Friday Five: the Bridegroom

My mind has been on the Bridegroom this week.

At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

Matt 25:1

How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!

Song 4:10

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

Song 2:3

I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.

Ezek 16:8

How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

Matt 9:15

Schedules

I'll be out of town this weekend but hope to tweak my weekly blog schedule next week. I'll be moving Dive In to Mondays, which will allow me three days for possible series articles. I'll check in when we get home Sunday evening.

Breaking a contract, part 2

Most women love the lure of flowers, the attention of a suitor. There’s a thrill to a telephone call or an evening stroll in the park.

If you’ll read yesterday’s account, you’ll know I deserved no courtship. I had chosen a silent separation and had earned no suitor’s pursuit. The covenant had been broken in my reckoning; my Bridegroom had not done his part.

But on a summer camping trip, with a time for quiet and reflection, my heart begin to expand. I missed my Lord. I felt his warm breath as he called my name. I opened my Bible and began a slow climb out of a black hole.

The miscarriage happened in March and by October I was passionately in love with my Savior. I did not understand my loss but what mattered to me was that I was loved by the Creator of the universe.

I was scheduled to speak at our church’s Christmas tea in early December, now a delightful task. And the joy was expanded when I discovered I was pregnant again. I felt certain that God was restoring what had been lost.

My speech-writing tasks were easy and the outline pulsed with life and vitality.

But lightning crashed again. This baby, too, was lost. I gave the long-anticipated speech knowing that life was draining away.

Things were different. I was desperate not to lose the relationship I had just re-gained. My cry that weekend was that I not lose hope in my King.

And this time, as I sat in a hospital bed facing a surgeon once again, there surged in me a certainty I could never explain apart from my Lord. I told the doctor that there had to be a cause for this. He told me I might never know a reason.

But I knew that I knew that I knew that I would find cause. A specialist informed us, after a month of embarrassing interviews and tests, that I had a progesterone inadequacy.

Daily shots, mood swings, fear blurred the new few weeks. This pregnancy didn't start with the joy and anticipation that it should have had. My thoughts were simple: “I don’t know if I can go through this again.”

A thin little heartbeat thumped on a 6-week ultrasound, while I was still getting twice a week shots to stave off yet another miscarriage. A tiny being moved strongly in the 10-week ultrasound. Joy mingled with cold fear gripped me.

Our son was born on Nov. 7. The first baby lost had been due on Nov. 7.

I had once hoped that my friends or family would comfort me during the one-two punch of miscarriage. But what’s more important is that the Bridegroom never left my side. In the humiliation of loss and the agony of inadequacy, he whispered my name and drew me back. He kept his part of the covenant in the face of my accusations and my silence. He never left me.

The prophet Joel speaks well for me:

I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten… You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the LORD your God,
who has worked wonders for you.

Joel 2:25-26

Breaking a contract, part 1

With a long hug and a gentle kiss on the forehead, I finished tucking my three-year-old in bed. We’d read, sang, prayed, lingered. Now I moved on, ready to do my nightly exercises.

I would have called myself content, full, confident. I should have used words like smug, naïve, proud. The wheels were about to come off and I was powerless to stop it.

That evening I opened a door to a blackness I would not leave for several months. That night a baby, only a few short weeks from conception, died without ever feeling the warmth of his mother’s arms.

The funny thing about miscarriages is that few know how to respond. There was something wrong with the baby and this is for the best, one older woman told me. Another said that her sister had had one. You know that you’re getting older, another almost scolded me. You can’t expect much.

I wanted to hold my baby. I wanted someone to hold me and kiss my forehead and cry out, I’m so sorry.

Four days later, after minor surgery to complete the loss, I stood at a window while the world marched on. The horror of what I could not prevent pushed me into a numb world of shadows. Where I should have mourned, I hid.

I kept the paint touched up on the outside, but the inside was as empty as my womb. No one knew, or no one commented.

My life had largely been self-powered. I knew God and I knew I was a good disciple, living a clean life and following the church code well. I was a good addition to his flock and he, apparently, had always honored my commitment by blessing me.

But this was no blessing, I cried out. I had prayed desperate prayers of exchange: “save this child and I’ll….” No rescue had ensued.

I didn’t know then what I know now. The rest of that statement would have been, “and I’ll return to our previous agreement.”

We had a deal, in my mind, and he hadn’t kept his part. I left for awhile. He apparently was moody and whimsical, unlike myself, and couldn’t be counted on in a crisis.

Hosea summarized my position in his warning to Israel: “But even if we had a king, what could he do for us?” (Hosea 10:3)

That was my point. In the crunch, what had God done for me? I trusted my own viewpoint. God had failed me and so I withdrew.

It was months before God’s persistent wooing caught my ear. Sitting at a campfire, conversation pulsing around my silence, I realized I missed him.

He sang to me:

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
it was I who healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love;
I lifted the yoke from their neck
and bent down to feed them.

Hosea 11:3-4

In my worldview, God and I were in a legal separation. But not in his. I might have declared the covenant dissolved, but he did not. His contract could never be broken. He just wouldn’t leave me or forsake me.

Tomorrow: the next crash

Dive In: The Audience

The teenagers almost whispered their distress: “In our spare time, we even pulled weeds to help them.”

They had returned from a week-long trip to a different culture, full of love for the children there and also annoyed with the adults who displayed none of the initiative the teens expected.

They couldn’t even pull their own weeds.

That culture did not value landscaping as we do. Their time was better spent carrying soup to the elderly, playing games with the babies, painting vibrant colors on pottery.

In not examining the culture of the people, the teens missed the values of the village. Where they might have seen beauty, they saw laziness.

In examining biblical texts, we must tread carefully. We read through our 21^st century western eyes what was written to ancient eastern people.

Last week, we discussed the author’s intent in writing. Today, we look at the intended audience.

For example, the book of Psalms is a beautiful collection of Hebrew songs. We are certain, however, that an editor gathered many poems and songs into the equivalent of a hymnal, a book to be used in worship.

There are many signs of this editor’s work. Several weeks ago we looked at the beginning of Psalm 23, where David is identified as the author. It’s probable that David did not write that about his own poem, but it was added later by an editor. Editing does not diminish the inspiration of the text. In fact, if we can accept the concept of inspiration in the writing, surely we can embrace inspiration in editing as well.

But this final text of Psalms was probably completed a couple of hundred years before Jesus’ birth. By this time, Jews had been scattered throughout the civilized world. Where once the Hebrews had worshipped as one in the temple, now they had a series of synagogues in the faraway places where they lived.

Once, the priest addressed the people in one place during festivals and ceremonies. Now, many could not return to the temple easily and instead worshipped in many places.

The Psalms were collected to provide instruction in theology and worship in the synagogues.

So the editor of the Psalms brought the poems together in five books which paralleled the five books of Moses (the Torah). In doing that, the editor communicated that this book was like the Torah, a new book to instruct the people. The Torah dealt with the law, the Psalms dealt with God’s nature.

The poems were probably not changed but their purpose was tweaked. They became part of a brilliant teaching effort. The people, many far separated from the temple and its festivals, could still learn about God’s nature – from a book rather than a priest’s lips.

Psalms was copied and distributed to many synagogues. That book helped Jews learn God’s nature and worship him with wisdom.

Knowing the original audience helps us understand the intent of the work.

Once we identify the author’s idea for his intended audience, we can make application to our own life.

When we understand that the purpose of Psalms is to introduce wisdom (notice the scope of Psalm 1 as the foreword to the entire collection), we read the psalms in a new way. We can connect worship and wisdom. If we know God’s nature, we can worship more effectively.

The Psalms were written to help early Jews worship God out of knowledge and understanding. Psalms instructs. We can take the same idea and use it in our own lives.

Part of provenance is identifying the author and the culture. Another part is recognizing the needs of the original audience. How they received the text helps us understand the ideas which may also affect our lives.

We can’t read biblical texts assuming they were written by modern authors to modern audiences. Their setting was different from ours and part of the challenge is to identify that situation.

Meaning is richer when we discover it by looking through the original lens.

Separation

Jesus seemed rude to his mother and that troubled me for a long time. If you’ve read John 2, where Jesus eventually rescues a wedding feast by transforming ceremonial water to drinkable wine, maybe his response to his mother has bothered you as well.

I tried to apply human reason: he was having a bad day. His feet hurt. He wasn’t yet good with words.

Truth is, he spoke a Jewish idiom, words of separation. The time had come to part.

They were at a wedding. In those days, the celebration ran on for up to a week, with food and drink stocked for the entire party. To run out of wine was embarrassing and Mary wanted to help.

That’s when Jesus responded with words that appear disrespectful. He used a Jewish saying: leave me alone. Today those are fighting words. But not then: notice how his mother responded. She was not insulted but appeared encouraged.

She turned to the servants, “do whatever he tells you.”

Jesus separated himself from his mother’s authority in this narrative. He no longer did what his mother said, but only what his Father told him to do. In the ensuing chapters of John, that point is highlighted repeatedly. Jesus obeyed only his Father, unconcerned with human influence or opinion.

Mary’s actions are fascinating. When a problem arose, she turned to her son. She informed him of her concerns. Unlike most of us, she did not suggest the solution. She simply laid the problem before him. Having done that, she prepared for obedience. She understood the separation. She had nurtured him as a child but now, as a man, he followed his Father. Her role shifted to following.

Although Jesus’ idiom appears harsh, he was really laying the foundation for his ministry. He did not answer to human authority – not even his mother. He answered only to his Heavenly Father.

And Mary responded as a follower should: with trust and with obedience.

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

John 2:11

Friday Five: Front and center

Fasting can cleanse our thoughts, our bodies, our souls. We know about fasting from food, but others suggest fasting from media (TV, radio, recorded music) or from digital connections (internet, email).

The point is not the denial but the focus. Where do we place the spotlight of our life? If food is our god, then focus elsewhere. If email threatens to own us, then push it back onto tamer ground. What claims our mind when the storm clouds of challenge threaten? That often reveals our gods, the places we go for comfort.

On fasting….

So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

Dan 9:3

'Even now,' declares the LORD,
'return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.'

Joel 2:12

But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matt 6:17-18

Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

Matt 9:15

When I weep and fast,
I must endure scorn;

Psalms 69:10

So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Acts 13:3