Royal Wedding

In honor of the wedding today of William and Kate in Westminister Abbey, I’m re-posting some thoughts from October 17 on the ancient words from the Song of Solomon about water and love:

Many waters cannot quench love;

Nor can rivers drown it.

Song of Solomon, 8:6-7

The minister told the royal couple in Westminister Abbey today - and millions watching on television - that every wedding is a witness to hope. But it is an island of hope in a very perilous sea.

Deep Sea Fishing

In my April 25 post I wrote about one of Jesus’ final conversations with his friend Simon Peter. Today we look at one of the earliest encounters between the two men as recorded in The Gospel of Luke, Ch 5.

It was Simon’s lucky day – but it hadn’t started out that way. After a fruitless night of fishing, he had come home with an empty boat. For a professional fisherman that spelled frustration, no respect, no income and the added burden of having to clean and repair your gear in hopes of a better outing tomorrow.

But then Jesus told him to “push out into deep water and let out your nets for a catch” Simon took up his challenge – and as soon as his nets hit the water the lake erupted in thrashing fish and a haul so large his nets began to tear apart. His partners on the shore leapt to his aid and together they pulled in a catch that almost swamped both their boats.

Beyond Fishing

When Jesus rose from death in Jerusalem, he surprised his friends by meeting them in various places – on country roads, in urban gardens, closed rooms, on mountain tops - but only one of these recorded events occurred near water. You can read the story in John 21.

I suppose it was inevitable, really. Most of Jesus' disciples hailed from Galilee as did Jesus, so it was only natural that he would re-connect with them back in their familiar haunts.

The angel-in-the-tomb told the disciples Jesus would meet them in Galilee, so they left Jerusalem and went back north. One night eight of them went fishing – except that the fish didn’t cooperate. It was a fruitless outing and as dawn broke over the horizon, their nets were empty and their arms ached. No doubt they talked a lot about the recent events and the puzzling whereabouts of Jesus. Their whole sense of mission seemed as vague and futile as this fishing venture.

It was a Morning Like Ths!

For Easter Sunday, here's a reprise of my post from Septeber 17.

Isaiah saw it coming. He saw the morning dew as a fore-shadowing, a sign from the earth that can’t keep its secret, a hint to anyone who is listening between the lines, a promise of resurrection.

Many Biblical scholars maintain that Israel had no theology of life beyond death until shortly before the time of Christ. But eight hundred earlier Isaiah had a vision:

Your dead will live;

their bodies will rise.

You who dwell in the dust,

wake up and shout for joy.

Your dew is like the dew of the morning;

the earth will give birth to her dead.

Isaiah 26:19

I Am Thirsty -

The greatest paradox in human history – the Great Thirst-quencher himself completes his work in terrible physical thirst. The one who proclaimed himself as the Spring of living water, calls out through parched lips, “I am thirsty.”

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."  John 19:28-30

Jesus was physically exhausted from the ordeal of scourging and execution. He was wracked with pain. But we’re told that his cry of thirst was more than just a call for water. It was somehow a fulfillment of scripture. But what in the ancient record parallels this moment?

Soaked and Soiled - the Joy of Serving

In first-century Palestine, it was courtesy to welcome guests to your home by washing their feet. Since most of the roads and laneways were unpaved, both in rainy seasons and dry, people’s feet would quickly be caked with dust or mud. Simple hospitality required a host to arrange for a servant to wash the feet of the guests when they arrived.

But as Jesus and his friends gathered to celebrate Passover, there were no servants to wait on them. And every disciple was jockeying for the right to sit closer to Jesus, acutely focused on his prestige in the group. No one moved to initiate this basic gesture of hospitality.

Listen Up!

If only Peter could capture the magic of this moment. Jesus had brought them up on this mountain to give them new perspective – and what a sight opened up in front of them!

Peter had often seen Jesus deep in prayer, but this time, without explanation, Jesus’ appearance began glistening with sunlight. Lightning lingered about his face, searing light. Ancient history came to life before their eyes as Moses and Elijah emerged out of thin air and joined the conversation.

Unaccustomed to paranormal things, Peter quivered with perplexity and dismay. He always felt more comfortable when he was at the center of things and influencing outcomes. Instinctively he grasped for something he could do or some way he could contribute to the discussion. His mind engineered tents of hospitality and he proposed his plan.

Thirst-Quencher

It is one of the high-water marks of the Bible’s entire witness to water and the grace of God. It happened during the annual Jewish Festival of Tabernacles.

This late-summer festival looked back in history to Israel's exodus and God’s provision of water in the desert, and it looked ahead to the dream of Israel’s restored honor among the nations as predicted in Zechariah 14:16. Every year pilgrims came to Jerusalem from every direction in what Josephus called as “a most holy and most eminent feast.”
- Antiquities of the Jews, VIII, iv, 1.

* * * Feast of Tabernacles painting - Valerie R Jackson

Mere Mortals Walking on Water

Three Gospel writers tell about Jesus walking on water in the midst of a wild storm, but only Matthew tells us about Peter’s wild response. “Jesus, if it really is you, tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” says Jesus.

'Come' is one of Jesus’ favorite words – part invitation, part summons – and always a call to do something that feels risky, to step out of our comfort zone and our places of pseudo-security and to trust him.

Walking on water is counter-intuitive. 'Terra firma' is home for us. A boat is a constructed extension of home, canoes and kayaks give us both buoyancy and adventure, but stepping out alone onto the deep at the invitation of Jesus is an act of daring faith.

So imagine the drama as Peter vaulted the gunwales to join Jesus out on the lake. Imagine the warnings of his friends – “Pete, you’re an idiot!” “Don’t be so reckless!” Imagine the shaking heads, the held breath, and then cheers as he stepped forward on solid water.

Peter mirrors us in our finest moments of courage and faith when we throw caution to the wind, when we take the plunge towards God, mere mortals attempting the impossible.

Water-Walker

The gale broke over them in the middle of the lake without warning and roared all night. For hours they strained at the oars, fighting the winds and the waves. They are seasoned veterans on this lake, but it was getting the best of them. The raging lake was showing its legendary renown as the face of Chaos.

And then, suddenly, they saw the unthinkable - the form of a man walking towards them across the water. ‘Ghost’ was all they could imagine.

But this ‘ghost’ was actually their very down-to-earth friend Jesus coming to them where they least expected him – but when they most needed his help. He called to them above the wind, “It is I. Don’t be afraid!”

It was a night they never forgot. It was a voice that rang in their memory forever.

Waters of Healing

Helen Keller was only seven years old, blind, deaf and without speech, when her teacher, Anne Sullivan, ran cool running water over one of Helen’s hands while making motions on the palm of her other hand. It was the breakthrough moment, after a long frustrating isolation, that revealed to Helen the symbolism of words and opened up her ability to learn and to communicate with the outside world.

Jesus used water in a similar way in the remarkable healing of a man in Jerusalem who had been born blind - John 9. While others used him as a case study for the problem of suffering and sin, Jesus went to work on his healing. He spat on the ground and made a plaster of mud, daubed it on the blind man’s eyes, and sent him to wash in a nearby pool.

New Birth

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the most water-drenched of all C. S. Lewis’ Narnia stories. 
It tells about an obnoxious young boy named Eustace who took refuge from a rain-storm in a cave that turned out to be a dragon’s lair.  In the dim light of the cave he discovered hoards of gold and silver and jewelry. He filled his pockets and slipped a magnificent bracelet on his arm – and then fell asleep.

When he awoke, his arm throbbed because it had grown larger overnight and was covered with reptilian scales. Having fallen asleep “with greedy dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”

Taking the Plunge

Easter is on the horizon, so for the next three weeks, we’re going to follow water-stories that revolve around Jesus. Today, Jesus takes the plunge.

Ah, the amazing wonder of water!  Many religions practice ritual washing. Hindus plunge into the Ganges. Shinto worshippers in Japan seek cleansing under waterfalls, orthodox Jews use a mikvah to represent a flowing stream.
  

Baptism is an act of abandoning yourself to the water and embracing the purity, healing and renewal the water represents. It calls for courage and resolve. It says, ‘forget decorum, to hell with face-saving, a new life beckons, it’s time to answer the call’.

800 years before John the Baptist, the Syrian general Naaman, who had a dire skin disease, came to Israel looking for help. The prophet Elisha told him to wash seven times in the Jordan River and he would be healed. At first Naaman was offended - the Jordan was a mediocre river, quite inferior to the rivers of his homeland. But in the end he humbled himself, plunged in, and the God of Israel healed him.

Darwin Awards - The Jesus Edition

Since 1994, the Darwin Awards have held up a mirror to human folly. Their tongue-in-cheek books and web-site tell true stories of people who, as they say, ‘live in the shallow end of the gene pool’, people who 'show an astounding lack of judgment and cause their own demise'.

'Terminal stupidity', they call it, with lethal personal consequences. They cite these stories not to laugh at calamity, but as cautionary tales.

Jesus used a different metaphor, but his insight into disastrous human stupidity is just as clear. His story about the foolish carpenter and the raging river seems the perfect parable for April Fools Day!

As a carpenter Jesus knew the consequences of shoddy house-building. He probably knew peasants in the hills around Nazareth who skimped on the foundations of hasty summer-built houses only to see their investment collapse in ruins when the winter rains fell and the wadis swelled with torrential floods that tore the earth away from their doorsteps.