BABY FOOD AND PHARISEES

Yeshua, of course, was the epitome of Someone who knew God in the deepest of ways, being a man free of a nature inclined toward sin.  At its core, sin is separation, or independence, from God.  There was nothing about Yeshua that was independent of God. Everything He did and said reflected the heart of God. Did you ever think of God as Humble? Washing Peter's feet was an act of Almighty God! Even as a tiny child, He was godlike.

One interesting way to study the  Jewish Bible, is to look for where you find some nuggets of information about Yeshua that we wouldn’t know otherwise. Following is a pretty familiar prophetic verse but I want to focus on the last line:

“Behold, a young woman will conceive and bear a son and she will call His name Emanuel.  And He will eat curds and honey when He knows to refuse the bad and choose the good” (Isaiah 7:15-16). 

It says that Yeshua would be eating curds and honey, or what would amount to baby food when even then, at that young age, He would be aware of the difference between bad and good and know to choose good. I guess Yeshua never went through the “terrible two’s.” The whole passage is about Him as a wee little one, and since He had the sinless character of God, He was not drawn to bad or evil. He had no sinfulness within His moral character so that, even as a toddler, what is “ra” – the Hebrew word for anything that is bad or evil or not good for us – would have no appeal to Him. Or perhaps He even felt a sense of disinclination toward anything not good or of God.  This gives us a meaningful insight into His essential nature. 

Insights like this are like a nugget of gold when you come to them as if you were mining for gold.  Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal some of these nuggets to you, as you read thoughtfully. Some of them are rather hidden but it’s a delight when we find them.

While many beautiful and encouraging phrases are on the surface of what we read, there are passages that give us reason to seek at a greater depth for what He was trying to convey, or what was really going on. (When you come across O.T. verses in the N.T. (indented or in italics), take the time to look for where the reference is and then look them up for greater clarity.)  For instance, we know that much of Yeshua’s ministry included confrontations with those who opposed Him. Why all the animosity?  Is there more behind the scenes that we could be missing? And if so, is there something about Him personally we could be misunderstanding?

One such example is when He was confronting the Scribes and Pharisees who were so intent on doing harm to Him. One day, aware of their intentions, He began to say to them, “Woe to you hypocritical Scribes (Torah teachers) and Pharisees! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look fine on the outside but inside are full of dead people’s bones and all kinds of rottenness” (Matthew 23:27).  Pretty strong words, wouldn’t you say? He said a lot more to them then, but these words introduce the impact He was trying to bring to them. I’m sure He certainly would have gotten their attention at his point. But there’s more.

Those religious leaders knew exactly what He was referring to in using the term “whitewashed.” His words to them in that whole passage should have been convicting enough but since they would know that the reference was what was said in Ezekiel 13 where God was giving a serious warning to a corrupt priesthood, they would also know He was saying the same things about them.  Please take a few moments to read through Ezekiel 13:1-16 thoughtfully, noting that “whitewash” is found in verses :10, 11, 14, and 15. Keep in mind that prophets in Ezekiel’s day would be the equivalent of the religious leaders in Yeshua’s day.

What in fact Yeshua was doing was warning them that in their attitudes toward Him they were risking their eternal destinies. He was trying to make them aware of what God had previously accused a corrupt priesthood through Ezekiel’s words and to make them see that their own hearts were also far from God.  If you recall, Yeshua said, “If anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him, for I came not to judge the world but to save the world” (John12:47). So we must assume His intention in speaking so harshly to the leaders was not to judge them, but to cause them to rethink their intentions. He wanted them to come to the realization that their rejection of Him and their plans to see Him murdered were greatly influencing their own eternal destinies.  This wasn’t about politics and keeping their positions of power in this life; it was about an eternity with or without God.  He wanted them to rethink their place before YHVH. He wanted with all His heart to “save” them, not condemn them.

Paul later also used the word calling the high priests, “…you whitewashed wall! (Acts 23:3a). It may well have been God Himself trying to give the leaders cause to rethink their continued animosity toward Yeshua as well as those who continued to be His followers.  Since we are told that “a number of the party of the Pharisees believed” in Yeshua (Acts 15:5), it may well be that Yeshua's words or Paul’s were heard as God intended which brought them to repentance.

Many have believed that Yeshua was in fact condemning all Israel's religious leaders. This interpretation has fed into an age-old anti-Jewish rhetoric that was interpreted as God being against the Jewish leaders and so, it has been thought, He must be against the Jews who followed them as their leaders. That perspective not only misrepresents all of Israel and their leadership, but it certainly does not reflect the ways of all of Israel’s attitude toward Yeshua because we know that the first 3,000 believers were Jews who came to faith in Yeshua on Shavuot (Pentecost), and then, “every day the Lord was adding to those who had been saved” (Acts 2:47). It is estimated that up to 1.5 million Jewish people became believers in Yeshua in the first century, including a number of the religious leaders. So the idea that God was against the Jews or all of their leaders for rejecting Yeshua is unfounded.

Secondly, and more importantly, the misinterpretation of Yeshua’s intention in addressing the leaders as He did, has led to a gross misunderstanding of the heart of God. That misunderstanding has been used to justify not only anti-Jewish sentiments, but has also caused some Christians to believe that God, and even Jesus, is judgmental and condemning of those who are still not believing in Him, rather than extending a hand of  grace to them just as Yeshua did.  Note that the quote from John 12 above states that even if people do not believe Him, He did not judge them.  In truth, His heart of mercy was toward them, trying to get them to understand they were far from God and following a very dangerous path in their own hearts.

He was not judging them as evil; He was trying to get them to turn from evil. He was trying to get them to rethink their positions so as to save them! There is cause to believe that Yeshua was actually heartbroken at the condition of their hearts, knowing that one day they would realize their error when it was too late if they didn’t repent and turn toward God. Thankfully, we know from Acts that many of the Pharisees did come to saving faith in Yeshua.

Yeshua’s entire life and every word He ever spoke was of grace, and never of condemnation or  judgment that would send people to hell. Rather, He was "the way" out!  Even His very name means God (is) salvation (to be saved, rescued).  He died to save people from Hell, not to send them to it.   Even to the very last moments of His life, He sought for the forgiveness of the worst of men, even His murderers. If that isn’t mercy and grace, what is?  How then should we be? 

WHAT ABOUT THE ASHES?

Given God’s dislike for idolatry and false beliefs among His people, I would imagine that you would agree that before Yeshua comes, the Holy Spirit is working to prepare His bride according to Revelation 19, where she is still bearing some “wrinkles” of distorted concepts of holiness that need to be ‘ironed out’, or where there may be “spots” of worldly ungodliness – maybe a better word would be ungod-like-ness – that we must be cleansed of. A good many of these are not our fault.  We have inherited a system of beliefs that are centuries old, not all of which are what God intended.  In fact, some of them get in the way of living in the fullness of what Yeshua provided for us.  

As an example, I happened upon a group of Christians this past week who were discussing the upcoming event of Ash Wednesday which they apparently were inclined to participate in.  It is evidently the kick-off event for Lent, neither of which I am familiar with. After listening for a while I ventured to ask, “Could you please tell me the origin and meaning of Ash Wednesday.” This was a group of maybe 15 or so who had been Christians I would think all their lives and some of them were a bit up in years. I expected they would know. They didn’t. One of the younger women, say in her 40’s, said, “I think it had something to do with Passover and the Jewish people putting ashes on their foreheads.”  I respectfully assured them, that as a Jewish believer myself, there is nothing in the Passover that would include ashes and it certainly isn’t in the Old Testament. 

Another person said, “I think it goes all the way back to the early church, with the Catholics and the Episcopalians that are like the Catholics. I just love when things go back close to when Jesus and his disciples made up the church.”  I did manage to hold my tongue and said nothing but I sure wanted to.  Neither  Yeshua nor His disciples ever had any knowledge at all, let alone had anything to do with, many of the practices of the early Catholic Church which had more to do with Rome than Israel. They wouldn’t have even understood the word “church.’ Another said, “I believe it has to do with the Jews burning the palm leaves they waved when Jesus came into Jerusalem, and they saved them and burned them the next year to put the ashes on their heads.”  Stunning, I thought, how earnestly we can hold to some religious rite and have no real idea what it’s supposed to represent or where it came from. 

This is not to belittle the genuine repentance that such an occasion might bring to sincere believers in earnest of being right with God. None of us can relate to God beyond what we know of Him. So if my comments seem a bit, well, unkind, it is certainly not toward the Jesus-seeking people, but rather comes not only from a longing for all who love the Lord to have all that He died to give us, but for Him to have all of us in the way He made available to us.   

I really hadn’t planned to go back to this group I had just met but the leader, a man wearing a wonderful colorful broad tie that said WWJD on it in various ways, asked if I would find out and come back the following week and teach them what the ashes represent and where it began. They knew nothing about me. Why did they even think I could do that?  Well, I could hardly resist an opportunity to do some ironing and spot leaning, could I?  So I began to check it out.

The brief story is that it is connected with Lent (that’s another story) and with repentance and being aware of one’s sins and feeling badly about them and presumably turning from them.  It is based on the Scripture verses in which certain Old Testament persons in deep grief or remorse for their sin threw dust and ashes upon their heads, often tearing their clothes at the same time. The ashes then represent sorrow for one’s sins. Ash Wednesday is supposed to accomplish that same effect, from what I read.  But when this took place among the Bible people, it is more that these spontaneous ash dousing actions were in the throes of great angst and emotional pain, likely with grasping a handful of 'dust' from the ground and dumping it on their heads, having nothing to do with a religious rite in which they went to some designated priest or bishop who drew a cross on their foreheads with ashes to make them feel better.  Or for that matter, as the ashes are supposedly to bring one in touch with their own sin, to make them feel even worse than they already did.

And one thing you can be sure about. If it would have happened, it sure wouldn’t have been a cross as a symbol of righteousness.  The cross was a symbol of great shame to the Hebrews. It wasn’t until several hundred years later under Constantine's influence that the cross became a symbol of adoration (another blog for another time perhaps).  The only thought that came to my mind was of the high priest burning incense on the altar (as in the picture above) but certainly there was no veneration of the ashes though they disposed of them in a specific manner.  

I did a fair amount of reading on Ash Wednesday and I found it significant that not once was the name of Jesus mentioned.  It was all about rules and rites and traditions and who is approved to do what to whom.  A good bit of it was about “blessing the ashes” which, as it turns out, were about keeping the palm leaves from one year's ceremony and then burned and those ashes used for the next year's ceremony. Those ashes were sort of sprinkled on the penitent’s head but later, especially in America, the practice of putting a cross on one’s forehead is preferred. It is neater, I’ll give you that. 

I do have a question about “blessing” the ashes, though. What does that mean? What does that do? How does that affect the persons’ life who receives the ashes? I thought we bless people, not things. Often the Jews bless God as a way of gratefully honoring Him. In the Old Testament objects were purified with blood or water, but not (and I could be wrong), blessed.  I’m not even sure what it means to bless ashes.  It’s a dead element, it has no life. It can’t do anything for anyone.  What’s to bless?

I suggest to you that it is left over from pagan practices that were to appease the gods of the Romans as one of those things that “the church” took on through Constantine’s edicts to unite the Christians with the others in the empire so peace would reign and the persecution would stop.  I know, I know, there’s much more to the story.  But the thing about those gods was that if you made them happy, the people would be happy and “blessed.” If they displeased the gods, well, you just didn’t want to do that because all bad things happened because you didn’t give them enough…. attention, worship, money, flowers, or whatever.  Worship of those pagan gods was about what you did to earn their favor so all would go well with you.

Not so with the God of the Hebrews. He was a Father and like every father, there were rules in the house but your obedience didn’t determine whether or not you remained the child of the Father.  No, this loving father was obeyed by his children because they loved him. It’s what children do. So also was the relationship between Israel and their God. He was as a Father to them and they obeyed Him because they were His children, not to get Him to accept them. He chose them!  He made them His own.  They knew that.  There is nowhere in the Old Testament that indicates that keeping the rules is what ‘buys’ you acceptance from God.  Rather, they were already fully accepted. They didn’t and still don’t keep the commandments in order to become or stay Jews, they already were and always would be. Witness the fact that there remains Jews of all flavors and types in the world today –but they all remain Jews, because it’s not about earning their way to God through some designated behaviors. They’re already His. 

The same thing applies to every true believer in Israel’s Messiah when they accept that He has already made the way for them to come into the family of Israel’s God. He becomes their Father just as He is Israel’s Father. And the same assurance of sonship can belong to anyone who truly turns away from their sin and accepts the forgiveness offered through Yeshua’s death on the cross on their behalf. The reason we stay caught up on repenting of anything we know God doesn't approve of is because we're already forgiven. Kind of like once you're clean, you want to stay that way. 

So where would ashes come into this?  King Solomon told us that “The reproofs for discipline are the way of life.”  In other words, repentance is an ongoing all-the-time thing when one is in relationship with Father God.  Anyone who is the Lord’s knows that part of our lives in God is being aware of when our thoughts or our deeds are not in keeping with the holiness of God and so we quickly, even immediately, turn to the Lord and thank Him for forgiving us and we are immediately cleansed of that transgression. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  That’s a verse we should all memorize. It comes in handy on a regular basis.

So if repentance is a way of life, like taking a bath or brushing your teeth in order to remain clean is a way of life, then what purpose would there be for a specific time once a year on a Wednesday to remember your sins by having someone put ashes on your forehead. If you need the ashes to get in contact with your sinful nature, then I suggest you need to turn your life over to God and be born again. You need to have His indwelling Spirit with you on a continual all-the-time basis.  He will welcome you in to the family so that you are no longer a rule keeping bystander, but a beloved child of God, if you simply begin to speak with God asking Him for His forgiveness for your life of sin and independence from Him.  

I will go back and meet with these dear folks again this weekend. I will attempt to gently tell them of this. Who knows what God will do with a little truth?  It does set us free.  Maybe it will “bless” someone enough to exchange the once a year ashes for the everyday sweetness of the Lord's purifying presence and love.  

Glory to God For The Me Who Died

This morning I lit a Yartzeit candle and recited the Kahdish prayer which Jewish people do to honor the deceased, though the prayer is really a praise to God.  It was my commitment to the Lord to no longer walk with Him as one who is self-absorbed instead of Yeshua enthralled. It all began when I read on this same day in my journal of last year how I was kvetching and attempting to commit to living as God would have me do, but I see that I was really still trying to fix myself and attempting to do a better job at doing a better job!!  Does anyone relate, or am I the only one?

Well, as it turns out, much of what I was asking God for last year, or at least a goodly number of my prayers in this regard, have been answered and I can see how I am really a (somewhat) different woman than I was last year when I was still victimized by my old nature in trying to get it to act like my new nature.

The reality is we do have two natures within us - God's and Adam's. And the fact is, Adam will never be resurrected into Yeshua. He can't be. He's gotta die! That's all there is to it.  It's really not a fair fight for superiority, is it? I mean the Adam in us and the Almighty who is committed to making us like His Son - He wins, thank God!  And our old nature looses - eventually.  That is to say, the Adam-like nature in us must eventually yield to the Holy Spirit. Actually in Hebrew "Holy Spirit" would read more like "Spirit of (the) holiness."  I like that better. It helps me to remember that the Spirit of God within me, Who helps me with the living of my life in godliness (even in the ordinary things), is in fact "holy!" Some of us are inclined to be a bit too familiar sometimes with the Spirit of God being with and within us so that His presence may seem to blend into the rest of our lives so that we can forget that we're called to live lives in line with the nature and character of God.  Or, again, is it just me?  Either way, me or 'us', allow me to share a Hebrew concept with you that may help anchor your heart in God as a way to live your life.

There is an expression in Hebrew among Jews who are God-inclined that is called Kiddush HaShem.  It basically means holy unto the Lord and is a way of living one's life to the glory of God. Yeshua's entire life was lived in keeping with Kiddush HaShem.  It is a way of living to be conscious that in everything we do, we bring honor to God.  When Yeshua told His disciples that when they pray the first thing on their minds when addressing our Father in heaven, should be, "Hallowed be Thy name" meaning that our relationship with God is best lived when we first commit to Him to bring about honor and glory to His name.  In everything we do, even in how we think, we are most like Yeshua when we are seeking God's 'reputation' not our own.  Yeshua never sought recognition for Himself, but only for His Father.

In his book, Jesus' Gospel: Searching for the Core of Jesus' Message, by Joshua Tilton (Jerusalem Perspective.com) he speaks of Kiddush (Quidush) HaShem as Yeshua's motive, not to make His divinity known in such stories as the paralytic, for one instance, but to call attention to the goodness of God to forgive sins and to restore people. Tilton says that often we misinterpret Yeshua's motive as being one that says, "Look at Me," when His whole life was about making His Father known and to give glory to His name.  There is nothing in Kiddush HaShem that is coercive, Tilton points out, nor an attempt to wrestle people into acting morally or righteously. If it doesn't come from our hearts, its not going to please God anyway.

I heard this past week of a man who has not been walking with the Lord for a long time who now has cancer.  He told his sister that if he came to the Lord now, it would be "fire insurance" meaning to stay out of hell.  But if he was to try and buy that ticket out of hell with a self-seeking motive, he would find himself still outside of heaven's gates.  There is no "fire insurance" policy available from God. He won't be coerced either. Coercion is not part of God's nature in any way.  We come to Him willingly with a genuine heart of repentance and the recognition that we need His mercy and forgiveness. It's the only way.  When we are truly Yeshua's, that will be our experience.  A quest for righteousness and to be at peace with God is not the same as a desperate attempt at eternal self-protection. 

When God created Adam (Adam means human, btw, it wasn't the first male's name though we call him that), He made both humans, Eve included, in His likeness and image. Though they lost that holy likeness when they sinned, we see it again fully manifested in Yeshua.  But God's intention didn't stop there, as we know. Yeshua's total abandonment of self-preservation on our behalf in His work on the cross, restored for those who would come to Him, God's original intention to have a people, a family, formed in His image and likeness. This is now continually being accomplished by re-forming us by His Spirit into the likeness of His Son who lived in complete and loving dependence upon His Father, with the goal of everything He did, said or thought, to be consistent with the goodness, mercy, justice and glory of God. To be Kiddush haShem minded, is to live with this same joyful existence because He will share His joy with you.

That may sound somewhat lofty for us, but as I've seen in reading my journal only from last year on this same day, when we come to the place of letting go of our attempts to "be good" or to "be holy" and instead trust that God is doing a work in us that far exceeds anything we can conceive of, let alone do, we come to resting in Him and in effect, we get out of His way so He can do the work in us.  We call it grace!  Some have misunderstood grace to be the freedom to do what they please and still be "covered by the blood" of Yeshua. Oh, so not so!!  Grace is the God given ability to live a holy life unto Him, not a license to live as He never would have. 

If you will scroll down a few blog articles below or click on it on the right in the list of articles, to the one on "What only God can do" you'll be able to see how that word from the Lord brought me to a place of resting in Him which has led to me lighting the Yartzeit candle today in recognition of the "old me."  Am I entirely like Yeshua now?  Of course not. That won't be complete till we reach heaven or He comes, whichever is first. But leaning on the Spirit of (the) Holiness instead of my own attempts at holiness, has sure brought me a long way into the rest of God He intends to fully bring us into.