving us so many of the words of Jesus. More than 65 percent of John features sayings from the Savior. This means that the Apostle wrote in such a way so as to let the Son tell us about Himself.

In John 20, we read about Resurrection Day. Here, John had to devote his focus on the important details of that original Easter Sunday. And as a result we have fewer words from Jesus in these passages.

Oh, what words we do have here!

There are words to the sorrowing, to the cowering, and to the doubting. There are words of promise and hope and mission.

The Sound of Her Name

The disciples had spent an agonizing and sleepless Sabbath after the body of their Master was taken from the Cross, wrapped in linen, and laid in the tomb. The stone was rolled in place. It was sealed by the Roman authorities. A crew of centurions got orders to watch over the dead Son for He had said:

“The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day” (Mark 9:31).

The third day dawned, and Mary Magdalene came to find the stone moved and her Lord gone. She ran to fetch Peter and John. These two raced to the tomb and found it as she had said.

Both men were baffled and fearful. Even though they had heard Jesus speak of His rising, they remained mystified. And rather than stay and rejoice – or just stay and investigate the scene – Peter and John went home, leaving Mary there alone.

Perhaps, Peter and John dashed home as fast they could to make arrangements for their escape. They could have been preparing to run away from Jerusalem, as a couple of disciples would do, according the account found in Luke 24. For certain the disappearance of Christ’s body was going to become a cause célèbre, and all connected to Jesus were going to be marked ones.

Mary couldn’t leave, however. She wept as she surveyed the empty tomb. Angels were there and asked of the reason for her tears. “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where He is,” she told them and turned away.

Just then there was Another standing before her; He was the gardener she presumed.

There was once another Garden and another woman, the only woman actually. That woman heard the whispers of deception and slander. She listened and because she did, she fell for the lie and soon she wept in shame and hid away in fear.

In this garden, the woman Mary would hear afresh the Voice of Truth. It was the Voice of the One who set her free, and the Voice of the One who came to make undone all the ravages of defeat that began in that place called Eden.

 “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” This One said to Mary. She begged Him for her Master’s corpse. She wanted to see Jesus once more, even if He was lifeless as she thought He was. She spun from Him and sobbed out her heartbreak

 “Mary.”

So came to her ears the sound of her name, in a Voice that spoke to her pain.

“Mary.”

Spoken by the Voice she knew so well. Those bitter tears of ache and loss were transformed into ones of joy and wonder.

“Rabboni!”

She shouted as she reached to hold Him tight. This tender encounter with this woman once haunted and controlled by demons was the first sign demonstrated by the Firstborn from the Dead.

Like John, she was a disciple who saw herself as much beloved. Her deep love brought her to the tomb site by first light that morning. A woman, this woman, would receive the first words from resurrected lips.

Jesus had places to be and things to do; He had to get her to let go, so He could get going. He did, however, give her a significant message to share:  “Go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Tell them, Mary did. And all through that day she also testified – “I have seen the Lord.”

A Surprise Visit

For their part, the disciples remained on lockdown and mired in disbelief of Mary and her report. The news from the tomb traveled about. Any sound of footsteps struck terror in these shut-ins. They feared for their lives. They took no chances. Doors were bolted tight. Windows were closed.

“Peace be with you.”

Jesus spoke, with His scarred hands held out and His wounded side made to be seen. He who was hung on the execution tree of Rome only days earlier stood before them.

Can you see them there? Stunned and silent, the mouths open with no power to utter even a sound. Mary had to be beaming as the reality of His Presence confirmed what she had been telling them all along.

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.”

The Savior once dead, was now alive – just as He told them He would be. Joy filled that room as He breathed out a word of promise upon them:

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

One of them was absent from this amazing scene. Thomas missed it.

“We have seen the Lord,” the disciples said. To be fair, Thomas reacted as the others had reacted when Mary said that she saw Jesus.

Thomas said he had to have more to go on. His unbelief needed help. He had to touch the hands and the side of the Savior. That was the kind of proof he needed.

Jesus gave this gift to Thomas.

“Peace be with you.”

This greeting was sounded out again into the room locked tight. Eight days had come and gone. This time Thomas was present. The Son showed Himself and went straight to the doubter and bid Thomas to feel His scars.

“Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 

Thomas dropped to his knees. He worshipped Jesus with a loud shout:  “My Lord and my God!”

Believe

 Jesus chided this follower gently:  “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

That last sentence refers to us, of course. We have not seen Him in the flesh, but we read the words about Him as the Word made flesh – words that carry sacredness because of what they do in us. These words have changed people just like us down through the ages.

The Savior meets us where we are, just as we are. And it is comforting to read that those who were so close to Him — close enough to touch His wounded and scarred skin — were sad and frightened and skeptical as we sometimes are.

For every one of them and for every one of us, He has words of life and healing. He knows us and calls us. We hear words of forgiveness and hope, and we hide them in our hearts.

We believe and we have life in His Name – Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. We are His brothers and sisters, made one with Him and in Him, living before our Father and our God.

Peace be with us.

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The Light of Forgiveness

A woman was caught in the “very act” of adultery and brought to Jesus. She was thrown at His feet right there in the Temple, in the house of mercy.

A number in the mob there had started to gather stones to throw at her. Tragically, as we read through the pages of human history, there are accounts that indicate a strange and evil curiosity tied to public demonstrations of judgment, especially ones that involve execution. Crowds gathered for these bizarre spectacles, and if we read the passage from John 8 carefully, Jesus tells us why.

What had been a regular morning of ministry for the Christ was roughly interrupted. He had come early to the Temple from the Mount of Olives, which was one of His usual places of prayer.

A crowd soon gathered around Him, and so He sat and taught.

It was then that the scribes and Pharisees showed up with their catch. Using this woman, these religious leaders had an object lesson that they used to confront Jesus. They trumpeted the Law of Moses:  “Such women are commanded to be stoned, but what do You say about it?” (see John 8:5).

There was an ulterior motive at work here. Should Jesus sanction this stoning, He would have set Himself as an enemy of the Roman imperial authorities who governed the region. The Jewish community in Judea and its environs were permitted some measure of self-management through the Sanhedrin, a council of leaders who advised the governors.

Capital punishment was not part of this council’s purview. Only Rome could administer this brand of justice. This reality served to set the stage for the Crucifixion of Christ by the decree of Pontius Pilate, who governed Jerusalem.

Scribbling in the Dust

“What do You say about it?”

They pressed Jesus as He lowered Himself and stuck His finger in the dirt before them. “He wrote on the ground,” reported John, the Apostle who penned this gospel.

Here we have the only recorded incident of Jesus doing some writing. What He put down there in the dirt, we do not know. Many have made their speculations, so I will reveal mine for you.

To me, it would be just like Jesus to challenge these religious ones on their own terms. These men formed a gaggle of self-proclaimed defenders of Moses and his writings. So I think the Lord could have made reference to Leviticus 20:10:  “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

Perhaps, Jesus was more succinct with His jots and scribbles. Could it be that He just posed the obvious question:  “Where’s the guy?” The very act of adultery does require both adulterer and adulteress, and the Law required both to be put to death.

At last, Jesus stood. This marks a change in the dynamic of the confrontation. He was about to make a declaration of truth from a position of authority. The command with which Jesus spoke astonished those who heard Him. His message came straight from the Father – He made this clear about Himself and His words in the latter portion of John 8 (see verses 18-38).

His declaration was this:  “…He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her” (John 8:7).

Those words cut straight to the core of everyone present. Listen to the stones as they fall to the ground. See the accusers walk away – one by one, oldest to youngest – as these words jabbed conviction into their consciences. At least these consciences were still a bit tender to truth. By the time Jesus was turned over to Pilate on His way to the Cross, these very ones were too hardened to do the right thing.

This mob had been drawn to the scene because of a thirst for vengeance. The real reason for these feelings came from the deficit motivation lurking in their own selves. Their hearts hurt, wounded and scarred by the fallout of their own failures. They were pained by guilt. They did not know what to do with the hurt, except to come and watch someone else take punishment.

No Condemnation

Jesus returned to His writing in the dirt and soon He and the accused woman were left alone. None remained to accuse her. All had come see their own sinfulness in the presence of the Son. Again, He stood to make another statement of authority, a pronouncement of forgiveness and release and responsibility.

 “… Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:10-11).

No condemnation! Paul would write of this great truth in his letter to the Romans. His master treatise on the unrighteousness that lingers in all human beings and its answer in the work of the Person of Christ expands on what we read in John 8. None can excuse himself, wrote Paul. All fall short of the glory of God. Everyone needs a Savior; each of us requires a Redeemer who will announce:  “Neither do I condemn you.”

This passage in John has been analyzed and some view it as something added to John’s gospel at a later point in church history. The character and style of the writing is clearly John’s with the attention to detail and the focus on conversation. Some claim these words are from God but that they are out of place in this context.

Me? I agree with the late Warren W. Wiersbe, onetime Moody Church pastor and host of the Back to the Bible radio show. He says in The Bible Exposition commentary:  “The story fits right here.” And Dr. Wiersbe says this encounter sets up what comes next in the chapter.

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

The accused woman was deep in the darkness of sin. Her desperate condition came before Jesus. She stood accused. She was guilty. She had violated the Law that the Lord had communicated through Moses.

Jesus, however, flipped the script on the accusers. He turned on His Light. The Light shined into the accusers. Each of them had to face the record of sin written upon his own dirtied heart. They could have stayed with Him and with her, the one caught in the very act, because now their very acts — their very sinful thoughts even — had been exposed to them as they had exposed this woman.

The Savior went on to describe the power of His Light. It shines the Way to forgiveness and release. Abide in the Word, He told them and “you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

The Son came for them all; for all stand accused before our Holy God. He longed to see every one of them receive His love and be free for “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:37).

The Son, the Truth, Freedom. All can be ours. Thank you, Jesus.

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Making Do with Donkeys

There are a couple stories about donkeys in the Bible. One of them was given a voice; another one gave Jesus a lift into Jerusalem.

In the book of Numbers, we read of the talking donkey. There, we are told the story of the king of Moab who sought out a soothsayer, a magician of some sort who had developed a reputation for calling down curses.

Balak, the king, got news of the people of Israel – word of their numbers and how their God preceded them. Like Pharaoh in Exodus 1, this leader viewed Israel as an enemy to be reckoned with. Word of the decimation of Egypt circulated through the region. The stories of the plagues and the Red Sea’s opening and closing were known.

The God of Israel was feared, but not feared in the sense that read of in Proverbs.  In that book, we come to understand that there is a way of reverence and awe for the Lord that is noted as “the fear of the Lord” that marks the beginning of wisdom.

The king of Moab, rather, was terrified. He didn’t want wisdom; instead, he wanted to preserve his throne, his nation, and his land by any means possible. He recognized the supernatural element at work with Israel. He thought the Lord of all Creation was like the gods he knew about, just another deity who could be bought off. A little bit of appeasement, he thought, might work to protect his reign. And so Balak sent for Balaam, a man of trickery and power available for the right price. The king hired him to pronounce one of his spells on Israel.

The thing that strikes me as odd in the account (see Numbers, chapters 2-25) is just whose ears may hear from the Lord. Balaam gets a visitation and instruction – from God. This is not a man of Israel; he is no descendent of Abraham, and yet God talks to him a number of times.

Perhaps, we should not be so surprised by this encounter. We can read of the Lord coming to see others who are by accounts outside of His chosen ones, starting with Cain.

Yes, the Lord met and talked with the man who murdered his brother, Abel. The exchange ended with Cain going out from the presence of the Lord and starting to build his own city. The Lord also visited Hagar and Abimelech and Laban and Nebuchadnezzar to name a few.

A Beast Speaks

Balaam heard the Lord and agreed with Him. The Lord gave this man seemingly conflicting messages – at first the Lord said, “Don’t go” with Balak’s emissaries to Moab and then later God told Balaam, “Go.”

It was while he was going that Balaam’s beast was given a message to speak. And here is where we get insight into the heart of this magic man. He could hear both God and the donkey. Balaam, in my thinking, was double-minded and therefore unstable in his ways as James 1:8 teaches us.

The point I want to bring home is that the Lord used the beast and her tongue to get His message out there. What does God need to make Himself known, a donkey’s mouth, nothing more.

I have to consider this reality as I am preparing to minister for Him. I can be very clever in my ways. I have digested a lot of books and listened to a lot of teaching, but my intellect could really get in the way of me saying what God really wants to say. Like that donkey, I just have to open my mouth and let Him fill it.

What really counts is what the Lord puts on the lips.

Balaam, it seems to me, became something like his donkey when he at last got to Moab and stood before King Balak. This prophet for hire was now at work for the Lord and he was compelled to tell only the truth that God gave to him.

Commissioned to pronounce curses on Israel a number of times, Balaam, in this situation, spoke real prophecy as the Lord prompted him. He declared Israel a nation of God’s people, as ones Chosen to be blessed and prosperous as His representatives for all generations.

The Phrase That Frees

What of the other donkey? We meet this one in Mark 11. This animal was tied outside Jerusalem. Jesus directed the disciples to find the foal that had carried no one before. The donkey had an owner, but the Savior gave them the passwords so that the beast would be released to them.

“Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” say, “The Lord has need of it and send it back here immediately.’”And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.And some of those standing there said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go” (Mark 11:1-6).

“The Lord has need” was the phrase that activated the donkey for its mission. Those words were spoken and so Jesus had His vehicle and made His entrance into the City of David. This happened on what we now know as Palm Sunday, a day when the Prophet Zechariah’s message was fulfilled:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

This may be difficult for us to consider, but the Lord has need; He has need of us. He is all powerful and all knowing and everywhere present. These are true attributes of God. Still, He has made room for us to serve Him.

“The Lord has need.” That sentence set the donkey free. It’s what sets all of us free to be in His purpose and plan.

Foolish and Weak Things

Remember, Jesus made it clear that the last shall be first. He made friends with the sinners and the outcasts. He told us all that we must become like little children in order to see the kingdom of God (see Matthew 18:1-5).

These stories about the donkeys tell me that I really don’t need to have much going for me, worldly speaking. I can hear His call and answer His call and He will send me. In fact, the Savior seeks the ones who are seen as foolish and weak to carry Him and His Message to the corners of our streets and to the ends of the earth.

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:26-28).

We don’t have to be great in the world’s eyes to be useful in Heaven’s sights. We just need to be like donkeys ready and waiting to give Jesus a ride.

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Our Glory Is Not Our Own

It wasn’t much of an entrance, by the world’s standards anyway. But then God never needs much to work with. A small corner of a small room in a small town provided the setting for the arrival of the Son of God.

Jesus was delivered by His mother, Mary, in Bethlehem, in a manger, in a space hollowed out for animals to sleep and to feed. With the carpenter Joseph watching and helping, and among oxen and lambs and some barnyard fowl, the Lord of Heaven came forth to begin His stay on earth.

The details have been spoken of over and over and over throughout the centuries. The telling of these things never grows old. Tinsel and glitter and parties and shopping extravaganzas serve to propound a faux brightness and a nervous tension in our midst. Joy lives on, however. Joy reigns. Joy bursts from the hearts of real believers with songs and prayers.

The Christmas story shines so brightly because it shows the glory of God as it is reflected by such common things. This is precisely the point about Creation and about man in particular.

Our glory is not our own. The glory we exude comes from Him. What God has made for His good pleasure are things that serve as a revelation of Him and of all that He is.

Angels and Glory

I think this is what makes us different from the angels. These beings that move among us possess glory that is a part of their equipment. They were given a shine, and it is a shine that is fitted and fixed. Angelic brightness does not grow in intensity. It is what it is.

Lucifer’s original title – light-bearer — referred to the brightness given to him. It was a mode for the service assigned to him, as he was situated near the throne of the Most High. His glory was a gift to him, but he came to view it as mark of superiority. For this reason, the devil initiated a rebellion that captivated a full third of the host (see Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:13-18).

Satan fell into what he is because of his self-centeredness. He grew enamored with his glory and forsook the design of God for his office and status as an anointed cherub.

Angels were brought into existence according to the will of the Lord, and so were we. But they were not made in the image of God as we are. Also, the angels were not made “living souls” by the breath of God.

What does it mean to be made in His image? I believe it speaks of reflection and connection, union and communion. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are Three Persons and One Lord, and as such, God is love. Love is about the things that are related and refreshed and reflected one to another.

The essence of God in His Trinity understanding has always been about glory that is both shared and as well as distinct. The Persons of the Godhead are One and yet each is unique. It is such a marvelous mystery, a reality so far beyond comprehension that it may only be embraced.

Think of how Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:  “Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You … Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed” (John 17:1, 5). In John 16, Jesus spoke of the Spirit like this:  “He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:4). And Jesus talked of His followers to the Father this way:  “All mine are Yours, and Yours are mine, and I am glorified in them” (John 17:10).

Glory, glory, glory in the Highest is what is being communicated by these passages.

Consider this:  when the Lord revealed Himself to Moses, it happened in a wilderness as this man watched over his father-in-law’s flock. Then, God showed up as fire in the midst of a bush. The glow of the glory did not reduce the bush to ashes. Instead, His Presence abided in His Creation and brought Moses near. His Presence consecrated the very ground upon which Moses walked.

Later, we read that Moses’ face absorbed the glory of the Lord as he sat before God. This was noticed by the people and they were afraid to face Moses because of his glow.

In the New Testament, we come to understand that glory has been given to us through the offering and ascension of the Lamb of God and the sending of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2, cloven tongues of fire were seen upon the disciples in that upper room on Pentecost as the Spirit moved upon them.

Stephen spoke the Gospel and those who heard him said he possessed the face of an angel. The glory of the Lord shone from him because of the work of the Holy Spirit in him. The record of Luke in Acts 7 reveals that as he perished from the stones thrown at him, Stephen saw Christ as He stood in His place at the throne of grace.

Glory, Closer Than We Think

The glory of God is closer to us than we think. The Holy of Holies, the most hallowed place of Israel’s Tabernacle and Temple, was divided from the rest of the worship center. What was put between this glorious room and everything else?  A curtain – the separation was demarcated by a veil, one that had been stitched and fashioned by the people who worshipped the Lord.

The Holy of Holies’ curtain was decorated with two cherubim. This imagery pointed back to the Garden of Eden and the angels who guarded the way to the Tree of Life in the midst of the Presence in the Garden. Man’s fall put something between the Lord and His prized creatures, the ones He made in His image.

It wasn’t a wall of separation that was erected, however. The glory of the Lord was not locked up behind gates and bars and chains. It was not vaulted or sealed. It was veiled – His glory just inches beyond us. Between man and the glory lay just a curtain, just a woven tapestry; a creation of fabric was what kept the glory of God from human eyes.

Veiled was the sign of His Presence until the coming of the Son. When the Son completed His redemptive work, the Temple curtain was ripped from top to bottom.

Jesus came to reveal the salvation of God to all flesh (see Luke 3:6).  God the Son took on flesh, bone, and Blood. Fragile things of frail dust as they are, these in Christ still were subject to the ordinances of nature and the earth. His Body was and is a true Body. He grew weary. He ate food. He wept. He touched many – infants, lepers, blinded eyes, deadened ears.

Our flesh can be sliced with ease. We bleed readily. And so it was with Jesus.

The Son’s glory was deposited into our form, into our likeness. He hid Himself behind the fabric of humanity, our very humanity.

Jesus was born to be torn.

With the tearing of the Son on the Cross, the veil of the Presence of God was opened to everyone. Glory can flow to us and into us and through us. We who are born again in Him are now living temples of the His Spirit. We are free to be set aglow with the glory of God. We can have as much of Him as we want, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians:

“…When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:15-18).

Let us rejoice for what He has made us to be. Though we are common, rough, imperfect works in progress, we still stand as reflectors of the glory of the Lord God Almighty.

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The All We Have to Give

A widow marched to the offering box with all that she had, as we read in Mark 12. Just two mites were in her hand – all of the money she had to her name. A mite represented the smallest and least valuable of the coins in circulation during Jesus’ days on earth. It is likely that a single penny plucked out of a gutter on Dundalk Avenue would count for more monetarily than what this woman gave.

Others in the giving line that day, for sure, deposited far more by economic and business standards. But were these ones being as generous as her?

On this day, the Lord was watching and He liked what he saw.

Jesus took note of this widow and her gift, and He rejoiced. He gathered His disciples to Him and made much of her. “Truly I tell you, this widow has put more into the treasury than all the others,” the Savior explained (see Mark 12:43).Here was someone willing to give her all to the work of God. Her action revealed a wealth, a richness that exceeded the riches as they are measured by our world.

The One with Almost Everything

This story comes to us a couple of chapters after Jesus encountered a rich, young ruler. That man was a man of means. He had money, youth, and power – everything that the world counts as valuable was his.

Still, this rich, young ruler was missing something and he knew it. He surmised that he was somehow poor. The sense of his poverty brought him to Jesus. He fell before the Savior and asked:  “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (See Mark 10:17).

Jesus first deflated his words of flattery – “Why do you call Me good? None is good except God alone” – and then told him to keep the commandments. These things, the man claimed to have done from his youth.

Next came what Mark described as a moment of divine affection:  “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, You lack one thing:  go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me’” (see Mark 10:21).

Go, sell, give, come and follow. Simple and huge commandments had been laid before the rich, young ruler; these commandments were directed straight at his heart. He was unready for such an answer. He left the scene in dismay and grief, Mark wrote, for his possessions were many and these things possessed him, as they so easily do when we wed ourselves to the ways of the world.

Jesus sorrowed too at that moment. “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God?” He lamented to His disciples as the man walked away.

Seek His Face

What became of this rich, young ruler?

We aren’t told specifically. Some have conjectured that this man was really John Mark himself, the very one who wrote the story. The Bible, however, leaves open the question of his identity. The Word of God refuses to behave like fairy tales and legend stories. Tidy endings very often go missing, and we are left in wonder and moved to consider afresh His unsearchable judgments, His ways that are passed finding out (see Romans 11:33).

What the Bible does clearly tell us is this:  “Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face evermore” (Psalm 105:4). His face, God wants us to come before His face.

This is the richness of real life in God. David wrote, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to You, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek’” (Psalm 27:8).

Could it be that the rich, young ruler had this going on inside of him? Jesus was there and this man wondered of a better life, of a life before the Lord, of a life eternal and forever, of the life missing among his prosperity. And so he sought the face of God in Jesus. He put himself right there.

This brings to my mind Ecclesiastes 3:11:  “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

The widow had so little by sight. Something in her brought her to the Temple on that day. She saw the richness of God and His grace. She committed herself to Him. She was richer than she, or anyone of the others giving that day, could imagine. She embodied what James wrote:  “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (James 2:5).

The rich, young ruler, perhaps, wanted to be an heir in the Kingdom. He wanted peace with the Lord and an understanding and security in the life that comes from above. I pray that he did bring himself to heed the words of the Lord. I want to believe that he gave away his possessions to possess what really matters.

Oh, how rich we are because of our faith in Him. May we realize this eternal reality. And may we be generous with the love and faith the Lord has poured into us. Let us bless others and forgive and show mercy and walk before Him in His greatness.

Small things are never despised by Jesus. Anything given with the whole heart is worthy of honor for what the world sees as last is made first in Heaven.

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The Shadow of His Wings

A lot gets said about the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. We really make quite a to-do about the Christmas story with its manger. And well we should. Christmas comes during a season when it’s colder and darker. We enjoy the proclamation of the Light of God entering into our world. This warms our hearts.

Jesus came to earth with an ultimate purpose and eternal destinations in mind. We are getting close to that time of the year when we celebrate the Son and the story of His arrival, His original Advent, the time when He allowed Himself to live a “little lower than the angels.”

There will be dramatic presentations featuring choirs, Mary and Joseph, the Wise Men, the shepherds. Songs such as “Joy to the World” will ring throughout churches as we think on the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us.

Yes, we hear plenty about how Jesus came – conceived of the Holy Spirit and born to a virgin girl. We also know a good bit about where He came from – the little town of Bethlehem, as prophesied in Micah 5:2. His birth was a miracle starting point – just the beginning of a series of things related to the Lord’s redemptive plans for the world that He so loves.

Now more than ever, what matters to me is where Jesus went and where He is at present.

The Savior reached His ultimate destination with the Ascension. He was lifted through the clouds to take His seat at the right hand of the Father. There, He sits as the Advocate for us. He speaks on our behalf for He brought perfected, glorified humanity to Heaven as the Resurrected One, the firstborn from the dead.

There were other stops along the way to this place of honor and intercession set above our world.

The Curtain Torn

During His days on earth, Jesus set His face “like a flint” toward Jerusalem and the Cross upon which He was nailed and hung (see Isaiah 50:7 and Luke 9:51). This city with its Golgotha – the skull hill of Roman execution — was to be the scene of His death.

He always understood this. The dark and bitter battle in Gethsemane marked a fierce struggle for the Son to push forward and reach the site of the ultimate offering for the sins of all. He labored in that Garden through a lonely and desperate evening of prayer for the Father’s will to be done.

He did arrive at the Cross – battered, scourged, crowned with thorns. He was lifted up from the earth as He said that He would be. From the wood He went to the grave, from the grave He came alive and went to the sky.

The reports of the crucifixion include the high moment when the Christ committed His spirit to the hands of the Father. “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Matthew 27:51).

The curtain referred to in this passage is the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the worship center God had ordained and defined for His people. The only thing that rested behind that veil was the Mercy Seat. This seat was where the High Priest was to sprinkle the blood of atonement for the sins of the people.

The Mercy Seat

I have always been drawn to stories about the Mercy Seat. This significant item, related to the worship of God, is first introduced to us in the latter chapters of Exodus. The instructions for the Mercy Seat’s design and its position in the Tabernacle were given to Moses during his days before the Lord at Mount Sinai.

The Mercy Seat sat atop the Ark of the Covenant, a holy cupboard that originally contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments, a pot of manna saved from the days of Israel’s wilderness wanderings, and the budded almond branch labeled by Aaron that confirmed his family’s assignment to the priesthood.

This lid upon the Ark was a slab of pure gold and of one piece with the figures of two cherubim that framed it. The angel statues faced the space to which the blood was applied, their wings hanging over it and guarding it. This picture gets mentioned in a number of Psalms as “the shadow” of God’s wings. It is a place of refuge and rejoicing, according the songs attributed to David:

“Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings” (Psalm 17:8).

“Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge in You; And in the shadow of Your wings I will take refuge until destruction passes by” (Psalm 57:1).

This Seat and the Ark it sat upon were rarely seen, at first. Only the High Priest was supposed to come before it as he entered into the Holy of Holies, illumined only by the glory of the presence of the Lord. And he was to do this just once a year on the Day of Atonement.

A reading of the Old Testament reveals that the Ark was eventually brought out into the open and not always for good reasons. In 1 Samuel, two diabolic priests carried the Ark to the battlefield because they perceived it would bring some magic power of victory to Israel’s army. They were wrong and they wound up dead, the Ark falling into the possession of the enemy Philistines.

Eventually, David brought the Ark with the Mercy Seat to his palace compound in Jerusalem. He sat and prayed before this as he ruled as Israel’s king.

Jesus, the eternal Son of David, would also come to the Mercy Seat, but not to the one fashioned by human hands.

The Blood Speaks

Like all things related to the Tabernacle and the Temple of Israel, the Mercy Seat was a figure of something actual and real in the place where God dwells. The book of Hebrews tells us this:  “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24).

The veil was torn, as shown in the gospels, to indicate the new and living way that Christ made for us who believe upon Him. “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12).

The Manger, the Cross, the Grave, the Throne — all of these are sacred places in the Gospel story, the telling of the works of the Son. We know them and talk about them and rejoice over what represent. They stir our faith.

For me, however, I want to ever keep the Mercy Seat in my mind. From that holy thing, the substance of our salvation continues to speak today, tomorrow, and forever. The Blood of the Lamb of God is there even now. The Blood answers every accusation made against us. We are declared to be all clean, made whiter than snow.

We stand redeemed in Him and eagerly await His arrival to reign as there will come the New Heavens and the New Earth.