“With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.”  ~ Mark 15:37

Can you hear it?  The slowing, agonizing, laboured breath of a dying man?  With each breath, you stand by quietly and wonder if the next breath will be his last.

And then it finally is.  And it is finished.

Jesus gives out a loud cry with whatever energy he can muster, and he breathes his last.  Jesus, the Son of God – the very Breath of Life, the Breath of Heaven, the one who with his Father breathed life into humanity at creation – breathed his last…

 

There is very rarely used and rarely spoken name for God.  It is considered an extremely sacred name, so sacred that Jews to this day will not even speak it.  It is the name God reveals to Moses on their very first encounter, and the same name that God calls himself throughout most of Scripture (over 6000 times.)  Most readers will see it in the Bible written as “LORD.”  But this sacred name God uses to reveals himself time and time again is this: 

“YHWH” –the “I Am Who I Am.”

Y H W H 

If you sound out each letter phonetically, you’ll notice they are all breath letters.  Each one is a  respiratory consonant, ones that require breath to pass through.  And these letters do the same in Hebrew. 

 

Y, H, W, H.

Almost like the rhythm of breathing.   In and out.

YHWH -- The I Am Who I Am – the God of being, the God of life and existence – reveals himself with a name of life and breath. 

At the cross, Jesus, the Son of God, who has spent 30+ years of breathing the same air as a human being  just like you and I, “breathes his last.”  The I Am Who I Am – the Y H W H whose name itself reveals he is the God of the Breath of Life – watches while his Son take his final breath. 

And Jesus—this same Son of God who breathed life into Lazarus and healed crowds of people, giving them their life and health and breath back – now takes his final breath, when he could have chosen to heal himself, to give himself life.  But he chose death.  The Breath chose death. 

And he did it for us.  All of us.  Jesus stopped breathing so that we may have life.  The “I AM” –“YHWH” --   the God of life and breath and existence – gave up his breath for us.  For you.  For me. 

Y H W H

“Jesus breathed his last”  …  so that when we too breathe our last on this earth, we will soon after take our first breath of eternity, and rise again to everlasting life and breath and existence… just like Jesus also did on that beautiful Easter morning…

 

Lent Lessons from a Witch Visit

Witches are not exactly a hot topic of conversation when it comes to Lent discussions.

In fact, in North America, the topic of witches are pretty much kept to Halloween, Hollywood, and that Salem-thing that happened years ago.

And North Americans who know their Bible aren’t necessarily discussing witches and witchcraft on a daily basis either.

Yet, there is a small but significant (and strange!) story in 1 Samuel 28 that talks about a witch… and dare I say, gives us some insight during this season of Lent.

 

The setting and scene here are significant  Saul and his troops are on top of Mt. Gilboa, and from there they are looking down on an army camp, full of the powerful Philistines, getting ready to attack Saul and his Israelite army. 

And Saul is afraid -- not just a little bit scared, but extremely afraid.  1 Samuel states he was so afraid, “terror filled his heart.” (28:5)

And here comes the sad part.  He asks God what to do and God is silent.  “The Lord did not answer him.”  (28:6) And if you’re like me, you’re wondering why God didn’t answer him.  Didn’t Saul actually acknowledge God, and do the right thing by asking God for help?  Why is God not answering?

So naturally, Saul is still terrified and because God is silent, Saul goes to Plan B:  consult a witch to find out what to do next.  And he had just expelled all witches and mediums from Israel, so this would be no easy task, but nonetheless someone tells him there is a witch in Endor.

So, Saul dresses up in a disguise, travels to see the witch, and it all goes downhill from there, as what he discovers with her there is the beginning of the end for Saul.

 

So what is so significant about this peculiar story, and what does it have to do with Lent?

Here is where geography comes in handy. 

When we visited Israel, we had the pleasure of going on Mt. Gilboa and seeing a vast amount of the land of Israel from the top of that mountain.  And when we were on top of Gilboa, our leader pointed out where Endor was, and made a point to show where the Philistines would have been camped out awaiting their attack on the Israelite army. 

Endor was on the other side of the Philistine army, which means Saul more than likely would have had to have gone through that army camp to get to Endor and the witch.  Quite possibly, Saul was dressing up in a disguise so he could get through that camp, not just so he could talk with the witch.

But remember how he was terrified of the Philistine army?  “Terror filled his heart”?!?  Yet, he was willing to go through that very Philistine army camp to get answers from a witch!

How can this be?  Why the risk?

I wonder if it was because there was something more terrifying than that army…

I wonder if Saul was even more terrified of the fact that he felt God had left him…  and that God was silent. 

 

Which brings me back to my question earlier:  Why was God silent?  Why didn’t he answer Saul when he reached out?

Here lies our problem:  Saul had never said to God he was sorry.  Saul had never repented and asked God for forgiveness.  Saul never fell at God’s feet and said sorry for the countless ways he had sinned against God.

Just like Adam and Eve hid and couldn’t say “I’m sorry” to God after their original fall, Saul followed in their footsteps of this common nature of human sin not to ask for forgiveness. 

Did God leave Saul?  Scripture doesn’t say that. And I believe God was still with Saul.  But by not repenting and telling God he was sorry, Saul had broken his relationship with God and so far removed himself from God, that he could no longer hear his voice.

And so Saul, instead of humbling himself and asking forgiveness from God, did rather dare to walk through the terrifying Philistine army to have a witch give him answers.  He would rather make a petrifying journey to talk to a medium, than say sorry to the God of the Universe right there with him on Mt. Gilboa. 

So let’s get back to witches and Lent…  what does all this have to do with Lent?

Many of us know Lent is a time of introspection and taking a good hard look at our lives, especially our sin in light of Christ's suffering.  But looking at our sin and shortfalls is not easy for a lot of us.  Yes, of course we can celebrate and have hope that God has forgiven us through the death of Jesus, but may  forget to actually ask God for this forgiveness and truly look at the sin in our lives, repenting and saying, “I’m sorry, God.”

This is so difficult to do.  It is so against human nature to say, “I’m sorry.”  We try justifying our sin, we try blaming others, or we just choose not to see where we are in the wrong.  But even though we are a forgiven people, God doesn’t want us to find ourselves feeling distant from him because we aren’t drawing near to him in repentance.  Like Saul, sometimes we think it’s easier to continue on in our sin and face our giants without God, rather than come before God in humility, recognizing our need for him and need for forgiveness.

This Lent, let’s each one of us take a good look at our lives and find areas where we need to ask God for forgiveness.  And as we try to weed out this sin in our lives, it is my hope and prayer we will feel God’s unconditionally-loving presence  draw near to all of us, not missing this opportunity of God’s nearness like Saul did.

 

"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." (Acts 3:19)

 

 

 

Writing from Mount Dry

Dry.

This describes fairly accurately how I have felt these last couple of weeks. 

Dry.

My hands feel dry and cracked from winter air.
   My throat feels dry due to cold season being  in full force.
      My face feels dry from lack of fresh air. 

And my mind and heart feel a bit dry too… a sense of writer’s (blogger's?!?) block and associated discouragement. 

Dry.  Parched. 
  And a sense of desperation for some sort of refreshment. 

I am not sure if it’s the fact that I miss the sun or fresh air, or maybe I’m feeling the winter blahs more than usual, but I’ve been trying to write this blog for almost 3 weeks now and every time I've tried, I come up completely – you guessed it – dry.

And so what’s the only thing I could think to write about?  Right again – "Dry."

But I'm not going to write about just any type of dry.  I want to talk about Mount Dry.   

It's a real place.  I visited Mount Dry in the Egyptian wilderness  -- and yes, it was a real biblical place as well.  

You may know it as “Mount Horeb.”  But directly translated, it literally means, “Mt. Dry.” 

So as I sit here with no idea what to write, feeling mentally parched each time I try, I see in my notes something significant about “Mt. Dry.”  It was at Mt Dry – Mt. Horeb – that God reminded the Israelite people that he was there to take care of their every need, and to take away their parchedness, offering refreshment.  It was at Mt. Dry, God gave them water from a rock. 

In Exodus 17, the Israelite people had hardly been out of Egypt for long, and they were complaining about their thirst, and how clearly, Moses had just brought them out of Egypt to die in this desert.  (Having spent just some minimal time in this Egyptian wilderness, I may have been one of the complainers myself, if not the chief complainant…)

These people had just been brought through the Red Sea on dry land.  They had just witnessed their Egyptian pursuers be annihilated.  They had just been fed manna and quail --  literally food from heaven.  And yet they were complaining about their thirst and how they must have come out here to die.  After all this, they still asked  if God was really with them?

And so rather than reprimanding these chronic complainers and leaving them in the desert to fend for themselves, God yet again proves himself worthy and provides.

He provides water.
  Relief.
     Refreshment.
And from all places, the water comes from "Horeb" - dry. The water comes from a lifeless rock on Mt. Dry.

God is proving yet again how he watches over and provides for his people.  God is offering a lifespring of physical and spiritual nourishment, showing his people that even in the wilderness, even on a place called Mt. Dry, he can cause a wellspring that can quench thirst.  That he is life-giving rock in a weary land...


Perhaps you find yourself in a similar spot as these Israelites were. Dry.  Parched.  Needing some serious refreshment.  Maybe you feel a bit like me, feeling the mid-winter blahs...  

Or maybe you are having a personal or spiritual dry spell, wondering just like the Israelites did in this story, “Is God really with us?  Is God really there for me?” (Exodus 17:7)  Why is he leaving me to wither in this dry land?  Why does it seem God doesn't care for me?

If this is you, or maybe this has been part of your path in the past, let this be your encouragement:  the God of the universe cares for you so deeply, that he is able to quench your thirst, even on Mt. Dry.  The God of this universe loves you so much that he would produce for you water out of a lifeless rock. 

If you are feeling dry today, and you have been praying or hoping for refreshment from God, allow these words to sink in and drink deeply from God’s wellspring of life…

  “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 
   Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:37-38)

 

 

Pharaoh?? Pharaoh Who??

 I have to come clean.  Sometimes, the Bible frustrates me.

 

Now before you call me heretic, burn me at the stake, or burn me social-media style, hear me out. 

Sometimes, there are parts of the Bible I wish would have been written to appease my need for historical accuracy.  Basically, I wish it would have told me what and who and where and when EXACTLY how the story went with all the details – like a filmed documentary.  EXACTLY how it was. 

One such example that has always bothered me, is why the “Pharaoh” (King of Egypt) who is featured in the beginning of the book of Exodus is never actually named.  He is just called “Pharaoh.”  It would be like saying “King.”  “King” would not let the Israelites go free out of Egypt.  “King” endured horrible plagues.  “King” finally let them go and then changed his mind. 

     King who?

         Pharaoh who?

             Which Pharaoh was it?! 

Was it Rameses the III, the powerful ruler? Was it Tutemos the II, the world influencer?  Or was it even Pharaoh Atun, the "Unitarian"?   

Who exactly was this Pharaoh? And why don’t we know for sure which one?  If God had included that one little detail, we could have learned so much more about that exact point in history when God led his people out of Egypt's hand...

 

But God doesn’t give that detail.  We are told over and over again how important names are in the Bible yet Pharaoh is anonymous. Nameless Pharaoh remains a mystery, and I am left frustrated at why we aren’t given these kinds of details… 

Yet it was after spending some time in Egypt that it finally sunk in why that detail was left out.  What I saw as an historical biblical hiccup, God was using to make a powerful point...

We were in the Valley of the Kings: the famous sites of tombs of Pharaoh after Pharaoh after Pharaoh.  By this point, we had been in Egypt a few days.  We had seen so much wealth and power in all these sites.  Monstrous statues, adorned temples, massive structures – all to show the power of the Pharaoh.  And with each statue, each temple, each structure, one Pharaoh tried to outdo the next, making their name live on and making their name great.  

And here we were, in the Valley of the Kings, the greatest example of each Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt trying to outdo the Pharaoh before by making a bigger and better tomb for himself.    And then the thought struck me.

God was making a powerful point by omitting Pharaoh’s name in the Bible in the book of Exodus.  Here this Pharaoh was abusing Israelite slaves by working them to the bone.  And what were they doing?  Building.  Building statues and structures and temples to make the Pharaoh look powerful.  To make Pharaoh immortal.  To make Pharaoh’s name live on forever.

But God doesn’t give Pharaoh’s name.  God intentionally leaves him as generic “Pharaoh”, a simple “King” because God wants to make sure this Pharaoh gets no recognition.  This mere man is not immortal.  This man’s name does NOT live on.  No-name Pharaoh is mortal and human, and it’s the true God – the Israelites’ I AM WHO I AM that gets named.  The name of the one and only powerful God who defeats Pharaoh with plagues and takes these meager slaves out of Egypt and makes them into a great nation. 

And God wanted to remind his people when they recounted the story who really mattered, who was truly the powerful and immortal God who saved his people.   God wanted the people to remember it wasn’t nameless Pharaoh who protected them, saved them, and brought them out. It was the I AM.

The same I AM who protects you, saves you, and enfolds you into his people.   

Sometimes the big and powerful in this world like to make us feel small, insignificant, like we matter to no one.  But this Exodus story reminds us of the truth.  The truth is that the big and powerful rise and fall, but it is God who remains the same, and God who gives us purpose and significance.  Not fame, not money, not power, but GOD who gives us worth and saves us from serving mere objects and material things that don’t last and don’t matter.

So even though I was at first frustrated with my question, “which Pharaoh?” “Pharaoh who?”  I was satisfied with an almost too-easy answer.

Pharaoh who??

Pharaoh who clearly wasn’t God.  

New Year's Bandwagon -- "Lighter" in 2016!

January 2.  The day after New Year’s.  And now the oh-so-trendy new year resolutions are starting to take shape.  Smokers are throwing out their lighters; drinkers are locking up their liquor cabinets.  It’s the day gym memberships are sold in droves and junk food aisles don't need restocking. 

And this year, I’ve made my resolution too.  I've decided I'm going to be lighter in 2016.  Yes, lighter.  And I need you to help me. 

“Lighter.”

Brighter.  

Glowing in the darkness,

Radiant in the shadows.

Lighter.

We briefly in our mideastern travels the biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.  Remember this story?  It shows up in that obscure book of Daniel.  These three God-worshipers refuse to worship the foreign king of Babylon’s statue of himself (talk about the definition of narcissism!) and so the king’s punishment is to incinerate them.  What a torturous and horrible way to die.

But for those of us who know the story, we don’t cringe because we know what happens.  These men survive. And not only do they survive, they thrive.  An angel appears to protect them and the fire does nothing to them.  It does not even touch them.  It says, “the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.” They were completely untouched.  The fire did not burn them up.

Hmmm… a fire that didn’t burn?  flames that didn’t scorch?  That sounds familiar.

Oh right- that bush.

That burning bush.  The one that was on fire but never actually burned.

 That burning bush that talked to Moses, representing the presence of our God.

And that’s what these furnace-enduring men became too.  The fire that didn’t burn them up was the presence of God, and they carried with them that presence. They became a representation of God’s presence.  Their very lives became these radiant lights, these bright lamps of God’s presence in this Babylonian king’s dark empire.  These men could easily have died, but God spared them to be bearers of his light…

And I wonder if that’s what God desires are for us as well.  God spared us and granted us salvation so we can be bearers of his presence.  So we can be light to a dark world.

So 2016 I’m going to try to be “lighter” and I’d love for you to join me…  I’m going to try be lighter, shining brighter with the light of God’s presence to those around me. 

In a world where politics and terror divide neighbours and countries…

     Be the light in God’s world.

In a world where drugs and addictions destroy relationships and  lives,

     Be the light in God’s world.

In a world where the pace of life hardly allows for patience and understanding,

     Be the light in God’s world.

In a world where selfishness, bullying, and thoughtlessness seem to reign,

     Be the light in God’s world.

And in a world which has rejected God yet they continue to wonder where he is,

     Be the light and be the presence of God to God’s world.

2016 is the year to become lighter.  And let’s not make this one like most New Year’s resolutions, going up in smoke after 6 weeks…  Let’s continue all year--and the next and the next-- to be the light, the radiant fire that flames but never burns up.