The events that are unfolding in the United States are troubling from many angles. Many Christians pinned their immediate and long term hopes on Donald Trump. With Biden as President, the fight against the killing of the unborn has been dealt a significant blow.
But there are many other problems. The racial divide, polarization, political fringe groups, extreme rhetoric, threats of violence, conspiracy theories, fake news, increasing control of popular speech by private monopolies of information, an abandonment of all semblance of non-bias by media, our ability to choose our own tailored news, hatred for people who don’t think like us, an unwillingness to show respect, listen and engage in real dialogue – these are things that are deeply troubling in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”.
To my brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus said we would have tribulation in this world. He didn’t tell us to take up arms and fight it. He said we should follow him, spread the Gospel and make disciples.
His kingdom is not of this world. Jesus didn’t come to empower the Zealots, but to turn them into self-sacrificing servants of God and His kingdom – spreading the Gospel and making disciples.
Islam spreads by the sword. The Gospel spreads by people who wash others’ feet, turn the other cheek and love God, neighbors and even enemies. The Christian wields not a political flag, but a cross that he carries on his own back.
If we are going to fight for the mission of Jesus, our fight should be “to proclaim good news to the poor… to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”. (Luke 4:18-19) This was how Jesus described his own purpose on the day when he stood up in the temple and announced his ministry.
A lion from Ishtar Gate of Babylon built by King Nebuchadnezzar II in about 575 BC.. The piece is located in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, in Istanbul, Turkey.
We all have them. I suspect that most dreams are just subconscious streams of thoughts and emotions played out in disconnected images in the twilight between full sleep and consciousness. They might be interesting to a psychologist, but we can hardly count on them for meaningful information or guidance.
Some people believe that all dreams have some meaning, and some people believe that dreams have external meaning and significance (not just internal, psychological meaning and significance). Though I question that, I don’t discount that God can speak to us through the medium of dreams.
For as much attention people give them, dreams are not a prominent feature of biblical focus. The dreams that come to my mind are the dreams of Pharaoh and the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar. One of those dreams stands out to me, not so much because of the dream, itself, or its interpretation, but the response to it.
We need a little backstory first, though. Nebuchadnezzar could be ruthless, as kings often were. When he had a dream that troubled him in the second year of his reign (see Daniel 2), he called in his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what his dream was. They were eager to interpret it, but the king had something else in mind.
The King said that he had determined before summoning them that they must tell him what the dream was and interpret it or he would them “cut into pieces” and their homes “turned into piles of rubble”! I’m sure they were a bit less eager, but they pressed him, “Tell your servants the dream, and we will interpret it.”
They didn’t understand him (or they didn’t want to understand him), so he clarified his demand again: “I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you realize that this is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me the dream, there is only one penalty for you.” The King wanted them to tell him what his dream was. He figured if they could tell him what his dream was they could interpret it for him also.
They protested, “There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks!” Still, the King had them all executed. He would have executed Daniel also, but Daniel prayed to God and was shown the King’s dream during the night so that he was able to describe the dream and interpret it.
But this isn’t the dream I want to focus on. The interpretation of the dream in Daniel 2 was benign and foretold the distant future after the King’s life. King Nebuchadnezzar had another dream that is described in Daniel 4, and the interpretation of this dream was anything but benign.
To make a long dream short, the King dreamed of a mighty tree and a messenger from heaven who called out: “Cut down the tree and trim off its branches; strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit.” The messenger continued: “Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him live with the animals among the plants of the earth. Let his mind be changed from that of a man and let him be given the mind of an animal, till seven times pass by for him.”
Last, but not least, the messenger said that this is “the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of people.”
Daniel was “terrified” when the king called on him to interpret this dream, and the reason becomes apparent quickly enough. The King didn’t hesitate to execute the men who couldn’t tell him what his dream was. What would he do when the interpretation isn’t to his liking?
Daniel explained it despite the terror he felt. He said the dream was a decree from God against the King. Daniel told him he would be driven away from his people to live with the wild animals until he renounced his sins, repented of his wickedness, did what is right and acknowledged God.
imagine that Daniel trembled a bit as he spoke those last words! Who tells the King to repent and change his ways?… and lives to tell of it!
But the King doesn’t have Daniel executed. He unreasonably put to death the men who couldn’t tell him what his dream was, but he didn’t punish Daniel for the extremely unfavorable interpretation of the second dream.
That puzzled me a bit previously, but I had a dream the other night, and I think I understand it now. Let me explain how.
I am starting a new Bible reading plan for the year, beginning in the beginning: in Genesis. Reading through the rich text of Genesis again I am seeing some things I hadn’t noticed before. Consider the following (with my emphasis added):
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruitafter their kindwith seed in them‘; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seedafter their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:11-12
“God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’“
Genesis 1:21-22
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind‘; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.”
Genesis 1:24-25
Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it….'”
I color-coded the various provisions that form the pattern that informs my thinking today. The provisions in each color correspond with the other provisions of the same color.
Now, let me see if I can put all my thoughts together in a coherent whole.
First of all, God ordered (in the sense of designed) all living beings to multiply after they own kind. We see this everywhere in nature: apple trees produce seeds that grow into new apple trees; asparagus plants produce seeds that grow into new asparagus plants; lions beget lions; polar bears beget polar bears; yellow polka dotted salamanders beget yellow polka dotted salamanders; bluefin tuna beget bluefin tuna; and purple finches beget purple finches.
This is the order of living things. Not only that, but we now know that something (call it evolution or something else) works powerfully within living beings to reproduce and even to adapt with changes over time.
Every living thing bears seed or otherwise reproduces more of its kind. Human beings included, but only humans are made in the image of God. (Hold that thought.)
God “blessed” the living things He created, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply” and fill the earth. (Gen. 1:22) He also blessed man who God made in His own image, and gave similar blessing/order: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it….” (Gen. 1:28)
Note that God “ordered” (as in designed) the living things He created to reproduce after their kinds and to be fruitful and multiply, but God ordered – as in not only designed, but commanded – man to do the same. The difference is an important key to understanding what God is doing.
Unlike the other living creatures that are designed to reproduce and multiply after their kinds, humans have some agency in the matter. God designed them for the same purpose, but He also commanded them to do it – and gave them agency in doing it – because humans are created in the image of God who has agency – the ability to exercise will and to do (or not do) things.
Humans, of course, had no choice in their creation, but they do have choice in whether to “participate in God’s design” and how they would participate in God’s design. This choice was demonstrated in the one tree in the garden that was forbidden to them.
It was a real choice, and it had real consequences. It had to have real consequences or it wouldn’t have been a real choice. That choice was part of what it meant to be made in the image of God. Without the ability to choose, humans would have been just like the other living things God created. The ability to choose set humans apart.
As the story goes, humans ate the fruit of the one tree that was forbidden.
They exercised the choice God gave them. In eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, humans opened up their world to all the ways they might choose to go against the order of creation.
Throughout Genesis 1, we read over and over again that what God did “was good” (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). If what God designed was good, choosing to operate counter to that design would be evil (the opposite of good).
None of this is very revelatory so far, but I am getting there.
Genesis 1 reminds me of 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul says:
God gives [all living things] a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
1 Corinthians 15:38-39
The order/design of life – of reality – is immutable. Life is ordered the way God created it, though humans have some choice (within limits) of whether to align with God’s design or to buck against it. Indeed, the story of the fall is the story of humans exercising that choice, God built into His design an adaptation (if you will) to accomplish His ultimate plan.
From the sermon I heard today, I have come away with a couple of things that I am meditating on. One is personal – my need to get over myself. The need to crush the pride in me that wants to appear respectable. The desire to be liked and honored by people.
I believe God is speaking these things to me, and I need to listen and respond. I can’t be afraid to speak the truth because of fear that some people will think me a fool. I need to be willing to appear foolish for the sake of the Gospel. I confess these things today (and ask you to pray for me if you feel so compelled).
The other thing is something God has been laying on my heart over many years now. A more prophetic message for the church, the body of Christ. It goes all the way back to my earliest reading of Scripture when I noticed that the focus of the harshest words Jesus spoke was directed at the Pharisees – the religious leaders (and presumably the people who followed them).
The year 2020 will be remembered as a year of hardship and difficulty, but the ways in which people reacted to those hardships may be longer lasting than those difficulties themselves. I am thinking specifically of the religious people in the United States when I say this.
The sermon today was about the story of Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax collector who was short in stature. A more despised person one might not be able to imagine.
Tax collectors were sellouts to the Roman occupiers for personal gain. They not only collected the taxes imposed by Roman rulers; they used their position and authority to collect more than was required to line their own pockets.
Tax collectors took advantage of the Roman occupation to gain wealth for themselves at the expense of their own people. They turned their backs on fellow Hebrews and were, therefore, despised by them (and likely by the Romans as well for the same reason).
We might have a modicum of compassion and understanding for a prostitute washing the feet of Jesus with her tears, or the adulterous, Samaritan woman at the well, or the woman caught in the very act of adultery who was brought to Jesus to be stoned. Zacchaeus, though, was a man people could love to hate.
He was an outcast of a different kind. He was an outcast by choice. He wasn’t a victim of his own weakness. He exploited the weakness of his own people to benefit himself. He was alone because he chose exploitation as a way of life over family, friendship, compassion, faith and doing what was right.
It’s no wonder that, when Jesus called Zacchaeus down from the tree and invited himself to his house for a meal and fellowship, the crowd was indignant.
Of all the people Jesus could have chosen, why in the world did Jesus choose this guy? Didn’t he know who he was and what he did for a living?
Nothing would likely have stirred the indignation of moralistic, self-righteous, religious people then this!
Many of the reputable, religious people were not fans of Jesus to begin with. They had already judged who Jesus was. He came from Nazareth, a small town of little influence and lesser reputation. Does anything good come out of Nazareth.[1] (John 1:46)
Many more “common” people were saying Jesus was a prophet, and even the Messiah. Jesus seemed to encourage them. He didn’t say he wasn’t, but the Messiah was supposed to come from the line of David, the seed of Jesse, from Bethlehem, the City of David, the place where David was born.[2]
The religious people knew their Scripture.
They knew their Scripture, but they jumped to conclusions about Jesus that were incorrect. Though Jesus was from Nazareth, he was also born in Bethlehem like David was, and his parents were from the line of David.
The Pharisees applied their undeniable scriptural knowledge, but they judged by appearances, rather than giving more careful consideration to the matter. Once they came to a conclusion about Jesus, they were unwilling to consider alternative possibilities.
The crowd present when Jesus invited himself into the home of Zacchaeus included Pharisees and moralistic, self-righteous, religious followers of the Pharisees (the blind leading the blind, as Jesus called them), who criticized Jesus for associating with tax collectors (and other sinners). Some of these people were very likely in the crowd that would demand that Pontius Pilate “crucify him”!
Does anyone doubt that Jesus would be just as critical of the moralistic, self-righteous, religious people today if he lived among us?
Have people changed in the last 20 centuries? The writer of Ecclesiastes suggests the answer when he said, “There is nothing new under the sun”, centuries before Jesus.
Who are the Pharisees of today and their religious followers?
We struggle with the same issues and the same tendency for sinfulness. Jesus came to his very own! The Hebrews, of all the people on earth who should have recognized him and received him, but they didn’t recognize him. They rejected him.
They knew the Scriptures. They could recite Scripture by heart. They studied to show themselves approved. They knew right doctrine. They were proud of their religious heritage. They were pious, moral, upstanding, devoted, reputable people who had not sold out their birthright for personal profit.
But they were dead wrong about Jesus.
These are words of warning to us today. Perhaps, we should not to be so quick with our judgments or so slow to consider other alternatives.
The warning is all the more poignant for the religious among us. The interaction of Jesus with the Pharisees and the moralistic, self-righteous, religious people in the first century crowds is no less a warning for moral, upstanding, reputably religious people today than it was for them.
The Adoration of the Magi; Border with the Queen of Sheba before King Solomon, from a prayer book of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (text in German), Bruges, Belgium, about 1525-30, Simon Bening. The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Matthew provides us the story of the Magi priests (not kings) visiting Jesus with gifts “from afar”. Magi is a Zoroastrian term referring to “dream interpreting astrologers-astronomers from Persia or Mesopotamia who possessed secret knowledge”.[i] We don’t know the actual number, though three is the popular legend.
The number was postulated by Origen in the Third Century based on the number of gifts they brought: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The Feast of the Epiphany, which was first celebrated in Alexandria, Egypt, at the end of the Second Century or beginning of the Third Century (the home of Origen), celebrates the appearance of God to the world who became flesh in the person of the Christ child.
The arrival of the Magi is acknowledgement of the worldwide, universal significance of the event.
“Matthew’s story about travelers following the trail of a mysterious star was all about including ‘foreigners’ in the Christmas story. Matthew showed Gentiles—in other words non-Jews, people who worshipped so-called pagan gods—acknowledging Jesus as king and, presumably, savior.”
The universal availability of Jesus beyond the Jewish community into which Jesus was born to the world is built right into the beginning of the narrative in Matthew. It resonates with Paul’s letters in which he maintains, to his own detriment among his fellow Jews, that Christ came for Jew and Gentile, alike.
That the offering of God in the flesh to the world which is built into the very beginning of the story was first celebrated in the Feast of the Epiphany in Northern Africa is intriguing to me. Though the Magi would have come from a different area of the world, the point of the story is the universality of Christ.
We also forget how prominent in early Christian history was the African church. This intrigues me as well.
The story in Matthew is only 12 verses long (Matt. 2:1-12). A longer version of the story exists in one other manuscript, the “Revelation of the Magi”.[ii] This Syriac text that was translated into English only recently is apocryphal and likely dates to the Second or Third Century.[iii] It depicts the wise men coming from Shir, which is in China today.
Like many apocryphal texts, it smacks of myth and legend (the star they follow comes down and transforms into the baby Jesus). It is a whimsical story, perhaps, like the Chronicles of Narnia.
While the Revelation of the Magi is apocryphal and fantastical in its details, the idea that men came from the Far East is not. The Spice Route that comes into Jerusalem connects all the way to China and can be observed still today.
I have meditated before on the thought that Jesus came at just the right time in history when much of the known world was unified by a system of Roman roads and order opening the world to the west and north (to the British isles) for the spread of the Gospel. So also, we see that the Spice Route opened the world for the spread of the Gospel to the east, just as other trade routes allowed the Gospel to spread south into Africa, with Alexandria being one of the three pillars of early Christian authority.
While I am very familiar with Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles and faithful devotion to the promise God made to Abraham to bless all the nations through his seed, I had not noticed the significance of the Magi in the Gospel of Matthew (a more Jewish-orientated Gospel).
Navigating by Faith 