Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross.  It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.  Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.  The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”

Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

- Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38, John 19:19-22 (emphasis mine)

As always, the will of Rome was carried out.  The local ruler of the backwater Hebrew nation considered this prophet that had the Jews in an uproar, and didn’t quite know what to do with him.  In the end, Pilate just wanted to be rid of him.  Pilate tried to pawn this Jesus of Nazareth onto Herod, but that hadn’t worked.  He tried to talk some sense into the local religious leaders, but they were determined that the man they brought before him should be put to death.  Bleeding, bruised and bearing the marks of abuse, this man Jesus was obviously no normal man, but he also did not deserve the sentence that the Jews demanded.

This puzzled Pilate all the more.  It wasn’t even a week ago that these people were welcoming Jesus as their King.  He heard the reports, that they were begging, crying for this Jesus to save them.  Pilate knew that crowds had their own mind, and could be turned easily, but something else was at work here. Something deeper…bigger.  Even his own wife warned him to distance himself from this young prophet because of her dreams.

In the end, Pilate acquiesced to the leaders and the crowd.  Let them have their Barabbas; the criminal would probably be back in custody within a month, two at most.  One man’s life for order in Jerusalem was an unthinkably small price to pay.  Then, the Sanhedrin had the audacity to demand he change the sign above the Nazarene, demanding that it state that this Jesus only claimed to be their king.

But Pilate wanted the message to be unmistakable: here is your King, and this is what you did with Him.

*     *     *

The above scripture is from an NIV Bible with the verses arranged in chronological order.  I’m still working my way through Genesis, and will have another post from that the next time the Spirit moves.   I wanted to take a moment and write about something Easter-oriented.  I was asked to read something for our Good Friday service, and this leaped out at me.

After reading the passage at the top, I couldn’t help wonder: If the world placed a sign above my head, what would it say?  Would it read “This man followed Christ”, or “This man claimed to follow Christ.”  The world knows the difference between the two.

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay.
- “When the Levee Breaks”, by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie (with some help from Led Zeppelin)

²⁰ Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous ²¹ that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

²² The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. ²³ Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? ²⁵ Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

²⁶ The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
- Genesis 18:20-26

As I’ve been re-reading the Old Testament, it strikes me that I’m spending more and more time re-evaluating preconceptions and inaccurate lessons taught by others, and replacing it with what the Bible actually says.

For example, I’ve been taught that the reason why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah was due to sexual immorality running rampant in the cities.  That idea neatly separated me from them.  I’m not like them, so I’m safe.  I’ve had to re-evaluate that stance, based on a recent article about Richard Stearns’ new book, The Hole in Our Gospel.  (I haven’t read it yet, but it’s quickly moving to the top of my list.)  In his book, Stearns quotes Ezekiel 16:49:

⁴⁹ ” ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

The LORD goes on to say that Sodom did do detestable things before Him.  However, such things are the outgrowth of a hardened heart, that has refused to listen to the Holy Spirit, and seek to live a Godly life.  The immorality that they do is only the symptom of a deeper sickness that we all suffer from: a life lived for self, rather than a life lived for God.

In light of this, I read Genesis 18:16-33.  Abraham is having a conversation with God, discussing the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham is not debating whether God should or should not obliterate Sodom and Gomorrah; it’s understood that they are wicked places, and deserve it.  What Abraham is wondering is, what would it take to stay God’s hand?  He produces a series of hypothetical situations.  If, out of the whole two cities (twin cities?), what if there were 50 people whom God counted as righteous.  Would that be enough to escape God’s judgement?

Yes.  They would be spared if God could find 50 righteous people.

Then, Abraham proceeds to talk God down, in some kind of bargaining session.  45?  40? 30? 20? 10?  (The passage doesn’t explicitly state as much, but I do wonder if the conversation progressed further…7?…5?…1?)

What is it about the presence of righteous people that would stay God’s hand?  It’s not that God is necessarily impressed with how good these people are.  Ultimately, our only source of Godliness is God himself, through Jesus Christ.  For those who have a relationship with Christ, then righteous actions should be the natural output.  What does that look like?

³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
- Matthew 25:36-40

So, what does all this have to do with “When the Levee Breaks”?  It’s about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.  You can read about the effects at the last link, but suffice to say that hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.  I’ve never been in a flood situation (by the grace of God), but the idea of people working to shore up levees to protect their homes bears a resemblance to the righteous people that God was looking for in Sodom and Gomorrah.  God was looking for people who were bringing His hope and His mercy in a desperate situation.  He was looking for those who were fair in their business practices, and merciful to others.  They may have not realized it at the time, but they were the levee holding back God’s wrath.

I need to continually ask myself–what kind of levee am I?  Am I living the kind of life that produces hope in a situation that is more desperate that I realize?

And, just because I can’t get the song out of my head, and I feel the need to share it…

When the rain is falling, and the water is rising, it’s easy to imagine that God has forgotten me.  I’m sure that Noah felt that, too.  In between feeding the animals, cleaning up after the animals and pacing the decks of his new little world, I like to imagine Noah staring out the window.  I know I heard the LORD.  He told me to build this thing.  He said that He would use it to protect us.  But now everything that I’ve ever known, except my family, is gone.  I look out these windows, and I see nothing.  But water.  Lots and lots of water.  At least the fish are happy…

And there was probably a little part of him that wanted to be gone as well.  Weeks of wrestling with doubt started to take its toll.  Every day, Noah would have had to look into his family’s eyes, wondering what they thought of him.  Obviously, they trusted him.  He was the father of the family, who acted as a high priest for them, interceding before the Most High God.  But Noah could start to see the questions in their eyes: Will this stop?  And when?

God was merciful, and provided signs that He was going to keep His promise.  He knew that Noah and his family were merely human, and would need reminders.  Noah first sent out a raven (which God would declare in Leviticus to be an unclean bird), and the wretched creature left.  Noah then sent out a dove, which returned.  In a way, that was God’s message: I’m still with you.  A week later, the dove was sent out on another reconnaissance mission, and brought back an olive leaf.  Olive trees don’t grow at high elevations, so the waters had receded below the tops of the mountains.  The olive branch has since been a sign of peace, and in a way, this was God’s method of telling Noah and his family My wrath has been satisfied; I’m at peace with creation.  This gave mankind hope and secure knowledge that God had a future for them.  He has given us a sign of His deep desire for peace with man, in the form of Jesus.

As a quick aside, olive trees, and the oil produced from them figure prominently in Hebrew culture.  It was a staple of their food, and as such, God used it to speak His messages to Israel time and time again:

• They burned olive oil in their lamps (light)
• It was used for anointing (blessing)
• In Zechariah 4:3, God provides Zechariah with a vision of two olive trees, representing the priestly and royal offices.  Christ is our priest and king, and we are declared priests and kings
• In Romans 11, we are described as a wild olive shoot, grafted onto the olive tree that is the Hebrew people
• Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives (Luke 24:50), and will return there as well (Zechariah 14:3-4)

The third time the dove was sent out, it didn’t return.  God still hadn’t abandoned them, but instead was saying that it would soon be time to leave the ark, and He was preparing their place.  While Noah’s family would have to stay in it a little longer, the ark was not their permanent home.  Thousands of years later, Jesus would leave this world, and go to prepare a place for us.  We have His promise that this world, in its fallen state, is not our permanent home.

By the way…you know that schedule I put up about a week and a half ago? The one that stated I would be in Job by now? Yeah, well, forget the timetable. I will still be following the scripture order, but I’m not going to be able to keep up that pace. Anyway…on with the insightful commentary.

I’m finding that it would be way too easy to breeze through stories like this, assuming that since I’ve heard it since childhood, that there would be nothing new to learn. I’m glad that, instead, I’m taking my time. I’ve got a nice, new Bible that is getting marked up with new notes, pointing out things that the Holy Spirit is showing me. Unless I’m mistaken, I believe that Jewish scholars called these things “loose threads”. They are phrases or passages that, when you read them, something tells you “dig here.”

If you look in verses 6-7, it says:

The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth–men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air–for I am grieved that I have made them.”

These are not the emotions and words of a holy and righteous deity that is upset that mankind started a party and won’t call it quits. This is not a God who is offended. Rather, this is a creator who loves his creation, and is heartbroken that they have chosen to reject Him, and as a result they are suffering.  In previous posts, I’ve mentioned the choice that God continually and repeatedly gives mankind: Choose Him and life, or reject Him, and at the same time, choose death. If you picture that choice as a fork in a road, then mankind is now several miles down the road with no signs of turning around. At this point, God destroying the world is a mercy. If he allowed mankind to further descend into its own sinfullness, and further corrupt creation, a truly unmerciful God would leave them (us) to their (our) own devices; or, to put it another way, He would let us lie in the bed that we had made. At some point in the life of a person who has repeated rejected God, repentance is no longer an option. The same sun that softens one heart only hardens another.

However, in His wisdom and in another facet of His grace, God selects Noah and Noah’s family to live. The Bible states that Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. This does not mean that Noah is sinless, obviously. However, it does mean that Noah wanted to follow God, and had allowed his heart to bow to God’s will. And, as the patriarch and high priest for his family, Noah had taught his wife, children and daughters-in-law to obey God. Noah didn’t content for the rest of humanity, like Abraham does in Genesis 18. (Anybody have any thoughts on why?). Instead, Noah obeyed and built the ark as God had instructed.

As Noah and his family entered the ark, they chose life and bore witness to the rest of humanity of their dedication to the LORD. Unfortunately for the rest of the population, it was the last witness they would see. God protected his servants by shutting up the ark. Was it shut from the inside, the outside, or both?

Picture this: tectonic plates moved in a way that had not happened before or since. Out of the ground came not the gentle irrigation described in the garden of Eden (see Gen. 2:6), but gigantic torrents of water. Following that, the first rains ever recorded fell on the earth. I’m sure that, for at least a little while, Noah’s neighbors pounded on the ark, alternately demanding and pleading to be allowed in. Based on the description of the populace, I’m also sure that there were those who wanted nothing more than to kill Noah and his family out of spite and a feeling of vengence. God’s purpose in saving humanity would not be thwarted, and the door stayed shut.

Also, the people pounding on the door were Noah’s friends and family. These were people with whom they had lived and traded. Listening to the screaming, there must have been someone on the ark who thought about opening the door, just to let one or two more inside. Once again, God had made his decision, and it would stand. The door would not open.

I’ve heard it explained that repentence is a gift. We are not guaranteed an opportunity to contemplate whether to ask for forgiveness for our sins. God, in His grace, has given us to this point to choose Him and the wonderful life He offers. I need to remember that in light of how I tend my own heart. Choosing death is just as often a sin of neglect, rather than an intentional act.

For anyone who might care: I’m starting a new project this next week.  I’m going to read the Old Testament in chronological order.  I’ll  be blogging about it (hopefully, a lot more regularly than what I’ve been doing lately), and even may have a guest blogger or two.

If you would like to join me, you can download the schedule here.  I’ll be starting on week one on Monday.

As I continue my stroll through the Old Testament, I’m now getting to books that I have barely read.  I’ve been very lazy about scriptural study for the past 23 years, and I’m fascinated by both the 10,000-foot view of the Bible as a whole, as well as examining each book in part.

I cracked open Ezekiel last weekend, and read chapter one with a mixture of fascination and confusion.  A thought occurred to me:

Don’t bother trying to understand God.  My first impulse, in picturing Ezekiel’s vision, was to try to interpret and explain it.  And, by doing that, I’m trying to stuff God into my own little box…to bring him under my control.  And God won’t be controlled by one of his creation.

I can picture Ezekiel, as he was either writing or dictating his vision, muttering to himself, “They’re never going to believe this…”  It reminds me of the time I tried explaining the rules of baseball to Ian.  The farther along I went, the more I realized it just didn’t make sense.  And yet, these were the rules…this is how it is.  I’m sure that there are aspects of Ezekiel’s vision that would make more sense to a Jew living in that time.  And yet, I’m also sure that most of it was entirely incomprehensible, like it would be for me.

And, I find a comfort in that.  I want a God with mysteries and unfathomable aspects.  Who wants to love and serve a God-in-a-box?

Recently, I’ve resumed my progress reading through the Old Testament.  It started off like a regulated march, but life intervened, and I found that I just wasn’t able to enter into reading it the way I could before.  I read the words, but they seemed dry.  (It didn’t help that I had bought an XBox 360; some distractions are self-inflicted.)

I’m back to strolling through the OT, and it feels good.  I noticed in the past couple of days that the desire to read scripture, and to try to get inside the heads of the writers to better understand their situations, has returned.  It feels wonderful.

I’m in the middle of Jeremiah right now.   One reason I stopped reading was that I didn’t feel ready to read about “the weeping prophet”; I’ve had enough of that already this year.

At any rate, more future posts will be about what I’m reading.  I’ll put in some personal stuff, as well; I just thought that this blog needs to be about more than “stinking firsts”.

*     *     *

Jeremiah has been telling everyone that God was going to send the nations of Israel and Judah into exile into Babylon, contrary to what everyone else wanted to believe.  God’s patience with His peoples’ rebellion had ended, and now they were going to feel His wrath.  He had even even warned those who thought they would be better off if they stayed behind that it will be better for them if they accept God’s punishment.  In chapter 24, God gives Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs.  One basket had very good figs, ripe and ready to eat.  The other had poor figs, so bad that they could not be eaten.

The Lord then compared the good figs to the Jews who were exiled in Babylon.  He said:

Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians.  My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land.  I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.  I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD.  They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
- Jeremiah 24:4-7

Conversely, this is what God had to say about the other basket of figs, who represent the leaders who had misled the people, as well as those who tried to escape God’s judgment by remaining in Jerusalem or escaping to Egypt:

“I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, an object of ridicule and cursing, wherever I banish them.  I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their fathers.”
- Jeremiah 24:9-10

I don’t think this has direct relevance on our situation right now.  I’m not going to say that what happened to Ian was a punishment from God; our situation was a result of living in a fallen world.  God, in His sovereignty, designated Deb and I to go through this for reasons that I’m not going to even bother trying to fathom.  I have some ideas, but to decide that I need to know why this happened leads only to madness and distance from God (not the best place to be).

What I do take away from the passages above is that I need to accept my Lord’s will in my life.  The more I try to get out of this situation, to reject God’s sovereignty in my life, the worse off I will be.  This is not a new lesson, just the same one presented in a different light.  From time to time, God will lead his followers into situations that are painful and make no sense.  There were exiles who had remained true to God, and yet were carried away into slavery in a foreign land.

If that was the end of the story…and way too often, that’s as far as we’re willing to go…then what?  Life isn’t fair; I’ll take my lumps and deal with it. Our horizons, in our pain and grief, tend to be very nearby.

Yet, God always has a purpose.  Later in Jeremiah, God give him the following word:

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and settle down; plan gardens and eat what they produce.  Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.  Increase in number there; do no decrease.  Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
- Jeremiah 29:4-7

God’s chastening is not without a redeeming purpose.  As I’ve explored before, when God shakes our rafters, our first response is to ask “Why me?” (I read this morning that the Hebrew translation for the title of the book we call Lamentations is actually “How…!”)

Instead, we need to always ask “to what end?”  God intended to bring his people back to a level of righteousness that had been missing in the nation.  But, He also wanted to do a work in Babylon, by placing repentant and humble people in their midst.  The rulers of Babylon were able to see God work in fantastic ways because His people were with them, seeking His purpose.

Sometimes, it feels like I’m in captivity.  I want to return home by living in the past (staying in Jerusalem), or making my own future of comfort (going to Egypt).  Instead, I pray that God will give me the courage and devotion to be a blessing in the present, where He has directed me to go.  I can take courage in that He will continue to give me a heart to know Him, and take comfort that He is watching over me for my good, not just my comfort.