All-Night Prayer

“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve.” – Luke 6:12-13

What was the most important decision you have made in your life? In your ministry or career? How did you make that decision?

Luke tells us something none of the other gospels do: what Jesus does the day and night before making the most important decision of his ministry. He doesn’t consult for advice, take a survey, conduct interviews, bullet journal, list out pros and cons, review studies. Not that any of that is bad, but Luke describes with bracing simplicity the one thing he knows Jesus did: leave the city, seek solitude, and pray. The Greek for “pray” here is proseuchomai, and can refer not only to prayer, but a prayer-house. The Jews had these places away from the cities (Acts 16:3), on river banks, groves or hills; they usually consisted of a rough enclosure made of stone or trees, below an open sky. 

To be honest, I value my sleep, perhaps more so the older I’ve gotten. The only time I’ve pulled all-nighters have been the rare night before a major exam, or when required to during rotations in medical school and residency. I’ve never prayed all night. Yet that is what Jesus models for us here: whatever else you may do before an important decision, pray. Pray in a way that is marked by solitude, by extensiveness, perhaps by retreat to a sacred space.

Being compelled to spend an entire day and night in prayer is not something that rises out of the blue. It comes from a regular experience of God in prayer, and we see this as well in Luke, who describes Jesus praying more than all of the other gospels combined (Luke 3:21, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 9:28, 22:32, 23:34, 23:46). Too often, we do anything but pray. We worry or analyze. We make our own decisions and ask God to postscript a blessing.

I think about the important decisions I face in my life. As a parent, I think about perhaps the two most important decisions my kids will make: deciding to follow Jesus, and deciding whom to marry. Am I praying about these things, with at least some of the fervency and consistency they require? When was the last time I retreated to spend more extensive time in prayer? 

Growing All The Richer

“One gives freely, yet grows all the richer;

another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.

Whoever brings blessing will be enriched,

and the one who waters will himself be watered.”

- Proverbs 11:24-25

There’s a scene in the TV show Parenthood where someone is amazed Kristina Braverman can get her son to do homework. Without saying a word, she reaches under the counter and pulls out a huge tub of candy. The other day, we had a family meeting because the boys had been fighting more than usual, and after a prolonged discussion of factors and possible solutions (Esme’s suggestion: pay them all money not to fight), we settled on stickers. If they could go half a day without fighting, all four get a sticker. If someone is a peacemaker at any point, all four get a sticker. It actually worked for the few days we tried it. Man, I’m going to miss the days the kids could be bribed with stickers.

These verses don’t say, “one gives freely, because one mustn’t be selfish.” Or, “whoever brings blessing will be a nice person.” We aren’t supposed to not desire wealth, riches, and return. This runs all through the Sermon on the Mount: “rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven… for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?... for then you will have no reward… And your Father who sees in secret will reward you…” (Matthew 5-7). We aren’t supposed to not lay up treasures. We aren’t supposed to be above reward.

What we ought to do is see how reward and true wealth work. If I operate only in a material, immediate plane, these verses don’t make any sense—and too often, my first instinct is to hoard what I have. But there’s botanical element weaving through this chapter in Proverbs. The Hebrew for “gives freely” means literally “scattered,” as in seed, which only yields crop if one lets go of it, dies to it. True generosity requires perspective, seeing that we grow rich not through what we hang on to, but what we give up, because it brings us eternal rewards and earthly non-material rewards. Because the act of giving is itself a reward, which, as David preached, transforms us. True generosity requires we have something to give, a deep experience ourselves of the seed of the Word and the living water. May we receive these verses as rebuke, encouragement, promise; may we see how they work true in our lives. 

Satisfaction Of The Soul

“My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food.” – Psalm 63:5

Isn’t this what we all want from Thanksgiving? We want to be satisfied with food, good food, abundant food. But really, we want all the things that food represents: tradition, home, gathering, warmth. I’ve had some really great Thanksgivings in my life. I’ve flown homesick down the coast on fall breaks, anticipating the day my mom would stick a turkey in the oven early in the morning, the aroma wafting through the house all day. I’ve sat down around a table crowded full with old and new friends here in California. I’ve made the same stuffing and cranberry conserve recipes for years, perfected a dry brine, and this year nailed the gravy.

But still something is missing. I feel like this about many holidays as I grow up. I find myself longing for a holiday in my memory that probably never existed: a pureness of joy. Less toil. My degree of preparation and delight perfectly matched by those around me. True belonging and understanding. No one missing. 

These, I realize, are soul-hungers. My own particular soul-hungers. God, I see that my hunger is for you. Your glory breaks down upon me now through these moments: times like today when life stops so we can gather around a turkey on a table. But these are just glimpses. David said, my soul will be satisfied with marrow and fatness. With fat and fatness. It was like he was trying to capture something he couldn’t quite put sufficiently into words, this idea of something that is what we long for on the tongue, but then that stays with us in the belly. True satiation of the soul.  Can my soul truly be satisfied with anyone else? With anything else?

So, after everyone leaves, after the clamor stops and the leftovers are packed and the dishes done, I meditate on you in the watches of the night. I don’t think David is satisfied at the time he is writing this; it seems like he’s in a difficult place, or at least that he’s searching. But he writes this like a promise. I remember you, God. I meditate on you. And my soul will be satisfied.

Jesus And Jubilee

“… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” – Luke 4:20-21

In the perfect rhythm of God’s rest and restoration, every seventh day was a sabbath day. Every seventh year was a sabbath year. After every seven sabbath years was a Jubilee year, the sabbath of sabbaths. Leviticus 25 tells us they were to count “seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years.” And then, in Daniel 9, we are told that the anointed one, the prince, will come in “seventy weeks” of years, seventy times seven years. The Jubilee of Jubilees. “This predicted 490 years,” writes N. T. Wright, “haunted the minds of devout Jews in the centuries immediately before and after the time of Jesus. There is plenty of evidence to indicate that people were calculating, as best they could, when that time would be up.”

It is in this context that Jesus announces his public ministry, a moment most clearly defined here in Luke 4. Jesus reads from Isaiah 61, and when he gets to the part where Isaiah refers to Leviticus 25, when he gets to the Jubilee year, he stops. He sits down and says, today this is fulfilled. The Jubilee of Jubilees, the prince of Jubilee, is here. 

There is some shadow of the Sabbath in our culture, but we don’t really have a good grasp of Jubilee. None of us have experienced it, and it is unclear whether or not the Israelites ever did; they certainly weren’t by the time of the monarchy. The Jubilee was only experienced once in a lifetime, every fifty years. It taught the Israelites that the land on which they lived belonged to God; that life was to be lived in community; that each person had equality and personal dignity in their shared identity as God’s people; that life had a rhythm of worship, work and rest. The Jubilee countered tendencies towards inequality and poverty through socioeconomic restoration of people and land. But it was also rooted in spiritual restoration; its beginning was marked by the Day of Atonement.

Jesus arrives at this time, reading this passage, to show us that he is all that the Jubilee points to. Rest, redemption, forgiveness, justice. This is what his public ministry will be about. What does the Jubilee mean to you? How is Jesus this for you?

Silence And Time

“For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.” – Psalm 62:1, 5

In this psalm, David is under attack, yet the state of his inner life is marked by two things: silence and time. Nothing could be more diametrically opposed to his circumstances. How many of us, when we feel battered and shaken, when we most want direction and circumstantial assurance, would tell ourselves to wait, and be silent?

In her book Invitation to Solitude and Silence, Ruth Haley Barton describes what it was like to begin having daily times of solitude and silence: “I began to experience the ‘spiritual law of gravity’ that functions just like the physical law of gravity, and little by little I learned to trust it. When a jar of river water sits still, the law of gravity causes the sediment to eventually settle to the bottom so that the water becomes clear. We don’t have to do anything to cause that settling except leave the jar alone for a while. The same is true of the spiritual law of gravity. When we sit quietly in God’s presence, the sediment that is swirling in our souls begins to settle.  We don’t have to do anything but show up and trust the spiritual law of gravity, that says, Be still, and the knowing will come.”

David’s waiting was not aimless, but the aim was not a circumstance but a person, God alone, and this word alone, ‘ak, means truly, surely, only. He saw that his need was not primarily for a better strategy or response, but his need was for utter rescue, rescue that could only be found in God. 

Without regular times of silence, I sometimes don’t even know what my soul’s real needs are. I need time for the silt to settle, time to hear my need for salvation. Often I find an unexpected need to feel cared for, and like David need to hear God’s steadfast love (verse 12). Often I find myself relying primarily on my own ability, and like David need to hear that power belongs to God (verse 11). Often I find myself disheartened by the sin and apathy within and around me, and like David need to recover hope from God (verse 5). “The things that we most need to be known and solved and figured out in our life are not going to be discovered, solved, or figured out at the thinking level,” Barton writes. “The things we most need to know, solve and figure out will be heard at the listening level, that place within us where God’s Spirit witnesses with our spirit.” I wait in silence for you, God, and you alone.

News, Not Advice

“So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.” – Luke 3:18

When was the last time you received news? For me it was last Wednesday afternoon. I was at home on the computer when a text ran across the upper corner of the screen: “Your children are at school waiting for you – Roni” Roni is Elijah’s kinder teacher, and it suddenly occurred to me that Wednesday was an early pick-up day! I was operating under the assumption I had another hour to prepare after-school snacks and pick them up, when in reality I was already thirty minutes late. Needless to say, I dashed out the door.

The word “gospel” in the Old Testament is Hebrew bisser ("herald") and besorah ("tidings"), and in the New Testament is Greek euangelion, a compound of eu (“good”) and angelion (“announcement”). Luke here uses a form of that word, euaggelizo, which the ESV translates in a nicely literal way: good news. Martyn-Lloyd Jones contrasts advice with news: “Advice is counsel about something that hasn’t happened yet, but you can do something about it.  News is a report about something that has happened which you can’t do anything about because it has been done for you and all you can do is respond to it.”

The gospel is received as news, not advice. Advice is something you use to help you live the way you want. News is something to which you respond and change. Advice places the burden on you, to do something to achieve salvation—but the gospel is news that it all has already been done. Yet neither is the gospel advice you can pick and choose from—it calls for either rejection or response. Elijah’s teacher did not text me a suggestion. She texted a statement of fact: I either believed it or not, and the evidence of that belief was action.

The gospel is shared as news, not advice. The messenger doesn’t create the content but reveals it. Too often, we think about information as something we must make palatable: the right phrasing or tone so as to not be too off-putting. There is strategy in how we share the gospel, but at heart it’s not up to us. The gospel is not advice to be packaged for consumer comfort. It’s a truth to be revealed, unveiled, pronounced. Sometimes boldly, sometimes quietly over time, but news nonetheless.

Listen to the angels in Luke 2: “Behold, I bring you good news.” The Christmas story is an announcement. It is not a story about moral examples, ethics, aphorisms, or a systematic theology. At the core, it is something that blazes into our lives like the text box across my screen: here is news you should know. What are you going to do about it?

Ask Me Not

From Thoughts In Solitude by Thomas Merton:

“Ask me not where I live

or what I like to eat…

Ask me what I am living for

and what I think is keeping me

from living fully for that.”

Balaam And His Donkey

“Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, ‘What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times? And Balaam said to the donkey, ‘Because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you.’” – Numbers 22:28-29

Other than the snake in the Garden of Eden, this is the only time in the Bible when an animal speaks in a human language. It seems almost humorously out of place, like something you’d read about in Narnia, not Numbers. Yet, curiously, here it is. There is an almost intentionally comical contrast between this utterly ordinary animal, who nevertheless saw spiritual reality in the situation, and the internationally-renowned and sought-after diviner, who nevertheless was blind to what was going on.

The Hebrew word used here for a domesticated female donkey, aton, literally means “be patient” (apparently they weren’t known for their speed), and ironically, we find that is exactly what Balaam is not doing. He is on the wrong path, but when God blocks his way, he responds with a version of road rage. He is absolutely closed to the idea that God may be in this, and in fact becomes so angry he doesn’t even marvel when his donkey speaks! He responds instead with self-centered rage (I can’t help contrasting Shasta’s reaction to hearing Bree talk in The Horse And His Boy: “Shasta stared into its great eyes and his own grew almost as big, with astonishment. ‘How ever did you learn to talk?’ he asked”).

I actually feel a bit convicted about road rage, reading this. It’s easy to get upset at other drivers because we’re not accountable face-to-face for our actions, just like Balaam thought he was alone with only servants and animals. It’s easy to dehumanize the other driver. For some reason, we tend to become disproportionately rule- and/or goal-oriented when driving, rather than willing to give grace or be open to any part our own fault has played. We can end up acting irrationally and dangerously in our anger.

Whether on the road or in life, when things perturb our plans, when we’re blocked from going where we want to be, as fast as we want to get there, how open are we to what God is trying to show us? Does our impatience or anger prevent us from seeing a lesson to learn, a word to receive, or feedback to consider? Are we not open to spiritual truths because we judge too harshly the messenger? As Keller writes, “Even a laughable messenger might be delivering a true message.” Even an unskilled preacher may speak a life-changing truth, like in Surgeon’s conversion story. Even someone you don’t respect or expect may reveal an aspect of your character or personality worth attending to. If what we care about, what we look for, is God and what He may be saying, we listen with much more openness and humility.

In the end, the biggest difference perhaps between Balaam and his donkey was his pride and her humility. His pride gave rise to violent anger; her humility moved her to mercy. The angel was the one with the sword in his hand after all, not Balaam, and seeing this, the donkey acts to save his life, three times. She is struck, so that he is not. So many years later, Jesus rides into the city on a donkey, to do the same for us, so we too can have the chance to confess and turn back, so that we too can love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

Mary Sings A Prayer

“My soul magnifies the Lord.” – Luke 1:46

What does it take to know scripture so well that its words are the ones that you think and speak during the most critical moments of your life? 

Mary’s song in Luke 1 is very similar to Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel chapter 2: too similar to escape notice, yet not an exact replica. Both are about God exalting the lowly and bringing down the proud, about the poor versus the rich and the hungry versus the full. Both rejoice in God’s holiness and have the same movement from personal to corporate deliverance. But the phrases are never exactly the same. “My heart rejoices… in your deliverance,” prays Hannah. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” sings Mary. “The bows of the mighty are broken,” prays Hannah. “He has brought down the mighty,” sings Mary. “My heart exults in the Lord,” prays Hannah. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” sings Mary.

It’s almost as if Mary has taken Hannah’s words and internalized them so deeply that they can rise back out of her, transformed now by Mary’s own experience. And Mary was, well, a nobody. She was a poor peasant girl from a small town nobody cared about. She was no Jewish scholar. When she goes with Joseph later to present Jesus at the temple, they bring two birds, meaning they couldn’t even afford one lamb. She calls herself someone “of humble estate.” Yet at this significant moment in her life, words rise out of her that Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls, “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.”

What does it take for scripture to rise out of us like that? The picture I get is a steepening, a saturation, a deep kind of working-through. The way tea leaves steep in water: received, unfurling, releasing, until every part of the water is changed, the new aroma rising up into the air. This is no momentary encounter. Think of the things that rise unbidden in you: lyrics of an oft-played song, stanzas of a well-loved poem, words spoken by someone loved but now gone. Who knows if Hannah was a person like that to Mary, a mentor perhaps, who gave her hope through her own trials? Are there people in the scriptures who have been that to you? How do you saturate yourself with scripture?

The Bronze Serpent

“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” – Numbers 21:8-9

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus 

Look full in His wonderful face 

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim 

In the light of His glory and grace”

- Helen Howarth Lemmel

God had judged the complaints of his people through earth, fire and plague, but here he sends venomous snakes. When the people confess and Moses intercedes, though, God doesn’t remove the snakes. He doesn’t automatically heal the bitten. He provides a different way out. They are to look up at a metal snake held aloft on a pole, and be saved. Apparently the Israelites took the bronze snake with them into the promised land and worshiped it as an idol, naming it Nehushtan (literally, ironically, “a thing of brass”) and making offerings to it, until King Hezekiah tears it down (2 Kings 18:4). 

Jesus speaks of this snake to Nicodemus, right before the famous John 3:16: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world…” (John 3:14-16). The bronze snake points to Jesus—a bit strange to think of Jesus being represented by a snake, perhaps, but he did become the curse to save us from the poison of sin (“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us,” Galatians 3:13). He was raised up on a pole like the snake, only in this case to provide life that is eternal. The snake on a stick has since gone on in Greek and modern lore to represent medicine and healing, in a symbol called the Rod of Aesculapius that most believe had its origins in Numbers.

The thing that impresses me today is that the bitten Israelite had only to look upon the snake. They didn’t have to prepare themselves in any way. They didn’t have to think a lot about it first. They didn’t have to be of a particular tribe or age. They simply had to turn their gazes, up. How are you looking at Jesus? Do you hold some truth about him before you every day? Do you see him in the people and events around you? 

Charles Spurgeon writes about how this passage was part of his conversion experience. On January 6, 1850, when he was about sixteen years old, he got lost in a snowstorm. Instead of the church he meant to attend, he stumbled down a side street and came to a small chapel with only a dozen or so people. The regular minister was snowed in, so another man got up to speak, and did so quite terribly, apparently. Spurgeon writes in his autobiography: 

“He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth [Isaiah 45:22].’ He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter… The preacher began thus: “My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me’. . . Many of ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. Ye will never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me’… Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ and great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! Look unto Me!’

“When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I dare say, with so few present he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart he said, ‘Young man, you look very miserable.’ Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, ‘and you always will be miserable — miserable in life, and miserable in death — if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.’

“I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said — I did not take much notice of it — I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, ‘Look!’ What a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could have almost looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to him.”

Moses And The Rock

“Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” – Numbers 20:12

I am probably not alone in always having been somewhat bothered by God preventing Moses from entering the promised land. What does Moses do wrong here? He addressed the people instead of addressing the rock. He made himself both judge (“you rebels”) and deliverer (“shall we...”). His phrasing is one of grumbling and complaint. He struck the rock rather than speaking to it, directly disobeying the word of God. He struck the rock twice, even (sign of anger? lack of faith that striking even once would be enough?). Overall, his tone is one of anger and contempt. Don Carson writes, “His response is not only the striking of the rock, it is the answer of a man who under pressure has become bitter and pretentious.”

What God rebukes Moses for is unbelief: “you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy.” God desired to extend mercy through lack of retribution for the people’s complaints, grace through providing water. The rock itself points to Christ: “For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). Carson writes, “It is hard to resist the conclusion that the reason God had insisted the rock be struck in Exodus 17:1–7, and forbids it here, is that he perceives a wonderful opportunity to make a symbol-laden point: the ultimate Rock, from whom life-giving streams flow, is struck once, and no more.” Moses did get water, but did it with a heart of rebellion and unbelief against God’s mercy and grace, pointing away from Christ.

The other time there was judgment for not upholding God’s holiness was when Aaron’s sons offered unauthorized fire in Leviticus 10:3, an act for which they were killed. Commentators have observed that God shows Moses a severe mercy, in sparing his life despite preventing him from entering the promised land. And in the end, he does see it from a mountaintop (Deuteronomy 32:49).

It is hard to be a leader who faces unfair criticism. It is difficult to be a caregiver who absorbs persistent complaint and buffers emotional instability (I think of mothers here and Moses saying he pretty much feels like one in Numbers 11:12). There is always the temptation to lash out in angry outbursts, to view or label others with criticism or contempt, to let our frustration seep out in ways that prevent us from upholding God’s holiness, from believing in the grace he asks us to extend. I am guilty of these things, but I have hope too. Some of my gravest mistakes are God’s severe mercies to me, laying bare the condition of my heart, giving me the capacity for greater compassion towards others. And I have Jesus, the living water. The water did come from the rock, and in the end, God did show himself holy through it. God works despite, or precisely through, my mistakes, and that is at times the most encouraging thing of all.

Integrity And Intensity

“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.” – Proverbs 10:9

“Intensive parenting was first described in the 1990s and 2000s by social scientists including Sharon Hays and Annette Lareau. It grew from a major shift in how people saw children. They began to be considered vulnerable and moldable — shaped by their early childhood experiences — an idea bolstered by advances in child development research. The result was a parenting style that was ‘child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor intensive and financially expensive,’ Ms. Hays wrote.” – “The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting,” Claire Cain Miller, New York Times

I think I understand now why people in Palo Alto can’t have four children, why our family is such an outlier in that way: it’s simply not possible to intensively parent four children born within the span of six years. Not without a lot more money, and possibly several nannies. We’ve chosen to engage in our local culture in many ways, but we also hew to our own values, and this leads to a constant feeling of tension. Esme is in a highly-vaunted, feeder preschool, where children of the uber-wealthy free-play under highly monitored conditions using teaching methods from the latest research. We love the environment and her teachers, but are leery of the notion that attending a particular preschool determines anything about her success in life. I do quite a bit of hands-on driving and being present for events, but I’m also aware of being more comfortable than most with leaving my kids unsupervised. We like the positive team spirit and quality of Ellie and Eric’s local swim club, but I also have to tell Ellie it’s okay if she doesn’t make the Junior Olympics after only two months of swimming experience. Most of her teammates did. In some ways, parenting here feels like intentionally choosing relative mediocrity. I don’t want to have quit my ambition-fueled Harvard life just to become an ambition-fueled parent bent on getting my children into Harvard. And anyway, I have too many children to be able to afford sending them to the private-elementary-school equivalent of Emmy’s preschool, to watch them at all times, or to groom them each into Olympic athletes. 

The word “integrity” here is Hebrew tom, meaning “wholeness.” It means that your outsides match your insides; your actions match your beliefs. We do act: we walk. We don’t stop-and-go, freeze, tip-toe, or run away in fear or anxiety. Neither do we bluster ahead, run, or jump in oblivious carelessness or pride. Walking happens step-by-step, in rhythm, and the key to doing it securely, Solomon says, is placing each step with integrity. Asking yourself, does this rhythm of life reflect what I believe? Does how I parent fit in with everything else I believe about our mission and vision in Palo Alto? About the purpose of life and how success is defined? 

These are not easy questions, particularly on a granular level. How do I steward my children’s giftings without overemphasizing achievement? How do I encourage discipline without losing free time for creativity and play? How do I engage in missional community while resisting subconscious cultural cues that may conflict with my held beliefs? How do I incorporate the strengths of the latest research on growth mindset, grit, anxiety, constructivist learning, et cetera, while filtering it all through the lens of the gospel? How do I engage with the culture in which I live while maintaining important spiritual practices?

Ultimately, security is actually what we want. We want to have assurance, peace, in the workings out of our lives and our children’s lives. If our living lists too far from what we believe, we will be found out, one way or another. But whoever walks in integrity, walks securely. And so, these questions are good. The tension, the confrontation and calibration, is important, because it tests our integrity. It makes us ask, do we really believe what we believe?

Intercession

“And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.” – Numbers 16:36

This is an incredible picture if ever there was one: Aaron, clad in the robes of the high priest, holding the censer with holy fire and incense (see Exodus 30), running into defilement and death, through over fourteen thousand corpses, to stand at the live front of the contagion. Standing between the living and the dead. Surely Aaron prefigures Christ: he loves his own people though they rejected and spoke out against him. He leaves a place of safety for uncleanliness and exposure to possible death. Even Moses could not go: only Aaron, the appointed high priest, could act out the very essence of what his office entailed, literally interposing himself between the deserved death of his people and the wrath of a holy God. 

Christ acted as our high priest through his incarnation and atoning death: but he also continues to intercede for us. “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). He intercedes for us as our advocate (1 John 2), and also through his prayers for us (Luke 22:32, John 17).

“I’ll pray for you” has become over-spoken to the point of meaninglessness—a while ago, I decided never to say those words unless immediately followed by said prayer, lest I forget—but this notion is not a platitude for Jesus. He exists perpetually to make intercession for us. His work for us did not stop at the cross. He prays for us. And not only Jesus, but the Holy Spirit: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). You would think if we didn’t know what to pray for, the Spirit would help by, well, telling us what to pray for—but he intercedes for us instead. He himself speaks for us.

I tend to think, and I’m constantly told, that I can speak for myself most of the time, but the truth is, I am beset by the plague of my pride and my sin. I don’t just need coaching; I need someone to speak for me. And that is what God does. I consider how encouraged I feel when I know or feel or hear someone praying for me, or acting on my behalf. I think, what does it mean to me that Jesus is advocating for me in the heavenly realms, right there before God? That the Spirit himself groans in intercession for me? That all of this happens now? How could I not feel deeply and undeservedly loved? I think of Aaron, who despite being around 100 years old is not walking, but running, into the plague. How could I not desire in Christ-like-ness to intercede for others with the same sense of fervency and love? 

The Valley Of Vision

From The Valley of Vision, a book of Puritan prayers:

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,

Thou has brought me to the valley of vision,

   where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;

   hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox

   that the way down is the way up,

   that to be low is to be highi,

   that the broken heat is the healed heart,

   that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

   that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,

   that to have nothing is to possess all,

   that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,

   that to give is to receive,

   that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,

   and the deeper the wells the brighter they stars shin;

Let me find they light in my darkness,

   thy life in my death,

   thy joy in my sorrow,

   thy grace in my sin,

   thy riches in my poverty

   thy glory in my valley.

Chiasms In Mark

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.” – Mark 15:37

Eugene Peterson describes the chiastic structure of the latter half of the book of Mark, which he pictures as a pyramid leading up to the apex of four events:

A   Burial: Woman anoints Jesus’ body for burial (14:3-11)

B   Eucharist: Passover meal (14:12-25)

C   Cup/Prayer: Garden of Gethsemane (14:26-42)

D   Cross: Betrayal and arrest (14:43-52)

E   Trial: Jewish council trial before high priest (4:53-65)

F   Denial: Peter denies Jesus (14:66-72)

F’  Trial: Roman trial before Pilate (15:1-15)

E’  Mockery: Mock worship from Roman soldiers (15:16-20)

D’  Cross: Simon carries cross and the crucifixion (15:21-32)

C’  Cup/Prayer: Jesus dies (15:21-32)

B’  Eucharist: Women who stay (15:40-41)

A’  Burial: Joseph buries Jesus in tomb (15:42-47)

The first and last scenes are burial scenes, the preparation for burial and the burial itself. The next are gatherings for eucharist: the last supper, and the women gathered for the six-hour breaking of flesh and pouring out of blood on the cross. The next are scenes of Jesus’ prayers: that the cup might pass from him, then his prayer as he drinks the cup. The scenes of the cross contrast Judas, who brings Jesus to crucifixion by betraying him, and Simon of Cyrene, who brings Jesus to crucifixion by carrying his cross.

The central four scenes interrelate to form a capstone to the pyramid. E and F are sequential, occurring in the Jewish court and outside courtyard. E and F’ are both trials, Jewish and Roman. F and E’ are both mockeries or denials. F and F’ are both rejections, from the leader of the apostles (Peter) and the leader of the Romans (Pilate). “A double rejection,” Peterson writes, “the person closest to Jesus and the person most remote from Jesus rejecting him; the foreign outsider who hasn’t the slightest idea of who Jesus is or might be now paired with the apostolic insider who was the first to recognize and confess Jesus’ messianic identity, both teaming up to say ‘no’ to Jesus.” F’ and E’ are again sequential, but here in the Roman court and away inside the palace.

Peterson sums it up this way: “St. Mark’s death narrative is an intricately interwoven web of echoes, parallels, contrasts, allusions, and repetitions. The death of Jesus gathers everything into it and fashions the finished work of salvation. Everything that goes into the work of salvation is found in this death. And everything that goes into our involvement in salvation is found in this death.”

Complaint Versus Lament

“And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled.” – Numbers 11:1

At last—after the tabernacle and law and census and camp arrangements—the Israelites set off from the mountain on their journey. The first recorded incident, only three days in, is this one. The first implied casualty is not to disease or battle, but to God’s anger. Does His reaction seem like (the use a word popular amongst 10 year-old girls these days) overkill?

Perhaps that points to the fact that we don’t take complaining seriously enough. Complaining strikes me as a sly sin. The Hebrew word is anan, literally “murmur,” and that is how it starts, a murmur in our minds. Like a fire, it is kindled, with under-the-breath grumbles, then louder, around others who join in, until it becomes a normative part of our language without us realizing it. What we are ultimately doing is declaring, directly or indirectly, that God is not sufficiently good, competent, loving or faithful. We are accusing him of doing wrong. We are saying that we know better and what we want is better. It is a subtle but unmistakable assertion of pride.

Warnings against complaining or grumbling litter the New Testament: Jesus said, “do not grumble among yourselves” (John 6:43); Paul wrote, “do all things without grumbling” (Philippians 2:14); James exhorts, “do not grumble against one another” (James 5:9). How do we stop complaining? We try to be aware of the consumeristic, comfort-oriented, self-centric tendencies of our culture. We take inventory of our words and thoughts. We may avoid people who tend to complain. We examine ourselves for attitudes of entitlement or ingratitude. 

We also, I think, learn how to lament. There is a kind of honest groaning, an expression of the frustration and sadness we feel living in a broken world, that is okay, that is encouraged and modeled in the Bible. About one-third of the Psalms are songs of lament. Some of Jesus’ last words on the cross were a lament. God wants us to pour out our troubles to him, as we’ve read (Psalm 42:4); to sing them, to pray them, privately and corporately. Complaining is speaking against God; it is a distorted view of reality (“we remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing”). Lament is speaking to God; it is an honest view of reality. Complaining is easy, and all too natural at times. Lament takes insight, courage, vulnerability and faith in a compassionate and listening God.

A Sacrifice Of Thanksgiving

“The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me.” – Psalm 50:23

We read about sacrifices of thanksgiving back in Leviticus 7:11-15. These were voluntary, freewill offerings of animal and grain, offered as a gift to the Lord. The meat was shared among God, the priests, and the worshipper, to be consumed fresh; leftovers were burned.

The Psalms often speak of thanksgiving as a sacrifice we offer to God. We aren’t bound by Levitical law anymore, but they offer a helpful template. Giving thanks isn’t compulsory the way other offerings are—as God says earlier in this Psalm, he doesn’t need our bulls or goats, “for every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills” (verse 10). But it is something we do of our freewill, precisely because we realize that everything is God’s, all that we have comes from him and is meant for show his character in some way. 

Giving thanks requires intentionality and work. Bringing the materials for the offering would have required advance planning and preparation. I imagine shaping the loaves, rolling out the wafers, measuring the oil, feeding and grooming the animal all those years. This was not merely the work of a moment. And it cost them something: time, labor, the value of the offering itself. What does our thanksgiving cost us? It may cost me my time and mental energy. It may cost me my complaints. My fears. My wants. Thanking God is not something I simply tack onto the rest of my day as an afterthought: it involves an entire change in posture, a turning away from grumbling, and worrying, and coveting, and that costs me something.

Giving thanks spills over to others. That very day, it is shared with, consumed by, the priest. Our thanks feeds others: it gives them strength and nourishment, it is a natural invitation to join along. It changes the tenor and atmosphere of our homes and workplaces. And it is meant to be shared afresh, not eaten as leftovers. Giving thanks is itself an act of faith, trust that God will provide anew each day; an act of daily discipline, a process of growth rather than a one-time event.

The purpose of giving thanks is to glorify God. When you do this, God says in this verse, you glorify me. The benefits of gratitude are widely acknowledged—thus the proliferation of gratitude logs in bullet journals and thankfulness exercises in classrooms—all of those are good, but in and of themselves, they fall short of the point. I don’t give thanks to make myself feel better about my life. I give thanks to glorify God: Hebrew kabad, literally “to be heavy.” I think of God’s glory as his very character and being, breaking out like light into my life, and giving thanks is to see that light, to feel the heaviness, the weightiness of his holiness and goodness upon every moment of my day. It is to say, God, what I see, what I hold, what I taste and smell and have: this is your glory. It draws me to your altar. It fills me with thanks.

A Place For Solitude

“And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” – Mark 11:11

This verse strikes me as anticlimactic in the extreme. Jesus has just fulfilled ancient prophecy, the humble King entering the great city with much fanfare—and Mark says, he basically looked around a bit, then left. Bethany was a village about two miles east of Jerusalem, home to Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Simon. In this final week of his life, Jesus doesn’t stay in Jerusalem, where all the action is, but in a place away from the public eye, among those who loved him.

Do you have a place you can retreat to with regularity and ease? Thomas Merton writes in New Seeds of Contemplation, “Although it is true that this solitude is everywhere, there is a mechanism for finding it that has some reference to actual space, to geography, to physical isolation… There should be at least a room, or some corner where no one will find you and disturb you or notice you. You should be able to untether yourself from the world and set yourself free, loosing all the fine strings and strands of tension that bind you, by sight, by sound, by thought, to the presence of other men… Once you have found such a place, be content with it, and do not be disturbed if a good reason takes you out of it. Love it, and return to it as soon as you can, and do not be too quick to change it for another.”

We live so much of our lives in reference to other people and events that it is good to have a place for untethering. There’s a corner in our house I go to, near a window from which I can see an orange tree, in a room with a door that shuts. Jesus sought solitude, and here in the last week of his life he finds a place away from the action. Where is your place? 

A Test For Adultery

“And the priest shall bring her near and set her before the Lord.” – Numbers 5:16

It’s helpful to know when reading this passage that trials by ordeal were a familiar judicial practice in the ancient world. The guilt or innocence of the accused would be determined by subjecting them to a painful experience, wherein the proof of innocence was life or lack of harm. Historically this has involved walking over hot coals, holding a red-hot iron, dipping a hand into boiling water or oil, or ingestion of poison. In the Code of Hammurabi, if a citizen accused a woman of adultery, the woman would have to jump into the river: if she died, it was proof of her guilt; if she lived, proof of her innocence.

Consider the contrasts here. Instead of any citizen bringing a charge, it had to be the husband. The odds were not stacked against her; she wasn’t considered guilty by default until proven innocent (in fact, one could argue the bias was towards innocence as drinking dusty water doesn’t tend to cause bodily harm). She is brought before a priest, within the tabernacle, in a controlled environment, with a mediator. The process itself was not physically painful. The judgment was in the hands of God, not her husband or other men, and it was definitive, presumably doing more to restore the marital relationship were she innocent, than a more inconclusive ruling by a human court of law. There are elements of redemption, even of protection for women, that one could tease out here. It’s interesting that God does not do away altogether with the culture in which the Israelites lived—he rather chooses to speak into it in this way.

I’m struck by the ritualistic and detailed nature of this passage: this may be the only place in the Bible where specific words for the priest’s prayer is given. I think about the woman, literally taking holiness into her body—holy water, dust from holy ground—which cannot reside together with sinfulness without physical disintegration. I think about her placing her hands into the barley, literally feeling her husband’s jealousy. All so symbolic and sensory. The verb that stands out is “bring”: bring to remembrance, bring her near, bring the offering. “Bring it to the altar” (Numbers 5:25).

We like to keep unseen sins secret, perhaps sexual sin most of all. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). It’s difficult to take those words seriously without being convicted on some level. There were separate laws for those caught in the act of adultery (Deuteronomy 22:22, Leviticus 20:10), but God goes to the trouble of addressing adultery that is “hidden from the eyes,” “undetected,” where “there is no witness,” because he cares about sexual purity. Our sexual purity is not a private issue. It affects our relationship with God. It affects others, potentially many others, more than we like to consider. Inward jealousies matter. God asks us to bring these matters before him. 

Thinking On Steadfast Love

“We have thought on your steadfast love, O God,

in the midst of your temple.”

- Psalm 48:9

The translational variance for Hebrew chesed—“steadfast love” (ESV, RSV), “unfailing love” (NIV), “lovingkindness” (KJV, NASB), “love-in-action” (MSG)—gives us an idea that it is a word for which no English counterpart really exists. Chesed is used only in cases where there is some recognized tie between the parties concerned; it is not a haphazard love or kindness. N. H. Snaith writes, “the theological importance of the word chesed is that it stands more than any other word for the attitude which both parties to a covenant ought to maintain to each other.” It is thus perhaps thought of as a combination between love and loyalty. But the root of the word means “eager or ardent desire.” This is not a resigned, obligatory or passive kind of loyal-love.

If a word doesn’t exist in a language, does a familiar notion of that word also not exist within the culture that language represents? If the chesed of God was worth the thoughts of the Psalmist, how much more us English-speakers. At the very least, we can think on this in the manner of our post-enlightenmenet, postmodern, Western minds: give it our individual, speculative, narrative mental attention. As the Psalmist does, we step into past evidence.

But we also think in other ways. The Hebrew damah used here for “thought” is translated various ways based on context: it can mean to purpose, meditate; but also to imagine. To be silent. To wait. To compare or be like. God’s chesed is so out of my ordinary experience at times, that I need to give it my silent attention. I need to give it my time. My imagination. Tim Keller said once that he reads The Lord of the Rings once a year to “baptize the imagination” and that phrase has stuck with me. I think about how naturally imagination comes to my children—sometimes more naturally than reality—but I need to be more intentional about feeding and freeing that part of myself.

Thinking on chesed is also not done alone or in a vacuum. The plural “we” is used, and the location is the temple, a congregational place, built by and for all the people of God. We think in the presence of God. We think through history or liturgy. In the consciousness of God’s holiness, as all the objects and materials and colors and smells in the temple pointed to. We think through the person of Jesus, who spoke of himself as a temple.

When was the last time you thought about God’s loyal-ardor, his sustained, covenantal desire and kindness towards you? Towards us, the church, his people? 

Sleep

A Sabbath poem by Wendell Berry:

The body in the invisible

Familiar room accepts the gift

Of sleep, and for a while is still;

Instead of will, it lives by drfit

In the great night that gathers up

The earth and sky. Slackened, unbent,

Unwanting, without fear or hope,

The body rests beyond intent.

Sleep is the prayer the body prays,

Breathing in unthought faith the Breath

That through our worry-wearied days

Preserves our rest, and is our truth.

Life In The Loops

“A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” – Proverbs 10:4

“People underestimate the importance of diligence as a virtue. No doubt this has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems. It is defined as ‘the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken.’” – Atul Gawande, Better

I have no qualms about staying at home more than being a physician, but it is strange to have trained for over twelve years for an entirely different thing than what I do now most of the time. I found during training that in the world of medicine at least, I am at heart a surgeon: I thrive best employing mind and fingers, knowledge and artistry, to achieve visible results and progress. At home, if there’s action that needs to be taken in a crisis, I’m great: figure out if a cut from a fall needs stitches or just steri-strips; get four kids, four backpacks, one cello loaded into the van in minutes.

But that’s not most of life at home. Most of life is a litany of unremarkable, mindlessly Sisyphean tasks. Packing lunchboxes only to have to clean them out and pack them again. Dropping off kids only to pick them up only to drop them off again. Cleaning things only to have them get dirty again—counters, towels, sheets, dishes, children, clothes, floors. Teeth. I actually had this moment where I realized that having four children meant keeping 128 teeth clean (and straight) over the course of 23 years. 

Medicine does not exactly train you for this. At my previous job in private practice, the mantra was, “physicians should only do what only physicians can do.” I had two scribes with me in clinic, two assistants in the operating room; I didn’t have to touch paperwork, drape the patient, do anything except call out orders or hold out my hand for instruments or lenses. This wasn’t to be nice to us, but to work us harder, through a higher volume of patients and cases, and the pace was anything but mundane.

But at home, mundane is the language of love. Repetition speaks. My vocation is found in doing again what I did before, choosing again what I chose before. A word for this perhaps is diligence. The Hebrew word charuwts has an interesting double-meaning: literally, it means “to dig” (as in a ditch—which makes me think of Brooks’ phrase, “digging the damn ditch”) or “to sharpen” (as in, a threshing-sledge, for agricultural work). Labor-intensive, repetitive, mundane work. But charuwts can also be translated “gold,” as indeed it is in four of the nine times it occurs in the book of Proverbs. No one is sure why—because gold is dug out? Because gold has a sharp or bright color? It certainly adds a bit of poetic redundancy to this verse.

Diligence is not necessarily a vaunted virtue. It is often not seen, or credited. But it is of great value, and it leads to what is valuable. And this proverb praises not “diligence,” but “the hand of the diligent.” Diligence in action is how we live out faithfulness, how we demonstrate love, how we steward well what we’ve been entrusted with. There are days when I feel like all I do is wash dishes: which I mean less as complaint than a statement of fact. Six people eating three meals and, some of them, three snacks a day go through a lot of dishes. But at least right now, this is where I sense God wants me to be: washing the dishes, with the hand of the diligent. Living life in the loops, and believing in the value of it.

Firstfruits

“When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord.” – Leviticus 23:10-11

Have you ever experienced the start of something that filled you with great anticipation and hope for what was to come? I think of the first time I saw Ellie on a sonogram. The opening prelude to an orchestral piece in a concert hall. Appetizers in a multi-course meal at a good restaurant. The first time I held Dave’s hand. I think the moment when the Israelites held a handful of the first of their barley harvest was a moment like that. They were holding the answer to God’s promises: they had arrived in the promised land after years of wandering and battle. They had planted their own crops. But this first of the harvest was also a promise that more was to come. 

We talk about Jesus as the lamb that died on the Passover, or how the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost, but we don’t as often discuss what it means that Jesus rose on the day of Firstfruits. This was the day when they took that first handful of the harvest and gave it to God in an act of thanksgiving and trust. The point of the firstfruits is that there will be many more. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep… For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” Jesus rose, and because he did, we will too. His resurrection was a firstfruits of what is to come: this is the great hope that we have.

N. T. Wright expounds on this in his book Surprised By Hope. “Many Christians,” he writes, “don’t know what the ultimate Christian hope really is… The classic Christian answer to the question of death and beyond is not so much disbelieved as simply not known.” What are we waiting for? What are we going to do about it in the meantime? The answers to those questions lie in the realization that salvation is not about “going to heaven when we die”; it is not the death of the body and the escape of the soul. Salvation is being raised to life in God’s new heaven and new earth. “Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden, dimension of our ordinary life—God’s dimension,” Wright explains. “God made heaven and earth; and at the last he will remake both and join them together forever.” 

Jesus’ bodily resurrection is a promise of not only our own resurrection, our own new bodies, but the recreation of the world. The things we do in our life now are not just to make it more bearable until we leave it—they are a part of building for God’s kingdom. They are not valueless because God will raise it to new life. Jesus’ resurrection is my hope for everything: for myself, for my work, for the world I live in. It is the reason I believe that nothing I do is in vain. That day, when the Israelites reaped their first harvest, when they felt hope and anticipation grip their hearts and fill their hands: that was the day Jesus rose.

Feasts Of The Lord: A Primer

“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.” – Leviticus 23:2

The feasts in Leviticus 23 are a fascinating map of the past and the future. There are 7 feasts (Sabbath, Passover/Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Weeks, Trumpets, Atonement, Booths); one of them occurs every 7 days (Sabbath); two of them last for 7 days, beginning on the 15th day or after the completion of 2 cycles of 7 days (Unleavened Bread, Booths). Seven, the number of perfection and wholeness; God’s whole, created plan over time. The word “appointed” is the same Hebrew word translated “seasons” in Genesis 1:14: “And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years.”

Of the six annual feasts, the first three occur in the spring. The first two occur over a span of 8 days. On day 1, the Passover Feast is celebrated. This looks back to the tenth plague, and looks ahead to the crucifixion of Jesus, which occurred on this day (“Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed,” 1 Corinthians 5:7). On day 2, the Feast of Unleavened Bread occurs and lasts until day 8. This looks back to the hurried exodus from Egypt, and looks ahead to Christ in the tomb. The leaven points to the old self, the sin, that he cleanses us from: “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened” (1 Corinthians 5:7). 

On day 3, the Feast of Firstfruits takes place. At that time, the barley crop would be planted and harvested first, then the wheat crop. The Feast of Firstfruits occurred at the time of the barley harvest, marking the beginning of the harvesting season; the Israelites ate no grain until an offering was made of the barley harvest. This looks ahead to Jesus rising from the dead, which he did on the day of Firstfruits. “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20).

Fifty days after the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks occurred. The term “weeks” refers to the period of time between the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. It was also called the Pentecost (literally “fiftieth”) or the Feast of Harvests (Exodus 23:16). This celebrated the end of the harvest season, included a wheat sacrifice, and featured 2 loaves baked with yeast. There is some speculation that this was the day the law was given at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:1). The Holy Spirit was given to believers on this day (Acts 2:1).

After a summer hiatus, the last three feasts were celebrated in the fall. The Feast of Trumpets is modern-day Rosh Hashanah, and many have speculated that it looks forward to some element of Christ’s return (Matthew 24, Joel 2, 1 Thessalonians 4). The Day of Atonement is modern-day Yom Kippur, which some speculate looks forward to future judgment. The Feast of Booths looked back to wanderings in the wilderness and some speculate that it points to the future reign of believers, the new Jerusalem, or some aspect of the joy that follows judgment.

I imagine how it would feel if all of life stopped, regularly, every week and on the same days every year, so that congregations and families could gather around altars and tables, telling through sacrifices and foods and forts stories of God from the past. In this chapter, God is saying, I want you to stop and tell those stories. I want you to understand how Jesus fulfills all of it, down to the very day. I want you to live in the hope of the feasts and harvests and fulfillments to come in the future, because they will come. They will.

Belief And Unbelief

“Immediately the father of the child cried out [with tears] and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’” – Mark 9:24

In a faint echo of Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai, Jesus descends from the mountain here to find confusion and chaos: the scribes arguing, the disciples trying and failing to cast out a spirit due to lack of prayer. It’s difficult to have a child and not feel the pain of the father in this story, and when he first comes to Jesus, you get the sense he sees Jesus as another in a long line of attempts. His speech reminds me of what any patient walking into a clinic room would say. But in verse 24, there’s a shift of tone, focus, manner. He cries out from the heart. He believes. He doesn’t say, “I believe, help my child!” He sees that the issue is not Jesus’ willingness or ability, or even the situation his child is in: the issue is his own unbelief.

Spurgeon said, “Is it not a very singular thing that as soon as ever he had a little faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he discovers the great abyss of his unbelief? … Until a man gets faith, he may think he has got it; but when he has real faith in Jesus Christ, then he shudders as he thinks how long he has lived in unbelief, and realizes how much of unbelief is still mixed in with his belief.” It’s true: whenever I read this story, I realize how much my struggles stem from a lack of belief in God’s power. My diligence veers into anxiety because I don’t really believe God has the power to control every detail of every situation. I over-process with myself or others because I don’t actually believe that God has the power to hear and respond to every word of prayer. I complain because I don’t actually believe in the power of God’s sovereignty to work every situation for eternal good and Christlikeness. 

But despite the presence of some measure of unbelief, Jesus heals the child. This is a piercing encouragement to me: that Jesus works in my life despite and into my areas of unbelief. Faith is not a state of psychological certainty or complete lack of functional doubts. It is a confession, a decision to believe and obey despite doubts and fears. It is a willingness to bring ourselves and our situations before him. It is being an attentive witness.

In the end, the father’s quest to find healing for his child led to healing for himself. That’s another thing I love about this story. Lately, as I’ve been reciting the verses in Matthew 7 about the speck of dust and the log, I’ve been thinking about parenting. I’ve been asking myself, how do the issues my children struggle with point to similar areas God needs to work in me? How must I come to Jesus to find my own healing before I can see clearly to help my children? The father’s recounting of his child’s issues ultimately led to his own confession. And that led to watching as his child rose up to new life through the power of the word of Christ. That must have been something to see.

Speaking To Our Souls

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” – Psalm 42: 5, 11; 43:5

What things can we tell about the psalmist in Psalms 42-43 (which nearly all commentators believe was originally one psalm)? He is in a state of spiritual dryness: deer drink instinctively and constantly; panting for thirst (verse 1) suggests drought-like conditions. He is or feels lonely, removed from communal worship: he used to sing with a multitude (verse 4), but now lives in remote mountains (verse 5). He lives in a skeptical, spiritually hostile environment: those around him continually say, “Where is your God?” (verses 3, 10). He feels “cast down,” depressed.

What I perversely love about these psalms is that he never ends up feeling better. There’s some progression between the three refrains, but he still ends each time speaking of turmoil in the present tense, praise in the future tense. When I feel bad, I tend to either let my thoughts pull me down more and more, or I tend to repress them and do anything I can to feel better. The psalmist does neither. He doesn’t deny feeling bad: he pours out his soul (verse 4) in prayer and examen before God. He names his feeling to himself: “Why are you cast down…?” He shares how it feels, like “all your breakers and your waves have gone over me” (verse 7).

But he also addresses himself. He doesn’t fall prey to morbid rumination or introspection: he instructs himself. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes about this in his book Spiritual Depression: “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.’”

What he says to himself isn’t, stop feeling bad. What he says is, what are your hopes? Hope in God. I don’t think hope is a feeling for him at this point. Hope is a belief. Hope is a series of statements: “my salvation.” “My God.” “Steadfast love.” “God of my life.” Hope is memory: “therefore I remember you.” “These things I remember.” Hope is a melody: “at night his song is with me.” Hope is knowing the ending: “Then will I go.” Over and over again, “I will praise.” “I shall again praise.” 

What do despondent feelings reveal about where your hopes are? How do you instruct your soul? Sometimes I reread old journal entries, listen to good hymns or songs, slowly recite memorized scripture, listen to biographies of people like William Cowper or Charles Spurgeon. How do you hold the truth before yourself when you need to?