Worship In Numbers

“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.” – Revelation 19:6

What is the biggest group you’ve ever participated in vocal worship with? For me it would probably be singing with two thousand people at an Urbana conference twenty years ago. Yet even that pales next to what John experiences here. Can you imagine so many people worshipping that the sound is like the roaring of water or pealing of thunder? 

 

There is something about corporate, vocal worship that cannot be replaced. John does not hear in heaven the sound of thousands of people joining a zoom call, or putting together their thoughts on a google doc. He hears their voices together, bodies together, celebrating the marriage supper of the Lamb. It hit me while reading these verses how much I miss that. There is a power, an awakening, an assurance, even an active element of sanctification, that happens when we join in physical deed and voice with others in worship of God. There is a preoccupation with Jesus and his glory that happens when we lose ourselves in a group. There is a particular kind of testimony that is proclaimed when we congregate and proclaim words in unity. There is a speaking that happens not just to God, but to each other. There is a doubling of joy when we share our own joy in God with others. Martin Luther once wrote, “In my own house, there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through.”

 

I feel sad that we can’t do that right now. The loss of physical corporate worship must be grieved, and I will certainly not take it for granted when it happens again.

 

At the same time, livestreamed worship is still corporate worship. We’re still singing words of praise at the same time, still united in worship and prayer before God. In fact, learning that we are part of a larger body even when we can’t see or feel the members of that body is an important spiritual skill. Hebrews 12:1 says that we are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”—do you realize that all the believers who have gone before us are watching us, right now? They are joined with us in a very real way, in worship and perhaps even in prayer, whether or not we can see them. And even when we were meeting as a physical congregation in our church sanctuary, the spiritual reality is that we were also joined with all the other believers in all the other churches in our city and around our world in worship of God. One day, we will be able to see these invisible truths in their physical reality. One day, we will be able to meet again in person in our church sanctuary. One day, we will meet all the saints, and all the believers around the world, in the very throne room of God, and hear our voices mingle with theirs in a great roar of joyful worship.

Habakkuk

“Though the fig tree should not blossom,

   nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

   and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

   and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

   I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

   he makes my feet like the deer’s;

   he makes me tread on my high places.”

- Habakkuk 3:17-19

Habakkuk reads like a journal. Unlike most of the other prophets, he does not address the people of Israel directly. Rather, he records his own thoughts and conversations with God, his personal struggle with whether God can be good amid tragedy and suffering. He lodges his complaints in prayers of lament: first, what are you going to do about the injustice, idolatry, and evil of your people? God replies, I will send Babylon to judge them. Habakkuk complains again: but the evil of Babylon is even worse! God replies, I will eventually destroy Babylon as well.

Then comes a theophany (3:3-15). Habakkuk beholds God, the way the Israelites did at Mt. Sinai after generations of slavery, the way Job did after long discourses on his suffering. There are echoes here of those earlier theophanies, echoes of creation (Habakkuk 3:6, Job 38:4) and exodus (Habakkuk 3:5, 8). The point is, these stories are not just isolated events. They echo, from ancient Job to Moses to pre-exilic Habakkuk, because they are retellings of the one same story, the story of Who God Is and How He Works. And that is a story that never changes, because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He is a God who sees and gives purpose to suffering. Who does not forget us. Who comes with salvation and justice. He is far more powerful and sovereign than we grasp.

It is impossible to behold God and not leave changed. Habakkuk becomes someone who listens and who is willing to wait (3:16). He becomes someone who chooses transcendent joy in even the worst of circumstances. If you were to rewrite these verses, what would they look like? “Though the pandemic last forever, though we never gather in our church building again, though my kids never walk into school; though my work project fails; though the smoke stains the sky… I will take joy in the God of my salvation. He makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.” Where are your high places? When have there been theophanies in your life? What does it look like for you to choose to rejoice?

Battling Temptation

“For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” – 1 John 2:16

McKelvey writes in his “Liturgy for One Battling a Destructive Desire”: “In this moment I might choose to indulge a fleeting hunger, or I might choose to love you more… Given the choice of shame or glory, let me choose glory. Given the choice of this moment or eternity, let me choose in this moment what is eternal. Given the choice of this easy pleasure, or the harder road of the cross, give me grace to choose to follow you.”

In the moment, the desires of the world feel so strong, don’t they? Sometimes, as the line goes, resistance seems futile. Yet the reality, John says, is that our desires, just like the world they come from, are passing away. They are in actuality fleeting, temporary. It is the will and glory of God that abides forever. In a sense, all of temptation is a battle to choose what is eternal over what is momentary.

It’s a battle that Jesus understood. Someone once pointed out that these verses in 1st John map out Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness in Matthew 4. Jesus experienced the desires of the flesh when he was tempted to turn stone to bread to satiate his hunger. He experienced the desires of the eyes when he was taken to a mountaintop and shown all the glory of the kingdoms of the world that could be his. He experienced the pride of life when he was tempted to prove that God would command angels for him. We have a Savior who was tempted in every way as we are, yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He felt the temptation even more strongly, perhaps, than we who give in, but he is also a living testament that these desires are passing, that the One who does the will of God indeed lives forever, just as we now can. 

May we choose eternity in our battles with temptation. As the liturgy ends: “Let me build, then, my King, a beautiful thing by long obedience, by the steady progression of small choices that laid end to end will become like the stones of a pleasing path stretching to eternity and unto your welcoming arms and unto the sound of your voice pronouncing the judgment: Well done.” 

The Leaves Are Rustling

“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” – Hebrews 11:16

I stood the other day at the top of a massive canyon, white cliff walls streaked with pale pinks and browns and topped with pine trees, the river a pale blue frothing ribbon down below. After months of being in the same indoors, the sense of open grandeur was difficult to describe. The canyon itself was too big to be viewed at once from any given point; the dozen or so different lookouts could only give a sense of a part of the whole. The place where I was standing gave perhaps the best sense of scale, gazing down as I could straight into the dizzying depths.

Even then my experience was limited. I saw a bird soaring down through the canyon, and thought, that little creature is part of a space that I can only peer down into briefly before I leave. I can soak the beauty in as best I can to take with me, but I can’t really become a part of it. I thought of what C.S. Lewis writes in The Weight of Glory:

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it… At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”

These verses in Hebrews rustle with the rumor that here on earth, we can only see the things we truly long for at a distance. We are still on the other side, and if we’re honest, we feel it. But the place where we belong, the better country, will surely yet come. Part of this journey on earth is to embrace our longings with faith, to see that all the beauties here on earth are but a foretaste of what God has prepared for us. Some day we shall get in. 

Jesus As Intercessor

“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

“The safest conception . . . that we can have of the intercession of Christ . . . is his continual appearance for us in the presence of God.” – John Owen

We often think of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrifices through his death, and of the tabernacle and temple through his incarnation, but he also fulfills the Old Testament role of high priest—not simply the sacrifice, but the one who through his position offers that sacrifice in intercession. Making the sacrifice was not enough. Someone had to bring that blood into the holy presence of God, and once a year on the Day of Atonement, the high priest was the only one able to do this by entering the Holy of Holies to sprinkle blood on the altar.

The remarkable thing is that this role is ongoing. Jesus’ sacrifice was once-for-all, but his intercession continues forever, and that is part of how our salvation works. Don Carson writes, “the complete salvation of his people turns on the efficacy of his perpetual intercession, and the efficacy of his perpetual intercession turns on the once-for-all sacrifice he has offered, and on his own everlasting life.”

What exactly is this intercession? It is not the intercession of a pleading Son before a reluctant Father; our salvation is the will of Father, Son and Spirit. It is not intercession with any element of uncertainty, as we might pray. It is something far more complex and glorious. To paraphrase the answer to question 55 of the Westminster Larger Catechism, Christ’s intercession is his appearing in our nature continually before God in heaven, upon the merit of his own earthly obedience and sacrifice, through which he answers all accusations against us, quiets our conscience, and gives us continual access to grace. But it is more: Jesus also continually and actively prays for us. To paraphrase John Owen, Christ requests and offers to God his desires and will for us, with care, love, and compassion. 

Our salvation is not static. It does not end with some decision we made in the past. This very day, we are being saved by the eternal intercession of Jesus for us in heaven. Unlike the high priests of the Old Testament, he will never die. He will continue to do this work for us forever and ever.

Unmoored

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.” – Hebrews 6:19

I wonder sometimes if there is such a thing as subconscious external points of reference we used in daily living. People we saw, social atmospheres we entered, collective routines we participated in, which gave us a sense of context and well-being. I wonder this because there is something about being at home every day that makes me feel unmoored. It’s more than just forgetting which day of the week it is. It’s a loss of the collective context, of external cues, of the points of reference I took for granted every day.

Being unmoored leaves me tossed by the waves. There are up days and down days. There are up weeks and down weeks. Some days I see glory and grace in some experience unique to this time; others I feel crushed by the smallest repetitive task. I may struggle to respond with equanimity to something I would usually have taken in stride. I may find myself combatting anxiety at unexpected moments. And I am probably not alone in this experience.

It is ironic that this period of apparent monotony has made me realize so acutely how much I am a victim of my circumstances. More than ever, I need to be anchored. Some of that involves intentionally rebuilding healthy rhythms and external cues however I can. But at heart, what I need is to be centered upon something sure and unchanging in a world that has gone askew. In the end, this only comes from entering the inner place of God’s presence, a God who is beyond all time, who guides all things for my eternal good. There I can find a peace that is never shaken, a hope that answers despair, and a “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.”

Rhythm

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” – Hebrews 4:9

One way that Sabbaths differ from vacations is that they occur not as a bolus, but as a regular part of our lives. Wayne Muller writes, “When we live without listening to the timing of things, when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest—we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms, seasons and hormonal cycles and sunsets and moonrises and great movements of seas and stars. We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.” 

Seeds are dormant before sprouting; animals hibernate; music consists as much of patterns of silence as of notes. There is a rhythm that our culture has lost, and Sabbath is the regaining of that “continually recurring interruption,” as Karl Barth puts it. Just as we tithe as regularly as we earn, we must tithe our time as regularly as we receive it, rest as regularly as we work. We have to regularly remember, because we continually forget. It is this rhythm that allows Sabbath to bleed through to the rest of our week. “Judaism tries to foster the vision of life as a pilgrimage to the seventh day; the longing for the Sabbath all days of the week which is a form of longing for the eternal Sabbath all the days of our lives,” writes Heschel. 

As we’re home more these days, there are more chances for refreshing rests throughout the day. There are more spontaneous conversation, board games, meals eaten together. Are these Sabbaths? They can be, but the question to ask is, do they occur in a perceivable pattern? Do they recur with some level of regularity or predictability? Are they something you can look forward to? 

Contemplate

“For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” – Hebrews 4:10

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” – Exodus 20:8

Sabbath is not merely about getting away from work, but drawing nearer to God. At its heart, to Sabbath is to contemplate God. We are entering into God’s rest. We are treading upon God’s time. It is holy ground. We cannot exist within such time without looking for and upon God.

Thomas Merton writes, “Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable; it is true.” Sabbath is a time when we look a bit more for the divine shining through. We notice the gifts and graces that we are usually too preoccupied to see. We appreciate not only their existence, but what they show us about the nature and character of God. We reflect upon how God has been working in our lives. We receive words he may have for us through community. We look for his glory all around. We contemplate his love.

To contemplate is simply to give God our attention. We give so many things our attention, but just as we would with a beloved, we need at intervals to gaze without distraction upon the one whom we love and who loves us. This is that time. Wendell Berry writes in one of his Sabbath poems, “I know that I have life only insofar as I have love. I have no love except it come from Thee. Help me, please, to carry this candle against the wind.”

Refresh

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” – Hebrews 4:9

“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

In that verse in Exodus, the Hebrew word for “refreshed” is naphash, literally “to take a breath.” Walter Brueggemann points out that its most common use is as a noun meaning “self” or “soul”—here, it becomes a verb, re-nepheshed. Re-souled, refreshed, restored to one’s true self. Breathing is not a bad analogy: when we breathe, we take in oxygen to replenish our red blood cells and allow our body to metabolize, to move and grow, in the way it was designed to do. Without that breath, our self as we know it would die.

After we cease and enter, what do we actually do on a Sabbath? “The simple answer,” writes Ruth Haley Barton, “is whatever delights you and replenishes you.” What do you do that is refreshing, that restores your sense of self and joy for life? This is not an intuitive question. In our “work hard, play hard” culture, leisure for most of us comes in the form of entertainment or escapism. We can be as productive in our play as in our work, binge-watching shows or planning elaborate vacations. I don’t know about you, but I don’t generally finish a few episodes of a show feeling more energized than when I began. Sabbath is something different. It is doing what is life-giving, what gives us delight in ourselves and in God.

Perhaps what replenishes your body is a nap, a bike ride, walk, long bubble bath, favorite foods, lighting candles, listening to music, lovemaking. Perhaps what delights your soul is worship, quiet reflection, community, silence, prayer, a meditative walk, a book, journaling, sitting in nature. 

Discerning what restores and refreshes takes time and presence. Sometimes it is not even what we do as much as how we do it: with attentiveness and care. Barton writes, “There have to be times in your life when you move slow… times when you walk rather than run, allowing your body to settle into each step… times when you sit and gaze admiringly at loved ones, rather than racing through an agenda… times when you receive food and drink with gratitude and humility rather than gulping it down… times when hugs linger and kisses are real… times when you let yourself feel, let tears come rather than blinking them back because you don’t have time to cry… times to sit with your gratitude for the good gifts in your life that get forgotten in the rush.” 

Enter

“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.” – Hebrews 4:11

“For we who have believed enter that rest.” – Hebrews 4:3

Sabbaths feel sometimes like fasting: the first thing you notice about stopping your work is how much you work, like how the first thing you notice about fasting is how much your life revolves around food. When we fast, we learn to hunger after God the way we hunger after food. When we Sabbath, we learn to receive meaning from God the way we receive meaning from work. The truth is, we have a distorted relationship with work. In southern Virginia, no one ever asked me about my work, but around here, the most common follow-up to an introduction is, “what do you do?” It is nearly impossible to not let our work come to define us, to be the central source of our identity, purpose and meaning.

When we stop from our work, we start to see all that. We see the work under the work, the “ceaseless striving” for meaning and credibility that drives so much of our working. Ceasing the act of work is not the same as entering rest. When Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land, they stopped working as slaves and wanderers; there was a kind of social and physical rest, but they had not yet obtained true, deep rest. Hebrews says, “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.” We can only enter the deeper rest we need by believing the gospel, by believing that all that we strive for is achieved for us already through God’s work. 

Richard Lovess writes, “If we start each day with our personal security not resting on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ, but on our present achievements, such arguments will not quiet the human conscience and we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy, or to a self-righteousness or some form of idolatry that tries to falsify the record to achieve a sense of peace. But the Gospel faith that is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love and what Jesus has done for us, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from all these other places, is the very root of peace.”

Cease

“… for whoever had entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” – Hebrews 4:10

“And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” – Genesis 2:2

One of the greatest mysteries is that the culmination of creation is—rest. In Hebrew, the word is shabath, which literally means “to cease.” Each new creation is a step towards the completion that occurs on the Sabbath, the act of stopping. To us, to our society, this makes no sense. Why do it all just to stop? Why is stopping so important? Rabbi Elijah of Vilna said: God stopped to show us that what we create becomes meaningful to us only once we stop creating it and start to think about why we did so. As Judith Shulevitz puts it in a New York Times article, “We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.” Sabbath at heart is not about leisure or socialization: it is theater, designed to convey a certain story about who we are. Stopping helps us remember how and why we work. It helps us remember how and why we exist, as image-bearers of God, people who are more than our work. 

But stopping does not come easily. Shulevitz writes, “Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The inventors of the Sabbath understood that it was a much more complicated undertaking. You cannot downshift casually and easily, the way you might slip into bed at the end of a long day… This is why the Puritan and Jewish Sabbaths were so exactingly intentional, requiring extensive advance preparation—at the very least a scrubbed house, a full larder and a bath. The rules did not exist to torture the faithful. They were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will.”

Surprisingly strenuous, indeed, especially now, when work and home life blur together. To cease work nowadays may mean not going into your home office, not checking emails or doing work on the computer. It is good to practice stopping as a family, but those of us with kids at home may also be struggling with the perennial question: how does one stop when your work is being a parent? I’ve come to no brilliant answers other than advance planning and resource investment. As a mom, my Sabbaths occur when Dave or a sitter watches the kids and I can stop mothering for a bit: days at a retreat center a few times a year, monthly afternoons out alone. Ironically, the first step to Sabbath requires some work. Stopping requires preparation. But it is important. Before we can learn what it means to enter God’s rest, we have to learn how to cease from ours.

Blind Spots

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” – Hebrews 3:13

There’s a communication tool called the Johari Window. It consists of four quadrants: the top is labeled “self” with the left-hand column labeled “known to self” and the right-hand column “not known to self.” The left side is labeled “others” with the top column labeled “known to others” and the bottom column “not known to others.” 

The upper left quadrant is the “Open Area”: this is behavior known by you and acknowledged by others. Most communication occurs here. The lower left quadrant is the “Hidden Area”: things you know but keep secret from others. The lower right quadrant is labeled “Unknown”: the part of yourself that both you and others are unaware of—we could perhaps call this quadrant “known only by God.” This is the you that only God knows and sees. Finally, the upper right quadrant is the “Blind Spot”: what you are unaware of but others can see.

It’s interesting to note that, no matter how enlightened about yourself you think you are, there is a whole side of you that you are unaware of. There are things about your character, your personality, your behavior that only others, or only God, perceive and understand. Much of our ability to grow, individually and in relationships, is dependent upon our willingness to recognize this and be open to receiving feedback. Dave and I particularly feel this when it comes to parenting: as adults, we see blind spots in how our well-meaning parents may have raised us, and we figure we are inevitably doing the same, so we try to invite feedback from those closest to us about our parenting when we can.

This verse points out another element at work in our ability to perceive ourselves: the deceitfulness of sin. Sin works to blind us more and more to its true nature. It blunts not only our ability to perceive the truth, but to feel any desire to change. The word for “hardened” here is the same one used to describe the heart of Pharoah; it means “to render obstinate or stubborn.” This is not an overnight process; it happens gradually. Our daily choices matter. How long we wait to perceive the hardening work of sin matters. These are particularly difficult blind spots for us to see. And so the author of Hebrews says, exhort one another today, now; don’t wait. Be willing to probe the blind spots of others and to receive feedback in those areas yourself.

Temptation

“Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” – 1 Corinthians 10:12-13

These two verses have an interesting interplay. On the one hand, we have an amazing promise, but on the other, an inescapable warning. Look at the past, Paul writes. The Israelites, who had the very cloud of God’s presence, who walked through the sea, who ate food and drank water from God’s very hand—they yet were idolatrous, sexually immoral, put God to the test, and grumbled. You must never think that you can’t fall.

Take heed, he says. What does this mean? In the Greek, the word used is blepo, which means literally “to see.” There are over a dozen words for “seeing” in Greek—a common one is horao, and Vine’s dictionary compares and contrasts the two in this way: “Horao and blepo both denote the physical act: horao, in general, blepo, the single look; horao gives prominence to the discerning mind, blepo to the particular mood or point. When the physical side recedes, horao denotes perception in general... Blepo, on the other hand, when its physical side recedes, gets a purely outward sense, look (open, incline) towards [as of a situation] (Schmidt, Grimm-Thayer).”

Blepo is not seeing in a generalized way marked by deep inward understanding. It is seeing in a singularly intent, pointed, outwardly-oriented manner. It is not the vision of meandering meditation, but of a relentless and practical vigilance. I imagine Paul saying here, “look sharp about you!” As Eugene Peterson rewrites these verses, “These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else.”

We do carry the responsibility of jettisoning hubris and over-confidence, of being watchful and not careless in what we do. But temptation will surely come, and ultimately our vigilance is walked out in step with the promise that we can endure it when it does. There’s a part of me, or maybe it’s our culture, that says that I can’t hold out. That I will end up giving in. But that is simply not true. God promises that there will always be a way of escape, not to free myself from temptation necessarily but to find from Him the ability to endure it. Enduring temptation without giving in is painful; the author of Hebrews calls it suffering. But in this way we identify with and find encouragement from Christ, “for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).

The Holy Spirit

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever … it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” – John 14:16-17; 16:7

“From my perspective, the Holy Spirit is tragically neglected and, for all practical purposes, forgotten. While no evangelical would deny His existence, I’m willing to bet there are millions of churchgoers across America who cannot confidently say they have experienced His presence or action in their lives over the past year… The benchmark of success in church services has become more about attendance than the movement of the Holy Spirit.” – Francis Chan

For some reason, it’s easy to subconsciously think of the Holy Spirit as an “it”: some kind of electrical energy we charge up on or impersonal force we wield. But the most basic thing Jesus tells us here is that the Holy Spirit is a “him.” He is a person with feelings (Ephesians 4:30), thoughts (Romans 8:27), and a will (Hebrews 2:4). He is someone we have a relationship with. Having him fill us is less like calling down some force from the skies, than like inviting a person into our home, someone for whom we might clean and arrange our space.

He is also God. There are several Greek words for “another,” but the one Jesus uses here means “similar, same”: and indeed, they are spoken of interchangeably (1 John 2:1). The Holy Spirit is not some lesser being, some commodity we use for our own purposes. He is God himself. To fail to submit to and trust in him is to fail to submit to God.

There are many things about the Holy Spirit to think on from these chapters, but one is this interesting word Jesus uses to describe him, translated “Helper” (ESV), “Advocate” (NIV), “Friend” (MSG), “Comforter” (KJV), “Counselor” (MEV). The Greek is parakletos, from para, which means “to stand alongside,” and kletos, which means “to declare or call.” Together, they mean “a legal advocate”: someone who is called to one’s side to plead one’s cause before a judge or counsel for defense. The Holy Spirit defends us against enemies on earth and in our own hearts. He testifies that we are children of God (Romans 8:16), under the new covenant (Hebrews 10:15), saved (Hebrews 2:4) and have eternal life in Jesus (1 John 5:6). He intercedes for us in prayer (Romans 8:26).

Have you had anyone in your life who is truly for you? Who is loyal to you, to the end? It is mind-blowing, life-changing, really, that I have someone like that, with me all the time. Jesus actually says it is better for him to go away so that I can have the Holy Spirit. Do I really believe that? Most of us would probably say we would rather have Jesus in the flesh. When was the last time you undeniably saw the Holy Spirit at work in or around you? What is your relationship with him? Do you live any differently because you have his power and presence within you?

Obedience In The Unseen

“And she said, ‘I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.’” – Judges 4:9

“As we live our ordinary lives we are declaring all the time exactly what we are.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

At this time of transition from the bronze to the iron age, Sisera’s 900 iron chariots represented a huge technological advantage. In human terms, Barak was leading his 10,000 men into certain slaughter, but they stream down Mount Tabor anyway under Deborah’s command. We learn later in song (Judges 5:21) that God flooded the valley, creating mud that clogged the chariots’ wheels and giving the Israelites victory. 

Barak points to Christ, who like him is under authority (John 8:28), does not act apart from the one who sent him (John 5:19), and is victorious through obedience (Romans 5:19, Philippians 2:8; Hebrews 5:8). In all this, he demonstrates courage, humility, and a faith for which he is remembered in Hebrews 11. But most of all, he does it all unseen. He goes on a mission instigated by a woman and finished by a woman, knowing he will get little credit for it.

Sometimes it feels like my hardest battles are the ones I fight unseen, the hidden battles of ordinary life. Battles to control what I say or don’t say. Battles to not indulge in self-pity, complaint, judgment, or gossip. Battles to give up what I know God is calling me to turn away from. Battles to forgive someone, again. Battles to discipline well when I’m tired. Battles over my thoughts in the dark before sleep. I fight these battles against my own sinful nature, against the schemes of Satan, and for the most part there is no element of public recognition. The struggles are real, hard, and sometimes long; the victories when they happen can be unmistakable experiences of God’s power. But no one really sees them.

Barak had no less courage though he knew there would be no fame, and neither should I. Because the reality is, of course, that I am seen. Deborah’s words echo Jesus’: I will be with you. Mount Tabor is thought to be the place of Jesus’ transfiguration so many years later, the place where God declares his love to his Son as he does to us. The Holy Spirit lives inside me. I am not alone, in these most important battles in my life.

The Geography Of Promise

“Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the Lord gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” – Joshua 21:43-45

Slogging my way through these last few chapters in Joshua feels a bit—laborious, to say the least. It’s like reading a map without a map, as someone who isn’t all that interested in maps to begin with (unlike Dave, who looks at maps for fun). But then these golden verses tucked away at the end of chapter twenty-one tell us what the last nine chapters were about: they were God spelling out in exacting detail the fulfillment of every word of his promise.

Boundaries matter a lot when it’s your land it involves. When we were remodeling our house in Palo Alto, there came a point late in the pre-construction phase when we realized there was an issue with one of the setback lines: the entire thing had to be scratched, which set us back quite some time and endangered our ability to move in before the school year started. Imagine if the land didn’t just affect your house or school year: imagine if it was the actual embodiment of all God’s promises to you. All you had hoped for as a wandering pilgrim without a true home. Imagine if it was the rest you longed for after suffering, labor, and war. Every single word of these chapters would matter.

But that is what it means to us. We are wandering pilgrims on this earth, sojourners looking to our true home. God is not going to remove us from this earth, but remake it and give us an inheritance in it one day. Jesus will lead us to the true rest that Joshua could not make last (Hebrews 4). There are so many promises of God I live by, that are sometimes the only things helping me put one foot in front of the other, and all these chapters of Joshua are saying, in the language of geography, through the detail of nomenclature, that God keeps all his promises. He does not miss a single one.

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? 

A Tale Of Two Goats

“For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins.” – Leviticus 16:30

“For the like of the great day of atonement, we look in vain in any other people. If every sacrifice pointed to Christ, this most luminously of all.” – Samuel H. Kellogg

Leviticus describes the rituals, priesthood, and purity laws required for a sinful people to enter God’s holiness in a symmetrical structure: 

            chapters 1-7: Rituals (animal sacrifice)

            chapters 8-10: Priesthood (ordainment)

            chapters 11-15: Purity laws (food, health)

            chapters 16-17

            chapters 18-20: Purity laws (moral behavior)

            chapters 21-22: Priesthood (standards of living)

            chapters 23-28: Rituals (sacred days, festival days)

Highlighted in the middle of the book is what has been called “one of the mountain peaks of the Scriptures” and “the Good Friday of the Old Testament”: the Day of Atonement. It was the one day a year designed to cover all the sins of all the people, including unintentional sins. It was the one day the high priest could enter behind the veil into the Holy Place. It became the most holy day of the Jewish year, celebrated as Yom Kippur or “the day of covering,” so central to Jewish life it was simply called “yoma,” or “the day.”

At the center of this day were two goats, which together constituted the singular sin offering (Leviticus 16:5). One goat was killed and its blood sprinkled on the mercy seat in the Holy Place, literally between the cloud of God’s presence over the seat, and the law in the ark of the covenant under the seat (Exodus 25:21). The second goat bore the sin of all the people and was sent into the wilderness.

Why two goats? There has been much debate about their typology, but I think the simplest answer is that God wants to show us that when atonement is made, he both forgives and forgets our sin. God is not forgetful per se, but he chooses not to recall our sins to memory; they are completely removed from his sight. “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us,” David writes in Psalm 103:12. Micah writes, “you will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). When John the Baptist sees Jesus, he exclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Aaron alone witnessed what happened with the blood of the first goat; the second goat was an object lesson meant to be seen by all.

Lately I’ve been thinking about this idea of forgiving myself. Sometimes a particular sin haunts me, and I struggle with replaying it, or find it hard to let go of lingering feelings of shame or regret. People talk about being able to forgive yourself, which is theologically incorrect: I can’t forgive myself, only God can. What I struggle with is not forgiving myself so much as believing that when God has forgiven me, it also means the sin has been removed. I picture the second goat, wandering into the horizon, so far I can’t see it anymore, never to come back, not having to hold on to the shame or punish myself anymore. The main way the people had to participate in the Day of Atonement was to rest (Leviticus 16:31), to do nothing. All we have to do is receive what God has done for us, and that includes believing that he has sent our sins far away. As the author of Hebrews writes when he recounts the Day of Atonement, “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14). We are clean, truly clean. 

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. 

Sexual Sin

“How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” – Genesis 39:9b

It is a common fallacy to think as singles that our struggles with sexual sin—pornography, masturbation, erotic literature, mental fantasies—will evaporate once we get married and actually have sex. For one thing, those inescapably addictive and progressive things train us to desire and expect something completely different from what the realities of sex in marriage is like. Whether we realize it or not, we are internalizing a cultural view of sex that is about self-gratification, performance, objectification, and idealized as being the ultimate source of fulfillment and an end unto itself (Keller uses the term “apocalyptic sex” in his book Counterfeit Gods). Whereas sex as God created it to be in marriage is about giving of yourself, being vulnerable in an unconditional atmosphere of trust, and ultimately points back to God. Sex in our culture is about consumerism; sex in marriage is about relating, and takes work and time to grow in.

For another thing, I am increasingly convinced that our ultimate struggle in this area is a spiritual one. It is not a matter of biology, or willpower, or understanding how much it hurts your spouse, hurts every area of your life—though those things are a part of it, as we see in Joseph’s story. In the “day after day” struggle, Joseph “would not listen to her… He left… and fled” (verses 10, 13): there is an element of willpower, choice and preparation as we safeguard against the ways and times we are prone to listen, as we find others to help, as we flee. 

But if we go back before those verbs and look at what Joseph says during the only time he speaks in this entire episode, we find something unexpected. In verse 8, he responds to an invitation to sexual sin by talking about his master. One would expect him to conclude, “how then can I sin against my master?” That would be logical. Instead, he makes a total pivot. He says, “How then can I… sin against God?”—and this in a place where no one, least of all the person he was addressing, believed in God. It’s almost as if he was speaking to himself, revealing the inner workings of his own heart.

Ultimately, we must look at God, grow in seeing his face, until in the moment of temptation this too rises up in us: how can I do this, this sin against God? Too often, we confess to ourselves rather than God; we don’t see the degree and depth of wickedness as God sees it; we don’t truly repent or plead for the Holy Spirit to help us. We don’t flee but we linger. We listen just a little bit. But when we encounter the holiness of God, and our love for Him, we become truly willing to fight the battles, whatever it takes. 

It is a battle, and there is suffering. Despite it all, Joseph ends up in prison for years. Hebrews 2:18 speaks of Jesus this way: “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Have you thought of temptation as suffering? Those who give in the least suffer the most. C.S. Lewis writes: “A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”

Jesus is able to help. He intercedes for us (Romans 8:34), as does the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:27). God can reveal himself to us in this area. We are not alone. We can identify with and become like Jesus even in the very midst of the struggle.