Category: redemption

Jesus Wept with Mary, Though He Knew the Joy to Come

We live in a world in which Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, knowing that he was going to raise him from the dead.

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NT Wright commented to Justin Brierley in the 39th episode of Ask NT Wright Anything, “We live in a world in which Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, knowing that he was going to raise him from the dead.”

Jesus was able to identify with and feel the crushing sorrow and the intense grief that the family and friends of Lazarus felt. When Jesus saw Mary, the sister of Lazarus weeping, he wept too. (John 11:32-33) Jesus felt her grief, and it moved him to tears.

Jesus weeping at the tomb of his friend, Lazarus, of course, reveals his humanity, his empathy and the fact that he felt the range of human emotions that we feel in our own lives. Imagine God taking on our form and experiencing what we experience!

The most remarkable aspect of this story, for me, is that Jesus felt the grief of the loss of a loved one and was moved to tears even though he knew he was going to raise him from the dead. He wept with grief though he know that joy would follow the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

In this way, we see that God doesn’t minimize our grief and suffering. He is able to identify with it because he felt the crush of it as we feel it.

He felt the crush of human grief even though he knew the miracle he was about to perform.

Perhaps, Jesus was weeping for all the people who feel grief without assurance or confidence or hope. Surely, Jesus had more than merely hope. He knew that he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, but he also realized that his friends, the friends and family of Lazarus, didn’t know or appreciate what he was about to do.

Even though Jesus told the friends of Lazarus that he was doing “to wake him up” (John 11:11), and he told Martha, “Your brother will rise again,” they didn’t fully understand or appreciate what Jesus was saying. (John 11:23) They didn’t feel the assurance or confidence or hope that Jesus had.

I imagine Jesus also thought in those moments of all the people in the world who mourn without assurance, confidence or hope in the face of death. This is the human condition, and Jesus fully embraced it. He fully felt the weight of it, and it caused him to weep with them.

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The Redemption of Korah: the Sons of Korah

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

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Have you ever heard of the rebellion of Korah? How about the Sons of Korah? The rebellion of Korah and the Sons of Korah have a connection with each other, and the connection is fascinating.

The rebellion of Korah occurred during the 40 years Moses led the nation of Israel in the wilderness following God’s miraculous deliverance of the people out of captivity in Egypt. Korah rose up during their time of desert wandering and rallied a group of people to oppose Moses.

Korah was a grandson of one of Levi’s three sons (Kohath). He was a Levite, which meant that he was involved in the Levitical duties of caring for the tent of meeting and the tabernacle where God’s “presence” resided in the midst of the people. The Levitical duties were sacred and honorific.

The Kohathites were specifically in charge of caring for the Ark of the Covenant, the table, lamp stand, altars, articles of the sanctuary and the curtain behind which the priests performed the sacred rituals God passed down to Moses. (Numbers 3) Unlike the other Levites who were allowed to transport their items in carts, the Kohathites were required to hand carry their items.

The Ark of the Covenant was particularly sacred, of course, but the Kohathites may have been jealous of the ease enjoyed by the other priests who didn’t have to hand carry the items for which they were responsible. We don’t know. The text doesn’t tell us.

The text does tell us that Korah and several others rallied 250 other men in public opposition to the authority of Moses. They claimed that all the people of Israel are holy, and they questioned why Moses and Aaron “exalted themselves” above everyone else. (Numbers 16:3) They might as well have said more pointedly, “Who put you in charge?!”

Moses responded by challenging Korah and his followers to put the issue before God. He said, “This is how you will know that the LORD has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea.” (Num. 16:28)

As the story goes, they gathered publicly before all the people in front of the Tent of Meeting, each man with incense burning in censors. This is how Moses and Aaron faced off with the contentious lot led by Korah. I am really not sure of the point of this faceoff. If anyone has any insight, post in the comments below.

In any event, God warned Moses, and Moses warned the crowd to stand back. When he finished talking, the ground opened up and “swallowed” up the 250 men rebels that supported Korah in his opposition to Moses. (Numbers 16)

The story stands as a warning to those who are not content with their place in the world and people who get jealous of others to whom God has given greater responsibility and authority. God chose Moses and Aaron to lead the people. By opposing God’s chosen leaders, Korah and his band of rebels were ultimately opposing God and God’s authority.

From this story, I assumed that Korah and his clan were wiped out. The text seemed to imply that all his family were included in the 250 agitators. It turns out that my assumption was wrong, however, because the “sons of Korah” appear many generations later, and their place in the history of God’s people is truly intriguing.

Now, for the “rest of the story”, as Paul Harvey used to say.

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Herod, Mikvehs and the Religion Disconnect

Religion is often disconnected from the spiritual reality of the existence of God and who God is as revealed in Scripture.

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Ruins of King Herod’s fortified palace Machaeros, Jordan, Middle East.

A recent article on the discovery in 2016 of the mikveh uncovered at the site of King Herod’s palace at Machaerus on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea in modern Jordan got me thinking about a theme I have been contemplating for some time.[1] That theme is the disconnection between religious ritual and spiritual reality.

21st Century people might call that “disconnect” hypocrisy in the process of dismissing all religions and spiritual truth. That modern tendency to discount all religion in that way, and especially Christianity, reflects a lack of understanding that bothers me when I hear it. The recent discovery reminds why I feel this way.

Digging into the history of King Herod, the palace at Machaerus and the mikveh that was recently discovered there sheds some light on the subject and reminds me that there is much more than meets the modern eye. And, in some fundamental ways, nothing has really changed from then to now, and yet everything has changed at the same time.

Before we get into the meat of the matter, I should explain that a mikveh is a small pool or bath used in ritual purification. Thus, the discovery of a mikveh in King Herod’s palace indicates that the royal inhabitants engaged in the Hebrew purification ritual that was instructed in the Old Testament (the Torah).[2]

Of course, the instructions in the Torah were traditionally understood as religious in nature, though the ritual cleansing in mivka’ot (plural of mikveh) might be seen through the lens of modern science as good hygiene. The purification rite that were instructed would have inhibited the spread of contagious diseases and infection. But for them, with no understanding of modern hygiene, health and medicine, these practices were purely religious in nature.

With that in mind, what then is the significance of the discovery? How does it shed light on the disconnect between religious practice and spiritual reality? What is the nuance that modern people often miss in discounting everything they lump together as “religion”?

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When the Trees in the Fields Clap Their Hands

We tend to see the world through modern eyes colored by the enlightenment, rationalism and reductionism

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“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. ‘For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.’”
Isaiah 55:10-13 ESV

The language in these verses from Isaiah 55 are figurative. Will the mountains and hills really break forth into singing? Will the trees of the field clap their hands? (What hands do trees have?)

The language isn’t meant to be taken literally, but the language still conveys a truth: the world was created in response to God and awaits the fulfillment of God’s purposes for which He created it.

Just as the rain and snow produce the intended results of watering the earth, sprouting the seeds that grow up and produce grain, allowing the sower of the seed to produce bread, God’s word goes out and accomplishes the purposes for which it was intended. This is true from the beginning to the end.

God spoke the world into being. He set the heavens and the earth (the universe) into motion by His word. (2 Peter 3:5) The world came into being in response to God speaking. And the ultimate ends God has purposed will sprout (and have sprouted) into the seed that produces the material from which the sower ultimately accomplishes His end purpose.

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God is the Fulfillment of the Desires He Built into Us

We all have a conscience and a desire and need for the cleansing of our consciences.

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“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” Psalms 51:1-2 ESV

I have written about how we can’t throw out the Old Testament and accept the New Testament in its place, as modern sensibilities might suggest. (See, for instance, Jesus and the “Old Testament God”) The Old Testament is the seed for the New Testament. Everything revealed in the New Testament was first revealed in the Old Testament. The Old Testament finds its fulfillment in the New Testament.

It seems that 21st Century people tend to want to view “the Old Testament God” as something different from the God revealed in the New Testament by Jesus, but Jesus affirmed the Old Testament.  Jesus says that the Old Testament also anticipates and points toward him.

“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” Luke 24:27

The Bible verse of the day quoted above was prayed by David in Psalm 51. David expressed the desire of all of us when he asked God to have mercy on him, to “blot out” his transgressions, to wash away his iniquity and to cleanse him from his sins. We all have a conscience.

We all have failed our own consciences (let alone God’s standards), and we need cleansing and redemption. This is a deep longing within each one of us.

At the same time, we have the capacity to ignore our consciences and to deny that desire for cleansing and redemption. If we do that too often and too long, our consciences become callous and dull; the desire for redemption diminishes; and we no longer have the sensitivity God built into us that drives us toward Him.

C S Lewis talks about how our desires and our needs have a correlative reality in something that fulfills those desires and needs. He observes that we hunger, and there is food to meet that hunger; we thirst, and there is water to quench that thirst; we have sexual desires, and there is conjugal love we have with another person that fulfills that desire.

The satisfaction is only temporary, however. We have longings for more lasting satisfaction. That those desires are only temporally met and satisfied, says Lewis, suggests that there is something else, something more.

We also have a deeper and more fundamental longing within us to know God and to be known by God, for relationship with God and for eternal life. CS Lewis says that the reality we know, the satisfaction of temporary longings and desires, is some evidence of a more fundamental and satisfying reality that will fulfill our enduring and deepest longings.

The ancient writer of Ecclesiastes was, perhaps, thinking along these same lines when he said that God put eternity into our hearts, yet not so much that we know very much about it:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV

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