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Posts Tagged ‘Holy Spirit’

Why Did They Follow Him?

Posted in Random Thoughts, tagged , , , , , , , on August 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Of course, we know why a lot of them followed Jesus. He was healing the sick, and at the beginning of his mission/ministry, he was healing them all. He was a sensation! Who wouldn’t follow? Don’t we do the same today? Don’t we follow the wondrous . . . the unbelievable . . . the news worthy . . . the tragedies . . . and the inexplicable?

Matthew 4:24-25
News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis,Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.

If Jesus was doing the same thing today that he was doing back then, he wouldn’t just have a few hundred or thousand following, he would have millions through the Internet and media. It would be a real circus.

He had only just started his ministry according to Matthew. He was making the circuit around Galilee, stopping into various synagogues along the way and teaching about the kingdom of God being near and close at hand. (It was thirty square miles.) He had headed back home to Nazareth first, got shut out of his home church and then headed to Capernaum (via Cana) where his reputation both followed and preceded him. His notoriety started heating up pretty fast.

Currently, we’re in Olympics fever from London, and I marvel as I watch the various athletes exhibit their best efforts while being followed by a slew of reporters and cameramen. There are remote cameras following them above the water as well as along the track. There are satellite cameras and there are long lenses poking out from every corner. Every movement, every tear, every laugh or smile, is caught on camera. Every win, whether by a long shot or a hair’s breadth, is captured.

Can you imagine the cameras capturing the healings of the Christ? Who would interpret? Who would be the pundits? Who would get the first interview? What would the witnesses say? How long would the healed person be followed around by reporters, perhaps looking for a fake? Where would Jesus go to avoid the constant barrage of both the needy people as well as the rubber-neckers? Where would Jesus go to bypass the media? And who would know the truth? Would we believe what we saw on camera? Would we follow Him on Fox News or NPR? Would we snatch up People magazine to see the pictures of someone rising from the dead? Or would we pick up the Inquirer in the grocery line that exposes Jesus as a fraud?

What keeps me following Him today? Is it the scripture stories? Is it the fellow believers? Is it my circumstances, once dire, and now more stable? Is it the miraculous or the mundane? Is it the charismatic pastor or the throbbing music beat at church?

There were times in my journey when I longed to see and experience more of this Jesus/Holy Spirit, not unlike the fantastic descriptions in scripture, written and retold, and then sustained by faith and repetition through the centuries. I wanted a miracle! Each decade in the 20th century has brought various phenomena, from speaking in tongues, to falling in the spirit, to laughing in the spirit, to prophetic utterances, to spontaneous healings, to golden dust falling on the faithful. Each manifestation brought thousands into a place and time, who like the followers of Jesus, wanted to see, hear, and feel, a tangible presence of God. And although it was often fleeting, many were not disappointed. At least, not at first. But then the phenomena passed, the touched people moved on, the crowds thinned, and we looked for the next manifestation.

But who/what did we follow? The miracles or the person? Who did they follow? The miracles or the person?

And all the while. The kingdom was near and still is. The kingdom is within us; in our midst. [Luke 17:21] Here. Everything needed is right here. Right now.

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Forty Days

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 28, 2012| 5 Comments »

What is the take away for doing something 40 days? Whether it’s in fasting or in temptation, there’s something here about forty days that should be considered, should be pursued. It’s a whole lot of waiting: more than five weeks of consideration. I wonder what would happen if I waited (prayed, contemplated, meditated) forty days before I initiated a plan or a major decision?

Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12-13a; Luke 4:1-2a
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

There are other scriptural examples of 40 days: the flood (Genesis 7:17); Moses on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24:18; 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:9); Spies in the Promised Land (Numbers 13:25); Goliath’s challenges (I Samuel 17:16); Elijah’s flight and fast (I Kings 19:18); Jonah warns Nineveh (Jona 3:4); Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection (Acts 1:3).

All of these 40 day increments are wrapped up with important events, usually before something major would happen.

So, let me put this in perspective (for myself, if nothing else). If I claimed this 40 day waiting period starting today, that would mean on Friday, September 14th, I could begin: I would know whether to go forward or not. If I seriously pursued my quest for those 40 days, I would know. It’s like a promise, I think.

Don’t misunderstand me. I get it that this period should be led of the Spirit and yet, I have a feeling. If I laid out my heart’s desire, my plan before God and then repeated my request each day, I believe I would have an answer. I would also have a bit of a struggle along the way. Based on the stories, a truly authentic 40 days is laden with challenges. Satan (or however you want to call that negative voice/power in our lives) tempted Jesus the whole time just like Goliath tempted the Israelites. Goliath mocked them and taunted them: Dare you! Double dare you to come out here and fight me (on his terms of course). Satan does the same thing. The forty day challenge puts the entire experience on God’s terms.

Apparently, 40 days are just long enough. They take the person just beyond that point we can do it on our own. Forty days include the extra mile.

What do I really want to know? What game-changing decision do I want to contemplate? What would be the best news ever?

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Occupy Human

Posted in Random Thoughts, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 22, 2012| 2 Comments »

Icon: John the Baptist

To wash ceremonially in ancient Jewish times was to participate in a mikveh (or mikvah). For rituals, particularly washing from impurity, required “living” or flowing water such as a river or mikvot (the mikveh place) fed by a natural spring. It constituted the washing away of the old impurities and to mark the beginning of the new.

Matthew 3:1-2,
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” . . .  “I baptize you with [or in] water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with [or in] the Holy Spirit and fire.

John the Baptist treated sin as the greatest impurity of all and called everyone who wanted a new start to celebrate a mikveh with him, right there in the desert, in the river Jordan. While priests, via the regulations in the Torah and other rabbinical writings, performed the mikveh for a variety of circumstances (after sexual relations for men, a menstrual cycle for women, after the birth of a child, upon declaring someone healed of a skin disease or leprosy, prior to Yom Kippur, and so forth), this may have been the first time that a mikveh was performed without a traditional priest.

John’s message was clear: prepare the way (prepare yourselves) for the coming Messiah. Release the old and make room for the new.

The water submersion was a ritual meant to mark a moment in time. And yet, John promised another moment, a time that would be marked by something more permanent than water: the Holy Spirit and Fire.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit came after Jesus’s resurrection, the gift was given (and promised) to all believers — the in-dwelling of God [Acts 2]. This in-dwelling changed everything and everyone. We tend to minimize this deeply motivating presence today.

There is so much “Jesus Junk” (Tchotchkes) and pat phrases like “Jesus loves you brother.” But it’s more than that. It’s not just that Jesus loves you; it’s that Jesus is you [Philippians 1:21]. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one. And once Jesus has been invited to occupy us, then the process of true sanctification begins, fusing me and the Christ. And with sanctification, unnecessary elements must, like chaff, be cast away and in some cases, burned away through experience, pain, persistence of motion, and repetition. We are all intended to “get it.”

The occupy movement from Wall Street to Washington, D.C., has nothing on the potential power and change that comes from the occupation of a human being by the Holy Spirit. This is the most authentic change of all.

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Herod, the Magi & a Star

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Isn’t it peculiar how many people are adamant about the dangers of astrology and “magic,” but wholeheartedly repeat and support the classic story of the “three magi” who supposedly visited the baby Jesus by way of King Herod and left in their wake, three famous gifts for the child: gold, incense, and myrrh? Their “astrological” roots have been overlooked in favor of calling them “wise men.” But is wisdom treated any better?

Matthew 2:7-8,
Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

There are so many symbols in ancient storytelling. Some interpretations have carried down through the ages while many more have been adjusted along the way through natural evolutions in the telling. After all, many ancient tales and wisdom narratives were a verbal art form. Even the New Testament was put into writing years after the death of Jesus and although they were based on eyewitness accounts, how many witnesses can agree on anything)? The letters of Paul and other apostolic letters were written and then carried from place to place, and no doubt, ruined along the way and copied from memory or pieced back together. Accurately? Maybe and maybe not.These are just a few of the questions and discoveries of Bible scholars of today.

Now before anyone panics: relax. I’m not setting forth an anti-bible or a particular bias against “scriptura sola” (which means by scripture alone). If anything, my faith is unshaken as I uncover the variations and discoveries  about the Bible: the presence of the Holy Spirit within me is untouched by modern science nor is it enhanced by Biblical narrow-mindedness.

Ok, here are a few facts and personal observations:

1) Herod (the Great) was actually assigned his role to be King of Judea by the Romans. In many ways, he was a puppet king. And although he built many great buildings during his 34 year reign,  he was considered to be a madman and killed many of his own immediate family. Clearly, he suffered from paranoia. This is later confirmed by his order to murder the boy-children of Bethlehem. (On a side note, I have learned that this genocide of male children is not confined to ancient history, but has been repeated throughout history. One notable example is the story of 20,000 boys and young men displaced in the second Sudanese Civil War of 1983-2005 and beautifully depicted through the documentary, the Lost Boys of Sudan.)

2) The Magi (and really, nowhere does it really say three except through the reference of three gifts), or magicians or astrologers or wise men or astronomers or whatever, made a journey based on their interpretations of the heavens and the prophecies carried through the ages and across nations. They studied, they read, they heard, they watched and then they acted. They made a HUGE journey based on their discoveries. They expended a great deal of time and money to get to where they were going. I’m guessing they figured everyone knew about it already, that is, those who lived near the event. But they didn’t. Herod was caught off guard and so were the “people of Jerusalem” (verse 3). The biggest juncture in Jewish history had happened and they missed it? How could that be? The Messiah was born and nobody knew about it except for a bunch of foreigners?

3) The star was exactly what? Really, a star? Based on our modern day knowledge, a star is a gigantic sun that is really, really far away. It doesn’t just “rise” and hover over a location. I mean, Earth is round (not flat as they imagined it to be back then). You can’t chase a star in the heavens any more than you can chase a rainbow. So, what was it? The shape and its placement in relation to other stars? Perhaps it was a super nova or a comet or some conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter? We’ll never know really. But they saw something. And as a result of what they saw, they packed their bags (which was probably a very large caravan) and took a very long journey (some scholars say up to two years).

So, what do I end  up with? A mad king, three (or more) eccentric soothsayers and a celestial mystery.

What’s my take away? Today, we have quarks, the Higgs Bosun particle, Virgin Galactic (space travel by tourists), and 1,740,330 identified species of invertebrate and vertebrate animals, plants, and others. These things are no less amazing. Our world is full of natural wonders as well as unknowns. How would a primitive describe any one of the things that modern man has discovered or invented?

Will we be any better at recognizing the second coming of the Messiah? Or will we be like the people of Jerusalem? Or will we work really hard to explain away the wonder? Would an appearance in the sky be too much like the latest Sci-Fi movie? Would we miss the point. . . again?

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What’s On Your Mind?

Posted in Random Thoughts, tagged , , , , , , on July 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Joseph was pretty clear on what to do about the “Mary problem.” Basically a nice guy (apparently), he would divorce her quietly and she could deal with the fall-out on her own. After all, it really wasn’t his mess. But God had another plan. So, how does God get through to us after we have already made up our minds?

Matthew 1:19
Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

I would like to say that I have a list of experiences where I wanted to go one way and God wanted me to go the other way and I had a convenient dream (that I remembered) and then realized, “Oh, God is speaking,” so I changed my mind. There’s a laugh.

I am stubborn and bull headed. Once I decide (and I mean really decide) to do something, it’s like pushing a boulder up a hill to get me to change. In some cases, that persistence has been a good thing. The adoption of our daughter was a two-hear slog and only our dogged faith got us through. We had plenty of people try to change our minds. After all, everything was going wrong. So, in this case, we believed God was actually in the midst of it all.

But, I know, there are many more pigheaded decisions I have made that kept the angels busy trying to break through my iron resistance. Or maybe it wasn’t even those stubborn things but the impulsive ones that caused the most complications and mistakes. I’d get something in my mind: sell the old house and get a new (debt, debt, debt); buy a new car; send the boys to private school; go on a long vacations; accept another pet (and another and another and another); or simply say something hurtful. . . because it seemed right in the moment.

Looking back, I’m sure there was a lot of wing flapping and microphone testing (“Can you hear me now?”).

So, what is the point? My decisions (or mind gripped ideas) should be given time and space to hear from God. The Holy Spirit is wondrously creative and can help work out a lot of dicey situations.

At least I didn’t purchase one of those time shares in Timbuktu.

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Come Along

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Come. It’s an invitation. Come see. Come along and be a part. Please come (don’t stay behind). Come with us. But it can also be a command: Come! Come here. Come on. Come away. Move! Why do I resist this word? Why do I want to go the other way? Why retreat?

Revelation 22:17, 20 b
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. . . Come Lord Jesus. 

It’s a commitment to come along. It means walking or running forward. Anything else is a decrease or standing still.

When I accepted the truth of Christ as the unique being He is, I did not fully understand the implications, but I did hear the call to participate in the God Presence anyway. It was quite simple, just these words, “Come … and drink.” And these words, “Come Lord Jesus.” And with my willingness to move forward, Christ moved closer to me into a mutual embrace.

Thirty-three years ago, a friend asked me to read the New Testament as an exercise, an acting exercise if you will. In the same way that an actor should read a script for the first time, I was asked to put these words, “if this were true,” at the beginning of the text and suspend all judgments until the end. It was in this way that I heard the invitation as well as the command, to come. Like stepping through a door, I knew I would be entering a different world. For awhile, I tried to straddle the threshold, but in the end, there is only, “come” and then a decision. It’s only after the decision that a person can really know, grow, and change. Even Yoda had it right, “Do… or do not. There is no try.”

I began this particular journaling/blogging walk through the scriptures back in 2009. It’s been a very slow investigation and yet quite revealing. Of course, there have been lost days and lost verses, so I assumed I would just start over again once I finished. But is there a point? Have I lost the momentum? Am I too scattered?

I felt an actual resistance to reaching the end of Revelation. That is, until I read that same call, that allure to drawing closer, the beckoning voice of the Holy Spirit with a promise of more and deeper. Come.

What will that look like? I don’t know. But I must go.

Last week, I went to Hershey Park (amusement park) and in an uncharacteristic and spontaneous moment, I agreed to ride a roller coaster with which I was totally unfamiliar. I did not know how fast it would go or how steep it would climb or drop. I had not been watching it while walking around the park looking for my family. We met up at the entrance of the ride and they said, “Come on Mom,” and I went. It was terrifying. But I survived, as we mostly do. I screamed, I prayed, I closed my eyes, I opened my eyes. I experienced a mini-life.

God does not intend for me to know much about the ride. He just wants me to come along.

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Winepress of Wrath

Posted in Eastertide, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2012| 1 Comment »

Throughout the Bible, the imagery of wine is used in a positive light, like Jesus turning water into wine or the Passover cup where it symbolizes the shedding of his own blood. But the winepress itself, the process, that pressure and transformation holds other implications.

Revelation 14:19
So the angel swung his scythe on the earth and stripped the grapes and gathered the vintage from the vines of the earth and cast it into the huge winepress of God’s indignation and wrath. [Amplified]

It’s not a gentle business, the pressing of grapes, or for that matter, gathering them either. In the case of true wine making, there is a particular pressure applied to avoid smashing the seeds which give a more bitter flavor. Were they as concerned in ancient times? I don’t know since it was done with feet. In any case, once the grapes are smashed, they are no longer good as grapes. They must become something else.

Generally, I have only known the kinder forms of metamorphosis. The Holy Spirit is a gentle craftsman of my heart and soul. I am forgiven daily and given many, many opportunities to try again, to learn, to grow, to change and ultimately, to become a sweet aroma to both humankind and God. I want to translate myself into a creature of love and daring.

But I also understand that kicking against the goads of God’s will for me, fighting the process, forcing my way on the path, only makes it more difficult. And so, challenges and difficulties can arise to bring me back around.

It’s hard to see and understand the God way because it’s a way of mystery and paradox. It’s the path that Indiana Jones couldn’t see over the abyss. It cannot be seen or felt until one takes that step of faith. It’s not the golden chalice but the well-worn, humble one that is the Holy Grail.

Eventually, though, a day does come in the stretch of humankind when God allows the worst to happen. Like the pain of Job who lost everything to find everything, so it will be with Earth: a great shattering.

I don’t like the idea of contemplating such a turn of events nor do I want to be there. I don’t want to be there because of my own stubborn nature. I don’t want to know the winepress of wrath.

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