Thoughts on Israel #5... The end

It has been one week since my return from Israel.  And I have been debriefing the experience with many people - friend and family and church goers. Everyone has been very gracious as my wife and get get starry eyed again and begin telling tales of adventure.  So first of all, thanks to all our friends who have indulged our stories.  We are blessed to be a part of such a great community.

This will be my last post on Israel.  I have so much more in my mind that I would like to say or that meant something very special to me, but there is not the room or the time to contain it all.  And at some point the law of diminishing returns starts to take affect.  So in an attempt to wrap things up, I will conclude with what I saw that impacted me the most... There are 2 events that are separate, and connected.

The first was at Caesarea Philippi.

Matthew 16:13 says, When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

This place is one of the 3 head waters of the Jordan river.  The water literally comes out of the rocks.  Any place that is like this is a hotbed for pagan worship in the ancient world.  And this is true for Caesarea Philippi as well.  In the time of Elijah, Ba'al worship was strong here.  And in Jesus' day, the worshipped the god Pan. Pan is half goat half man and there was all kinds of perverted debauchery that happened as a result of worshipping Pan.

But here is what hit me, in this place children were sacrificed to Ba'al. That means that I stood where babies were sacrificed to iron and wood...  To dead gods!

This was part of the affect.  But it goes further.  In Israel, all these sites that we pay huge money to go and see are national parks. And the high school students go there as part of their field trips.  Just another day at a historical site.  No big deal.  And of course I don't entirely blame them.  They are surrounded by all this old stuff all the time.  It has to lose some of its mystique.

But they were running around - clueless.  Being young, playful teens, and completely missing that they are standing at a place where children were sacrificed to dead gods.    

It deeply moved me.  Because it is here that Peter says You are the Christ. The Son of the LIVING God.  And Jesus invites them to live in Him.  And these kids are running around clueless about the significance of this place and how powerful this moment in history was and still is today.

The second place that moved me was Qumran.  This is the place where the Essenes withdrew and left the trappings of riches and easy life to move out into the desert (and it is barren) to devote their lives to studying the text.  They wanted to know God's Word with such a passion that they literally gave up everything and just studied text.  John the Baptist comes from these people.  They would have to take a ceremonial bath (mikveh or what we would call baptism) for just saying the name of God.  Their devotion to the text and not missing God's path was incredible. I want to love the text the way they do. But I don't.  At least I don't live my life with that level of devotion. I admire them. But I am not sure that I want to be them.

Which leads me to my connection of these 2 events.  Am I the clueless teenager running around not realizing the significant moments that God has going on all around me all the time because I am not loving, living, and reading the text as I should?  Would I be the "voice of one calling in the wilderness?" Am I able to "show people the ancient paths?"  This is my question and it has wrung in my  head since I got back.

So what do I do with my experience of Israel? Here is all I can tell you... There is so much of the whole trip that just simply cannot be quantified.  I don't know how to explain what happened or what I felt.  But what I can say is that like Jeremiah, there is a fire in my bones that has not been there in a long time.  So that when someone asks where are the ancient paths, I will have an answer.  I will know not just where the ancient paths are, but how to get there and how to walk them once we arrive.  I don't want to miss any God moments.  And By His grace, I will do so no longer!

Thoughts on Israel #4...

It’s Tragic!!!

So, I want to be clear with this blog post. I am not church bashing or bringing up all the holes in organized religion. No matter what you believe about life here and after we die, you have that organized into a construct.  So you have an organized religion whether you serve a god or you are the god of your religion makes no difference to me.  I have no interest in any of that for this particular blog post.

But what I saw today troubles me deeply.  And make no mistake; I fully realize that I am making some assumptions.  I think they are safe ones, but assumptions without the full picture nonetheless.

Today we went to Bethlehem. This is the city in which Jesus was born. As the story goes, Jesus was born in a stable, which was essentially a cave for animals. The wonder of the advent is that the Son of God incarnated Himself as a baby and was born in a cave in the dirt – next to sheep manure and cow pies.  He came to the lowest of the low places to reveal to us a God who meets us in our deepest brokenness.  And healing is found in meeting Him there – in our brokenness. 

Just up the road 5 miles is the Herodian.  It is a palace that Herod built literally by moving a mountain (see Mark 11 – Jesus would have been looking at this structure when He makes that statement). But Jesus, the Son of God, didn’t enter the world there. He came in a stable so that no one was too low to have access to the Savior of the world.

In 329, Constantine’s mother built a giant cathedral over the supposed cave in which Jesus was born. It was wrecked, but then rebuilt during the Byzantine period in the 520’s.  And it still stands today, making it the oldest standing church in the world.  Sections of the original floor from 329 are still there.  I have the pictures. But something grabbed me there that shows the juxtaposition of humanity.

I took a photo of a “poor box” or a collection box for the poor and without moving my feet took a picture of a chandelier that would easily sell for $250,000 or more. The cathedral was this elaborate building with real gold mosaic tiles on the wall, and I wondered in it all if this may be missing the whole point entirely.  Did Jesus want us to remember His birthplace at all?  And what’s more, did He want us to remember it this way?

As we entered into the area where the cave was, people were literally kissing the rocks.  They have had to put tapestries up in order to keep people from scraping pieces of the rock off to take with them so that they will be blessed.

It all felt very oppressed. I was troubled in my spirit as we left.  Trying to put an emotion label on what I felt was hard. I vacillated from anger to sadness to shame. But I think where I landed was confusion. I felt very confused by what I saw. Why would anyone weep and kiss a rock? Why would a church worth literally millions and millions of dollars ask others to give to the poor? Why do people flock to this place that isn’t even for sure the right spot to run into a cave that looks more like a room with really bad wall paper?  What is all of this?

This is where I have landed…

All of this stuff is the by-product of worshipping God in space, not time. Doesn’t that sound profound???

Here is what I mean. When we attach God to places, we are worshipping Him in space.  This is how the ancients worshipped their pagan gods. And our God too for that matter. When we do this, if we are not careful, the rocks, the bricks, the mortar becomes sacred. Instead of being a vehicle to point us to God, they become the objects of worship themselves. So we weep at a rock, but not at the poverty of this world that breaks God’s heart. We exchange the heart of God in all areas for places and things. And quite frankly, it all feels a bit contrived.

This is why Sabbath is still such a valuable practice. Sabbath forces us to worship God in time, not space. It forces us to stop our clamoring for provision and learn to rest in the grace of a God who has it all under control. We are forced to say with our whole being even in how we spend our minutes that we trust that God will close the gaps in our lives that we cannot.

Now, I am not saying that rest is the answer to the Church of the Nativity. What I am saying is that I think we can learn to worship God more wholly when we learn to worship God in our minutes, not in our buildings.  Then, whatever we do in our buildings (and churches are always going to have buildings) will be full of time well spent – meaningful.

Thoughts on Israel #3...

Why do I care about all this “Jew” stuff?

That is a funny question that was posed to me today. Not directly at me, but part of a larger conversation that opened up into this question. It has stuck with me. And for what it is worth, I think it is a great question.

This morning, I was reading 1 Kings. The beginning of this book is about the transition between David and Solomon as king. Much detail is given to things that before now, I hadn’t even cared to notice. Now that I have been here and seen the land, the cities, the climate diversity… everything has changed.

Why this person in that place? All the strategy, the provision that had to take place and the innovation needed to pull of supporting life in these places is so crazy!

But beyond that – and why I care about it so much – how can anyone say that they understand anything about the Bible without connecting it back to its roots? How can anyone divorce the writing of the Scripture from the customs, people, and conversations that it was birthed into? How can I say I love the Word without steeping myself in its cultural and historical context? I can’t! And I won’t even try to do that anymore.

I have been wrestling with what to do with all this.  What do I make out of all the things that I am being exposed to? Today, I got to stand at Masada. I sat in the seats of the synagogue that the rebels who held out at Masada sat in the day before they died. What prayers did they pray? What scriptures did they read? What’s more, what example did they leave behind of what people who live with conviction live like?

I am drawn to this place. I am compelled to open the eyes of people that I speak to every week. I cannot help but realize the great need that we all have to experience this place at least once. I will be part of that solution for those who have not yet seen what I have seen.  I am so blessed.

Thoughts on Israel #2...

Blog post 2

God keeps His word!

I went to Jericho today. Fascinating place! It was a great reminder of something that I think is worth talking about.

So when the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River into the Promised land (which by the way, I think they felt slighted – this portion of Israel is UGLY), the first city they came to was Jericho.  They conquered it and Joshua placed a curse on that city that whomever tried to build it up again would do so at the expense of his children.

Fast forward 400 years…

King Ahab convinces his servant Hiel to go down to Jericho and rebuild it. 1 Kings 16:34 says this, “It was during his reign that Hiel, a man from Bethel, rebuilt Jericho. When he laid the foundations, it cost him the life of his oldest son, Abiram. And when he completed it and set up its gates, it cost him the life of his youngest son, Segub. This all happened according to the word of the Lord concerning Jericho spoken through Joshua son of Nun.

Ahab tries to convince Hiel that this wasn’t a fulfillment of the curse and that it was mere coincidence.  Here is Ahab’s logic – The Torah says that God will send rain in its season when we follow Him, but I have done terribly evil things and He hasn’t done anything to hurt us.

And then God sends Elijah. Elijah says – make no mistake. This has all happened exactly because of the promise God made and to prove it, there will be no more rain and no more dew until I say so.

Really… after 400 years God remembers a curse that Joshua made on an already defeated city?

Yep.  God always keeps His word.  Now, this story can raise all kinds of questions about God and evil.  But I think it is making a better point.  One that is truly profound if you think about it.

Ephesians 1 says that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. Solid! That means that on those days when we feel like the world around us look like desert – barren and dry – we can rest in the grace of a God who has in fact never forgotten what He set out to do in us and He will finish His work because God always keeps His word.

Have you felt like you can’t see God? Like perhaps He has forgotten you? Let me say one thing that I think Hiel would say to you without a doubt…

God never forgets. And He always keeps His word – always!

Thoughts on Israel... #1

So while I was in Israel, I wrote a few posts working through my thoughts. I thought I would post these articles and see if perhaps they can speak to you as well.  I pray you will be blessed...

BLOG #1

This morning, as I write this, it is 5:49 in the morning and I am sitting next to the Sea of Galilee. I have been here only 3 days and yet this experience has been very surreal for me. I have seen where Peter was restored by Jesus after he denied Jesus 3 times.  I have seen where Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” I have seen architecture that would be a modern day miracle let alone the fact that it was built 2,000 years ago. I have seen where Jesus spoke about being poor in spirit, meek, and full of mercy.  I have even seen a city gate and the steps up to that city gate that they believe Abraham walked on. That is 3,800 – 4,000 years ago!

I am overwhelmed.

These are things that I have read about my whole life and I have seen pictures but it is truly an experience all its own to put your hands on these faith shaping places.  These are places where conversations were had that changed the course of history.  Whether or not you are a believer, this place has had a profound impact on your life in ways that very few places have.

And yet, there is something plaguing me… Today, tomorrow, and for the next 10 days I am going to go and see more and more and more amazing archeology. I will see things that Solomon himself built.  I will be able to put my hands on things that people who lived at the time of Christ would have considered old. It is dazzling. 

But, to what end?

I mean, so what? Why does this matter so much? What is the big deal? What if all I ever did after being here is just go home with some amazing pictures and neat stories? What if I could connect the stories of the Bible to real places in my mind but I couldn’t relate them to my life? Would it matter that I had even been here?

I am wrestling with the question of – what do I do with all this? And my fear is that like Moses returning to Egypt in Exodus 4, I will find myself a man between covenants – unsure of where I stand or what I live for or how I connect to the scripture.

Here is the deal: more than ever, I am convinced that to divorce the text from its Jewishness is foolish at every level. To try to interpret Scripture without a firm grasp of its historical context and the conversations that have been going on around this book for millennia already would be to miss the meaning entirely. Geography, tradition, political intrigue, trade, religious influence; these all had a profound impact on the scripture that we read today. I think that perhaps rather than trying to decide what the text says before we ever understand any of that historical context, we must first understand as much of the context as we can. Then, and only then, can we begin to get at the heart of what is being said.

I don’t want to be more aware of what I already know.  I want to be transformed by this experience. I want to see deeper and better nuances of the text. And so far, it has been just that.

So, may we all be inspired to know the text from its context.  May we be changed by the reality of real people in a real place at a real time.  And may we always be aware of our deep interconnectedness with Israel, its people, and its God.