Tag: Jesus

The Bible in a Year – 21 June

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

21 June. Micah

Micah, like the other prophets of his time, foresees both the imminent destruction of the Israelites’ cities and way of life, as punishment for the violence and corruption in them, and also the eventual restoration of the Jewish faith in their homeland in a new form, “doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God” (6:8, adapted).  But here, instead of a series of images of disaster followed by those of return, the two are much more intermingled.  The wrath and mercy of God are not shown on an either/or basis – the eternal Father is not angry with his children’s behaviour one day and loving towards them the next, as a human parent might be.  At any one time he is both angry with our deliberate sins, and compassionate towards us. Jesus, of course, being (as we believe) both human and divine, showed both these attitudes.

 

In fact, several of the passages in this book are traditionally taken to be prophecies relating to Jesus. In particular the reference to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, as the home of a future ruler, “whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (5:2).    In other words, someone born in a particular place and time but also eternal.

 

Another frequently quoted passage, and a possible Messianic reference is found in 4:2-23 – “For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”.    Here the role of Jerusalem is seen as under God’s direct rule and the source of wisdom and peace for the whole world, which is what the Christian Church (the “new Jerusalem”) is supposed to be.

 

Less well known is this saying: “I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture; it will resound with people.  The one who breaks out will go up before them; they will break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king will pass on before them, the Lord at their head” (2:12-13).  This image of the king leading his people out like a shepherd echoes both Psalm 23, and also John 10:1-18 where Jesus speaks of himself is similar terms. It seems that Micah understood quite clearly the way in which God would come among us.

The Bible in a Year – 20 June (2)

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

20 June. Jonah

The legend of Jonah is one of those Old Testament stories beloved of Sunday School teachers because of its vivid description of Jonah being swallowed and regurgitated by a great fish (often incorrectly called a whale).  Only the most literal minded of readers would take this as a true story: it is much like one of Jesus’ parables, and to be taken allegorically like them.

 

Jonah, in fact, shares some things in common with Jesus: firstly, as he slept in the boat, a great storm blew up and his fellow passengers woke him, believing that he could calm the storm, just as Jesus did.  But Jonah was not the Messiah, in fact we are told that he was sinning by running away from God, and far from being able to calm the storm, only by being thrown overboard, apparently to certain death, could it be abated.  So when Jesus calmed the storm with a single word, he was reckoning himself greater than a prophet.

 

Secondly, Jonah was in the darkness of the fish until the third day when it miraculously spewed him up, alive and unharmed, on dry land.  Likewise Jesus lay dead in the tomb until the third day when he was resurrected.

 

Jonah was very unlike Jesus, though, in one respect. He loved the idea of preaching doom to the people of Nineveh but hated it when they obeyed the message and repented, and God spared them from destruction.  Jesus on the other hand wept over those who refused his message of salvation, and told of the joy there would be in heaven over one sinner who repents.  Which are you?  A Jonah who loves bringing bad news, or like Jesus, one who delights in bringing good news?

 

The Bible in a Year – 25 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

25 May. Jeremiah chapters 38-41

In chapter 38, Zedekiah (the Jewish king appointed by the Babylonians) first told some of the men at his court that they could do what they liked with Jeremiah, but then when he heard that Jeremiah had been lowered into a pit to starve, had mercy on him at least to the extent of having him brought back up so that he could question him.  Zedekiah seems at one point to have accepted Jeremiah’s advice that it would be sensible for him to surrender to the Babylonians rather than hold out to the bitter end and be killed with the rest of his people (although he instructed Jeremiah not to tell anyone this); yet when the siege actually took place (chapter 39) he failed to act on this, and tried to escape from the enemy, only to be taken captive, and blinded after being forced to watch his own sons murdered.  Such was the violence of those times (and unfortunately, still of our own times in places like the ‘Democratic’ Republic of Congo or in Syria).

 

Zedekiah seemed to have the same kind of hating-but-fascinated relationship with Jeremiah that Jezebel had with Elijah, Herod with John the Baptist, Pilate with Jesus, or perhaps Catherine the Great with Rasputin.  These monarchs must have had enough of a conscience to have known that the holy men who troubled them had the moral high ground and that their criticism of the king’s or queen’s conduct was right; yet they clung to power without having the courage to mend their ways, for the last thing a ‘strong’ leader wants is to be seen to be weak, and changing your mind or acknowledging when you are beaten is seen as weakness not strength.  It is only with God’s perspective on things, as Jeremiah had, that ‘giving in’ can sometimes be seen as the right and courageous thing to do.

 

We see this in a smaller way in politics when a politician announces a policy that they think is right, but then find opponents even in their own party telling them the policy is a foolish one.  Some have the courage then to moderate or abandon the policy, which the media tend to decry as weakness, but may actually be a sign of strength; while others refuse to make the ‘U turn’ and press on with their intentions until they are forced out of office.

 

 

Chapters 39-41 tell of the actual captivity of most of the people of Jerusalem and Judah, and the bloody power struggle that went on after the captivity between Gedaliah (Nebuchadnezzar’s puppet ruler) and the remaining army officers of Judah.  In all of this, Jeremiah finally gets his reward as he is freed by the Babylonians from among the captives, and allowed to return to Judah a free man.

The Bible in a Year – 12 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

12 May. Isaiah chapters 59-63

Towards the end of this book of prophecy, the style becomes ‘apocalyptic’. Which does not mean it is all about terror and vengeance (though there is some of that, in chapters 59 and 63).  But like other apocalyptic works in the Bibles such as Daniel and Revelation, there seems to be a conflating of the way God was working in the prophet’s own time, and what will happen at the end of history, the day of judgement.  Some of the descriptions of ‘Zion’ here refer to the earthly Jerusalem, being rebuilt by those who had returned from Babylon.   Some are clearly references to the future Kingdom of God when day and night have ceased to be, and God himself is the light of his people.  That is the vision of St John at the very end of the Bible, and Isaiah caught it too.

 

We see more clearly than ever now that when God comes to rescue his people from either external oppression or their own sins, whether in the ‘here and now’ or at the final judgement, he will restore ‘justice’ (more than legalism, rather fairness, wholeness and harmony), a word that occurs throughout Isaiah and especially in these chapters. At those times, two things always happen: those who are open to God’s justice and have repented of their sins will experience his coming with joy and a sense of liberation.  And those who have resisted justice and ignored God, and have let sin take over their lives, will experience it as terrible judgement – God “treading the grapes of wrath” (63:3, one of those well-known quotations that I had not realised was from the Bible until I came across it here).  There is no chance given at that time to change sides – we will be judged on our relationship with God as it has been until this moment.  That is why there are many verses in the Bible along the lines of “now is the day of salvation” or “seek the Lord while he is near”. The old billboard sign “repent, for the end is nigh” may be a simplistic and in many ways negative way of summarising the Gospel message, but it is still true.

 

In between these two visions – of the rebuilt worldly city of Jerusalem and several centuries of prosperity, and the final day of judgement – comes Jesus.  Of course he is not named here, except in the sense that his very name Yeshua means something like ‘God saves’, which is a good summary of these chapters.  But it is recorded by Luke that at Jesus’ first sermon following his baptism in the Spirit, he read the beginning of chapter 61 of Isaiah (“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed …”) and told people that it was being fulfilled even as they listened.  He knew that he was the Messiah, the suffering servant that Isaiah had seen in his visions, and that his role was indeed to bring in the “year of the Lord’s favour” in anticipation of the end times when justice would finally be brought to bear.

 

So, if you have not already turned to Jesus, now is the time to do so, to experience the day of God’s favour, and be ready for when he comes again in glory.

 

The Bible in a Year – 10 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

10 May. Isaiah chapters 49-53

This is a lengthy passage of verse, beginning and ending with two of the “songs of the Servant”. These are usually identified as prophecies of Jesus Christ, and chapter 53 in particular is seen as describing his crucifixion, which Christians believe was a willing sacrifice by a sinless man, according to the will of God who lived in him, to settle with God the debt owed to him by all people for their sins.  There is far more in them than I can look at in detail now. Many books have been written and sermons preached to try and explain this – the commentary I am following devotes 21 pages to these chapters – but few as poetically as the “second Isaiah” (whoever that was) writing over five hundred years before the event.

 

Many of the phrases in these chapters have been used by composers over the years, from the sublime music of Handel in his “Messiah” (“he gave his back to the smiters”; “surely he has borne our griefs an carried our sorrows”; “all we like sheep have gone astray”), to contemporary songwriters (“how beautiful upon the mountains  are the feet of him who brings glad tidings”; “led like a lamb to the slaughter in silence and shame”; “the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion” [=Jerusalem]) – and many more.  For the promises here are not only the restoration of the tribe of Israel/Judah to the Holy Land for a second time, but of the reconciliation of all creation to God once and for all time.

 

In between these servant songs are words addressed, at least in part, to the people in captivity in Babylon. Did they rush back to Jerusalem at the first invitation of God? No, it seems they needed much encouragement.  To many of them who had been born there the “old country” held no attractions; like all refugees, they were crushed and in despair at ever being a free people or having their own home again; the journey seemed daunting, and much hard work would be needed to rebuild the ruins.  Despite those setbacks, it was their only hope.

 

But these passages contain many hints that it is not only the Jewish people who were being addressed, but the whole world.  People would flock to join them from all directions, and would together become witnesses to the Servant’s redeeming love. Together they would be a renewed Israel that would be a “light to the Gentiles” (a phrase repeated when Jesus was dedicated to God as a baby).  This is what we mean by the Church – all those who have been drawn from whatever held them captive, by the love of God shown in his suffering servant, to join his people in the new Jerusalem.

 

Like the captives here, people rarely walk into a church the first time they hear of Jesus and ask to be baptised and join the community of the redeemed. The Christian faith seems strange to those who were not brought up in it, it needs to be explained with many words of encouragement, and for many it is a journey of many years.  Yet we equally believe that Christ is the only way to God, and that those who make this journey to faith in Jesus will find themselves in the “new Jerusalem”, the Kingdom of

The Bible in a Year – 1 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

1 May. Isaiah chapters 9-12

At least two passages here have been much used in Christian thought as prophecies of Jesus Christ: the beginning of chapter 9 (“The people who walked in darkness…”) with its reference to the child from Galilee who will be called “Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”; and the start of chapter 11, the “shoot of the stock of Jesse” (i.e. a descendant of King David) who would rule Israel in peace for ever.  These certainly tie in with what we know or believe about Jesus.

 

The danger, of course, lies in quoting isolated verses: these short passages are set within larger passages of verse that clearly relate to the politics of Isaiah’s time.  More objective commentators consider that the prophecies of a saviour or messiah in this book are really pointing to King Cyrus of Persia under whose rule the Jews eventually returned to Jerusalem.

 

This, however, is no reason why these prophecies could not have had a deeper meaning as well.   And the opening verse of chapter 9 – “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those who lived in a land of deep darkness, light has shined” – is true whenever anyone turns to God in faith.

The Bible in a Year – 14 April (Good Friday)

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

14 April. 1 Kings chapters 6-7

In these chapters, Solomon arranges the building of his great Temple, which takes seven years, and his even bigger palace, which takes thirteen.  The furnishings of these, especially the Temple, are described in great detail.

 

The Temple in its three versions – this first one, the rebuilt one after the Exile, and finally Herod’s Temple that Jesus knew – would be the central focus of religious life in Israel/Judah for the best part of a thousand years.   There is no longer a central Temple for either Jews or Christians. But its symbolism continues in Christianity – for example the plan of many Catholic and Anglican churches with narthex, nave, chancel and altar sanctuary  deliberately echoes the plan of the temple, and some church fonts are made to resemble the “sea” or large basin of water in the nave of the temple.

 

Today (as I write this) is Good Friday 2017, the most solemn day of the Christian year when Jesus died for our sins.  One of the ‘crimes’ for which he was condemned was the blasphemous claim that he would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.  What he meant was that in his death, he would instantly put an end to the the purpose of the Temple (indeed its curtain that kept ordinary people away from the holiest part of the shrine was miraculously torn down at the moment of his death), and on the third day when he rose from the dead he himself would become the temple for us.

 

The Christian understanding is that Jesus replaced the temple, a central place of prayer by priests on behalf of the people, as the way to God, for he was God incarnate, and he “lives for all time to make intercession for us”. He replaced it as the location where God can be encountered, for we can know his presence at any time. He replaced the function of its altars for making sacrifice for sin, for he himself became the ultimate sacrifice.

 

This week, Jews have celebrated the Passover and Christians prepare to celebrate Easter – these are really two versions of the same story of God’s saving love.  But one led, after over five hundred years, to a man-made temple in which God’s love for Israel could be remembered and kept sacred.  The other instantly opened up God’s love to the whole world for ever.

 

May you have a blessed day and look forward to the celebration on Sunday.