Prayer: A Matter of Perception

    Probably one of the most singularly confusing Christian discipline is prayer. This is an issue that Christians have wrestled with and struggled with throughout time. I know it has been question for me. When it comes to prayer, we ask: why pray? Does it do any good? Does it really matter?

    One thing we do know is that prayer is central to the Christian life. Not only was it a discipline that was central to the lives of the heroes of the Bible like Moses, David, Daniel, and Jesus, but it something that the Bible commands that we do (see 1^st Thessalonians 5:17 and James 5:13, 16). But what is it? How does it work?

    Truth be told, prayer is far too big a subject to tackle all at once. Throughout the next year, I will probably come back to prayer every now and then and touch on it. For this particular post, I am going to focus on one particular aspect of prayer: intercessory and petitionary prayer, which is a fancy way of saying praying to ask stuff.

    This kind of prayer is probably the most confusing. Often Christians use it to essentially turn Yahveh into some sort of divine Santa. But is he not much more than that? What if we are asking for the wrong thing? We say that in the end, we ought to pray "your will be done," but do we really mean that? What if Yahveh's will is different than mine? Does that defeat the point of asking for things? Should we ask for stuff from Yahveh? But then what if he does not grant my request? Does that mean that such a prayer is useless? If Yahveh does what he was going to do anyway, why bother praying? Is pray some sort of guessing game where we hope that what we want is in line with what Yahveh wants? And round and round our minds run when it comes to petitionary prayer.

    A friend of mine recently proposed a theory on prayer that she has been thinking of. She calls prayer a "weapon in the hands of Yahveh." Here is how she explained it (if I am wrong in this explanation, she will surely let us all know): Yahveh has intentionally limited himself by allowing his created beings (that would include us humans) the power of choice. We can chose to follow him or we can chose to do our own thing.

    Now because we have sinned and have, in fact, chosen another way, Yahveh cannot and will not act without our consent. This is why petitionary prayer is so crucial. If Yahveh crosses that line and intervenes without any of our permission, Satan cries foul, and justifiably so. Even if what Yahveh would do is what we would consider good, by his very nature he cannot interfere without our requesting it.

    This should not be taken to deny the sovereignty of Yahveh. It is by his own choice that he has allowed us free choice and it is his choice to allow us sovereignty over ourselves. And as long as we claim to have sovereignty over ourselves, Yahveh will respect that and not interfere with our lives. The flipside of this is that we are now responsible for everything that happens, good or bad, in our lives. As we all know, sooner or later we find ourselves in a situation that is way over our heads.

    It is usually at this point that we pray. Now my friend's contention is that prayer is freeing Yahveh to do what Yahveh does best: come in and fix the problem. True prayer, the kind that Jesus prayed, is suspending our own sovereignty (ideally getting rid of it entirely) and hand over control to Yahveh. This is what she means by prayer is a weapon in the hands of Yahveh. Prayer is what gives him the freedom and permission to act.

    Before I continue, I should like to point out that I believe she is spot on, even more than she may realize. As she said, the implications of this are immense and she is not quite done sorting through them all. Indeed, you could probably write a book on this. Come to think of it, I am pretty sure books have been written on this. But, as usual, I digress.

    When we pray, we grant Yahveh sovereignty at least over the situation (it would be better just to grant him sovereignty over your life, but if you have not done this, we will go in baby steps). Therefore Yahveh is going to do what he (not you) believes is best. This is a very frightening thought because what Yahveh believes to be best may not be (probably is not) what I want.

    My friend maintains that Yahveh's will never involves anything "bad" for us; i.e. he will only do good things when he gets involved. To a point she is certainly correct. Yahveh has no desire for bad things to happen to us. But I would disagree to an extent that what we consider good and bad may not always be what Yahveh considers good and bad. This difference of opinion (it should be stressed that this merely opinion) has more to do with a disagreement over what constitutes Yahveh's will rather than prayer itself, which is another post (one that will hopefully be put up shortly). However, I will work with it as much as it relates to prayer thusly.

    In Acts 12, there are two stories regarding two of Christ's disciples: James the brother of John and Peter. Really it is one story with two parts. Part one is a quick blurb that informs us that James is arrested by Herod and then has his head forcibly removed. Part two is a longer tale of how Peter was also arrested and then miraculously rescued.

    Both were arrested. Assumedly both had people praying that they would be rescued. One was, the other was not. The immediate question we ask is of course why? How do we reconcile a god of love with one that saves one man in response to prayer but not another in the same situation? Can we?

    To look at this issue, let us consider two of Christ's prayers. The first one happened in the Garden of Gethsemane, recorded in Matthew 26:36-46. This is just before Jesus is captured, tried, and then crucified and he is in the Garden with his disciples praying to his Father. Jesus knows exactly what is about to happen and does not want to go through with it. He wants out, which is hardly surprising. I mean, who wouldn't?

    Though in this prayer, he is begging the Father to find an escape clause, he ends it with "not my will, but yours be done." In that, he surrenders his will to the Father's. Whether he likes it or not, it is the Father's will or plan for Christ to suffer and die. Hardly what either of them desired, but that was the plan. In truth, there was no other way for them to accomplish the intended goal.

    The other prayer is the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9, 10 (actually the prayer is much longer than that, but these are the relevant verses). The second thing that Jesus prays for is to ask for the Father's will to be done. What does this mean, "your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven?"

    We look at Jesus' example in Gethsemane. The Father's "will" for Christ was to die for man. In other words, the Father's will for Christ was his role in the plan of salvation. Whatever role we have in the plan of salvation, then that is his will for us.

    It is this that we are asking for when we pray. We are asking that Yahveh do what he believes (and he is always right) to best, whatever that may be. It may be and likely is different than what we have in mind, but that is what we are asking for. The question is do we trust him?

    So prayer is not some ritual you do to get your way. It is not just asking Yahveh to give us something like he is the mall Santa. It is not putting your coin in the gumball machine. Neither is it a pointless thing we do that makes no difference.

    Prayer is giving Yahveh permission to be who he is. It truly is a weapon in his hands because it frees his hands to work. It lets his plan be worked out in your life and others. It opens our perspective to his and shows us where to go.

    The question is do you trust him? Is Jesus truly your lord? Do you mean it when you say "your will be done?" Are you prepared for Yahveh to act?

Mine

    One of the basis's for our Western culture is the concept of "mine," or ownership. You I am certain know exactly what I am talking about: I own the computer that I am typing on, meaning that it is mine, not yours. If you wish to use it, you must ask me for permission to do so. We would consider it wrong of you to just take my computer and do what you wish with it without my acquiescing to it wrong.

    This is of course not true across cultures. Much of the issues that sparked he Indian Wars that dominated the 19^th century here in America stem from different concepts of ownership. The Native Americans did not believe that anyone could "own" the land whereas Americans did. You can see how this different understanding could spark a major conflict.

    Now this raises the question I wish to address in this post: do we really own anything? Is the concept of private ownership something that the Bible teaches? Or does ownership belong elsewhere?

    Psalms 50 answers this question quite clearly when it says in verse 12, "If I (Yahveh) hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and everything in it." So Yahveh owns everything, which make sense because he is the one who made it all. But if everything is Yahveh's, then logically nothing is ours.

    Jesus tells parable that echoes this point in Matthew 25:14-30. In this story, there is a wealthy man who goes on a long journey and leaves some of his wealth in the hands of his servants or stewards. One man gets five talents, another two, and the third gets one. The first two servants double the wealth of their master while he is away, whereas the third simply buries it in the ground. When the man returns, he is naturally pleased with the first two stewards and quite displeased with the third.

    There are many points that can be drawn from this story, but there is one question I want to ask: whose money was it? Was it the servants' or the master's? The obvious answer is of course that the money is the master's money. His servants are merely caretakers of his wealth while he is away.

    That is us. We are Yahveh's stewards, his caretakers. Everything, the Bible says, is his. This means that nothing is ours. Not our wealth, not our time, not even our lives. Us being Yahveh's servants is something that the Bible writers talk about a lot. In the Old Testament, the prophets and kings talk to Yahveh saying "your servant." They meant it. Paul writes in Romans 6 that as Christians we are "servants to righteousness." Over one book in 1^st Corinthians, he adds that we are not our own, but are bought with a price. The point is that we are not our own, but servants of Yahveh who have been left to take care of his earth.

    Let us take a look back at Creation. Genesis 1 tells us that Yahveh placed us in this world to "rule over it." Ellen White in Patriarchs and Prophets explains that our role in this was to be caretakers of the world, to bend and shape into something pleasing and beautiful to Yahveh. He has always been the overlord of our earth. It is not ours, but his.

    This understanding forces us to go through a major paradigm shift in how we understand the world we live in. For so many of us we have this attitude of there is Yahveh's and there is mine. Think of how we treat tithe, Sabbath, and even our devotions. We give ten percent to Yahveh and the ninety percent is mine to do with as I wish. One day I give to Yahveh and the other six days I do what I want. I give Yahveh thirty minutes of my time in the morning and the rest of the day is mine to do with as I wish.

    But when we understand that everything is Yahveh's and I am merely his steward, then the concept of mine no longer exists. That ten percent, one day, thirty minutes are reminders of who owns the rest, not taxes that we pay before moving on with our lives.    This paradigm shift changes how we approach life and how we live it. The question is no longer "what do I want?". The question is now "what does Yahveh want?".

    Think about devotions. Most of us approach them as a ten-thirty minute exercise we go through in the morning to get some inspiration for the day. After that, the rest of my time is my own. But stop and the think about what devotions mean. Look at the word "devotion." It means "profound dedication" or "earnest attachment to a cause or a person" (dictionary.reference.com). Devotion equals serving, which makes it a way of life, not something we do once a day and are done with it.

    Look at some of the heroes from the Bible. Elijah and Moses, the two greatest prophets of the Old Testament, lived lives devoted to Yahveh. Oddly you do not hear of them spending any time in what we consider "devotions." What you do hear is them constantly asking "What do you want me to do Yahveh?" It was never about them, it was always about Yahveh.

    Enoch is said to have walked with Yahveh right into heaven. The Apostles were constantly being direct by the Spirit. Many of them gave everything they had away because that is what they were directed to do. Others cheerfully died because that is what Yahveh needed them to do. They were not their own, but his.

    Then there is Jesus himself. He claimed ownership over nothing, not even a place to lay his head. Jesus went even so far as to say that his will was not his own. Jesus was completely devoted to Yahveh and his plan (John 8:28,29).

    So there is no such thing as mine because everything is Yahveh's. I am just his steward. This means everything, my wealth, my time, my energy, my very life are his to be used for his glory and benefit and not my own. Therefore, live your life as it ought to be lived: not yours, but devoted completely to the one who truly owns it, Yahveh.

Sabbath Part 3: A day of re’s

    I must start this with a sincere apology. I meant to write this post a week or so after the previous. Now, four months later, I am actually doing so. Though I doubt there are too many of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seats for this, I am sorry for the delay. I have had my reasons, but as to the why, well that would be violating my anti-personal information stance. Besides, for those of you who have been keeping up with this, you probably just want me to get on with it.

    To give a quick recap of the previous two Sabbath posts: the first one dealt with what Sabbath is. In other words, what is the meaning and purpose of Sabbath; what makes it special. The second post spoke about what not to do on Sabbath. We discussed what the Bible means when it says "Do no work on the Sabbath day." This post is about the opposite: what to do on the Sabbath.

    One of the things that immediately jumps out at us when we read about the Sabbath, especially in the most commonly thought of passages (Creation and the Commandments), is the concept of rest. We read in Genesis that Yahveh rested on the Sabbath day. Now we know that of course Yahveh was not resting because he was tired, for he does not get tired, but really celebrating Creation and what he had done. However, it was also a cessation of activity on the part of Yahveh. When the seventh day came, he just stopped working and took a break from it. In doing so, he set a pattern and example for us.

    Skip over a few books to Deuteronomy 5. We have been here before when discussing the Commandments, especially noting the difference between the Sabbath commandments in Exodus 20 and here. One unique difference is a specification that is made in verse 14. Yahveh talks about how the Sabbath is for the maidservant and manservant as well as the owner so that they "may rest, as you do." Rest is central to the Sabbath.

    Let us be honest: life is exhausting. So with that in mind, Yahveh has given us a day to come away from the business of life; a day to recharge. Sabbath is a day for rest.

    So what does this have to do with what to do on the Sabbath? Whatever is restful is something to do on the Sabbath. That is what it is there for. An example would be just yesterday. I have been painting my parent's house, which is a large house and it is quite exhausting. So yesterday, I was totally drained. What did I do? I took a nap and it recharged and refreshed me. That is an example of what to do on the Sabbath; just rest.

    Rest ties directly into the next point, which is restoration. Leviticus 25 is a chapter that is devoted to discussing laws about something called "Sabbath years." The gist of the Sabbath year was that every seven years, the Israelites were to not plant their fields. Just let them lie and live of the previous year's crop. The purpose of these years was to give the land a rest, so that it could restore itself.

    But Yahveh did not leave it at that; he took a step further. Every seven Sabbath years, or essentially 50 years, there was the year of Jubilee. This was a special year, a second consecutive Sabbath year that was a resetting of things. Debts were cancelled, slaves were freed, and lands were returned to their ancestral owners. It was a year of celebration, but also a year of restoration.

    Let us look at Jesus life. There are about a half dozen miracles that Jesus performed on Sabbath that are specifically mentioned as happening on Sabbath. In fact, general when we here about something that Jesus did on Sabbath, he was healing people. Specifically, he was restoring people. For Jesus, restoration was an essential part of the Sabbath.

    So what restores you? What resets and refocuses your life? Is it taking a hike in the woods? Or maybe it is spending special time with friends and/or family. Perhaps it is just being alone fore once. Whatever it is for you that restores your body and soul, do it. That is what the Sabbath is for.

    Sabbath is also for reconnection with each other. It is for meeting with each other and being a blessing for one another. Think of what Jesus did on the Sabbath. In the above paragraphs, we see that Jesus would heal people on the Sabbath. Not only was he restoring them, he was reconnecting with them.

    Also the gospel of Luke records that Jesus had a habit of going to the synagogue on Sabbath. Remember that Jesus was a Jew and the Jewish form of church was the synagogue. Jesus essentially had a habit of going to church on the Sabbath. Why? To meet with and reconnect with fellow believers.

     The apostles in the New Testament Church did the same. Luke writes in Acts that the believers continued to meet together. Wherever Paul went, he sought out synagogues and met with the Jews on Sabbath (until he got kicked out). If there was not a synagogue, like at Philippi, he would find a place where Jews or Christians were meeting on Sabbath (Acts 16:11-15). The author of Hebrews exhorted his readers to not give up meeting with each other. Meeting together, especially on Sabbath, was important to the early church.

    This is why we go to church on Sabbath. At church, we reconnect with each other to encourage and strength and support each other. Life is stressful, especially for the Christian. Church becomes a time and place to get away from it all and just hang out with each other. We do it on Sabbath because this is what Yahveh made the Sabbath for.

    Ultimately, however, the Sabbath is all about Yahveh. In Hebrews 4, the author likens rest in Christ like a Sabbath rest. Matthew records Jesus saying that we should come to him and he will give us rest. The rest of Sabbath is resting in him.

    We find our true restoration in Christ as well. When talking with Nicodemus in John 3, Jesus tells the rabbi that in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven, we must be born again. This is like having our lives restarted, reset, or restored. Paul takes this a step further in 2 Corinthians 5:17 when he says that in Christ, we are "new creations." Through Jesus, we are restored. Sabbath is a celebration of this restoration.

    At the center of the Sabbath is reconnecting with Yahveh. The day is for us to meet with him. It was Adam and Eve did in the Garden. It is what we are to do now. After all, it is his day. Time and time again the Bible refers to the Sabbath as "his" day or the Lord's day. The Commandments call it his Sabbath. In Isaiah, Yahveh says "my hold day." It is not about us, but him. It is, as we have talked about before, the day we celebrate him.

    So you want to keep the Sabbath holy? You want to do, as Jesus said, "good" on the Sabbath? What gives you rest, what gives you restoration, what reconnects with others and with Yahveh? Ultimately, what do you do to celebrate Yahveh. Whatever that is for you, do it. For that is what it means to keep the Sabbath day holy.

Sabbath Work (Sabbath part 2)

    My previous post discussed what the Sabbath is. The Sabbath is Yahveh's special holiday, the day set aside especially for him. The Sabbath is all about celebrating Yahveh for who he is and what he has done.

    For those of you who either know me personally or have been following this blog know exactly what is coming next: a question. My particular question is what does it mean to celebrate the Sabbath? How does one go about doing that?

    Think about it. There are specific ways of celebrating other holidays. At Southern Adventist University, where I am currently a student, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day we celebrate by using that day for community service. In America, we celebrate Independence Day (July 4 for the internationally inclined) with fireworks and barbeques and such. New Year's is celebrated with a midnight kiss and a giant ball falling on New York's Time Square. Christmas with presents. Easter with egg hunts and passion plays. Halloween with candy and costumes. Thanksgiving with football and, to be honest, gluttony. The Super Bowl with just plain awesomeness.

    I think you get the idea. We celebrate holidays in their own unique way. This of course leads me back to my question about the Sabbath. What does it mean to celebrate the Sabbath? How should we celebrate the Sabbath?

    As mentioned in the previous post, at the heart of the 10 Commandments is that the Sabbath commandment. It goes something like this: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." (Exodus 20:8-11).

    What it means by Yahveh "rested" on the Sabbath has already been discussed. Also already discussed is the fact that the key word in the commandment is "remember." What I want to focus on here is the point of this commandment, "on it you shall do no work." This is the point of the command, in that prohibiting work is in fact the command.

    But what does this mean, do not work? What is meant by "work"? Is this meant in the physics sense, work is a transfer of energy? Or is the meant in the sense that anything I consider "work" (like say, dishes) is not allowed on the Sabbath? In English, the word work has an incredibly broad and vague meaning.

    Thankfully, Exodus was not written in English, at least not originally. What has been translated "work" was originally the Hebrew word melakah, which literally means "occupation", "business", or "employment." Essentially, it specifically refers to our moneymaking jobs. So basically, the commandment is saying to not go about making money on the Sabbath.

    In some ways, that is still just as confusing. But let us think about this for a moment. Why do we make money? To provide for ourselves, of course. Money may not buy happiness, but it does buy survival. Things required for life, like food, shelter, clothes, and such all cost money. So to provide for our needs, we work. And there is nothing wrong with this; indeed the commandment orders us to work for six days. But when we work to make money, where is the focus? The focus is on ourselves.

    So this is the point that the fourth commandment is getting at: Sabbath is not about you. Given the context of the previous blog post where we discussed how the Sabbath is really Yahveh's special holiday where we are to celebrate him and who he does, this makes perfect sense. The Sabbath is not about us; it is about Yahveh. The command of not working means that we take our focus off of ourselves and put it on Yahveh.

    Does keeping the Sabbath mean that we simply do not do our job that gets us money on the Sabbath? Is that all there is? Of course not because this concept of work goes far deeper. In Isaiah 58:13-14 the Bible says, "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken." Now as a kid, this verse drove me nuts. I mean, how is it possible for me to call the Sabbath a delight when I cannot do what I want on the Sabbath? Those concepts are contradictory, right?

    In English, we think of the words of "pleasure" and "delight" as largely synonymous. But in Hebrew, two different words are used here for "pleasure" and "delight." When the Bible says "do as you please", the word is haphetz, which literally means "joy", "longing", "wish", or even "business." Attached to the end of the word is the second person possessive marker, meaning your wish, your joy, your business. In other words, the pleasure is all about you.

    But when Isaiah talks about "delight", he uses the word oneg, which literally means "delight" or "exquisite pleasure." It is related to the word "spoiled" or "pampered." But this is in the context of Yahveh's holy day, so who's delight are we talking about? Ours or Yahveh's? The answer is obvious.

    The text goes on to tell us that we honor the Sabbath by not going our own way, but rather finding our joy in Yahveh. What is the point here? Breaking the Sabbath means focusing on ourselves, instead of Yahveh. We put our own joys, our own pleasures, our own affairs above those of Yahveh. But this is what the other six days of the week are for. So work is whatever takes our focus off of Yahveh and puts it on ourselves.

    This can be anything. For some it is a job, for others it is doing yard work around the house, and for others it could even be ministry, if that ministry takes their focus off of Yahveh and puts it on themselves. Indeed the Bible is deliberately vague on being specific on what exactly work is. In the Bible, there is no list of 39 prohibitions telling us what we can and cannot do. This is because "work" is a deeply personal thing between us and Yahveh.

    In Numbers 15, there was a case where a man was found collecting sticks on the Sabbath, which seemed fishy to the Israelites, so they arrested him. Now the penalty for Sabbath breaking was death, but instead he was arrested. Why? Because the Israelites were not sure what to do with him, whether he was guilty or not (it turned out that he was and then they stoned him, but that is somewhat beside the point). Sabbath keeping is a personal problem.

    This was the issue that Jesus had with the Jews when it came to the Sabbath. It was only about keeping the rules for them that they completely missed the Lord of the Sabbath who was standing in front of them (Mark 2:28). In fact because Jesus took the time to care enough about a man to heal his hand, they went out on the Sabbath to plot how to kill Jesus (Mark 3:6). For them, Sabbath keeping became Sabbath breaking.

    For many of us, this is an issue we have today. We try to define exactly what is and is not okay for the Sabbath and we end up missing the point. Work is what gets between us and Yahveh on the Sabbath, not a list or rules. That is something that no one can legislate, but only something you can know for yourself. So that is the question that you must answer. What is work? What gets between you and Yahveh? And are you willing to put it aside for one day a week?

Crazy Couple

    A quick break from our Sabbath series (I swear I am working on part 2 and it is almost done) to talk about something I thought of reading this morning: how nuts Mary and Joseph were.

    I mean, have you ever thought about how crazy what they did was? Take Mary to begin with. The Bible does not say much about her except for what is recorded around the time of Jesus birth. Often we assume that she was a very virtuous woman, however the Bible does not say so. Gabriel in Luke tells Mary that she is highly favored of God, but this says little about who she was as a person. In all likelihood, she was probably little different than other girls her age (between 12-18).

    Yet suddenly she gets this angel who visits her and tells that she is going to have a baby via the Holy Spirit. This baby is the long prophesied and looked-for Messiah, the hope of Israel and Desire of Ages. This is the greatest honor that could be given to anyone, ever. Why Yahveh chose Mary will probably always remain a mystery. He chose her because he did, like he chose Abraham in Genesis. With Abraham, nothing is recorded about him before Yahveh calls him. No reason for Yahveh's call to Abraham is given, just that he did. The same is true of Mary. Yahveh chooses people simply because he does.

    In this call to be the mother of God, Mary is given a choice. She can accept the awesome responsibility or reject. Now normally, this would be the proverbial no-brainer. However, Mary is an unmarried virgin who is already engaged to a man named Joseph. This provides for starters a mechanical difficulty with getting her pregnant, though Gabriel assures her that Yahveh will work the biology out. The real issue is what to do with Joseph. At some point, she is going to have to tell him and she is going to have to tell him the truth.

    Can you imagine that conversation? "Hi honey, I'm pregnant, even though we aren't married yet, but don't worry. This angel told me that this baby is from the Holy Spirit and is going to be the Messiah, so it's okay." Right, that is believable.

    Something that we have remember is that in this culture, virginity and purity from a woman was everything. Men, not so much, but that is a different topic. If a woman lost her virginity before she was married, she was considered damaged goods and therefore no one would marry her. Given that Mary was pregnant, the loss of virginity was basically a given, which means that Joseph had every right and reason to toss her aside. To make things worse, he could have her publically executed. If Joseph chose to reject her, the best life she could look forward to was one where she was on the same social level as a prostitute.

    According to my sources, it would take about five weeks to three months for a woman sans a pregnancy test to know she is pregnant, depending on how well she understood her biology. Given that Mary was in her early to mid teens, I would assume she did not know that much. If I were in her shoes, I would wait to make absolutely sure that I was pregnant and not hallucinating before I told my betrothed the news. What this means is that even if Joseph believed her, which was unlikely (would you?) and married her, the local finger counters would realize that something was not adding up. Explaining the situation would merely add lunatic to the charge of whore, so no help there. She would be subjecting herself to a lifetime of social scorn.

    All this undoubtedly ran through her mind while considering the off Yahveh was giving her. My logic and reason say that answering "yes" would be absolutely nuts. I might have said come back after I am married or recommended a married couple I knew. This would have probably defeated the whole point, but that would be my answer. Instead Mary says, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be as you have said." Despite all the struggle and heartache that would undoubtedly follow, she said yes.

    What about Joseph? In a sense, he almost has it worse than Mary. This was done without his consent or choice and then he is told to be the step father to God. Not an easy job, to say the least. I mean, imagine him working away in his carpenters shop when his fiancée shows up and tells him this cock and bull story of being pregnant by the Holy Spirit and said child is going to be the Messiah. Points for creativity, but not much else.

    Initially, he plans to divorce her quietly as to keep her public humiliation to a minimum, though that was completely unavoidable. But then he gets a visit from Gabriel telling him that Mary is not a) crazy, b) lying, and c) unfaithful. That must have been a shock to the system to realize that his job was to help raise the son of God, a son that was not his own. Of course, this also meant marrying Mary immediately.

    Of course that itself had its own problems. Again, the finger counters would have noticed that Joseph married his bride a little prematurely and quickly. They also would have noticed that the time does not quite add up right. The logic thus follows that Joseph and Mary had "tested the waters" at the wrong time and were now trying to cover up their mistake. If he went through with what the angel was telling him to do would be to identify with Mary's humiliation. Risky to say the least.

    Yet Matthew records that he did. Indeed, it is implied from the text that it was almost immediately after his dream. No hesitation, no looking back. He took Yahveh's command and followed it.

    We know even less of Joseph than we do of Mary. Indeed, all we know of the carpenter that help raise our savior is that he was someone who did what Yahveh commanded without hesitation or question. He did not argue or complain like so many others throughout life, despite the fact he was given the toughest job any man has ever been given: raise a son that is not yours and the son that is the ruler of the Universe.

    So what is the point of all of this? From a limited human perspective, what Mary and Joseph did was crazy. They essentially doomed the rest of their days to ridicule and scorn. They were to be social pariahs that might even be prosecuted. But they did it. Why? Because Yahveh said so.

    What about you and me? How often have we been commanded by Yahveh to do things that are either crazy or at best quite unpleasant? I know it has happened to me more than once. What do we do? We complain, we question, we look for loopholes out. How often do we just say, as Mary, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be as you said."?

    So what will you do? Will you do what Yahveh commands, no matter how nuts or unpleasant it looks? Will you be like Mary and Joseph?

Sabbath: Celebration (Sabbath part 1)

    A couple of days ago was St. Patrick's day, the day that people around the world celebrate, in theory at least, St. Patrick, the Irish missionary. In reality, it is basically an excuse for a lot of people to get royally drunk. But that is besides the point. The point is that it is a holiday that we celebrate by wearing green and carrying around clovers and such in honor of St. Patrick.

    We love holidays. According to the US Office of Personal Management, there are ten official paid holidays, which comes to almost one per month. These are the major holidays, however not including Valentine's day, Presidents' day, Halloween, and the best of the bunch, the Super Bowl. Holidayinsights.com lists some more obscure holidays, of which there is at least one per day, often more. January 25 is Opposite day, the official one. My birthday is National Weatherman day. One for my mother is January 21^st, Squirrel Appreciation day. For those who are so inclined, yesterday was the Goddess of Fertility's day and today is National Quilting day or Poultry day, depending on how you are inclined.

    The point is that we absolutely love holidays. And we celebrate them with a passion. On New Year's and Independence day, we set off fireworks. Thanksgiving we gorge ourselves. We do the same at Christmas with the added bonus of presents. And we celebrate the Super Bowl with just plain awesomeness (too cool to put into words). Other holidays we celebrate by taking time off of work or school to remember. On other less recognized holidays, we do something unique or special to celebrate, like not intentionally running over squirrels on January 21^st.

    Here is a question to ponder: what exactly is a holiday? Holidays are, basically, days of celebration. Just look at the examples of holidays in the preceding paragraph. We celebrate holidays. The question then is, what are we celebrating? That answer varies, but in the case of the major holidays, especially the ones that the government gives time off for, we are usually celebrating what people have done. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. day or Independence day are such holidays. We take time off to celebrate the accomplishments of the Civil Rights leader of the '60s and the Founding Fathers and the birth of our nation. Another example would be Veteran's day and Memorial day. Both are days that we take to celebrate and honor those who have sacrificed themselves in service of our country. St. Patrick's day is another example.

    What about the Sabbath? So often we treat the Sabbath as a headache, as a burden. For many of us, Sabbath is a day of do's and don'ts. Or for others, it is a day that we go to church and that is really all it means. What we certainly do not do is treat the Sabbath like a holiday and celebrate it. Could it be that we are ignoring Yahveh's holiday?

    Back at the very beginning of the Bible, we have the first Sabbath. It is found in Genesis 2:1-3 and it says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done."

    Let me give a little background to this passage, though there is not much, only about six days worth. This is the last day of the Creation week. For the previous six days, Yahveh had been systematically creating the world. First light, then air, then land and vegetation, then sun, moon, and stars, then fish and birds, then animals, and then finally people. After Yahveh had created people on the sixth day, he had finished creation. It was done and he sat back and said, "It is very good" (1:31). Then comes day seven and it is like "now what?"

    On the seventh day, Yahveh does something very different. He does not create. Instead, he makes the day holy. Now what does it mean "he made it holy"? In ancient Hebrew, the original language of Genesis, the writer Moses used the word qadash. Literally speaking, qadash means "set apart" or "special". So in other words, Yahveh set the Sabbath day apart and he made it special. This is exactly what we do with holidays now. We set certain days apart as special.

    So why did Yahveh set this day apart as special? Verse three tells us that he made it holy "because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done." That is odd. What does it mean "he rested"? Surely it does not mean that Yahveh got tired and just took the day off to recharge. Isaiah 40:28 tells us that Yahveh does not "grow tired or weary." So what could possibly be meant by "he rested"?

    In Hebrew the word for "rested" here is the word shabbath from where we get the word Sabbath. Literally this word means "cease" or "desist", which makes sense because on the seventh day, Yahveh ceased from creating. However, there is more to this word than just stopping. Shabbath can also mean "take a holiday" or, as Strong's Concordance says, "celebrate." Another way of looking at this verse is to say that Yahveh celebrated on the seventh day or that he took a holiday on the seventh day. The noun Sabbath came to mean a festival or holiday. The Day of Atonement was a "Sabbath" and weekly Sabbaths were grouped in with the feast days (Leviticus 23).

    The point is that Yahveh celebrated on the Sabbath. Dan Allender in his book Sabbath makes this point, "God didn't rest in the sense of taking a nap or chilling out; instead, God celebrated and delighted in his creation. God entered the joy of his creation and set it free to be connected but separate from the artist." Yahveh took the seventh day of creation to celebrate with his creations. It was a holiday. What were they celebrating? They were celebrating the work of creation that Yahveh had done. In other words, they were celebrating what Yahveh had done. The focus was on him. It was his holiday. This is what Yahveh intended the Sabbath to be: his holiday, celebrating him.

    At the heart of the 10 Commandments, the moral code by which Christians, Jews, and even Muslims live, is the Sabbath commandment. In Exodus 20:8-11, the Bible says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

    The key word in this commandment is "remember." Remembering is how we celebrate holidays. Think of, for example, Veteran's day. That is a day when we stop what we are doing and remember what those in military service have done for us. It is a day of remembering. In fact, in Canada it is called Remembrance day.

    For the ancient Israelites, they were to remember Yahveh as their Creator. That was the focus of this holiday. Again, it was remembering what Yahveh had done. They were celebrating Yahveh, making it his holiday.

    Over a couple of books, there is a second version of the 10 Commandments in Deuteronomy 5. They are largely identical, except for the Sabbath commandment. In verses 12-15 we read, "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all you work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor you manservant or maidservant, nor you ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within you gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day."

    In this commandment, the key word is "observe." Observing simply means keeping or following. This is another way we celebrate holidays. Think of how we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day. We observe it by taking a day off of school or work. Here at Southern, we take that day off of regular school work and do community service. We observe Martin Luther King Jr. day.

    Why were the ancient Israelites to observe the Sabbath day? Because they were to remember that Yahveh had liberated them from Egypt. In addition to remembering Yahveh as the Creator, they were to remember him as the Liberator. Once again, the focus was on what Yahveh had done and celebrating him.

    This was the point of the Sabbath for the ancient Israelites: a special day to celebrate Yahveh as Creator and Liberator. These are certainly things worth celebrating and so they took a day each week to celebrate. The Sabbath was a holiday.

    But what about us Christians today? The world Yahveh made is an absolute mess (see Japan). And I do not know about you, but I have never been a slave in Egypt. So does the Sabbath have any significance or meaning to us today?

    In John 19, there is a striking parallel to the Creation story. Oddly, this parallel happens at the moment of Jesus death. The disciple records, "Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, 'I am thirsty.' A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit."

    Do you see the parallel to Genesis 2:1-3? "Knowing that all was now completed." "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed." "It is finished." "By the seventh day God had finished the work of creating he had been doing." Completed. Finished. Both words are you used in both accounts. In fact, comparing the Greek version of the Old Testament with the Greek of John, they use the same root word for "completed" and "finished."

    It gets more interesting. Verse 31 of John 19 tells us that the day Jesus died was Friday, the same day that Yahveh finished creating the world. Both came to this world with a task: Yahveh to create the human race and Jesus to save it. Both had spent time carefully, methodically building up to that point. Both completed their task as the sixth day closed.

    What does this have to do with the Sabbath? The first two verses of chapter 20 inform us that Jesus was raised to life on the first day of the week or Sunday. So what did he do on Sabbath, the day between when he died and was raised? He rested in the garden tomb. He took a break from his labors, just like Yahveh took a break from his labors on the seventh day. In resting in the garden on the seventh day, the Sabbath day, Jesus commemorated it again, like Yahveh did in the first Garden.

    This is why we celebrate the Sabbath today as Christians. It is the day that we celebrate what Jesus has done for us. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that in Christ we are new creations, the old has gone the new has come. In Exodus, the ancient Israelites were told to celebrate the Sabbath because Yahveh was their Creator. Today, we celebrate the Sabbath because Jesus is our Recreator.

    Another of Paul's letters, this one to the Romans, tells us that because of Jesus we are no longer slaves to sin. Instead we are slaves to righteousness. In Deuteronomy, the ancient Israelites were told to celebrate the Sabbath because Yahveh was their Liberator. Today we celebrate the Sabbath because Jesus is our Savior.

    Jesus is truly amazing. He is our Creator and Recreator. He is our Liberator and Savior. These are things worth celebration, more than any other holiday. The awesome thing is that this is exactly what the Sabbath is all about. It is about celebrating Jesus for who he is. So as you go from Sabbath to Sabbath, do not forget to celebrate!

Purpose of Church

    I am not sure if you have noticed, but there is a problem with church. I do not mean the worship style or the service itself, but the attitude that pervades church and how we approach it. It is like for us, church is just a club that we belong to. We go to our meetings once a week, pay our dues, and get great side-benefits like education, healthcare, and, oh, eternal life on the side. Aside from possibly paying tithe and offering, and usually this happens only when we are feeling especially generous, we really have no investment in church. Ask yourself, "If I stopped going to church today, would it really drastically affect my life?" If you are honest, you will probably say no.

    Is this really what Jesus had in mind when he established the church before he left? Whether Jesus intended to start a church or a religion is debatable and also moot. He did. But did he create the church to be some sort of social club for the spiritually elite? That does not sound like the Jesus recorded in the Bible. So what did Jesus have in mind when he created "church"?

    To answer this question, my friends and I have been studying the Bible to see what the Bible says about church. I hope they do not mind me posting the some of the results of our study here. There is, of course, a balance between our studies and my own personal thoughts. The two kind of run together so, if I have twisted your words on accident, I am sorry. At any rate, the first step we decided was to discern the purpose of church, answering the why.

    "Why" is problem the most important question to ask. Once you know the motivation, the purpose behind something, the how, what, and so on fall into place fairly easily. "Why" is the starting point. So that was our task first: discovered the purpose and function of church.

    The answer to that question is found in Acts 1. Acts is the sequel to the book of Luke, both written by the doctor who accompanied Paul on his travels and it picks up right after Jesus has been raised from the dead. In this first chapter, Jesus dispenses his last minute advice to his disciples. The theme? The kingdom of Heaven, which the Bible equates with the group of believers, what has become synonymous with church. As Jesus is talking church, he gives the purpose.

    His disciples, still thinking of a temporal power, ask when Jesus is going to reestablish Israel. Jesus shrugs off the question as largely irrelevant before giving his mission statement. Jesus says that his disciples purpose is to be his "witnesses" first in Judea, then Samaria, and finally to the whole world.

    What does this mean, be my "witnesses"? In Greek, the word is martyr (basically), from which we get the word "martyr" to refer to someone who is persecuted for what they believed. The reason the word has been morphed into what it is today is because the early Christians took this concept of being Jesus' witnesses to almost to an extreme. For them, to be publically executed was the highest form of witnessing.

At any rate, a person who can attest the truth of something and testifies to that truth is a martyr or witness. A witness is there to confirm the truth of something. The concept of "witness" was central to the Hebrews. In Deuteronomy, the book of the Law, no conviction could be made without at least two witnesses (19:15-21).

    This is what church is here for; to be witnesses of Jesus. What this means is that we testify of the truth of Jesus message to the world. By our experience and our words, we confirm the reality of Jesus from our own experience. This echoes what Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, where he commands his disciples to tell the world about him.

    In the Old Testament, sometimes this concept of witness took the form of a monument (example Genesis 31 and Joshua 22). The church is a monument to Jesus and what he has done. Monuments are meant to be seen, to be shown. Like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, we are his light to the world. Cities on hills cannot be hidden. Our collective purpose is to demonstrate the message of Christ to the world. Anything that does not fit that purpose is not of Christ.

    There is a secondary purpose to church: support. Jesus did not pull the wool over the eyes of his disciples; he told them exactly what they were getting into following him. Repeatedly he warned them that they were going to be hated, derided, persecuted, and probably killed for following him (Matthew 5:11,12; 10:17,18; 24:9 just to give a few examples). If left to stand alone, they would not last. Most would quit after it got hard.

    But together, they had each other to lean on. Something that the Bible preaches from beginning to end is togetherness and unity. In Ecclesiastes (the doom and gloom book) 4 it says that "two are better than one" because they can support each other when times get rough. Acts 2 paints a picture of the early Christians pooling their resources to help those that have been attacked.

    Church is not just some sort of social club for the spiritual elite. It is not some place for us to strut our stuff to each other. We, collectively, have a purpose that goes beyond just the service on Sabbath morning. Together, we are to be a witness to Jesus every moment of everyday. Church is to pervade every aspect of our lives. Secondly, we are on the same team working together for this purpose. We all have struggles that we face and as members of the church, we are to provide each other with the support we need. This is why we are here.

    Ask yourself, "What is my attitude when it comes to church?" "Why am I part of church?" "Is my church following this purpose? "Do I have this purpose?" Then do something about it.