May 16th 2012

NOTE: This will be the last journal entry for awhile.

What does this story have to say to us in our lives?

Read Jonah 1 and journal some thoughts

There are times in our lives when God calls us to do hard things, some of them may seem impossible. In those moments we have a choice, we can choose to follow God and begin to do the impossible or we can choose to run. For Jonah, preaching salvation to such a horrible nation (and they did do very terrible things) was so much for him to bear and so he ran.

So many times in our lives, whether we mean to or not, we run from God. Like Jonah, when we run from God (Israel) we run towards hell (deep) here on earth. When we run, God sends storms. God doesn’t send the storms of life to punish us, or to get even with us in some sort of cosmic balancing act. God sends the storms of life to call us back to where He wants us to be, because the place He wants us to be is what is best for us.

Does this sound familiar? Does this at times remind you of the pattern that God works in our lives today? May you come to understand that God has bigger things planned for you than you could imagine, and may you see that the storms of life are God’s way of bringing you into that plan.

May 15th 2012

What has Jonah thinking telling them to throw him into the deep?

Read Jonah 1:7-16

Did Jonah really think God was going to send a large fish to swallow him up and spit him out a few days later right where he needed to go when he asked them to throw him in the water? Seems like a bit of a stretch, doesn’t it? If Jonah really wanted to, don’t you think he could have told the sailors to turn around and the storm would stop? There are so many possibilities for what could have happened, and yet Jonah asks them to throw him in the water; why?

Maybe a better question is why did Jonah ask them to throw him into the deep? To put it another way, why did Jonah ask them to throw him into hell? Remember, being a Jew he would have grown up being afraid of the water, so he’s not planning on swimming to Tarshish, so what is Jonah thinking?

Did you figure it out yet? Jonah wanted to die. His whole view of God was turned upside down by this call to preach salvation to the pagans, so he sells everything and goes to the deep. The storm breaks out and Jonah is sleeping down below while everyone else is in a panic. When blame falls on him, his request is to be thrown into the water and left to die. Jonah is completely done with life.

There are times in our lives when we just want to be done, as if things couldn’t possibly get any worse. It’s in those moments when we meet God, just maybe not always in the way we expect.

May 14th 2012

What is casting lots?

Read Jonah 1:7-8

Casting lots is something we see throughout the Scriptures, and it’s one of those things in the story where we need to ask ourselves what it’s all about. At its core, casting lots is about finding out what is the will of the gods, or of God.

Throughout the Scriptures we see God’s people casting lots to discover God’s will. One of the best examples of how this process worked is found in 1 Samuel 14 (especially 36-42), when Jonathan had tasted honey after his father made a decree not to eat anything. Trying to figure out who was guilty of sinning before God, they began to cast lots.

Now, casting lots for the was a matter of throwing 2 stones, one called “Urim” meaning “guilty” and the other “Thummim” meaning “innocent”. In the story of 1 Samuel, Saul and Jonathan stood on one side and the people on the other. The people were found innocent and Saul and Jonathan were found guilty. Next they cast lots between Saul and Jonathan and Jonathan was found guilty. This is how casting lots worked.

So what does this mean for us? We should note that the last recorded use of casting lots in the Bible comes from Acts 1:24-26, when the disciples were trying to choose Judas’ replacement. Why isn’t this method used after this? Why did Paul use this while he was trying to figure out where God wanted him to go next? It’s interesting the last usage of casting lots happens before the pouring of the Holy Spirit.

We have this amazing ability to be able to communicate with God in a clear way through His Spirit, the question for us is are we using this gift?

May 13th 2012

When we run from God, how does He draw us back to Him?

Read Jonah 1, especially verses 4-5

Storms really get a bad rap sometimes, don’t they? Traditionally we tend to view storms as God’s way of punishing us or getting back at us from something we’ve done. There are even people out there who try to find a cause behind every major catastrophe in our world. They may say that God sent this tornado because of this sin in their state, or in their country.

What’s interesting is as you look at the story of Jonah; God isn’t using this storm to punish Jonah is He? This raises the question; what is the purpose of this storm? (Hint: If you don’t know the rest of the story of Jonah, read it.) God isn’t using the storm to punish or cast judgment on Jonah; instead God is using the storm to bring Jonah back into His will for his life. God uses the storm eventually to bring Jonah to Nineveh.

There are times in our lives when we will face storms, and sometimes (if not most of the time) these storms will be God’s way of bringing us back to Him. In our world we have this mentality of building our own empires (whether big or small); we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps. So it’s easy for us to forget that God is even a part of our lives. It’s in those moments when storms may come to remind us that God desires more from us than to have the most toys, but a deeper relationship with Him.

May 12th, 2012

As we move on and begin to look at Tarshish and what running there meant for Jonah.

Read Jonah 1, especially verses 1-3

So many times when reading this story, it’s easy to put ourselves in Jonah’s place. Let’s face it we’ve all been in that spot where we’ve ran from God. When we run from God, how many of us simply ignore Him in whatever area He’s pushing us in, while still going to church on Sundays? We’ve compartmentalized how we run from God. That’s not what Jonah is doing here.

If we were to look on a map at the distance between Tarshish and Israel we would see that for an ancient Hebrew, it’s on the other side of the world. In fact scholars believe the trip during Jonah’s time would have taken about a year to complete. Think about what we talked about yesterday and the deep and how terrifying this would have been for a solid year.

Because this trip would have taken a year, let’s think about how much this would have cost. In our world, think about the cost of a yearlong cruise. Pretty expensive, right? Same is true for Jonah, only he didn’t live in a world of abundance and credit cards like we do. In order to pay for this trip, Jonah would have had to sell everything he owned.

This brings us to the sticky spot for us in our lives. For Jonah, running from God cost him more than he expected (WAY more if you read the entire story), and the same is true for us. When we run from God it usually cost us more than we realize and drags us further than we ever intended.

May 11th, 2012

Yesterday we looked a bit at why Jonah ran, today we’re going to explore what it means for Jonah that he runs.

Read Jonah 1 especially verses 1-3.

We have to begin here with how a good Jew would have viewed Israel. This begins with the question; where does God live? Obviously a Jew would say that God lives in the Temple in the Holy of Holies. So if you live in Israel you live with God. So following that logic, the further you move from Israel, the further you move from the presence of God in a very real way.

If Israel is the presence of God, what is the deep? For an ancient Jew the ocean is called the “deep” and the deep is the leftover chaos from creation, or to put it another way, hell. So taking a boat over the deep wasn’t just a boat ride, it was something deeper, something spiritual. It was to risk facing hell itself. For Jonah this should be a terrifying trip.

In our lives, there are times when we run from God. When we do, like Jonah, we risk facing chaos. Like Jonah our lives are surrounded with chaos

May 10th, 2012

Have you ever read the story of Jonah and asked yourself the question; why did he run? We expect this from some people, but a prophet of God? In order to help us to better understand this story, we are going to be spending a week in chapter one looking at how chapter sets up the rest of the story.

Read Jonah 1 especially verses 1-3 and journal some thoughts

As you read these 3 small verses, do you get the feeling that you’re missing something? The story begins with a prophet of God who hears from God, we get this. Then something happens, because in the very next verse he decides to run away. So, what’s that about? Why would a prophet of God run from God? What’s going on here?

The key to understanding this whole story comes from a single word in verse 2, “Nineveh”. Why is this such a big deal? Because many scholars believe this is the first time that God sends a prophet into a pagan nation to essentially preach for the salvation of that nation. Seriously think about it, how did God usually have His people deal with other nations? Yet here, God commands Jonah to go to this fish worshipping nation to preach about his God.

Could you imagine how much this call would have rocked Jonah’s world? This totally would have changed the way Jonah would have viewed how God worked in the world. So what does he do? This sort of thing isn’t in his job description, is it? These are the type of people who he wasn’t called to love. In fact it’s safe to assume based on what happens throughout this story that Jonah probably hated them. Yet God was calling him to go and preach their salvation.

What things is God calling us to do today that we never would have imagined. Who is God calling us to love today who we never would have thought of?

May 9th 2012

A few days ago we mentioned that as a rabbi Jesus would have been a master teacher, but what does that mean?

Read Matthew 19:13-15

As a rabbi, Jesus would have had to be considered a master teacher, but what does that mean? First of all, Jesus would have had to know (memorized) the Scriptures, secondly he would have had to know how to speak to people’s hearts. Finally Jesus would have had to have been sharp. As we read the Scriptures, we notice that Jesus seems to be very quick, but how often do we just assume it’s because he’s God?

As we look at this piece of Scripture, Jesus is in the middle of a sermon, when a bunch of kids come up an interrupt him, while their parents ask Jesus to bless them. This is why the disciples get upset and begin to rebuke them. It’s here in the midst of interruption that Jesus makes a point. He warns his disciples about keeping children from Jesus. What makes this such a powerful statement is not that long ago (Matthew 18:1-7) Jesus warns very strongly about keeping children from Jesus.

What is so incredible about Jesus here is he does all of this, on the spot in the midst of interruption. Think about how we react to interruptions. How often do we see interruptions as an opportunity to reveal Jesus to the world? Or do we see more of the disciples than Jesus in ourselves, and find that we’re just angry we didn’t get to do what we planned on doing?

May 8th 2012

What does it mean that Jesus was a “Carpenter”?

Read Mark 6:3

So many times we read that Jesus was the son of a “carpenter” (Matthew 13:33) or like in today’s scripture that Jesus himself was a “carpenter”. We understand that Jesus did this before the age of 30, when someone would be old enough to become a rabbi. But what does it mean that Jesus was a “carpenter”?

So often when we read this, we picture Jesus sitting down making wooden tables and chairs, we picture that scene in the Passion of the Christ where Jesus makes a very high table for rich people. Generally, when we think of Jesus being a carpenter we think of him working with wood. Problem with this is during the time of Jesus, the people of Israel used very little wood. So if there wasn’t a lot of wood work what did a “carpenter” do? The word “carpenter” in Greek is “Tekton” which means “craftsman”. One of the major resources they had in Israel was stones. They were used for construction, tools, and even food production. Jesus as a “craftsmen” would have worked primarily with stones.

So why is it important to picture Jesus working with stones? Check out Isaiah 51:1-2, and spend some time meditating on how we are stones from the same quarry as Abraham, Sarah, and all the great people of faith.

May 7th 2012

Did Jesus keep the Oral Law?

Read Mark 3:1-6 and journal your thoughts

First we need to talk about what the Oral Law was. If the Law or Torah was God’s Law, then the Oral Law was simply a set of interpretations of how to keep God’s Law, and over time the Oral Law turned into traditions. Normally, Christianity tends to look back at all these things and talk about how they’re not important anymore. The problem with this is that they seem to be very important to Jesus.

Notice in how Jesus asks this question about whether it’s keeping God’s Law if someone heals on the Sabbath? In their time there was this debate about how much someone could heal on the Sabbath without it being considered “work”. The general conclusion was you could heal to save a life, other than that you could heal as long as you didn’t have to touch the other person. If you had to touch them, then it could be considered to be work.

Jesus never touches the man. He heals him with his words. Have you ever wondered why sometimes Jesus heals with a touch and other times with just his words? Every time Jesus heals with his words it falls on the Sabbath (with one debatable exception I dare you to find it). Jesus is keeping the Oral Law.

This raises the question; if it was important to Jesus then should it be important to us?

May 6th, 2012

Is keeping the Law important to Jesus?

Read Matthew 9:18-26 and journal your thoughts

Have you ever been reading about God’s Law and thought that some of those commands were a bit trivial? Why do we need to do that? In Deuteronomy 22:12 God commands His people to make these tassels and to wear them on the corners of their robes (NOTE: how are you supposed to be tassels on the corners of round robes, since the robes God commanded the priest to wear are round?). God commands His people to do this to help remind them of His Law.

What’s crazy is God commands His people to wear these tassels twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. At some point wouldn’t that seem to be a bit trivial? Some of us put Scripture up on our mirrors or refrigerator, but after about a week or so how many of us even notice it anymore?

One thing we should note is this woman believes very much in a prophecy in Malachi 4:2 that talks about how the Messiah will have healing in his tassels (“wings”). What if Jesus decided not to wear the tassels that day? What would have happened to that woman if she touched his sandal or something else? Could it be if neither of them were faithful to God’s command, that woman would have died?

This story is a reminder that God is faithful to us when we are faithful to Him

May 5th 2012

Yesterday we looked at what it means that Jesus taught with “authority” today let’s look at where he got it.

Read Mark 1:9-11 and journal your thoughts

The question we need to ask is how did a rabbi get authority (S’mikeh)? Traditionally, a rabbi could only get authority from not one, but two other rabbis with authority. The two rabbis with authority would lay their hands on the other rabbi’s head and declare that they had “authority”. Where did they get this idea? In the book of Exodus when Moses choses 70 judges (advisors) to help him lead the Hebrews, they were anointed when both Moses and Aaron lay their hands on their heads. This is just one of those ideas that stuck with their culture, so this is how someone got authority.

So where did Jesus get his authority? Seriously, when was there a time when two rabbis with authority laid their hands on Jesus? In our Scripture for today we have the baptism of Jesus where John baptizes Jesus. Now John was a rabbi with authority, and we know this since he had disciples (NOTE: Only rabbis with authority had disciples). Also Jesus makes reference to this in Matthew 21:23-37.

So who is the other rabbi? Notice how in Mark 1 we see heaven torn open, and this Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove and proclaims “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus is the only rabbi in history to get his authority directly from God.

May 4th 2012

What does it mean that Jesus was a rabbi with authority?

Read Matthew 7:28-29

As we read through the Gospels we come across passage after passage that mentions how Jesus spoke with “authority”, but what exactly does that mean? In our culture, we imagine someone who speaks with authority maybe as someone who speaks very boldly or powerfully or maybe someone who is famous in some way. In Jesus day, a rabbi with “authority” meant something very specific.

During the time of Jesus there were two types of rabbis, the first were known as Torah-teachers. These were people who went all the way through the Jewish education system, and knew the Torah (1^st 5 books of the Old Testament) by memory. They were teachers of the Law, but could only teach what the community believed to be a proper teaching of the text. This is like being an ordained pastor; they are allowed to teach what is believed within their denomination. Torah teachers were also master teachers, meaning they knew how to speak to people’s hearts where they would get it. This is very different from teaching theology, this is practical, emotional teaching.

The second group of rabbis were rabbis with authority (S’mikeh). So what did it take to be one of these rabbis? First they had to have the entire Old Testament memorized, not just the Torah. Secondly they had to be master teachers (like the Torah teachers). Third they had to be recognized by the community. Another trait of these rabbis with authority is that most of these rabbis could heal people (Note: Only Jesus raised the dead). Ever wonder why people didn’t immediately believe Jesus after he healed someone? It was expected.

If you fit into these categories, then you could become a rabbi with authority. Now, these types of rabbis were extremely rare, in the 100 years around Jesus’ life there were a little over a dozen of these rabbis. Once a rabbi had authority, they would be able to make new teachings about what the Scriptures means, or how to live it out.

With this in mind, take some time and mediate on just how special Jesus was not just to us today, but who he was in his time.

May 3rd 2012

This week we are going to take a little time and get to know Jesus, who he was in their culture, where he lived, and why these things are important.

Read Mark 2:1-2

So often when we think about Jesus’ home we think of Nazareth, and thanks to the disciple Nathaniel (John 1:46) we think of Nazareth being a sort of backwoods place. Seriously, how often when we think of Jesus’ home do we get this sort of backwoods farm town image? But what we know from the Scriptures is that Jesus tends to base a large part of his ministry around Capernaum. In fact in today’s Scripture there is even a reference to it being a home.

This raises the question, what do we know about Capernaum? Contrary to the view of a backwoods farm town, Capernaum was considered to be the religious educational center during that time. Archeologists have found the remains of a massive synagogue school which would have been dated at the time of Jesus. In fact no other synagogue school from that time would have come close to its size.

So what does this mean for our understanding about Jesus? This means that Jesus is not some backwoods farm boy who comes out of nowhere to show all of these religious leaders what God is really doing. Instead Jesus was considered to be one of the best at what he did. That massive synagogue school would have been a place where Jesus would have taught. This would be like teaching at any Ivy League school today. This means the movement Jesus began wasn’t just with everyday people (which it was), but it was also with the religious elite, the driving force of what it meant to follow God in their day.

Today meditate for a bit on what it means that Jesus was considered to be (during his time) the best at what he did.

May 2nd 2012

So what is the lesson from this story?

Read Luke 4:13-30 and journal what you think the lesson is

The people of Nazareth thought that they were special because of where they were from, they thought they were good with God because the Messiah was going to (and eventually did) come from Nazareth. There are times when we in the church do the same thing. So many times we put our faith in our church, in the building, the denomination, the pastor, but we never really have faith ourselves.

The question Jesus raises with the people of Nazareth is the same for us where do we put our faith? In our church, our parents, our upbringing. Or do we find ourselves like the widow or the leper, people who don’t have the right upbringing, who don’t know all the answers, who may not even have a church home, but put their hope and their faith in God. Essentially, Jesus tells us that we don’t get the Kingdom of God because of where we are from, or which church we are a part of, or which denomination we are a part of, it’s our faith.

The question for us is does our faith look more like the Nazarenes or the widow? Are we putting our faith in the things around us, or are we in our deepest struggles in our most desperate hours putting our faith and trust in God?

May 1st 2012

Yesterday Jesus compared the people of Nazareth to the people of Israel during their most faithless times. How do you think they would respond?

Read Luke 4:13-30 especially verses 28-30 and journal some thoughts

To say that they were angry is a bit of an understatement! They are furious; they are on the verge of exploding! We are Nazarenes! How dare this rabbi say we don’t have enough faith! They are so angry that they set out to have him killed on the spot by stoning him.

In order to understand what happens next, we need to understand a little about stoning in their world. Traditionally the person to be stoned would be taken to a cliff which was about 18 feet tall, they would have their hands bound behind them. Then the victim would be given a chance to confess. Note if they confessed they were still stoned but they would then go to heaven. Then anyone who thought the victim was guilty would pick up a stone and throw it at the person. If the person survived the stoning (see Paul) that meant that God thought they were innocent.

So often when we read verse 30, we read something mystical into it. It’s almost like at this moment Jesus becomes a Jedi from Star Wars and does a mind trick on everyone as he walks through the crowd. But let’s ask ourselves a quick question; what has Jesus done wrong that would deserve stoning? He called them faithless, but that’s not a stonable offence. He claims to be Messiah, but once again Jesus was a rabbi with authority (S’mikah) and lots of S’mikah rabbis claimed to be Messiah, so nothing there worthy of being stoned. Jesus has done nothing wrong, he’s not guilty of anything and so he walks through the crowd untouched.

April 30th 2012

The people of Nazareth are excited, there is this rabbi in town who does miracles and claims to be the Messiah.  So they ask him to do a miracle like he’s done in Capernaum, and that’s when the story turns.

Read Luke 4:13-30 especially 4:24-27 and journal some of your thoughts

It’s when Jesus is accepted in his hometown that he drops this line about not being accepted in his hometown. Jesus then references two stories, one about Elijah who while there was a drought in Israel went to Zarephath (pagan country) and brought a widows son back from the dead. The second story is about Elisha who doesn’t heal people in Israel but heals Naaman a Syrian. It’s after he says this that the crowd gets angry and tries to kill him. We’ll talk about that tomorrow, but the question for today is what did Jesus say by referencing these verses, that made everyone so angry?

The first reference comes from 1 Kings 17, which begins with Israel experiencing a drought for 3 and a half years because of their faithlessness. During this time God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath which is pagan country and go to this widow who will feed you. As the story unfolds, she is the one who shows faith in God (seriously read 1 Kings 17). The second reference comes from 2 Kings 5 where Elisha heals Naaman (a Syrian – GASP) from his leprosy while he curses his disobedient servant (an Israelite) with the very disease the Syrian had.

If you were part of this Nazarene crowd, who believed so passionately that the Messiah would come from Nazareth, how would you respond to Jesus quoting these two stories about God’s servants healing foreigners while showing the weakness of the Israelites?

Meditate on this for today, what is Jesus telling these people?

April 29th 2012

It was right after Jesus finished speaking that the people began to yell “How dare he say such things!” and were about to stone them and Jesus slipped past them saying “No prophet is accepted in his hometown”. Well, not exactly.

Now read Luke 4:13-30 especially verse 22

So how did the people respond? So often we skip this next part and go straight to the ending, the people get angry and try to kill him. When we skip this next part we miss the point of his entire message.  It says that they spoke well of him and were amazed at his words, and of course they were! Here is a people who believed that the Messiah would come from their home town, and here is this rabbi with authority and he’s Joseph’s son. Joseph is one of ours! We knew it!

Can you feel the level of excitement building among the crowd? So many of them may have been ridiculed by other Jews for their belief and yet here is this rabbi from Nazareth, performing miracles. After all, they heard about the miracles Jesus performed in Capernaum (verse 23).

Then things turn, when the crowd asks Jesus to do a miracle.

April 28th 2012

What happens next?

Read Luke 4:13-30, especially verse 21.

Traditionally after the readings the person reading would give a short talk (Derasha) about what this means. In our world this would be like a short testimony time. This would be followed by a series of question and answers. In verse 20, it mentions that Jesus sat down; in their culture they would stand for the reading of God’s word and sit for the reader’s words. Then it says that everyone’s eyes were fixed on Jesus, it’s almost like they were on the edge of their seat waiting to hear what he had to say next. Then Jesus begins to talk in what is considered to be one of the shortest talks (Derashas) in history when he says “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Now imagine you are a Nazarene, knowing this is a special rabbi with authority (S’mikah), who has been performing miracles. Again, remember that the Nazarenes believed the Messiah would come from Nazareth. What would you be thinking here as Jesus utters these words of testimony? 

April 27th 2012

Jesus begins to speak in the synagogue, let’s take a look at what this means.

Read Luke 4:13-30

Before we look at what Jesus said, it’s important to understand why he said it. In the synagogue anyone could read Scripture, from a young teenager to the oldest in the town. In order to read there your name had to be put on a list of reading and they would read some from the Torah (Torah reading) and some from the rest of the Old Testament (Haftarah reading). What is interesting is they had a schedule for the readings, and they were designed to go through the Torah once a year and the rest of the Old Testament every 3 years. This schedule was set up over 200 years before Jesus. This means the passage Jesus reads isn’t one he chose but one he knew for a long time he was going to read. So as we go through the rest of this story, meditate on how God planned everything.

So what did it say? Jesus reads out of Isaiah 61, this is talking about a time when God was going to put everything back together. God is going to free the captives and bring justice on their enslavers. There will be no more shame and they will inherit a double portion of land (Take some time and read all of Isaiah 61). Sort of sounds like the coming of the Messiah, right?

Knowing what you know about the people of Nazareth, what do you think their reaction would be to this rabbi, reading this reading?

April 26th 2012

This week we are going to try something a little different, we are going to take everything we’ve been learning and put it into practice. We are going to look at the same passage of Scripture all week breaking it down bit by bit to really understand what’s going on.

Read Luke 4:13-30

Today we are going to begin by asking where this story takes place and why that’s important to everything that follows. When some of us read this story we immediately recognize it as Jesus going to his home town, speaking, and being rejected. Usually this story is summed up by the phrase in verse 24 “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.” But there is a major problem with that, mainly that it’s wrong (at least at first).

So what do we know about Nazareth? We know that Nazareth was founded by people returning from the Babylonian exile, but these people had at least one belief that was very different from everyone else. The Nazarene’s believed the Messiah would come from Nazareth. Because they believed this the Nazarene’s were viewed as a cult and they were looked down on to others in their society (See Luke 1:46). 

Where did the Nazarene’s get this idea? If you look at Isaiah 11:1 we see this reference to one coming from the branch of Jesse, as we keep reading in Isaiah 11 we discover that it sounds a whole lot like the Messiah. Now the word used here for “branch” is “netzer” which is also the root of the word Nazareth. So obviously the Messiah will come from Nazareth. What’s interesting is that Matthew makes this connection as well in Matthew 2:23 when he refers to the prophecy that says “He shall be called a Nazarene”.  Problem is there is no such prophecy.

So as you think about this verse this week, meditate on how the people listening to Jesus excepted the Messiah to come from their town.

April 25th 2012

Why are you born sick?

Read John 9:1-7 and journal your thoughts

Yesterday we talked about how today we would consider the people of Jesus time to be very superstitious, and we totally understand why. Today we have the luxury of science to explain why certain things happen to certain people (and there are still some mysteries for us to discover). As a way to explain these mysteries they put some of their logical pieces together into what we would call superstitions. One of these superstitions deal with the question of why someone would be born with a sickness or a defect, like we see in John 9:2.

The disciples, seeing how Jesus has changed many of their traditional views of how the world works decide to ask their rabbi about it. Traditionally they believed if something bad happened to someone it was because of some sin they had committed, but what about someone who was (to quote Lady Gaga) born that way? Obviously it must be their parent’s sin that caused this person to be blind right, or could it be that God knew of some future sin and punished him now?

Jesus takes the whole debate and turns it upside down, by saying it’s no one’s fault but this has happened to that God’s power would be revealed, then Jesus heals the man. This raises the question for us, when we see people going through trying situations what do we do? Sometimes it’s easy for us to say something like “Well, God has a plan” and then leaven them. Or do we become like Jesus and do everything we can to help them through their situation?

Today may you see moments to heal others and may you step into those moments

April 24th 2012

What are some of the images in the Scriptures?

Read John 6:35 and journal your thoughts

It seems like most of us when we read this piece of Scripture have a sort of vague understanding of what it means. We say that Jesus is like bread or food and that like food Jesus keeps us alive spiritually. And sure, that’s partially right, but is there something deeper to it.

In their culture, bread wasn’t just food, but a symbol for the deepest sustenance of life. During the time of Jesus the Roman’s occupied Israel, and like a good occupier they limited or rationed the amount of bread Israel could have. Food was scarce, and people were hungry. There must have been times when the idea of being fed must have felt like it was the deepest sustenance of life.

It’s in this environment when Jesus says that he is the bread of life. Jesus is saying that we were made for more than just survival, but there is something inside of us that longs for and was created for more. We were created for this deep, passionate relationship with God. That is what Jesus and his teachings are to us, they show us how to have that deep, passionate relationship with the Father.

In our world, there are so many things trying to be the deepest sustenance of life to us. If we’re honest most of it is stuff that once we have it we begin to look for something else. The problem is these things are not what our souls are really craving. In reality we crave because we are hungry for the bread of life.

Today may you deepen your relationship with the Father if only for an extra minute a day, and may you discover the deepest sustenance of life.

April 23rd 2012

In yesterday’s passage, have you even wondered why they thought Jesus was a ghost?

Read Matthew 14:25-27 and journal your thoughts

So the disciples are on a boat on the water and they see Jesus walking on the water and their first reaction is that it’s a ghost, does this seem a bit strange to you? Why would they instantly assume it’s a ghost?

To help us with this one we have to understand two things about the way the Jews thought, and the first is we have to understand how a Jew would have seen the water. Remember the disciples are on the Sea of Galilee, and this is key because a sea is not running or living water, but it’s stationary, stagnant. They would call it part of the “deep”. Remember from Genesis 1, at first everything was chaos, God’s Spirit was hovering over the “deep”.  For the Jew the “deep” was the left over chaos from creation. In a word, the “deep” was hell. (NOTE: Look at how many times David talks about the “deep” in the Psalms. 42:7, 69:1, 130:1 just to name a few. Also note that some translations use words like “depths” and “waters”, but we miss the imagery.)

The second thing we have to consider is that compared to the way that we think in the church, they were very superstitious, and as part of this they believed in ghosts. They also believed that if a person sat under a certain tree at a certain time of the day they would be demon possessed. There were a lot of things in this ancient society that they simply didn’t know, so of course they had superstitions.

So why do the disciples think Jesus is a ghost? Because they are riding a boat over the deep, what else could it be?

Today may you read the Scriptures with new eyes and discover new truths. 

April 22nd 2012

The worst sin is teach people to believe in God and not teach people that God believes in you –Ancient Rabbi

Read Matthew 14:22-33 and journal your thoughts

In our culture, when we talk about being a disciple of Jesus, we tend to water it down a bit and define it as someone who believes in Jesus as their savior, but to be a disciple in Jesus culture was something totally different. In Jesus day, to be a disciple of a rabbi meant that you wanted to be exactly like your rabbi. You wanted to walk like them, talk like them, think like them, everything.

In Matthew 14:22-33, the disciples are on a boat and Jesus comes walking out towards them, and at first they think he’s a ghost. Jesus tells them who he is and Peter’s first reaction is to get out of the boat and do what Jesus is doing. Why? Because his rabbi is doing it and if his rabbi did something, then the assumption was that he could do it. And he actually does it!

At least for a little while, because Peter sees the wind and got scared so he begins to sink. Jesus picks him up and asks him why he doubted. Here is where we usually assume that Peter doubts Jesus, but Jesus isn’t sinking. Who does Peter doubt? Himself. Peter doesn’t believe that he can do what Jesus does, he’s not sure that he can be just like his rabbi and so he begins to sink.

What about us? Do we really believe that we can be just like Jesus? We say “well of course not, we’re sinners and he was perfect.” Right, but so were the disciples! So do we believe that we can become just like Jesus? What’s interesting about this story of Peter is that Jesus believed that Peter could do it; otherwise he wouldn’t have called him out. Do you realize that Jesus believes you can become like him, just like he believed in Peter?

Today may you realize that Jesus believes in you even more than you believe in yourself.

April 21st 2012

During our Easter discussions we looked at how when Mary washed Jesus feet with oil she was actually anointing him as a king. We talked about how a king would have been anointed with oil to have the fragrance of a king then paraded among his people (See Triumphant Entry). We also talked about how the fragrance of the oil would have stayed with Jesus all the way through his death. What does all this mean for us?

Read 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 journal your thoughts

Did you catch it? As followers of Jesus we are called to be the fragrance or aroma of Christ. So what does that mean? Just like Jesus had the fragrance of a king everywhere that he went and in everything that he did during that last week, in the same way we are supposed to represent Jesus is everywhere we go and in everything we do.

So what does this look like lived out? No this doesn’t mean that we need to smell a certain way (sorry literalists), but like an aroma, it’s something you notice right away, it’s something that is so much a part of you that it’s always in the middle of everything you do. This is what it means to be the fragrance of Jesus, we are so much like Jesus that we are like him in everything that we do and everywhere we go.

Today may you be so much like Jesus that your give off the aroma of a King.

April 20th 2012

Does the Old Testament matter?

Read Matthew 5:17-20 and journal your thoughts.

I know most of us read that opening question and say of course it matters, it’s in the Bible it has to matter, but as we seriously take a look at our lives and how we read the Scriptures, does it? The problem is for most of us in our culture we don’t treat the Old Testament like it really matters. In fact look at the phrase “Old Testament”, for most of us the word “old” implies that it doesn’t matter anymore, because there is a new one. (Note: if you are ever discussing the “Old Testament” with a Jew don’t call it the “Old Testament” that’s insulting for this very reason. Call it the “Tanakh”.)

Jesus uses two words here that we need to focus in on “abolish” and “fulfill”. In their culture if a rabbi asked a disciple to interpret a piece of Scripture and this disciple just butchered it, the rabbi would say that they “abolished Torah” (Ouch!). On the other hand, if the disciple correctly interprets the Scripture the rabbi would say that he has “fulfilled Torah”.

So what does Jesus mean here? Notice that Jesus says this just before the he hits the bulk of the Sermon on the Mount. This means the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus interpretation of Torah. Essentially, Jesus is saying that he is making the Old Testament a central part of our lives.

Today may you see the importance of the Tanakh (Old Testament) as well as the New Testament.

April 19th 2012

Are small groups Biblical?

Read Matthew 18:19-20 and journal your thoughts.

Usually when we read this verse we use it as a way to describe church, right? We say it doesn’t matter how many people we have in church because Jesus promises that if 2 or more are gathered that he’ll be there. This is beautiful and true, but are we missing something?

The first rule for a Disciple (Talmid) was to get a Rabbi, the second rule for a Disciple was to get a “Haver” (Note: Haver is for men, Haverah is for women). The best way to describe a Haver in our culture is a small group. It was a group of at least one other person who would get together and discuss Scripture. Usually when we get together for small groups once a week, we have a set of stuff that we plan about talking about, we have a set of questions and a set of answers, and probably all of this on a work sheet. This is not what a Haver was like, a Haver was a group of people who got together all the time and talked about questions that they had because of what they’d studied on their own that day.

Here’s the key, the goal for them was to disagree with each other. There is a story of an ancient rabbi who had a haver and nobody there dared to question him. The rabbi prompted discussion over and over and still no one would disagree. Finally at the point of frustration the rabbi says how are we supposed to learn anything if no one will disagree with me? In our culture we struggle with the idea that not everyone believes exactly what we believe, but in their culture disagreement was actually a good thing, it lead to growth, it stretched us and pulled us in directions we had never thought of.

Today may you struggle with the Scriptures with someone else so that you may grow in God’s Law

April 18th 2012

Sometimes when we think about Jesus and everything that he did, it’s easy for us to assume that he was just kind of knew everything because he’s God.

Read John 15:12-15 and journal your thoughts

When we read the Scriptures, most of us are at a disadvantage because we are almost 2000 years after it is written and we are reading it in a different language. The problem is that so much ends up being lost in translation and we end up missing so much of what is really being said. For example in verse 15, most of our Bibles read “for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” which is an okay translation, but it still misses the point. Let’s focus in on the word “heard” in the original Greek this does not really mean “heard”, but “studied diligently”.

How does this change our view of Jesus? We hear these ideas that Jesus being a rabbi would have memorized the entire Old Testament, but most of the time we say to ourselves ‘but he’s God so of course he knows it’. When we do this, we completely downplay the example Jesus is for us. Jesus probably would have spent thousands of hours not only memorizing the Old Testament (Tanakh) but studying it. These rabbis were consumed with the study of God’s Word; it was the driving passion in their lives.

Today may you discover a passion for studying God’s Word, just like Jesus did.

April 17th 2012

In English we use words in a variety of ways, so was the same true in Hebrew?

Read Exodus 21:24 and Matthew 5:38 and journal your thoughts

For so many of us, we really struggle with some of the ideas of the Old Testament, and for many this verse out of Exodus 21:24 is one of them. We have a hard time with a God of grace and mercy demanding such a heavy punishment.

What’s interesting is that when you look into the culture this phrase what a Jewish Idiom (something taken figuratively, not literally). Essentially it is simply a way of saying that the punishment must fit the crime. In fact, in the ancient Jewish culture, they were not known for taking out these literal sort of punishments on each other, but they had a standard by which the punishment would fit the crime. This was usually done by something as simple as a fine.

We see this again in Matthew 5:17-18, especially verse 18 when Jesus talks about the smallest letter or stroke of the pen will not disappear from the Law. The Hebrew language is filled with these little pen strokes that held tons of value, so if one was changed then a lot could have been changed. So what Jesus is saying here is that the Law will remain down to the most minute detail.

Today meditate on how God used the language of their culture to speak truth to them.

April 16th 2012

One of the ways the rabbis taught was by using some of the ideas and debates of their own culture.

Read Matthew 19:1-9 and journal your thoughts

When reading this piece of text, the thing that most of us are probably not familiar with ideas of two great and very popular rabbis Shammai and Hillel, which were heavily debated during the time of Jesus. Generally speaking Shammai held a much more strict view of how someone should interpret the Law, where Hillel was not. What’s interesting is that Shammai and Hillel didn’t actually disagree on that much, but as the years went on, their followers were more heavily divided.

In today’s verse the Pharisees ask Jesus whether it’s ok to divorce under any circumstance. This is one of the few areas where Shammai and Hillel disagreed what’s interesting is that here Jesus sides with Shammai, whereas he usually sides with Hillel.

What we have to understand by looking at this is that Jesus taught by using their culture, by talking about the things that were relevant to them in their day. So when we begin to study the Scriptures and we come across one of those things that either seems interesting or we just don’t understand, we may discover that this thing was something that was heavily discussed in their culture.

Today mediate on how God used their culture to speak to them, and how He wants to use our culture to speak to us.

April 15th 2012

How is our learning style different from the ancient disciples?

Read Matthew 9:14-15 and journal your thoughts

One thing we have to understand about the ancient culture is their way of learning was vastly different from ours. In our culture, we sit back while a teacher pours as much information into us as we can take. Hopefully we remember some of it, but if we are honest, probably not. In ancient Israel, the way they learned was very different. The Rabbis would teach, not by just giving their disciples a bunch of information, but through a process of questions. The disciple would ask a question, and the Rabbi would respond with a question that helps the disciple to discover the answer the Rabbi is looking for.

In Matthew 9:14-15 we see John’s disciples asking Jesus about fasting (because nobody wants to not eat for a long period of time). What we have to understand is in their culture, fasting is a way of connecting with God when one is going through a difficult time, or maybe when they are just desperate to hear from God. Jesus responds to this with a question about guests mourning while the bridegroom is with them. So what is Jesus saying here? Basically Jesus is saying why would they need to fast to hear from God when I’m right here.

Today as you think about the importance of asking questions in their culture, meditate on Luke 2:41-47, especially verse 47?

April 14th 2012

Earlier this week we talked about some of the other man-made laws of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. Today we are going to look a little deeper into what this was like.

Read Mark 7:1-4 and journal your thoughts

Notice in Mark 3, how they refer to the “Tradition of the Elders”, what is that? The Tradition of the Elders is a part of the Oral Law, which is a sort of interpretation of how to live the Law. What had happened is that the Tradition of the Elders became a sort of safe guard to sin, so that it became wrong to do things that weren’t sinful, because they could lead to sin. For example, lust is sinful, use of the internet could lead to lust, therefore you shouldn’t use the internet.

The problem with these Traditions was not only did it make the Law almost impossible to uphold but the religious leaders were able to use it to create loopholes from doing other parts of God’s Law. If you read Mark 7:5-13, you see that Jesus calls them out on just that. Here Jesus talks about how “Corbin” keeps them from honoring their mother and father. So what’s that about?

In their culture, when someone got older they didn’t have a retirement package, or anything like that, instead they worked to provide until they couldn’t anymore. When this happened they became dependent on their children to provide for them. The other part of this piece of Scripture is in their traditions; one could designate their money as “Corbin” which meant it was devoted to God, or that it wouldn’t go towards secular or personal uses. Instead it was consecrated to the service of God in the temple. This of course raises the question; who is in charge of the temple money? They are.

As you think about this today, ask yourself if there are any traditions that we do today that keeps us from the things God wants us to do?

April 13th 2012

When reading the Scriptures, one thing we have to understand is that we are talking about a people who have the Torah (First 5 books of the Old Testament) memorized, and when we’re talking about the Rabbis and the disciples they would have had the entire Old Testament memorized. Because of this they debated, argued, and taught by only quoting a small piece of Scripture, but referring to the entire context of that piece of Scripture. Sometimes they would quote just by using certain words

Read Matthew 25:31-32 and Ezekiel 34:17 and journal your thoughts

Did you catch it? Jesus refers to Ezekiel 34:17 just by talking about judging sheep and goats. In our culture it is like talking about an entire TV show by saying “you know the one where…” and all of a sudden we begin to think about the entire episode.

The problem is for people like us, who do not have the entire Old Testament memorized how in the world are we supposed to recognize that? The key for us when it comes to trying to figure out what’s going on is to look for words that seem a bit out of place. For example a reference to sheep and goats, we key in on those words and do a quick Google search on times that phrase is used in the Old Testament.

With this in mind, what Jesus is saying in this piece of text? According to Ezekiel 34:17 who is the one who judges the sheep and the goats? (Answer: God) So, what is Jesus saying about himself? (Answer: Jesus links himself with God). In their culture this would have been not only a bold claim, but it would have been outrageous, Jesus is essentially referring to himself as God. Remember, this is a group of people who would even say the name of G-d, let alone claim to be him.

Today take some time to read the Scriptures and meditate on words and discover if there is more there than meets the eye.

April 12th 2012

In order to help us understand what is happening in the Scriptures we have to understand how they used certain words.

Read Matthew 11:28-30 and journal your thoughts on what the word “Yoke” means

Traditionally when we look at the word “yoke” we are reminded that a yoke is a piece of farming equipment that binds two animals together. Since the people of ancient Israel were farmers, this must be what it means, right? Problem is so often when we are reading Scripture it’s easy for us to get lazy with words like that and stop there. The way we use words change depending on their context. For example, 30 years ago the word “cool” meant “cold”, but then it began to evolve to mean “awesome”.

This piece of Scripture is no different, yes “yoke” does refer to a piece of farming equipment, but the Rabbis also used this term to mean something else. For the Rabbi the word “yoke” referred to their teachings. For example how a given Rabbi interpreted Scripture was their yoke, while another Rabbi may have a different interpretation or yoke. Think about it like different denominations today, Baptists have one set of beliefs (yoke) that they are trying to spread, while the Methodists have another.

Now re-read Matthew 11:28-30 with this in mind think about the yoke of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other religious groups of the time. Think about the heavy burden of trying to keep all those commands that went above and beyond Torah (God’s Law). Now think about the words of Jesus saying his heart is humble (compared to the religious leaders – Matthew 6:5). Think about when Jesus talks about his teaching being light, wait there is a way to follow God that is actually possible by someone other than the super religious? Jesus is offering a new way to follow God’s Law that gets rid of all the legalism and the showing off.

Today meditate on the legalism in our denominations today and how the way of Jesus would be different.

April 11th 2012

Sometimes when uncovering a piece of Scripture the key to understanding is knowing who wrote it.

Read Revelation 21:1-4 and journal some thoughts.

There is a lot about this verse I get. I get the idea of the old heaven and old earth being transformed into this new place. I get the image of the bride and the bridegroom, and I get the image of no more tears or pain, or sorrow. What I don’t get is this little line thrown in verse 1 where John says “there will be no more seas.” Why not?

When most of us think of the seas we think of relaxing on a beach, and warm weather. When we stand at the edge of the world and look out into the seas some of us may be struck by the awe and wonder of the expanse of God’s creation. Maybe some of us look out into the seas and sense that there is something out there beaconing us to a great adventure.

What about John, how would he have viewed the seas? From what we know about John, when he wrote the book of Revelation he is exiled on the island of Patmos. With this in mind, what do you think the seas represent to John? You can imagine that for John the seas represent a great divide, a wall that separates him from everyone he knows and loves. We can understand this today when we have our loved ones scattered all over the country (if not the world). Right now we could probably close our eyes and imagine loved ones hundreds of miles away that we would love to be with right now.

This is what John is saying when he says there will be “no more seas” he’s saying all those things that keep us apart, whether its seas, roads, highways or byways will be gone. We will be with the ones we love and care for the most forever.

Today may you dream of a place where there will be no more tears, no more pain, or sorrow, may you dream of a place where we are no longer separated from those we love the most, and may you discover that dream will someday become a reality.

April 10th 2012

When we study the Scriptures we have to keep in mind how the time period impacts their story.

Read 1 Samuel 13:19-22 and journal why you think they had this problem

Have you ever read this piece of Scripture and asked yourself why didn’t they have any blacksmith’s? You would think in that culture, under constant threat of invasion, that a blacksmith would be a pretty important piece to your society. This raises the question, why didn’t they have one?

When we take a step back and look at the timeline of events we discover the events in 1 Samuel are happening as the world begins to transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The ability to work and manipulate iron was something totally new to them, and so some people groups had the ability and others didn’t. We see the same sort of thing today with the use of nuclear weapons, so countries have the technology and others don’t. In today’s Scripture, the Philistines had the technology and Israel didn’t.

Ask yourself this question; how does this change the way you view their battle? How does this change the way that they were dependent on God? All of a sudden we see the story in a whole new light, on one side we see this massive army with full armor and swords and on the other side farmers with nothing but their tools to fight with. Now we can see how dramatically the odds were against Israel, and yet God was faithful and fought with them and defeats the Philistines.

Today as you are reading Scripture, take a step back and ask how does the time period help define what’s happening.

April 9th 2012

Have you ever been reading the Gospels and sometimes Jesus will talk about the Kingdom of God and other times he talks about the Kingdom of Heaven?

Read Matthew 5:3 and Luke 6:20 and journal your thoughts

So what’s that about? Are there two different Kingdoms? If there are then, what’s the difference between them? How are we supposed to know?

What we are experiencing here is the importance of understanding who a given book of the Bible was written to. When we begin to discover who the book was written to, we begin to uncover the context in which the book was written. In today’s Scripture Jesus is saying the same thing but uses different words; why?

What we know is that the Gospel of Matthew is written to the Jews. Now, within the Jewish culture they have a very serious reverence for the name of God. So much so, that even today when they type the name of God they type it G-d. In Jesus culture the name “Yahweh” was not allowed to be spoken because of their reverence for God. Because of this, whenever Jesus talks about God’s Kingdom in the book of Matthew we see this phrase “Kingdom of Heaven”. Now, the book of Luke is totally different, it is written for the outcast, so we see Luke using “Kingdom of God” to help his hearer to better understand what he’s trying to say.

This is why it’s so important to understand who the audience is of a given piece of Scripture. When we begin to hear the words of the Bible through the lenses of the original hearers, all of a sudden the Biblical world comes to life and we begin to see the story with clearer eyes.

Today as you study Scripture, begin to ask yourself the question; how would the original audience have heard this?

April 8th 2012

This morning is a special morning, today begins the Feast of the Firstfruits! Read Deuteronomy 26:1-10. The Feast of the Firstfruits is when the farmers of Israel would take the first fruits of the field and offer them to God as a way of showing their trust in God’s provision.

Read John 12:23-24 and journal your thoughts

This was the context for Resurrection Sunday, imagine once again how Jesus’ followers must have felt yesterday as they attended Sabbath services. How they listened to Ezekiel 37:5, about how God raises the dead, all the while their Messiah is dead. All hope is lost. The next day, they would bring the very first of their crops as an offering to God, which was a way of showing their trust that God provides. Just like when God provided the ram when Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac, so God was going to provide for his people again.

But little did the people know, this Feast of the Firstfruits was going to be very different from the ones before it. God had provided again, just not in the way they were expecting. Firstfruits represented not just giving their first, but their best. A sheep’s first sheer was its softest or its best, the first crops of the year was considered to be the best. On this Firstfruits, God gives his first, his best, as a way of providing for His people.

Today meditate on the ways that God provides for you, and take some time to thank God for His provisions.

April 7th 2012

Jesus was supposed to be the Messiah, the one to put everything right, but now he’s dead. What do we have left to hope for?

Read Luke 23:55-56 and journal your thoughts

We can’t imagine the devastation the followers of Jesus must have felt. This was the one who was supposed to be God’s chosen, the Messiah. He was the one who was going to change everything, to bring the Kingdom of God here to earth, but now it’s all over. What hope do we have left?

Not only is Jesus dead, but this is the first Sabbath after the Passover. Traditionally Ezekiel 37:5 was read in the Temple. If the Passover was about God doing a great thing to rescue His people from Egypt, then this verse in Ezekiel was read as they looked forward to their Messiah. It’s interesting how God uses the traditions of their time to point to what He is going to do. God is giving them hope and comfort in their most desperate hour, when all seems hopeless.

Today meditate on how God gives us hope in our darkest hours, if not in the ways we expect

April 6th 2012

It is finished!

Read Matthew 27:45-56 and journal your thoughts

In our culture there seems to be some debate about when Jesus says “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”, what is Jesus saying here? I’ve heard dramatic preachers who talk about how in this verse Jesus looks up in to heaven and sees the Father turn his head aside because God is refusing even look at Jesus.

To help us understand what Jesus is saying let’s read Psalm 22:1. Now in their culture, when a Rabbi would quote Scripture, they weren’t just randomly dropping a verse. Instead they would quote a single verse to make reference to the whole thing. In this moment, Jesus refers to a Psalm to make the whole situation make sense.

Today read Psalm 22 and mediate on how what Jesus is doing relates

April 5th 2012

So far we have done a lot of talking about the Passover meal and what many of the individual things represent. With tonight being the traditional night of the Passover meal, we are going to take a step back from the deals to look at what the whole thing represents

Read Exodus 12:42 and journal some of your thoughts

If we are not careful it is easy for us to take things that happen and turn them into traditions without really honoring what those events really meant. On that first Passover, God did this great act by rescuing his people from slavery in Egypt. Obviously, one of the ways the people remembered this was through the celebration of the Passover meal, but they also guarded themselves from allowing this to simply become a tradition.

Ancient Rabbis use to interpret Exodus 12:42 to mean that we should always be looking to see what big things God is going to do next. In order to teach this idea to their children, after the Passover dinner the children would open the front door to see if Elijah was standing there (Malachi 4:5).

This raises the question for us; what big thing are we expecting God to do next? Are we expecting God to do great things around us in our world, are we expecting him to just work on the details of our lives? As you look out your metaphorical front door, where do you see God moving? Where do you see God wanting to work?

As we begin to wrap up this Easter season meditate on this idea: Where do I expect to see God moving today?

April 4th 2012

Why did the crowds go from “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday to “Crucify him” on Friday?

Read Luke 23:27 and journal your thoughts

Did you get it? Were you able to put the pieces together? The crowd who yelled “Hosanna” was not the same as the crowd yelling “Crucify him”. So many times there has been sermon after sermon around Easter time about how this crowd turns on Jesus, but that simply isn’t the case. Let’s go through our timeline and explain why the two crowds couldn’t have been the same.

We know from Matthew 26:3-5 that the religious leaders want to arrest Jesus in secret so because the people loved Jesus so much that they feared a riot. What better time to do something in secret than during all the business of the Passover?

So it begins with Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane which is located outside of town, in the middle of the night, while everyone is in bed exhausted from the night’s feast. If the events of the Sanhedrin happened in the middle of the night after such an exhausting evening, then who would be there; only those who planned on being there.

The same can be said for the crowd before Pilate, after such a late night what Jew is going to get up early to stand before the governor? Once again, it’s only those who either planned on being there or Romans who had to be there.

Yesterday we mentioned that Jesus was crucified at 9 am (Mark 15:25), why is this important? It is crucial to the plan, because that is when the first temple services were for the day. In order for the plan to work, the religious leaders knew that they had to finish their plan before everyone got up and around and into town for worship.

Looking at the timeline, we can see that the religious leaders didn’t just get fed up with Jesus and decided to get him one day, but they planned and schemed to come up with a way to get rid of Jesus in secret without anyone knowing. This is why the crowd changed; this is why in Luke 23:27 they were weeping. The religious leaders were more interested in keeping their own power rather than doing God’s will.

**NOTE: All the journals this week were inspired and heavily influenced by Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. I cannot recommend this book enough!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKPFT4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=engedrescen-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AKPFT4

April 3rd 2012

Today is going to be a bit different; we are going to play “CSI: Bible” focus on the timeline of Jesus’ arrest which is going to help us put some things in perspective. There will also be hints for tomorrow’s journal which addresses the question why did the people go from say “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday to “Crucify Him” on Friday?

In yesterday’s journal we mentioned that the Passover meal would have ended sometime around midnight. This means that the events of Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss would have happened about 1 am. (Matthew 26:47-56).

We also know that Peter denied Jesus when the rooster crowed (Matthew 26:69-75) which would have been about 5 am. This means the events of Jesus before the Sanhedrin (Matthew 26:57-68) would have taken place sometime between 1-5 am. Remember this the night of the Passover, a very major Jewish ceremony.

According to Mark 15:1 Jesus is presented before Pilate at sunrise roughly 6am, once again this is the morning after a very late night since most Passover feasts don’t end until midnight. Mark 15:25 says that Jesus was crucified at the third hour, which for them would have been 9am. This means the events in between Jesus first going before Pilate and Jesus being crucified happened in about a 3 hour span.

All of this leads up to the crucifixion of Jesus, how does this timeline change any of your views of the final hours of Jesus life?

Take some time to mediate on the question for tomorrow: Why did the crowds go from “Hosanna” to “crucify him”?

**NOTE: All the journals this week were inspired and heavily influenced by Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. I cannot recommend this book enough!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKPFT4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=engedrescen-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AKPFT4

April 2nd 2012

Have you ever wondering why the disciples couldn’t stay awake in the Garden of Gethsemane?

Read Matthew 26:36-46 and journal your thoughts

This part of the story has always seemed strange to me; I mean why couldn’t these guys just stay awake? I mean if their Rabbi is stressed out enough to the point where his sweat “was like drops of blood” (Luke 22:44 NASB) you would think something major was going on. You would think they would be at least a bit on edge. So why couldn’t they stay awake?

To help us answer this question, let’s look at it from another point of view. Think about Thanksgiving morning, getting up early preparing everything for this sacred (in the sense that everything has to be perfect) meal. You run around a hot kitchen going from one piece of the meal to another, trying to get everything just right. Finally everything is ready, and you can sit down for a few minutes and enjoy this meal you’ve worked so hard on. But this is short lived, because as soon as the meal is over there is the tedious and overwhelming task of doing the dishes. Finally there comes that moment when everything is done and you can finally sit down. Before long, you are out. It is easy to blame it on the tryptophan but in reality you’ve been so busy your body has just had enough.

Now, put yourself in a first century Jewish setting, think about working not with the modern conveniences we have today, but with ancient cooking tools. Think about cooking a whole lamb (bigger than a turkey) and making matzah bread from scratch. Think about all the other parts of the Passover meal.

Now imagine it’s late, the traditional Passover wouldn’t end until about midnight. It’s dark, late, and you are full from the feast (not to mention 4 large cups of wine). You’ve been on your feet working all day on this massive meal and you finally have a chance to sit down (Side note: they had also been traveling the days just before the last supper). Of course you would fall asleep! Your body is done, and there is nothing on earth that is going to keep you awake!

**NOTE: All the journals this week were inspired and heavily influenced by Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. I cannot recommend this book enough!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKPFT4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=engedrescen-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AKPFT4

April 1st 2012

Is there anything else we are missing from this scene?

Read Matthew 26:26 and journal your thoughts

In the Passover tradition there is a special piece of bread called “afikomen” which translates into “that which comes after” or the word “dessert.” This piece of bread was taken from the best part of the matzah which we all know is the middle of the bread. This is then set aside (or in some cases hidden and the children look for it later) and is the very last thing eaten. When it is time, it is broken and given to everyone at the table.

Now if pretty much everything in Judaism symbolizes something then what does the afikomen represent? Like we said, the word “afikomen” literally means “that which comes after” another way of translating this is “the coming one”. This was a phrase identified with the coming of the Messiah. Here the whole matzah bread represents the people of Israel, while the afikomen represents the Messiah. The image here is that this Messiah will be the best of the matzah, and he will be broken from his people (and in some cases hidden from his people for a time; see death and resurrection).

When Jesus took the bread, broke it, and said “this is my body” he was referring to the bread, but he was also referring to the specific piece of bread. Jesus was identifying himself as Messiah. Everyone at the table would have understood exactly what he was saying.

Take some time to meditate on this idea and how this changes your image of the Last Supper.

**NOTE: All the journals this week were inspired by Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. I cannot recommend this book enough!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKPFT4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=engedrescen-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AKPFT4

March 31st 2012

During the Passover meal they wouldn’t just use any sort of bread, they would use a special kind of bread called Matzah or unleavened bread was used, but why is this so important?

Read Matthew 26:26 and journal your thoughts

Whenever we read the Scriptures we usually see that yeast is viewed as a bad thing. This raises the question; what is so bad about yeast? Why is it that it is almost always seen as this negative thing? Today when we think about adding yeast to dough we think of opening a small packet and pouring this powder into the batch, but in their time and culture it looked very different. For the ancient Jews, yeast was added by taking a small piece of old bread and adding it to the new bread. Eventually the yeast from the old bread would be mixed throughout the new batch.

Now the ancient Rabbi saw this as a parallel to humanities sin. At one point we were pure, but now there is this old, rotten, nasty piece of us that is passed from generation to generation. While the leavened bread was seen in relation to our sin, unleavened bread was seen as pure, whole, it was seen as the way we should be.

So when Jesus holds up the bread and says “this is my body”, he is making a direct reference to this bread. Jesus is saying that he is like this bread that is untainted by the old, nasty, rotting bread of the past. That he is pure, he is what we should look like.

Today meditate on what it means that Jesus was like the Matzah, and meditate on what it means then when we live like Jesus

**NOTE: All the journals this week were inspired by Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. I cannot recommend this book enough!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKPFT4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=engedrescen-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AKPFT4

March 30th 2012

What is it about sitting around the dinner table that is so important in our lives? It’s almost like there is this connection between us when we simply sit and eat. But was there significance to sitting at the table and eating in the Jewish culture?

Read Matthew 26:20-21 and journal your thoughts

Have you ever been in one of those moments where something just wasn’t right? It is not even something you can really put your finger on. There is just a weird vibe and all you know is something’s. Not. Right. No matter which Gospel you read, the Last Supper has this strange sort of vibe to it doesn’t it? We understand this because we know what’s about to happen, but most of us reading this get that this must have been a pretty strange scene.

What makes this scene particularly strange is when we understand the cultural significance of sharing a meal together. For the ancient Jews sharing a meal was a sign of peace, trust, and forgiveness. In fact if two people were fighting they would share a meal as a sign of peace between them (Genesis 31:45-55).

Take a moment and reflect on the implications of sharing a meal in the story of the Prodigal’s Son (Luke 15:11-32).

As sacred as simply sharing a meal was, the Passover meal was especially sacred because they are sharing a lamb that has been sacrificed to God. Traditionally a Passover lamb had to be completely consumed so nothing was left, and usually a lamb could feed at least 15 people. Now if at a traditional meal peace had to exist between everyone at the table, then what does it look like when an animal sacrificed to God is involved? At the Passover meal, peace had to exist between you and everyone else at the table, and between you and everyone at the table and God. Considering Judas’ actions, could this explain the tension at that Passover meal?

What does this understanding of the Passover meal mean for us when we share communion? So often we hear of sharing communion as having peace between us and God. So before communion we have this time of reflection so we can confess our sins before God. But what does this understanding of communion imply? We should also have peace with each other!

As we go into Holy Week, may you discover peace in all your relationships.

**NOTE: All the journals this week were inspired by Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. I cannot recommend this book enough!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKPFT4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=engedrescen-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AKPFT4

March 29th 2012

This week, as we go into Holy Week, we are going to look at some of the questions surrounded this whole event.

What is the deal with Mary and the perfume?

Read John 12:1-8 and journal your thoughts.

For most of us whenever we read this passage we tend to read it looking backwards. We know that Jesus is going to die in a week, and Jesus makes this point in verse 7 about being prepared for his burial. So many times we stop there, Mary is just preparing Jesus for his burial. But here’s the problem, Jesus knew it was coming, not Mary. So what is going on here? What is Mary really doing here?

Turn to 1 Kings 1:39 and journal your thoughts

Normally, when you think of the process where someone becomes a king, we usually picture this whole crowning ceremony. I’m sure right now, you can recall endless movie scenes of this very thing. In the Jewish culture their process was different. Instead of having a crowning ceremony they anoint the new king with a strong smelling oil so that he would smell like a king, then they would essentially parade him among his people.

Now re-read John 12:1-8, then check out John 12:12-14 and journal your thoughts

Did you catch it? The very next day was the Triumphant Entry! Mary isn’t planning on his death, that’s the last thing on her mind. Mary recognizes who Jesus is and anoints him as a king! The next day they are going to march him among his people, who would have smelled him and also recognized him as their king.

As you mediate on the events of Holy Week, please note that the fragrance of this perfume/oil would have stayed with Jesus throughout his last week (yes it was that strong).

**NOTE: All the journals this week were inspired by Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. I cannot recommend this book enough!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKPFT4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=engedrescen-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AKPFT4