Celebration

This eternal salvation

eejoseph

Despair and heartache stallk many consumers because they have a cheap view of the agent with remedies and his product. Salvation in Christ suffers the same fate. We routinely bypass fresh fruit for their processed versions. We are doing the same when it comes to the equally important spiritual life and health. Calvary is not the same as the Exodus. Of course not. It is like the Exodus, but the Exodus is not able to show the high definition of the cross. Old wine and new bottles end in disaster. Salvation is not only an old idea and expectation; it is a divine and timeless mystery unveiled completely in 3½ years.

Full moon on a dark day

Just before and after?

It was a full moon, 14th of Nisan, a high festival in Judea when Christ died. The Passover was a real event that doubled as a picture of the liberation of people all over the world from sin’s bondage. Now that Passover is no longer a local affair its Lamb selection and routines are irrelevant. There is only memory of the event. For Christians the Passover is an eternal reality that touches down when people come to faith. That day put a cap on 3½ years of public service – preaching, teaching, healing.

Scandal we avoid

Most people who say they are into something special with God are likely to be far from him. Look no further than our own fathers in the Christian faith. Paul was a virulent antagonist before his conversion. James tried to turn the church into Israel after his conversion. Far too many believers are eager to lay aside the gold of Christ for the tin of Moses. It seems so much more easy to subscribe to rules and regulations.  To associate with a Saviour is to admit the need, and that need is inconsistent with “good people”, people who are not afraid of death, or people who “don’t understand how humans can disobey and rebel against God and man”.

A God who dies? Ridicule at your own risk.

Salvation’s door is open.  The day it closes is the day we die or the day God rolls up the sky and land and put them away.  Christ’s work is done.  He passed the torch to the Holy Spirit who alone can keep people in the truth and guide them to more treasures of divine majesty. He is not dying today and cannot die again.  There is no need for a second death.  He dies once.  We die with him once – no repeat – in order to life in him.

We will never find access to the truth beneficial if we keep distancing ourselves from the ancestors as if we were automatically better off or in possession of better and mightier things. The Christ who cried, took the side of the oppressed, owned no property, had dinner dates with sinners and prostitutes, and died, is not a hero. Far from it! Many of us actually despise Christ for not making us spitting images of our heroes. He made a troublefree life for noone. It is a Balaam attitude to expect a life of ease – a crossless and stagnant (no growth) life.

Up close we see the abject poverty of the “best” of humanity

Salvation is not a good or better job. Just looking at the people who profess this kind of salvation delivers a shock.  Everyone is aging and decaying.  Salvation is not improved health or healing. It is not getting a victory in every circumstance. It is wholeness that needs no human contribution. Christ saves us or we are not saved at all.

Bread that gives life

Salvation will mean nothing at all to people with a sense of “I never” because that is precisely the last thing God wants to hear. How Hollywood and abominable it is to put on an air of disgust and personal achievement of a sinless “victorious” life! Eternally sinless people cannot call God Father or pray to him without reference to how one becomes his child, because his children always need a Saviour.

No Tabernacles for the Prophets

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Matthew 17:4-8 shakes up the world of the prophets and the disciples. In this version of the story the two prophets do not get a briefing about Christ’s atoning sacrifice and I am loathe to try and harmonize the evangelists’ intentions. Luke alone (9:31) seems to have inquired about the conversation between the three and learned that the two prophets had been talking about (most certainly the meaning of) Christ’s death.

Who appeared in glory, and spoke of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.

The narrative freezes any attempt to honour the prophets, even these two towering figures. It also denies the equality of Christ and the prophets.

Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if you will, let us make here three tabernacles; one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. While he yet spoke, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear all of you him.

Hear and Fear

Two things bring on the reverence due. The disciples are wrong about the prophets and wrong about Christ. They go from being excited about the prophets’ association with the Rabbi to sheer terror and to the stark reality that Yeshua is all there is.

And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.

Remembering Christ’s Sacrifice

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Idols litter the landscape while the majesty of the Risen Lord gets a passing mention. No repeated claim attends the memorial of Christ’s death for all human sin. We belittle and denigrate the covenant by inserting our desire for a miracle.

The cross must be accepted as full and effective payment for sin, not for financial, physical or mental wellbeing. People do not have to claim anything when the Church celebrates the Lord’s supper. No one needs to apply for what is theirs by virtue of their once-for-all confession and faith in the once-for-all propitiation in the Blood of the Lamb?

People can add whatever they wish to their celebration of Christ but only at great risk of showing how much shipwreck is part of their beliefs. One pastor proclaims that no physical death will touch our families when we partake of the Lord’s supper. We ought to know what the Scriptures authorize and quit making it up as we go. Remember does not mean request.

Your Brother’s Home!

eejoseph

Lost means lost. Found means found. Here in the Lost (not wasteful or prodigal) Son story in Luke’s gospel the one was not lost turns out to be miserable and self-loving.

The fact that the lost son wasted (dapanao) his inheritance seems to have shaped our interpretation of the lesson. At best it shows how quickly we evaluate one another as undeserving, while the closing thought is rejoice and be glad.

Very often we neglect to put ourselves into the picture of the stories Yeshua told. When we do put ourselves into the narrative we choose the best light and most favourable situations.

It was fitting [for you] to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found. Luke 15:32

EE

From dead festival to living faith

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The lessons that spring from the announcement of the ancient festivals are typically instructions about what to do and when. Naturally, there are prohibitions in the mix. Surprisingly, the following show up and if they did not give the Israelite near complete confidence and comfort they certainly do today over two thousand years later.

The following three instructions show how YHWH intended to focus the Israelite mind on personal responsibility for the neighbour’s welfare.

  • 1. Proactive kindness to the poor: reaping, Leviticus 23:22

And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Lord your God.

  • 2. Proactive kindness to the poor: bringing food
  • 3. Seven days of fire offerings, aromatic (incense or great smell) for yhwh and the nutrition for the priesthood

The lessons that spring from the announcement off the festivals are typically instructions about what to do and when. Naturally, there are prohibitions in the mix like Leviticus 23:25, “You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the Lord”.

Surprises include:
Food offerings for YHWH. Leviticus 23:36

For seven days you shall present food offerings to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work.

Bread with yeast, Leviticus 23:17

You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord.

As evidence of the symptomatic refusal to shift into warp speed we have the doctrine of God-creator dominating both Jewish and Christian practice instead of the saving and providing God in both temporal and spiritual matters.

Pentecost (Shabuot) is our season of shift. It stands in contrast to Leviticus 2:11

No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey as a food offering to the Lord.

Even so, leavened bread, in the feast of Pentecost, seems to properly identify us along with our Saviour-God (as the unblemished life). God accepts us with his Son.

Leviticus 23:17

You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord.