Monthly Archive for March, 2009

Jesus’ Line in the Sand

Published on 3/31/2009 in Bible Study. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

V. 35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

When Jesus asks the man this, the man doesn’t know who Jesus is, but the man would know that Jesus was a Rabbi (other people approached Him and called Him Rabbi or teacher) but He is questioning the man outside the synagogue and after the man’s sentencing and exclusion. At this point it seems that the man is free from worrying about being caught or accused–he has nothing to lose. I wonder if Jesus knew that as long as the blind man staying in that setting, he would not be His disciple. Once the man is ‘freed’ from the synagogue, he no longer refers to Jesus as a prophet, like he did before the court, but says he’ll believe in the Son of Man if he can see who He is.
I think this question by Jesus was a defining moment, where Jesus was feeling the man out. It was a heart check version of “What are you going to do now?” After all of the questioning and probing, the man did not begin to think, “Maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe that guy healed me is a sinner because he made mud.” He did not waver in unbelief about the power of the man that healed him.
I know in the present time, when a miracle occurs, people begin to ask questions, be skeptical, and look for a logical and scientific explanation (I’m talking about church people here) and after a while the person telling the tale can begin to explain the events in such a way that shows that God did not have to intervene. This man did not go down that road. Jesus gave him a moment to decide if he was going to stick with his faith in his Healer or recant, and when the man stuck with Jesus, Jesus stuck with Him.

God Makes the Filthy Beautiful

Published on 3/20/2009 in Bible Study. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

In Ezekiel 16, God talks about finding Israel out in the field as he was passing by. She was lying in her blood-a newborn whose cord hadn’t even been cut. This was the ancient method of abortion, to have the baby and then dump it in a field. They didn’t even bother cutting the cord because if they were just going to let the ‘thing’ die, why bother taking any care of it at all. The child and the placenta were treated with the same care. How awful.

I have seen the scarring, dismembering effects of poor medical care. Numerous people in poverty all over the world are crippled, blind, deaf, or dead simply because a completely preventable illness was not treated properly. I know a guy in Africa that had a little girl in his neighborhood that was being left to die of malaria. She was still a part of the family, etc, but they were just going to let her die in her fever. He paid the 72¢ for the medicine and she was treated and has now lived on for years.

So here is Israel, dumped out from the beginning in a field and left to die, and God cares for her. Not only that, but she blossoms into beauty. This girl should have been disfigured and scarred at the least from her poor care, but God cared for her to such an extent as to help her grow up beautiful too.

Twice God cleans Israel from her uncleanliness. First it is the uncleanliness of birth, second the uncleanliness of maturity (menstruation). Israel needed purifying at the beginning as they got rid of their Egyptian ways and idol dependance, but they needed cleaning again once they became a mature nation (actually they needed it again and again and again) so that they could be the Mother of Blessing to the whole world. (don’t freak out-just keeping in the metaphor. I’m not into that God is our Mother garbage.)

Israel needed to mature and be united with God, but as she matured she grew into new forms of uncleanliness. God purified her from those and cleaned her up, now not just making her a beautiful child but a beautiful bride.

I’m going to stop there for today, because what Israel did after all of that is heartbreaking, and much more so when you realize what great things God has done.

Of course, it’s all a DIRECT parable into our lives. Who of us, when lost and without God, was anything more than a bloody child abandoned in a field? And who of us, after being picked up by God our Savior, has not been cleaned up and made beautiful? (even if, in the case of some of us, only in His sight :P )

Random Notes on John 9

Published on 3/12/2009 in Bible Study. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

<<<2009.03.10>>>
some random notes:
Midrash Rabbah on Song of Songs 1:41 (another later rabbinic work) states that when a pregnant woman worships in a heathen temple the fetus also commits idolatry. This is only one example of how, in rabbinic Jewish thought, an unborn child was capable of sinning. (http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1318)

Genesis Rabbah 63:6 says that Esau committed idolatry. The Rabbis couldn’t come to grips with the fact that YHWH would allow a ‘bad’ thing to happen to someone, or that God would curse someone from birth, so they deduced that Esau must have committed idolatry in the womb.

There were a lot of rabbinical debates in Jesus’ day, and the disciples and the Pharisees often asked Jesus about them to find out whose side he was on. The issues of taxes, resurrection, and divorce, were other controversies in Jesus’ day. As I think about those questions, I don’t remember Jesus EVER giving a straight answer, but always cut through the politics to the heart issue. I wish I could do that as people at work talk about stem cells and evolution.

<<<2009.03.12>>>
Looking at my notes from the 10th, wondering about how throughout all history people have really had trouble with the idea of ‘bad’ things coming from God. All of the advice given to Job is based on him deserving it b/c he must have sinned, but we get a look at the very beginning that he is about as righteous as a man can get!
Then I think about Jesus being THE most righteous and undeserving person on earth getting crucified, and that God wanted that!  Isaiah 53.10

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

The wisdom of the wise is confounded and the ways of the Lord are as high above our ways as the stars are above the land. Even the simplest switch in thinking needed an absolute miracle to be comprehended. The switch from seeing hardship as punishment for sin to seeing hardship as a method for God to reveal His Glory is so hard to believe that a man had to be born blind, then healed illegally (kneading on the Sabbath) to help us believe in it!

Singular Experience and The Patient Power to Heal

Published on 3/6/2009 in Bible Study. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

John 9 (ESV) As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, c “Rabbi, d who sinned, e this man or f his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but g that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must h work the works of him who sent me i while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, j I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, k he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. l Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in m the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and n came back seeing.

Last night I told this story to the boys for their bedtime story and I realized that this man was blind for YEARS and lived a hard life for YEARS just so that the glory of God could be displayed in his life at this moment. We talk in our culture about “Experiencing God” and all sorts of feelings and events, but what if only one thing happened in your whole lifetime? Would you still follow Him? Our relationship with God should not be one like a dad trying to take a picture of his baby son. The dad makes a million noises and jumps around just to keep the baby looking at the camera, and the minute the dad is silent, the baby turns and crawls away. We should not be so with God.

This man had struggled through life as a blind beggar and God knew every moment of it. He knew the pain frustration of the blind man’s parents, and every blaming conversation they had with each other as all the other kids learned to read the Torah and help their parents with housework. Regardless of cause or origin, God saw all of that and on this day when the man was ‘of age’ as his bitter parents say later, God made His Son walk past Him with the power to heal.

One note that I saw mentioned a man in recent time that was born blind and had an operation as an adult that restored his sight. He had great difficulty for a while, because had to be taught a lot about color and vocabulary, since all his life he had heard, touched, smelled, and tasted things without seeing them. The note said that Jesus did even more than give the man sight, but did something to his mind to comprehend everything that he could suddenly see. That would fit right with the lame people being able to instantly walk and dance without a slow rehab process. It just goes to show that when Jesus heals, He does it completely.