Not-Knowing

“And he said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” – Mark 4:26-29

When I am honest with my longings before God, I often find that under them lie questions. How long will it be before I find a certain relationship or stop feeling lonely? Will my friend ever believe in Christ? Will I ever overcome this sin struggle in my life? Is my ministry making a difference in anyone’s life? Will my children truly love Jesus? 

Jesus’ followers must have had many questions, urgent and important questions, about the kingdom the Messiah would bring. In many ways the Jews still saw themselves as exiles, awaiting political liberation. Jesus answers with this enigmatic parable, the only one unique to Mark, and told in Mark’s characteristically perfunctory style. This is a parable about mystery that is itself ironically mysterious. Who is this man? Perhaps anyone who shares the Word, if one considers this a parallel to the earlier parable of the sower, but that doesn’t seem consistent with harvesting of the grain. Perhaps God then, but surely an omniscient God cannot be ignorant of how the seed is growing. 

The answer is unclear, but perhaps that’s the point. It’s not so much a puzzle to be fit together, as a picture to be gazed at: and when I do, the impression I receive is one of mystery. The mystery of germination—the inexorable yet invisible growth, seed to sprout to bud, that cannot be hurried nor prevented, that is produced but not controlled. The man does not know how it all happens, and perhaps, he does not need to know. He sleeps and rises: I love how repetitively unexceptional that is, how simple. And I hear God saying to me, Esther, be patient with yourself. Sit with your longings, wait with your questions. Keep getting up in the mornings, going to bed at nights. The kingdom of God works unknown sometimes.

As Rilke wrote, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Satisfaction Through Substitution

“And he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings… And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.” – Leviticus 9:22, 24

“Apart from what the Bible tells us, we really don’t know anything of the awful nature of sin and the awful holiness of God. If we forget that we really don’t know anything, we are kidding ourselves.” – J.L. Packer

Admittedly, the book of Leviticus is a bit weird. Reading it is like trying to decode a language utterly foreign to the modern mindset. Makes me recall something N.T. Wright wrote: “We need to come to the text, trying to give 21st-century answers to 1st-century questions, rather than 19th-century answers to 16th-century questions, as much of the church still tries to do.” The burning question for an Israelite at that time would have been: how does one enter God’s presence? The Israelites had a tangible understanding of “the awful holiness of God” and “the awful nature of sin.” They had gone to great lengths to build a tabernacle but no one was able to enter it. How was this to be resolved? 

God introduces a radical new answer: substitutionary sacrifice. If you’ve been in church for a while, it’s easy to get inoculated to this concept, but consider what it would have meant to hear that instead of dying, another could die in your place. Instead of your child or wife or friend dying, another could die in their place. For every kind of sin, there was a kind of sacrifice. There was a way. Understanding this is the key to understanding the cross. As John Stott writes in The Cross of Christ:

“The righteous, loving Father humbled himself to become in and through his only Son flesh, sin and a curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising his own character… The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us… The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation.  For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.  Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.  Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to man alone.” 

What does this mean for our 21st-century questions? Often our response to inadequacy is to try harder, to strain ever onwards in self-actualization, to achieve or acquire something more. This is what our world tells us to do. It’s not natural to admit our efforts will never be enough. It’s scary to trust something outside of ourselves, just as it would have been scary for Aaron to offer the animals and trust the fire would consume them and not the people. But over and over, in every mention of fat and entrails and organs, God is saying, there must be a substitute. And you must completely trust that the substitute is enough. That is the only way.

On some level, if I really absorbed this truth, my life would be driven less by anxiety, fear, guilt, and more by rest, thankfulness, awe, and love. Much of my life is a growth in grasping and living into something inherently foreign to my own tendencies and culture. But better a feeble trust in the right thing, perhaps, than a strong trust in the wrong thing. Even if all I can whisper is, “I believe; help my unbelief,” that is something. What would it mean for you to believe this truth, and how would you live even just a little bit differently?

Commit Your Way

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” – Psalm 37:5

Last weekend, I was standing on the pool deck at a swim meet, waiting for Ellie to swim her 50 free, when I realized she was gone. I had seen her waiting by her lane earlier, but now she was nowhere to be found. I double-checked the heat and lane assignment. I scanned the crowded area near the starting blocks and coach’s tent, areas parents weren’t allowed to go. Was that her? No, it was another girl from her team; they all looked so darned alike in their team suits and caps. Should I run outside to look for her? Probably not enough time. I could feel my heartrate accelerate as the heats inched closer and closer to hers. 

As the long whistle sounded for the heat just before hers, Ellie finally appeared in her lane area, adjusting her goggles as if nothing had happened. Whew. Another gray hair, I thought. Turns out she had been chatting with a group of friends in some hidden corner on the other side of the pool the entire time.

Dave recently shared with me the idea of “cognitive load,” or the mental energy involved in any given task, which is as much a part of the load we bear as more quantifiable or visible things. As our kids get older, the physical labor in parenting decreases in some ways, but the cognitive load increases. Each of the logistics in our lives involve a greater amount of thought, preparation, and emotional input. It’s not that hard to stand on a pool deck, but it takes some inner energy to watch Ellie nearly miss a heat, to let her go knowing she might fail. I don’t have to dress her for meets, but I do have to repeatedly absorb and respond to the anxiety that occurs before them. The decisions feel more complex, and it’s easier to question them, to wonder how they will impact our kids one, five years from now, and be rankled by the not-knowing. 

Psalm 37 seems not to address behavior as much as the fretfulness that happens when we don’t see results; not so much outward actions as the inward load we can bear. And this is what David has to say to us: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” This word “commit” is Hebrew galal and means “to roll,” “to transfer what is rolled away from one to another.” It is used beautifully in Amos 5:24, “let justice roll down like waters.” One lexicon writes, “The genuine power of this root is expressed by the German rollen, which, like this, is also onomatopoetic… imitating the noise of a globe or other round body rolled forward quickly.”

This doesn’t mean we sit around in cognitive torpor. But we ultimately commit our way—our journeys, the direction of our paths, future outcomes—to God. We take the weight of all of our fears, expectations, hopes for the future, and roll it audibly on to him. We are not meant to bear them. It is not all up to us. We are not in ultimate control. God acts, and this word literally means “labor, manufacture”; it is not an idle word. His acting is conditional upon our committing and trusting. What load are you bearing that you need to release to God? Oh God, help us to live out our trust in who You are by living in faithfulness and releasing the outcomes to you.

Instructing And Constructing

“You shall make a table of acacia wood. Two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. You shall overlay it with pure gold and make a molding of gold around it.” – Exodus 25:23-24

“He also made the table of acacia wood. Two cubits was its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. And he overlaid it with pure gold, and made a molding of gold around it.” – Exodus 37:10-11

The first time I ever did cataract surgery on my own in residency, one of my co-residents pulled me aside beforehand. He had gone through this rotation already, and offered this advice: “Every cataract surgery consists of the same basic steps; just know them and you’ll be fine.” He rattled them off to me, and I repeated them back, then said them again to myself in my head after I was gowned and gloved up, my attending watching me like a hawk through the observer scope. Paracentesis first, blade in, tilt down with exit. Viscoelastic goes into the anterior chamber…

It appears that the last few chapters of Exodus are a near word-by-word replay of earlier chapters in the book. The repetition seems a bit excessive. Moses could have saved a lot of ink by simply saying, “Bezalel did as the Lord commanded”—why doesn’t he? Why all the repetition?

For one, the details are so significant they bear repeating. My surgery mattered for the patient’s vision, and I wanted to pass muster in the eyes of my attending—but the construction of the tabernacle was a matter of life and death, the instructions given by God himself. It had to be gotten right. Most of the Israelites would never see parts of the temple that were accessible only to the priests, and so Moses recounts every detail to show that not one was missed.

The repetition emphasizes the inerrancy of God’s word. “Not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished,” Jesus says in Matthew 5:18. Down to the cubit, every word God spoke on the mountain is fulfilled. But the repetition also highlights how God works through his people. In contrast with the instruction-version, the construction-version has Bezalel—master craftsman, surgeon of metal and wood—as the subject of nearly every sentence. Bezalel and others, for every skilled craftsman came together, and many people contributed materially. We are all Bezalel’s, uniquely positioned and gifted to reflect God’s character and expand his place of dwelling, his kingdom, through our work. 

But it wasn’t all up to the people. It was God who called Bezalel, who filled him “with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship” (Exodus 31:2-3). It was the Spirit of God who filled Bezalel, who moved the hearts of the people (Exodus 35:21). We see that God not only works through, but equips, those he calls. What are you creating, and how does it reflect the character of God and his dwelling with us? How is it being faithful to God’s given word? 

I Go Among Trees And Sit Still

In light of the Sabbath, Sundays will now feature guest posts from various authors or poets. Today’s is from a poem by Wendell Berry from Sabbaths:

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes

and lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me,

and the fear of me leaves it.

It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it,

and the fear of it leaves me.

It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor, 

mute in my consternations,

I hear my song at last,

and I sing it. As we sing,

the day turns, the trees move.

The Geography Of The Gospel

“But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places.” – Mark 1:45

One way to “beat the gospel into our heads continually” is to ask ourselves as we read, where do we see the it? In this passage, Jesus begins in one of the 240 towns in the rural area of Galilee, speaking in the synagogue in an early flush of popularity. The leper began outside the town, an utter outcast, physically and socially separated by Levitical law: “The leprous person who has the disease shall… cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:45-46).

A series of remarkable verbs then occur. The leper “came” to Jesus: a man who by law had to warn people away nonetheless sought Jesus out. Jesus “stretched out his hand and touched.” The leper had come within arm’s reach, but no closer; Jesus is the one who reaches out, making himself ceremonially unclean. The healed leper does not obey all Jesus asks him to do, however. At the end of the story, we find the leper, restored into community, speaking freely, but we find Jesus out in desolate places. They have switched places.

That’s the heart of the gospel: Jesus takes our place. The cry of the leper is our own: “make me clean.” He didn’t say, “make me well.” He wasn’t asking primarily for physical healing as much as relational restoration, to be brought back into community. Isn’t that the cry of all of our hearts? We are defined by what we desire, not what we know, and as Brooks writes, “The ultimate heart’s desire—the love behind all the other loves—is the desire to lose yourself in something or someone… The ultimate desire is the desire for fusion with a beloved other, for an I-Thou bond, the wholehearted surrender of the whole being, the pure union, the intimacy beyond fear.” Jesus, knowing it would mean that he himself would suffer alienation, stretches out to touch us, to bear the cost of our uncleanliness so that we can experience the intimacy with God that He created us for, without fear.

This bears remembering. Remember, Paul writes. Remember that at one time, you were separated, alienated, “but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). Too often, I see myself on my own merits. I forget that grace, while free, is costly. I lack deep humility and gratitude. I lose wonder. I forget that unity not only with God, but with others that I may feel different from, comes only from grace, and should be part of my experience of grace. I need to remember that the only way I came in was because of the One who died outside the city.

If You Build It, He Will Come

“So Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” – Exodus 40:38

Moses spends one chapter describing the creation of the world, but twelve chapters describing the instructions for and construction of the tabernacle. Clearly this was no small matter. Why? After thousands of years, something incredible was going to happen. God was going to inhabit a dwelling place with his people, something that had not happened since the garden of Eden. And so, after chapters and chapters of details about the tabernacle, we come to this beautiful climax. They built it, and God came.

Commentators have noted that the tabernacle can be symbolic of Eden. The tabernacle had an east-facing entrance guarded by cherubim, as the garden did. It featured onyx and gold, as there was in the land of Havilah in Eden. The lampstand has been compared to the tree of life, fashioned as it was with branches and blossoms. The ark containing the law has been compared to the tree of knowledge, both touched only on pain of death, both sources of wisdom. The tabernacle had carvings of flowers and palm trees, and pomegranates hung from the priest’s robes.

It’s interesting to think about the tabernacle as a mini-Eden, as God saying, what I am about is restoring a paradise lost, so I can be with you wherever you go. There is a bitter pill here: Moses could not enter. Thus the set-up for the book of Leviticus, which is about making a way for sinners to enter a holy habitation. We see in Leviticus 1:1 that God spoke to Moses “from” the tabernacle, while in Numbers 1:1 God spoke to Moses “in” the tabernacle—in the words of the Bible Project video, “the book of Leviticus worked!”

But God ultimately had something more in mind. Look at the first chapter of John’s gospel, which begins with echoes of creation and Eden (“In the beginning…”). Later on in verse 14, John writes nearly an exact copy of the climax at the end of Exodus: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt [skenoo, lit. “tabernacled,” “pitched his tent”] among us, and we have seen his glory.” Jesus is what the tabernacle was pointing to. He was the tabernacle itself, the veil that tore; he was the divine king, the priest, the sacrifice. He provided the way to freedom from Levitical law. 

The few times skenoo occurs again are also in a book John wrote. Look at Revelation 21:2-3: “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place [skene, lit. “tabernacle”] of God is with man. He will dwell [skenoo] with them, and they will be his people.” The tabernacle points to the new Jerusalem, a city with onyx and gold, a river, a tree of life, a lamp which is the Lamb. The glory of God is there, giving light such that we will not need the sun or the moon. Reminiscent of Leviticus, “nothing unclean will ever enter it,” but those who are written in the book of life. Jesus tabernacled, and he will tabernacle again. Paradise will not be lost after all. One day we will live by the very light of God’s glory.

Alphabet Acrostics

“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” – Psalm 34:1

In the Hebrew, every verse of Psalm 34 begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in order from first (aleph) to last (taw), making it an acrostic poem. The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 consonants, written from right to left. There are several passages in the Old Testament that are alphabetically acrostic:

Psalm 9-10 together: 2 verses per Hebrew letter

Psalm 25: 1 verse per Hebrew letter

Psalm 34: 1 verse per Hebrew letter

Psalm 37: 2 verses per Hebrew letter

Psalm 111: ½ verse per Hebrew letter

Psalm 112: ½ verse per Hebrew letter

Psalm 119: 8 verses per Hebrew letter

Psalm 145: 1 verse per Hebrew letter

Lamentations 1-2: 1 verse per Hebrew letter

Lamentations 3: 3 verses per Hebrew letter

Lamentations 4: 2 verses per Hebrew letter

Proverbs 31:10-31: 1 verse per Hebrew letter

Nahum 1:1-9: 2-3 verses per Hebrew letter

What is the significance of this? It can point to completion and wholeness (from A to Z, so to speak)—the idea that the poet is fully exploring the topic, or that God wholly reflects the subject. It can be, and perhaps was, a helpful mnemonic device, which is interesting to reflect on. We don’t often approach Scripture as content to be memorized, but perhaps it’s worth exploring more seriously ourselves. Kathy Keller writes about memorizing Psalm 34 during a period of suffering. The acrostic structure also points to a sense of well-defined order. It sets boundaries and confines that causes the poet to limit himself, that allows him to showcase his skills. 

Most of all, though, the acrostic structure adds a certain auditory and visual beauty to the entire text. There is a kind of order, progression, and fullness that comes from hearing and seeing each letter enumerated upon, knowing which one is next, knowing when the ending is coming. Perhaps there is some nuance of meaning added when you know a particular word was chosen for its starting sound. There’s a kind of cognitive beauty to it, like a puzzle put together. There’s an implicit love for the Hebrew language, for how God literally inhabits every letter in the mouths of his people. Our English translations convey meaning, but they aren’t always able to fully convey the full poetic impact of the text, so it’s good to read with at least a background awareness of the hidden beauty within it. 

The Golden Calf, Part Two: Cultural Idols And Worldviews

“The people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us.’” – Exodus 32:1

It is interesting that this episode occurs en masse. Aaron acts as leader, but we see that the people were the driving force from beginning to end: the pronouns throughout the story are all plural. The noise is collective. They do it all together. David Brooks says that in our culture of “hyper-individualism,” we have this concept of the “buffered self”; we like to think that we are all making our own choices about how to live. But the reality is, our framework for viewing the world, and the choices we make, are undoubtedly affected by the culture in which we live. The calf wasn’t made in one person’s tent. Similarly, we oughtn’t think about idols as only existing in the personal sphere.

Our community group last spring discussed cultural idols as we read through Tim Keller’s book Every Good Work, summarizing Keller’s points and adding our own. Here is the summary:

Traditional culture: idols are stability, honor, family group, nation tribe, security, tradition, religion. Meaning is derived from being faithful to one’s duty, honoring family, holding status. Pros: loyalty, selflessness, collective well-being, social stability. Cons: racism, marginalization, suppression of liberties, shame

Modern culture: idols are science, knowledge, empiricism, reason, individual freedom, equality, and progress. Meaning is derived from “discovery,” career and personal happiness. Pros: technology, public health (okay, that was from Dave), arts, social mobility. Cons: disenchantment with faith, too much stock in autonomy

Post-modern culture: idols are deconstruction, “mood,” cynicism/suspicion of universal claims, “means without ends,” no moral absolutes, consumerism, capitalism. Meaning is derived from self-actualization, self-expression, and self-determinism. Pros: critical thinking, justice, plurality of voices. Cons: intolerance of absolute truth, over-deconstruction (no meaning in anything), “unconscious conformity,” consumerism

Silicon Valley: idols are ideas, innovation, disruption, optimization, tolerance (“you be you”), inclusion, health/fitness, “changing the world,” social mission, uniqueness, self-care. Meaning is derived from “changing the world,” pursuing your passion, becoming famous, inclusively accepting everyone. Pros: social justice, physical health, environmental awareness, racial diversity, opportunity. Cons: exclusive inclusion, socioeconomic/educational homogeneity, anxiety/stress, lack of contentment, burn-out, gentrification

We then tried to identify the world view, or “master narrative,” of our culture by asking three questions: how are things supposed to be? (purpose) What is the main problem with things as they are? (problem) What is the solution and how can it be realized? (solution) 

For Silicon Valley, the purpose is that we control our own destiny. Human potential should be limitless. We should have informed, rational decision-making; we should be anything we want. The problems are intolerance, lack of connectivity, unequal starting points, and lack of information. The solution is technology, education, and inclusion.

For the gospel, the purpose is to be in relationship with God. The problems are sin, idolatry, fractured relationships, pride. The solution is Jesus, grace, redemption, restoration, repentance, reconciliation, hope.

This was just what our group came up with at that point in time. What would you add or change? Do you see evidence of these cultural idols or worldviews around you? 

The Golden Calf, Part One

“So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.” – Exodus 32:3-4

The story of the golden calf merits regular reading: it’s one of those events that is completely different to hear about versus actually read about. Each time I read it, I feel a sense of incredulity and horror. Aaron called this calf YHWH? The sound of their feasting and play was such that Joshua’s first thought was that they were at war? Moses made them drink gold dust? All Aaron could say was, “out came this calf”? The Levites killed 3,000 of their own men in cold blood? God sent a plague upon them? So many details that get left out of Sunday school class.

If I think about it, though, it’s not all that unimaginable. They hadn’t heard from Moses for forty days, no texts, no updates: that’s a long time. They had grown up under a Pharaoh-god who surrounded himself with gold and gods with bovine heads. Perhaps it is not such a surprise that this was what their imaginations turned to in their newfound autonomy and wealth; it was something they had been excluded from, and perhaps lusted after, in their past. They wanted something visible and immediate. They wanted worship they could get something out of. And so, this grotesque parody: a self-made, self-serving, culturally-relevant idol that they inserted into their newfound identities and stories—giving it God’s name, crediting unto it the feasts and the exodus. 

Don’t we all do that? Don’t we so easily turn our worship to what is immediate, visible, or culturally advertised, and feed it with our imaginations, energies, or thoughts? Jobs, romantic partners, children, fitness, money—any good thing made the ultimate thing, what Augustine called “disordered loves.” The gold in their ears was meant to be a reminder of God’s unexpected grace (Exodus 12:35), not melted down into idols, and when they left the scene, the Israelites no longer took ornaments with them (Exodus 33:5-6).

All of life is a gradual growth in learning to enthrone God, and dethrone idols, in our lives. Martin Luther wrote, “I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel… that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it… Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into our heads continually.” Tim Keller elaborates: “So Luther says that even after you are converted by the gospel your heart will go back to operating on other principles unless you deliberately, repeatedly set it to gospel-mode.” How do you do this in your own life? How do you continually beat the gospel into your head? How do you identify and root out the idols in your life? These are recurring questions for all of us, because it is so easy—like the Israelites, when Moses turns his back, when nothing seems to be happening—to look back to the golden calf. 

Stopping And Taking A Breath

“It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” – Exodus 31:17

We took Ellie and Eric back to their old swim instructor this past weekend, because something looked off when Ellie swam the 50-yard butterfly at her last meet. Her head was coming up at a strange angle, and while it is the most tiring stroke, she seemed to struggle more than usual. Janet, their instructor, did comment on Ellie’s head position—she needs to get her head down and deep, so her legs rise up and drag less; her chin should not tilt up so much for a breath—but Ellie had a hard time getting it. Then Janet took Ellie’s hands in hers while they faced each other in the water. She moved their hands together under the water, in some way I couldn’t see. But the next length Ellie swam, she got it. She had better rhythm. Janet told me later Ellie was drawing her hands down closer to her hips on a breathing stroke as compared with a non-breathing stroke; adjusting this gave her what she needed to breathe easier.

This section in Exodus 31:12-17 segues well with the sermon on Sabbath. It strikes me here that God speaks about the Sabbath like he speaks about circumcision: it is a sign of the covenant, a sign that we are set apart for God. It is living out with material time the spiritual truth that we belong not to this world and its pursuits but most of all to a God who keeps us. He speaks of his own rest on the seventh day as his sign to us, and describes the purpose of that seventh day with two words: “rested” and “refreshed.” “Rested” is Hebrew shabath, which as Dean mentioned, literally means “to cease.” 

“Refreshed” is Hebrew naphash, which literally means “to take a breath when weary.” It is only used 3 times in the Bible: here, again referring to the Sabbath in Exodus 31:17, and in an interesting story in 2 Samuel. David and his men were fleeing Absalom when someone from the house of Saul named Shimei came alongside them: “So David and his men went on the road, while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and flung dust. And the king, and all the people who were with him, arrived weary at the Jordan. And there he refreshed himself” (2 Samuel 16:13-14).

The story then cuts to Absalom; this is all we know about what it felt like for David to arrive at the end of that road: he was able to take a breath, to naphash. One can hardly imagine what that breath was like, after a journey like that. I think about Ellie, moving through the water. If you think about it, breathing is incredibly inconvenient for a swimmer; it slows them down so much. But Ellie has to come up to breathe. It is the sign of her humanness, of how she was created, that she’s not some other underwater creature. Taking that breath to her is life. For David, it was essential too, not just physically, but in every other way.

Learning how to cease and breathe, how to stop and take into ourselves what gives us renewed life, is a process. We’ve become convicted that weekly Sabbath is an important way, particularly in our culture here, to live out what we believe. But we’re still figuring it out. Stopping, not only on the outside but on the inside, is harder than it sounds, when all of our days are lived in endless loops of drop-offs and pick-ups and tasks. Breathing in what six different people need for refreshment, figuring out how to play and rest and serve together, takes some experimentation. We’re still finding our rhythm.  We’re like Ellie, learning to adjust our hands under the water of life so we can come up for the breath that we need and flow better through the water. God never said it would be easy, or that it would even come that naturally to us, but he has shown us what we need. He has given it as his very promise to us.

Confession

“I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover up my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” – Psalm 32:5

“I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.” – Psalm 38:18

I often jump too quickly from confession to repentance. Maybe it’s because I tend to value efficiency and visible outcomes: I want to get to the change, to get the uncomfortable part over with and get to what will be different now. Over time, God slowly leaks out of the process: central instead is my own personal guilt, driving me to admit what I feel bad about, leading to a self-imposed solution to avoid recurring guilt. The source of guilt becomes a consciousness of moral law that is increasingly divorced from the character and glory of God that it reflects.

There is nothing like having children to make you consider thoroughly what it means to say sorry. I think of the many times my kids have paid lip service to confession so they can avoid a consequence, and I think, what do I really desire them to do instead? I want them to look at the person they’ve offended: to see that person’s perspective, to understand that person’s loss. I want them to look at their action in light of that, to respond from that place—rather than “okay, I feel bad because I should, but really I’m still thinking about myself and how to get this over with.”

That takes time, and attention. It moves beyond something we know with our minds to something we experience in our hearts. Sometimes it’s the work of the Holy Spirit in an unexpected moment. Sometimes it happens routinely, during various personal or congregational practices. 

When I think back on the few most powerful times of confession in my life, the primary word that comes to mind is sadness, a sadness akin to a grief so absorbing I couldn’t have just gotten over it if I’d wanted to. Of course, not all moments of confession are like that, but those moments are precious because I was pierced with the reality of my sin before God’s holiness in a way I’m often too self-absorbed or inattentive to see. And often there is something like what Thomas Merton describes: “We discover that as long as we stay still the pain is not so bad and there is even a certain peace, a certain richness, a certain strength, a certain companionship that makes itself present to us when we are beaten down and lie flat with our mouths in the dust, hoping for hope.”

This is the godly sorrow in 2 Corinthians 7:10; this is the mourning that brings comfort (Matthew 5:4). It may not come naturally to us: David had to enjoin himself to do it (“I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” verse 5). Perhaps that is how he began, but what he found was great blessing (verses 1, 2) from a God who forgives (verses 1, 5). Ultimately, his words point to Jesus, the true “man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity” (verse 2), who “kept silent” (verse 3, also Matthew 27:14 from our reading today) who bore the heavy hand of God’s judgment (verse 4) so that our own sins can be covered (verse 1). Confession leads to true repentance and a change from the heart (verses 8-9), and it leads to joy (verse 11). The blessedness frames it all. Is this your experience of confession? Of forgiveness, and change, and joy? Oh God, make this a reality in our lives as we turn our eyes to you.

The Shape Of The Eucharist

“Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’” – Matthew 26:26

Four verbs that occur in this verse—took (lambano), bless (eulogeo), broke (klao), gave (didomi)—appear in the same sequence in the feeding of four thousand and five thousand (Mark 6:41, 14:22-24 and parallels), in the supper at Emmaus in Luke (Luke 24:30-31), and in how Paul describes taking communion (1 Cor 11:23-26; final verb not stated but clearly implied). Dom Gregory Dix is perhaps most known for exploring the implications of this in a piece he wrote in 1941 called “The Shape of the Liturgy”—I haven’t read it, but I like that phrase. These words trace out for us the essential movements of the eucharistic meal.

Take: Jesus takes what we offer, which in these passages is always something material, but represents what is personal as well. He does not find fault with what we bring: He receives us as we are. He does not force or coerce, but he extends an invitation.

Bless: “Eucharist” literally means thanksgiving. Jesus thanks God for what we have offered. Don’t we often neglect to do this? We rush from the taking to the doing. But Jesus pauses to bless, and when we follow him, we are present to what we have before us in a posture of thanksgiving.

Break: Jesus changes what we bring. Eugene Peterson writes, “At the Table we are not permitted to be self-enclosed. We are not permitted to be self-sufficient. The breaking of our pride and self-approval is not a bad thing; it opens us to new life, to saving action. We come crusted over, hardened into ourselves. We soon discover that God is working deep within us, beneath our surface lies and poses, to bring new life.”

Give: communion is a back and forth. Jesus takes what we give; then we receive what he gives. And he always gives back more lavishly than we gave.

The mysterious and beautiful thing about these words are that they apply to Jesus himself. He is both the priest who takes what we offer in sacrifice and blesses it, and the sacrifice itself, who was broken so that we can be given salvation. And we follow him by offering ourselves as living sacrifices, losing our lives so that we can receive and spread true life. All of it is done in the context of community, around the table together, in communion, back and forth, this rhythm of the supper, this shape of the eucharist and of the Christian life itself.

For Glory And For Beauty

“And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.” – Exodus 28:2

The hardest thing about moving here was feeling like I didn’t know who I was anymore. The first year felt like a deconstruction and reconstruction of self: like a vivisection of my identity. It wasn’t until I left the milieu I had lived in my entire life that I realized some ways I saw and felt myself were only true where I used to live. They weren’t true here. And I wasn’t sure yet who I was here. It felt like I was being peeled apart and then trying to grow myself whole again, but feeling tender and fragile all the while. It was a lonely experience.

At points I sort of struggled to go on. One of these times, I was on lunch break during a clinic day at Kaiser. I had managed to finish my morning patients with enough time to sit in the downstairs café. I had let Diane talk me into reading the Bible in 90 days, which basically meant I whipped out my Bible every spare moment I had, so I started reading Exodus over lunch and came to this chapter. Suddenly, I felt like God was speaking to me: “And you shall make holy garments for Esther, for glory and for beauty.” I started weeping as I read about the beautiful colors, the skillfully woven details. The breastpiece with rows of jewels, each one inscribed with the names of his people. I didn’t know how to see myself. Some days it was okay, some days it was bad. But this was how God saw me. If Jesus was my high priest, it was my name jeweled upon his chest; when God saw me, he saw something of great value, beautiful and precious.

In a way, that moment of clarity was a gift. Because I was suspended between cultural worlds, with all the identities we build for ourselves stripped away or not yet formed, I was able to receive a deep spiritual truth: that in the eyes of the only One who matters, I was more precious than all the jewels in the earth. I was loved with great care and attention and skill. God knew exactly who I was.

I love the part in Revelation 21 when John goes high up on a great mountain and is shown the Bride, the new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven, “having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” Its foundations are adorned with twelve kinds of jewels, nine of which are the same ones that are in the breastpiece of Exodus 28. God not only knows who I am; he will bring me home. All of life is a sojourning until we get there, until we live by the glory and beauty of God himself.

The Veil And The Cherubim

“He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” – Genesis 3:24

“And you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. It shall be made with cherubim skillfully worked into it… and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil.” – Exodus 26:31, 33b

“And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” – Matthew 27:51

I’ve always had a visual memory. I can remember what Dave or I were wearing at most important moments in our lives. For example, the first time we met in person after months of writing letters, I recall Dave striding towards me clad in a yellow visor, white logo T-shirt, khaki shorts, ankle socks and worn sneakers. Back then, my East Coast sensibilities were somewhat appalled at his casual attire (after hours of deliberation, I had chosen for myself pressed khaki pants and a V-neck black top)—I now realize he was pretty much dressed like everyone in California dresses, but either way, the image is stuck in my head.

In this section of Exodus, God speaks through images crafted in wood, metal, and fabric. Almond blossoms, loops of blue, clasps of bronze—in every detail, he is showing us something about Himself, about how he relates with us. He is telling us a story.

Take the veil. One of its colors was purple. Apparently it took twelve thousand murex snails (carnivorous tropical sea snails) to yield only 1.4 grams of pure violet dye, which was why the color was associated with both divinity and royalty. Worked into the veil are cherubim, which remind us of the first time they are mentioned in Genesis, guarding the tree of life, separating sinful man from the holy presence of God in the garden. Here too, the cherubim separate us from the Most Holy Place, the presence of God at the mercy seat above the ark of testimony, a place only one person could enter only one day a year after elaborate preparations (more on that in Leviticus). When Solomon built the temple, he also worked cherubim into the veil (2 Chronicles 3:14).

Fast-forward to Jesus’ death: the very first thing that happens after he breathes his last is a completely startling event. Behold! Matthew says. The curtain is torn in two! Something happens to an inanimate object in a completely unrelated location! The word for curtain used here (katapetasma) can refer to three different hangings in the tabernacle and temple, but the syntax points to the inner veil. There is the image: the cherubim, torn apart, a way made through. This, spelled out in fabric and dye, is what the death of Jesus meant: a way made for us back into Eden, into the holy presence of God.

Even more fascinating is how the author of Hebrews describes it: “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” (Hebrews 10:19-20)—the curtain is Jesus’ flesh. A way was made only through a breaking apart. The flesh that was perfect, divine, and royal—just as the curtain was made of the finest twined linen and the rarest of dyes—that flesh was torn just as the curtain was.

I imagine the image of those cherubim in the veil, both a masterpiece of art and a familiar fixture, and I imagine seeing them destroyed. I imagine the unbelievability of a placed shrouded in unattainable mystery for hundreds and hundreds of years, at the threat of death, now laid open. That is a story I would tell and an image I would remember. 

Pondering Our Paths

“Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on.” – Proverbs 4:14-15

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth…

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.”

- Robert Frost, ‘The Road Not Taken’

I like what Keller writes about this verse in Proverbs: “Life is likened to a path because every action takes you somewhere.” We like to think we are completely in charge of every choice we make, but on some level, each action changes us in a way that affects the next action we take, and the one after that, and eventually the direction in which we go. It’s like that saying about how thoughts lead to actions, which lead to habits, which lead to character.

This plays out in lots of ways. Our actions place us in environments where subconscious cues and cultural mores affect how we act and think, what we buy and do, more than we realize. It’s no accident that, after moving to the Bay Area, I’ve started working out, wearing joggers, and buying organic (sometimes, like at Costco, I feel like I don’t have a choice). The culture and value system at our workplaces, sports teams, schools, local neighborhoods all affect us more than we think, not to mention advertisements, phone notifications, and more. 

Our actions inform our feelings. In our Disneyfied, be-true-to-your-heart culture, we like to think that our feelings should drive what we do, but the Bible commands us often to do things, not feel up to them first. I always thought that part of the reason I loved our kids as newborns, even though they basically only cried, pooped, and slept at that stage, was because I sacrificed so profusely to care for them. C.S. Lewis writes, “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” The same could be said of acting in dislike towards someone.

Our actions inform our thoughts. Romans 8:5 says, “those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” Wouldn’t we tend to write that the other way around? If you set your mind on the flesh, then you live according to the flesh—that seems more logical. But that’s not how the sequence goes here. Our actions determine what we set our minds upon.

The wisdom here is simple. Realize that you tread a path in life. And “knowing how way leads on to way,” be careful with each step. The tone of this section is one of extreme vigilance: keep hold, don’t let go, avoid, turn away, let them not escape, look directly forward, do not swerve. Obviously this does not come effortlessly: it is much easier to discount our actions, to tell ourselves they don’t matter, or that we can always go back. But the truth is, every action takes you one step farther in one direction or another. “Ponder the path of your feet” (Proverbs 4:26).

Manna For The Day

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” – Exodus 16:4

“And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” – Deuteronomy 8:3

“Give us this day our daily bread.” – Matthew 6:11

For forty years, the Israelites went to bed six days out of the week with their stomachs full and their cupboards empty. Can you imagine that? Never being able to keep more than what you finish that day? Not having any other way of getting anything to eat? This is so absurdly outside our own experience that it requires some imagination, but I feel like a few things would become clear. One’s utter dependence on God for daily survival. God’s unfailing, individually-tailored, provision (verse 18 in particular is magical, particularly for anyone who has tried to estimate food amounts for large groups).

The manna itself is magical. The word “manna” literally means “what is it?” The first time the Israelites saw it, they didn’t know what to do with it, a scene which strikes me as comical. It looked like coriander seed, the seed of the cilantro plant; white, fine as frost, tasting like honey wafers. 

God provides his people with something completely novel, that vanishes by the day, to illustrate the spiritual truth that we need sustenance from the Word that only he can provide—it can come from nowhere else—and that it comes in a daily portion. Have you ever wondered why it’s important to read the Bible every day? Why not just read the entire weeks’ worth at once? For the same reason, I suppose, that we can’t only eat once a week. Spiritual growth is like physical growth: life, change, depends on regular daily intake. The word is meant to be lived in and meditated upon, and that just doesn’t happen if your intake is limited to the occasional binge. 

As James Cordeiro writes, “When you miss your devotions one day, you notice. When you miss them two days, your spouse and kids notice. And when you miss them three days, the world notices.” The more we read daily, the more we realize that we really do depend on the Word to give us wisdom, perspective, strength for that day. And when we read with the expectation that God will provide, that he can speak to us through a verse from that day’s reading, we often find that he does. 

There is also a kind of lived-out faith and freedom in this daily rhythm. There is the sweetness of knowing God desires me to come to him each day, that Jesus taught us to ask for what we need this way. If I was reading to efficiently canvass content, I wouldn’t do it like this, but the less I read the Bible like a textbook, the more I read it like a love letter, the slower I go, the more constantly I want to savor it. And by giving me only enough for each day, God is giving me permission not to worry about the future. He is extending an invitation to live by faith. As Ian Duguid writes, “God has not promised to give us the grace to face all of the desperate situations that we might imagine finding ourselves in. He has promised to sustain us only in the ones that he actually brings us into. He therefore doesn’t promise that we will imagine how we could go through the fire for his sake, but he does promise that if he leads us through the fire, he will give us sufficient grace at that time. Like manna, grace is not something that can be stored up for later use; each day receives its own supply.”

Ascribing Glory

“Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.” – Psalm 29:1

“Just as the eighth Psalm is to be read by moonlight, when the stars are bright, as the nineteenth needs the rays of the rising sun to bring out its beauty, so this can be best rehearsed beneath the black wing of tempest, by the flare of the lightening, or amid that dubious dusk which heralds the war of elements. The verses march to the tune of thunderbolts.” – Charles Spurgeon

We just got back from a four-day family vacation, which was unquestionably worthwhile but has given me a new appreciation for the effort my parents made to take us on family vacations each year. My favorite was the year we went to Yellowstone National Park. I remember one moment when a sudden storm descended upon the Teton mountains we were driving towards. We pulled over, got out of the car, and stood speechless before the most amazing lightening show we had ever seen, jagged streaks lighting up the sky behind the mountain peaks. 

I can’t help but think we in the Bay Area are a bit handicapped in reading Psalm 29, stuck as we are in our time capsule of meteorological perfection. You can read about storms, but it’s another thing to experience one, to hear thunder so loud and close you feel afraid, to huddle in a bathtub during a hurricane, powerless until it passes. There is a kind of fearful glory in that, isn’t there? A weightiness of power, a splendor of might and reach, an inescapable transcendence that reaches past your mind into the core of your being and feelings. It isn’t anything you can conjure, or argue against: it simply is, and we can only cry, “glory!”

David describes the voice of God flashing fire, stripping trees, shaking and breaking. But the most striking sign of power is that whatever God’s voice does, He does. That is the cadence, the echo, in verses five and six: “The voice of the Lord breaks… The Lord breaks… The voice of the Lord shakes… the Lord shakes...” And of course we see this throughout all scripture: what he speaks, is created (Genesis 1:3); what he speaks, happens (Matthew 5:18); what he speaks, became flesh (John 1:14), the temple in verse nine made alive. 

Don’t we all long for this kind of glory? Sometimes I think what I’m really searching for in entertainment, in movies and sports and novels, is just that kind of transcendent stirring to lift me out of my mundane daily life. We are all created for glory. How mysterious, then, that David says, “ascribe.” The two words translated “heavenly beings” literally mean “sons of God”—he may be addressing beings in heaven, or us on earth, or both. Why must we be commanded to ascribe? Because so often we are blind to the glory of God. It is literally around us, all the time: but when was the last time you consciously saw the glory of God? When was the last time you credited God what he is due, what he is worth? This is what it means to worship (verse 2): simply to acknowledge the reality of God’s glory, until it rises up in a cry within us (verse 9), until we find in it our rest (verse 11).

Two Masters

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.” – Matthew 6:24-25

I’ve been thinking about this particular “therefore.” In the original text, of course, there is no separation between verses 24 and 25, but because we often start reading the more-popular section on anxiety starting with verse 25, we often miss the link: that anxiety is related to trying to serve two masters. 

That’s hardly a popular concept in a place where we like to think we can “have it all.” Hasn’t that belief seeped in some way into how we all think? But Jesus is uncomfortably black-and-white, either-or, about this. He speaks in absolute terms: “no one,” “cannot,” love, devotion, hatred and contempt. “Money” here is Greek mamonas, meaning “riches, possessions,” akin to a Hebrew word signifying “to be firm, steadfast” (from which we get our word “Amen”), and thus meaning also “that which is to be trusted.”

Jesus is saying, when it comes down to it, your heart can only trust and serve one or the other: God, or the currency of this world. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “God and the world, God and its goods are incompatible, because the world and its goods make a bid for our hearts, and only when they have won them do they become what they really are. That is how they thrive, and that is why they are incompatible with allegiance to God.” The currency of this world is a master; it owns us, and we serve it, whether we deliberately choose to or not. In fact, Jesus’ point here is not that we should serve God, but rather that we cannot serve both God and the world. If we think we can, we are already turning our love for God into hatred. We have already made the choice.

Therefore—for this reason—do not be anxious about your life. Anxiety is both a road to, and a symptom of, serving worldly currency. One could read the subsequent section as a contrast between the two masters, one the way of anxiety, that focuses on the trappings of life, the other the way of faith, that seeks first the God who gives true life and will provide all that we need. The question is, which master are we serving?

Being Silent

“The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” – Exodus 14:14

Why does Moses say, “you have only to be silent”? Words matter. The Israelites’ fear, bracing as they were for a brutal massacre, was understandable, but what comes out of their mouths is not a confession of fear or a plea for help. What comes out is disparaging sarcasm (“is there because there were no graves in Egypt…?”), vitriolic accusation (“what you have done…?”), self-justification (“is this not what we said… leave us alone?”), and distorted perception (“it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians…”). Jumping to conclusions about outcomes and motives, laying blame on others, feeling the grass is greener on the other side.

It’s so easy to grumble in these ways, in marriage struggles, when depleted from childcare, when angry or fearful or tired. Be quiet! Moses says. I wrote in my journal: “When I reach the end of my rope, I need wisdom to not speak.” To just hold my tongue, which I will probably never regret, whereas my complaints can do serious damage and be sin against God. “I tell you,” Jesus says in Matthew 12:36, “on the day of judgement people will give account for every careless word they speak.”

But it is a particular kind of silence that Moses refers to here. In Hebrew, this verse has only three words: YHWH [The Lord] lacham [shall fight] charash [for you, and you have only to be silent—or in other translations, be still, hold your peace]. There are over thirty Hebrew words for the absence of speech, for the particular kind of stillness or silence being referred to, and the one Moses uses here is charash. It literally means “to engrave,” as a craftsman etches in wood, or a farmer plows into the ground—in fact, charash is translated “plow” or “craftsman” elsewhere. This is a silence that happens in the context of a carefully-wrought, skillfully-devised plan. This is a silence that sees, mysteriously, that sometimes one must hold back from speaking or acting for that plan to come about. This is an expectant silence.

In this case, the plan is for God to show his people a great truth about salvation: it is what God does, not what we do. Salvation begins with hundreds of chariots thundering towards you and the sea at your back. Stop imagining what went wrong, how you would have done it better, whose fault it is, because it was never a human project to begin with. How easily we miss what God wants us to see when we fail to be silent. 

Keeping Our Hearts

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” - Proverbs 4:23

“Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom. Taking responsibility for my life opens up many different options. Boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out. Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences.” – Cloud and Townsend

“For from it flow the springs” is one word in Hebrew: towtsa’ah. Which is mysterious, because the vast majority of the other 23 times it’s used in the old testament, it appears in verses like this:

“And your border shall turn south of the ascent of Akrabbim, and cross to Zin, and its limit shall be south of Kadesh-barnea. Then it shall go on to Hazar-addar, and pass along to Azmon” (Numbers 34:4).

Spot it? Yeah, hardly. There it’s translated “and its limit.” With only three exceptions, towtsa’ah is used exclusively in describing boundary lines, throughout Numbers, Joshua, and 1 Chronicles. It can mean “the place from which anything goes forth”—the other two exceptions are translated “deliverance” (Psalm 68:20) and “exits” (Ezekiel 48:30)—but that’s not how it usually appears.

Which lends a strange kind of sense to two other words in this verse. “Vigilance” is the Hebrew mishmar, which actually means “prison.” “Keep” is the Hebrew natsar, which means “watchman.” This verse is not saying “keep” as in how you “keep” food in your pantry or a pet in your house, but “keep” as in how you “keep” a watchman on the city walls or a guard at the prison door. What’s the difference? You realize the centrality, the high value, of what you guard: your inner self is the place from which everything issues, your speech (Matthew 15:18), behavior (Jeremiah 17:10), outward appearance (1 Peter 3:4), physical health (Proverbs 17:22). If you picture your life as many streams, the imagery here is that they all come from a single source: if your inner life is not healthy, it may affect even a seemingly-unrelated area of your downstream life.

You also realize the fragility or volatility of what you guard: its tendency to be easily influenced, or stray off-center. And so we have to know where the boundary lines fall. Freedom, this verse suggests, the freedom of true life, comes not from lack of boundaries, but drawing the right ones. We must examine our inner lives and know what to let in, what to keep out. This may mean being intentional in the choices we make about media we consume, or relationships we have. It may mean following a rule of life in how we arrange the rhythm of our days, weeks, or months. It may mean pursuing life-giving leisure instead of mindless entertainment. It may mean getting more sleep. Any number of things. Where are your boundaries, and how do you live them out?

The Ten Plagues

“Thus says the Lord, ‘By this you shall know that I am the Lord.’” – Exodus 7:17

To understand the ten plagues, we have to understand some things about ancient Egypt around 1250 B.C. Religion was then so much a part of life that the Egyptian language did not have a word for “religion”: it was simply their reality. The divine and natural worlds were inextricably linked; natural phenomena were considered divine forces. Life revolved around sustaining and placating gods that were involved in all aspects of nature and society. But of the over 2,000 deities in the Egyptian pantheon, one of the greatest gods was Pharaoh himself, who alone upheld ma’at, the order of the cosmos. And uphold it he did: Egypt was a world power at that time, enthroned in splendor, home to the pyramids.

The Israelites had been living for over four centuries in this totalitarian culture, an empire built on cruelty, superstition and abuse. True salvation for them was not merely being physically removed from the state of slavery: it was to incontrovertibly expose all the beauty, success, and power of Egypt for the evil and emptiness that it was. Eugene Peterson points out that otherwise, it would have been all too easy for the Israelites to repeat “the Egyptian way of success” for themselves in the promised land: “as far as they knew, this is what worked, and had worked for at least a thousand years.” They needed a freeing, a cleansing, of their imagination, of their conception of reality, so they would be able to hear and follow God. 

And so God doesn’t just kill Pharaoh outright and get the Israelites out. Over a period of eight months, he systemically destroys the natural order Pharaoh claims to keep. He rips open a curtain to reveal true reality, the reality that Yahweh alone is sovereign. As commentators have pointed out, each plague subverts various Egyptian gods: water to blood the gods of the Nile (Hapi, Apsi, Isis, Khnum), frogs the goddess of fertility who had the head of a frog (Heqet), gnats the gods of desert and dust (Set, Geb), flies the god of flies (Uatchit) and the god of creation who had the head of a fly (Khepri), death of livestock the bull gods (Hathor, Apsi, Mnevis) and the ram god (Khnum), boils the gods of health and disease (Isis, Sekhmet, Sunu), hail the goddess of the sky (Nut) and gods of grain (Min, Nepri, Anubis, Senehem), locusts the god of storms and disorder (Seth) and gods of grain. Darkness defeated Ra, the god of the sun, and finally, death of the firstborn defeated Ra’s son, Pharaoh. 

God is revealing himself as the one who alone is sovereign. In Genesis 1, God speaks (“and God said…”) ten times in creation; here again he speaks ten times through the workings of creation, so that we shall “know,” a word that appears like a thread running through the story (6:7; 7:5, 17; 8:10, 22; 9:14, 29; 10:2; 11:7; 14:4, 18). We come to know a God who does not work through prestige or power, but through, as Peterson writes, “an eighty-year-old desert shepherd and his brother, their only weapon a stick.” He uses the oppressed and despised to ultimately bring salvation, true spiritual salvation, to the world.

In Revelation chapters 8, 9, and 16, events like the plague recur in a much more cosmic and escalatory scale: hail and fire, sea becoming blood, darkness, locusts, sores, “unclean spirits like frogs.” There, we see the spiritual battle exposed for what it is. But sandwiched right in the middle of these events is a song, the song of Moses, which is also the song of Jesus, the Lamb. They sing of a God who is the true Sovereign, and this is how it ends: “All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed” (Revelation 15:4). In what ways are we still captives to our culture? What spiritual strongholds do we need to ask God to be sovereign over in our lives? How can we pray for God’s sovereignty among the nations? How is God revealing himself to us?

The Four-Day Lamb

“Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household… and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.” – Exodus 12:3, 6

Ellie joined student council this year, and apparently their first item of business is to carry out a school-wide vote on the names for the two new baby goats the school farm acquired this year (top contenders: Salt and Pepper). All the kids know about this, from Elijah in kinder, to Eric in second grade, to Ellie in fifth grade, because all the classes visit the farm every week, where they take care of and get to know the various livestock.

I’ve always found it interesting that God asks the Israelites to keep the one year-old, unblemished lamb or goat (the Hebrew seh here can refer to either) in their own homes for a period of four days before killing it. Livestock were surely not normally kept in a house, much less crowded slave quarters. Why would he do this?

It would have been a constant symbol of what was to come. Nine plagues had happened by this time, but Pharaoh still had not let them go. Had the people lost heart? Or grown in hope? This bleating lamb or goat, wandering the house nibbling on clothing, pooping on floors, surfing the counters, would have been a reminder—salvation is coming, this time we really will be set free, have faith and believe. It was a promise they could touch, see, smell, hear, and later on, taste. 

But it was a promise that would come at a cost. Four days were probably long enough to start to see the lamb as a pet, particularly for the children. Can you imagine explaining to your kids that they would have to watch you kill it? Can you imagine how Abraham felt for the days it took him to walk up the mountain with Isaac to the altar? I don’t even really want to imagine any of that. But God wants his people to know—the sacrifice comes not just at a material cost, but an emotional one. The lamb is not just any lamb: it is a beloved one. It helps us understand what it meant that God was a God who “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). 

This was done as a household. As a parent, I think about the significance of that: the lamb was to be brought into the family. All of it a story, a lesson, for everyone, from the smallest to the oldest. All of it a journey to be walked through together, as each family did the same thing, killed at the same time, ate the same flesh. I think about what it means to live with the gospel so centric in our family lives that it cannot be avoided. That it would be obvious to the neighbors. I think about how it looks to live as a congregation of families. I picture our last community group meeting, where folks in their sixties sat in the same circle as five year-olds, everyone sharing and listening to each other. The lamb was not for each individual, or just for the pertinent individual, the first-born son. It was for every household, and neighbors were to come together as needed. This is how growing in understanding salvation happens, how the journey is meant to be taken.