Bobby Valentine, simple desert disciple, with roots in the Stone-Campbell Movement, finding a way through this present age in the hope of the New Heavens & New Earth
(This was written in Gunnison, Colorado in 2017) I grew up in the “Churches of Christ” in north Alabama. If there was anything people knew about CofCs it was they were “a cappella.” (This word was invented in the 15th century). In fact a staple for preaching was the sin of instrumental music. Extreme statements are not difficult to find on this subject, even the assertion that God hates instrumental music (in light of the Bible this one is hard to swallow).
I gave up this position a long time ago because I simply read the Bible. It is one of those traditions we have turned into a law. The fact that the Jerusalem Church, as far as the NT record is concerned, never ceased worshiping in the Temple proves beyond reasonable doubt the “New Testament Church” did in fact worship with instruments (and why they are used in worship in God’s presence, Revelation 5.8-9; 14.2-13; 15.1-4). Since Paul had no problem with offering animal sacrifices (which included instruments btw), I find it incredibly specious that he would draw the line at harps!
But yesterday I was in Colorado. My daughter and I were cruising down Highway 50. She was telling me about her project (she is a music major in college). So we talked and listened to Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 2.
After filling me in on Mahler’s conversion to Christianity, she said that the music is Mahler putting “into music” his journey of faith.
Rachael said, “the music is so powerful I can barely make it through it without tears.” (She has to play it). She offered many more words and insight.
Mahler’s music draws from deep within us, the response of worship to the King.
The symphony is sometimes called the Resurrection Symphony. The symphony is an act of worship given to offer praise to God.
For anyone who claims that an instrument cannot bring glory to the Lord has never encountered Gustav Mahler. The Holy Spirit inspired Chronicler records that David regulated the musicians who
“shall offer praises to the LORD with instruments which I have made for praise” (1 Chron 23.5, RSV).
I don’t even like classical music. But Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony brought me straight into the house of worship, with my daughter.
Signal Hill located in the Saguaro National Forrest, April 22, 2013. The ancients carved petroglyphs on the rocks on top of the hill.
(I wrote this in 2014. A challenging year.)
Easter sabbatical observations. Today was a beautiful Lord’s Day. A beautiful Easter Day.
From my backyard, I watched the Sun rise over the Rincons this morning and was in awe of the beauty of the new dawn. I went to the Gathering and was taken in by the singing of “O Glorious Day.” I talked to my daughters and was delighted by their beauty.
I am sitting by the pool gazing up at Mars, the stars and the night sky. They are imbued with beauty. I am captivated by it.
Questions flood my mind in light this beauty.
Why do humans love beauty? Why do we value it? Why is there beauty in the first place? Why do we humans create and attempt to surround ourselves with things that have the aroma of beauty?
Beauty, like pleasure, is not an evolutionary necessity. Think about that. As far back as we can find traces of humanity we also find creations of beauty … works of art. Why would hunter/gatherers with a life on the margins of starvation paint magnificent works in the caves of Lascaux 30,000 years ago?
Why did these ancient people have a desire and appreciation for beauty? Why do we find Orion and flowers beautiful? Bees don’t! Why do we strive to recreate that beauty and value it highly?
Does not Easter give us a clue?? What if beauty, that reality that isn’t a necessity of evolution, is the manifestation of the divine in our world?
What if beauty is simply the goodness of God breaking into this fallen, but still good, world that was created to be beautiful? What if humans are simply imaging God with the impulse to create works of art?
God the beautiful artist places God’s own beauty in the world and humans mimic God when we do the same. Easter tells us that the beauty in the world is not by accident … it is both the echo of the Garden and a sign of world that is breaking in because of the Resurrection.
Humans appreciate beauty because of God. Humans create beauty because of God. Beauty is a sign of redemption. Beauty draws us because God is the very essence of Beauty.
Petroglyphs at Signal Hill, Saguaro National Forrest, April 22, 2013
“One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, and to BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD, and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27.4).
Just some Easter sabbath musings I thought I would share. Think about beauty and how profound it really is that you can appreciate it.
Today on April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr languished in a Birmingham Jail. He wrote an epistle to the churches of the city of Birmingham, Alabama. As I reread his letter, my mind went to Isaiah. My thoughts from Isaiah are inspired by Dr. King. I personally wonder if the American church is worse today than in 1963? On to Isaiah.
(If you have never read King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, do so now, You can read the entire text here: Birmingham Letter. No informed American can not read and meditate on it. Certainly no Christian American can not read it several times.).
Isaiah. Do you know him? I remember many years ago in Hebrew readings class in the early 1990s, the prof said “Isaiah is a Beast!” By this he was not referring to the creature in the fairy tale but to the monstrous complexity of his language. He was not jesting.
But Isaiah is not a beast merely in Hebrew, try him in English. He has an epic message in English that comes through loud and clear.
Often Christians know only that Isaiah said something about a “virgin” or possibly that he spoke of One who “by his stripes we have been healed.” And these are very important to know.
But Isaiah’s message is as relevant to the message of the Suffering One as his prophecy of the One. And perhaps because we do not know the message of Isaiah, we also fail to grasp the message of the One born of that virgin.
Isaiah opens in sort of a court scene. The people of God are on “trial.” The question of the trial is twofold: 1) does God’s people know who God is and 2) are they actually faithful to God. These are serious questions.
Yahweh who speaks to the “jury” (the heavens and earth, v. 2). He says “I raised my children, I cared for my children. But they rebelled against me.” Yahweh says they were raised in his own house but they have no idea who he is. “The ox knows its owner, the donkey knows its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people/family have no clue” (v.3).
The people counter with the defense. They are constantly at church! They bring reams of sacrifices, they go to the temple. They sing the songs of praise. They keep the new moons [think Sunday evening and Wednesday nite Bible study! They are going the “extra mile so to speak!”] (vv. 11 & 14).
Israel loves to go to church! How can they not know God? How can they not be faithful?
Shockingly, Yahweh addresses the people directly rather than just the “heavens and earth” the jury). He says “your church service gives me a stomach ache! I could careless for your sacrifices! I simply cannot put up with your worship any longer!” (vv.11c, 12, 13b).
Then Yahweh utters words that take Israel’s breath away. Yahweh says he simply will not listen to them pray any longer.
“When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you pray lots and loudly, I will not listen!” (v.15)
What!? But the defense (the People of God), retorts, “but we love to pray. We love to sing praise songs. We love worship!” (I am paraphrasing).
But Isaiah simply says Yahweh has rejected Israel’s worship. This rejection is not because of some failure of precision obedience by Israel. No. The charge is that they do not know God, they worship but do not have a clue who their Father actually is.
Such a stance by Yahweh is, by his own testimony, painful to him. God wants to hear our prayers. What is keeping God from accepting the praise hymns, the glad songs of the sacrifice, of the celebrations of new moons?
The answer is … the people who gather in worship tolerate INJUSTICE. In fact their tolerance of injustice, according to Yahweh, means they themselves have “blood on their hands” (v.15).
How can God listen to the prayers of outstretched hands that are covered with the blood of the victims of injustice?
God has no desire to “convict” his people. That is not the point of being “in court” in Isaiah 1. The point is to get the people to live as if they grew up in the house of the Lord! If you grow up in the house of the Lord then you will have the values and actions based on the values of the Father of the house. That is the point.
So, Yahweh tells God’s People how and when he will gladly hear their prayers and accept their worship once again.
“Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (v. 17)
Yahweh invites them to come alongside and he will wash them and make their sins – that are crimson because of the blood on their hands – will be white as wool (v.18). Yahweh’s Hesed (steadfast love/grace) yearns to be gracious but Yahweh loves the oppressed and we must too.
Isaiah preached to a group of people who loved to go to church. But Yahweh said their worship stank and he simply refused to hear their prayers. It was not because their worship was simply not by the book. It was because the people of God did not know Yahweh. They did not know and did not love JUSTICE.
Do you think Isaiah could be talking to not only the people of God of ancient Israel, could he be talking to the American church? Do we know what justice is? Do we love it?
I have read many critics of what is called (at times) renewed earth eschatology or the new heavens and new earth. I call it simply “salvation” or “redemption.” Last night I read through an entire issue of a magazine that self-proclaims dedication to biblical truth that supposedly showed the false teaching of the renewed earth for what it was, false.
There is (in my view) a great deal of misreading. Not only of the biblical text but of those who teach this CLASSIC Christian doctrine. That’s right “classic” Christian doctrine. One that is held across span of the Church Fathers, the Protestant Reformers, and the Stone-Campbell Movement as well. It is in fact the “doctrine of salvation/redemption.” It is not some esoteric will-o’-wisp Johnny Come Lately “innovation.” It is the cosmic gospel itself beloved.
Underneath the poor exegesis of specific passages lies three + 1 issues that seriously impact reading and hearing specific passages. Here are the three +1 reasons that cause one to reject that which is the common understanding of salvation since the beginning.
#1) The utter failure to take the Hebrew Bible (i.e. “Old Testament) seriously as a theological resource for Christian faith. This the crux. It is the beginning, the middle and the end. Alexander Campbell for all his emphasis on “New Testament” Christianity understood this with clarity. The New Testament means what it means BECAUSE (emphasis not shouting) of the Hebrew Bible. Campbell stresses, repeatedly, that Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, John, etc are JEWS. The speak and THINK as Jews. Jesus and the apostles are literally disciples of Moses and not Plato. The first huge gulf between the Hebraic worldview and that of Plato is that God CREATED material reality. Material reality IS SPIRITUAL. Read that again. It is “Spiritual” because it is from the Holy Spirit. It is good. It is holy. The Incarnation in the FLESH is the ultimate compliment the Creator God can give to “matter.” Matter is Spiritual. Yes, Spiritual. The word spiritual in the NT never – ever – is the opposite of materiality.
#2) Because the Hebrew Bible is either ignored, denigrated, or even outright rejected as the theological lens to understand the NT, we western disciples REDEFINE the New Testament itself by reading it through Platonic and Epicurean lenses. We are products of the Enlightenment. The NT is not! The chasm here is almost infinite. The Greeks also spoke of souls, salvation, redemption, etc but meant something radically different than Jesus, Paul, James (Moses, the Psalms, Isaiah, etc). Plato taught the “Immortality of the Soul.” The physical world is not “spiritual” in Platonic “theology.” The Bible never heard of such a doctrine. The New Testament teaches as clearly as can be taught, the resurrection of the material Human BODY. The apostle Paul never once says anything about saving “souls” or “spirits” as if those where something different than the complete person. For Plato the “soul” is one thing and the “body” is another INFERIOR thing. This is completely unbiblical. Instead Paul speak, in good Jewish talk (because of the Hebrew Bible) that the Holy Spirit will give “life to your MORTAL BODIES” and we wait for the “redemption of our BODIES” (Romans 8.11, 23f). The very definition of “spiritual” through Hebraic eyes or Platonic dualism (as it is called) directly impacts such classic texts as 1 Corinthians 15. Paul talks about (in English) “Spiritual bodies.” Those reading this with Platonic definitions this means (naturally) IMMATERIAL. That is a body MADE OF SPIRIT or COMPOSED OF SPIRIT. But Paul is a Jew. Not only is he a Jew, he is a Pharisee dedicated to the resurrection of the body. Paul did not pull a “bait and switch” on those poor confused Corinthians. But Paul is not talking about the composition of the resurrected body but what gives it power or life. And that is the Holy Spirit. To illustrate this with common sense English, requires no Greek to understand. If my grandson says “there’s the steam train” there is not a person on the planet that thinks he is talking about a train MADE OF STEAM. The steam is what POWERS the train. And we will have bodies ANIMATED BY, POWERED BY, the Holy Spirit, not made of non-material casper the ghost. God “redeems” the BODY, just as he did the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, as Alexander Campbell said, “It is not the doctrine of Plato that the resurrection is proof and pledge.” This is the doctrine of salvation brothers and sisters. It is THE hope!
#3) Is directly related to the previous two. We do not take seriously the Incarnation of God in human flesh, nor do we take the resurrection of that Incarnate body in the flesh seriously. The Logos did not RENT a human body for 33 years. The apostle John leaves absolutely zilch wiggle room on this (but neither does Paul!). The Word BECAME flesh. Forever. Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 is not about baptism (sorry Church of Christ folks, it is not!). It is about the fact that the Creator God of Israel refused to let the FLESH of the King of Israel see “decay” (Acts 2.24,26-28,30-31).
Some have so Platonized (paganized!) the Resurrection that it simply means life after death and has nothing to do with the material of our Body at all. They have literally redefined the word “resurrection” to fit within a Platonic worldview rather than a Hebraic one. Luke goes out of his way to have Jesus give no wiggle room to Gnostics, Jesus’s said “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have FLESH and BONES as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet” (Luke 24.39-40). Jesus is the Pattern for resurrection. When Paul speaks of resurrection always say to yourself, that’s Luke 24!
The Resurrection guaranteed the ongoing reality of the Incarnation of God in the Flesh. This is why Matthew calls him “Immanuel.” That was not on Jesus’s birth certificate rather Jesus is now the God of Israel dwelling with Israel and all the Nations … just as the HEBREW BIBLE SAID HE WOULD (emphasis not shouting).
The Sermonator, in Hebrews, hangs his entire sermon on the fact that the Jesus, from the “tribe of Judah,” was raised in his body and his resurrected body of flesh (10.20, etc) is at this moment in the presence of God “waiting” until God says it is time for him to appear. The apostle John affirms this in both 1 John 4.1-2 and 2 John 1.7 when he uses both the Perfect tense and the Present tense to describe Jesus’s coming in the flesh. That is he has come and never left! God did not destroy the human resurrected body of Jesus. Jesus and his Jewish body are one and the same. To cast off, to get rid of that resurrected body is to get rid of Jesus the Son of David himself. The Human body matters to the Creator God because God created the matter. God refused to let Satan have the “body” of Moses (God will redeem it in the resurrection just as he did Jesus’s, Jude 1.9).
The Human Body is made up of the material world. The Jewish Body of Jesus is made up of the material world. As the material world shared (participated in sin) through the human body so it will also share in the GLORY of the resurrection. This is stated explicitly in Romans and Colossians. Creation, the material world, is the inheritance of Jesus the Christ. As Paul states it was created both by him and FOR him (Colossians 1.15-17). God loves the world! The Gospel is cosmic. The blood of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus is for the salvation of the WORLD. The fate of the world and the fate of humanity are tied together in redemption just as they were in creation. Again, this is classic Christian doctrine. This is salvation. It is not a minor cord.
#4) Finally. Early Christians were utterly aware of the difference between resurrection of the body and the mere notion of life after death. The word resurrection NEVER is a synonym for life after death. It is God reanimating our material body with life. Jesus’s resurrection is the Pattern for all resurrection. The Philosophers in Acts 17 all believed in the Immortality of the Soul. All of them. But the resurrection of the body was anathema. The body is to be cast OFF in pagan salvation. Paul was not a Pagan but a dyed in the wool rabbi who proclaimed the resurrection of the body as the “hope of Israel.”
The only people, check it out, the only people who denied the the physical resurrection and the renewal of creation came in the second and third centuries … they are called Gnostics! And they knew their doctrine was radically different than biblical faith so they had wrote their own Gospels … The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Judas, The Gospel of Truth, The Treatise on the Resurrection, etc. It is ironic beyond belief that many today sound more like the Gospel of Judas and the Gnostic Treatise on the Resurrection than Luke 24 or Romans 8 or Revelation 21 and 22 for that matter.
Levites leading God’s People in worship from the heart in the Temple.
Making Melody, Making Zamar, Making ψαλῶ
“Have you ever seen an instrument sing and make melody in its heart?“
This question was directed to me, via a meme. There were a chorus of “Amen’s” underneath the meme. I neither said “amen” nor “liked” the meme. Instead I winced. I knew, as you likely do too, what the point of the supposed was.
Having read the Gospels at least once, I know Jesus often tried to get people to have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear” by asking questions.
I would preface my question(s) with, “I think you have missed Ephesians 5.19.” Then I would ask some of my own questions.
First, I would say, “Have you seen a PERSON sing and make melody in their heart with an instrument?” See that is the question.
Second, I would ask, “Did David and the myriads of God’s people ever sing and make melody in their hearts with instruments?“
Third, I would ask, “Do you know the apostle Paul just quoted the Book of Psalms with the phrase “sing and make melody to the Lord?” I’m willing to wager that is not the case.
The phrase “sing and make melody to the Lord” is a direct quotation of Psalm 27.6. The Hebrew for “make melody” is zamar, which is explicitly instrumental. Look it up in any Hebrew lexicon. So, the Psalm does not think there is a problem. But Paul quotes the Septuagint which is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. It reads,
“I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy,
I will sing and make melody to the LORD {ᾄσομαι καὶ ψαλῶ τῷ κυρίῳ}” (Psalm 27.6 = 26.6, LXX)
The context of Psalm 27 makes it abundantly clear that the worshipers are craving the God’s face, God’s beauty, God communion. Were they singing and melodying in their heart? Surely, they were. It says so.
Just a few verses away down in Psalm 33 we find the same expression “make melody” (same Hebrew as Ps 27). In the Septuagint it reads,
“Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Praise the LORD with the lyre; make melody {ψαλῶ} to him [the Lord] with the harp of ten strings” (Psalm 33.1-2).
You will note, immediately, that both Psalm 27 and Psalm 33 have the term ψαλῶ, the very term of Ephesians 5.19 (and of course it is because it is a quotation of Psalm 27!) But we also notice that there is not the slightest conflict. They are singing and making melody in their heart WITH instruments. The word “heart” is one of the most common terms in the Book of Psalms occurring a whopping 105x.
In the very context of Psalm 27 we read, “Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek his [Yahweh’s] face!” (Ps 27.8 ). But notice how Psalm 108 brings these together.
“My heart, O God, is steadfast; I will sing and make music with all my soul. Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.”
“ἡ καρδία μου ὁ θεός ἑτοίμη ἡ καρδία μου ᾄσομαι καὶ ψαλῶ ἐν τῇ δόξῃ μου. ἐξεγέρθητι ψαλτήριον καὶ κιθάρα ἐξεγερθήσομαι ὄρθρου ” (v.1-2, this is Psalm 107 in the LXX).
Here is our phrase “sing and make melody” (note ψαλῶ and ψαλτήριον). Note the “heart” and also note how this is done with “harp” and “lyre.”
We could actually illustrate this, like Paul does, just by saying look at the Book of Psalms. The problem, as I see it, is we simply do not take Paul seriously. We do not know Paul is literally quoting the Psalms. We do not know that righteous people sing and make zamar/ψαλῶ with the heart to the Lord with instruments. So, another example that brings these all together is Psalm 57. Twice the Psalmist declares “my heart” is ready to praise and make music. There is no doubt what is meant.
“My heart [καρδία] is ready, O God, my heart is ready, I will sing and make music [ᾄσομαι καὶ ψαλῶ]. Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awaken at dawn, I will acknowledge you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will make music [ψαλῶ] to you among the nations” (Psalm 57 [56, LXX], 8-10).
Here my second and third questions come together. Did David, the people of God, sing and make melody from their heart with instruments. Psalm 57 is a problem for those who claim they didn’t.
Fourth, my fourth question would be, “do you know, “with or in the heart” is not the location of the singing and making melody?” This is abundantly clear in the Psalms. This Hebraism means “I am giving it all I got.” “I am not withholding an iota of myself from the worship of God.” When David is singing and dancing “before the Lord” (sounds like something out of Psalm 27!) he is doing it with all his heart.
My final question would be, “Did Jesus sing and make melody (zamar/ψαλῶ) to the Lord?” This is an important question and we avoid it way too often. Jesus sang the very Psalms referenced in the temple. And he did so with those very instruments. So, did Jesus sing and make melody to the Lord with his whole heart (whole being!) with instruments? Did Jesus worship in “spirit and truth” (a saying that we reserve for another day, that is equally misconstrued).
My answer is yes. People can and do sing and make melody with their hearts (whole being, holding nothing back) to the Lord … with instruments. David did it. God’s people did it. Paul did it. And most important of all, Jesus did it.
The question is wrongly formulated from the get go. Thus the response to it is completely at odds with the very source of the of the phrase ‘sing and make melody’: The Book of Psalms.
Oh, yes. It is more than possible to sing and make music (that is what zamar means!) to the Lord with our whole being … with instruments.
Have you ever wondered about that great catalogue of heroes in Hebrews 11? The Sermonator is not the first Jewish teacher to assemble such a list (see Sirach 44-50; 1 Maccabees 2.51-61; 4 Maccabees 16; Wisdom of Solomon 10.1-11.16; etc). Ben Sira’s is extensive. First Maccabees is considerably smaller and because many American disciples are unfamiliar with this important text in the early church I cite it to illustrate this feature of Jewish writing.
“Remember the deeds of the ancestors, which they did in their generations, and you will receive great honor and an everlasting name. Was not Abraham found faithful when tested, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness?Joseph in the time of his distress kept the commandment and became lord of Egypt. Phinehas our ancestor, because he was deeply zealous, received the covenant of everlasting priesthood. Joshua, because he fulfilled the command, became a judge in Israel. Caleb, because he testified in the assembly, received an inheritance in the land. David, because he was merciful, inherited the throne of the kingdom forever. Elijah, because of great zeal for the law, was taken up into heaven. Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael [cf. Daniel 3.66, LXX] believed and were saved from the flame. Daniel, because of his innocence, was delivered from the mouth of the lions. And so observe, from generation to generation, that none of those who put their trust in him will lack strength.Do not fear the words of sinners, for their splendor will turn into dung and worms.” (1 Macc 2.51-62, NRSV).
Maccabees presents the heroes of faith for the same reason as Hebrews does, to encourage its generation to faithfulness in the face of severe opposition. The heroes of Israel are sort of a “Cloud of Witnesses” in 1 Maccabees (as well as Sirach, 4 Maccabees and Wisdom). Our Sermonator is doing something very Jewish in chapter 11.
But, in Hebrews, isn’t it is fascinating who is present and who isn’t? For example there is is no Elijah, no Esther, no Josiah. And yet we find Samson and Jephthah!
The question is why?
Clearly, the Sermonator has selected his cast and tied them together with a theme that is pervasive throughout the entire sermon: facing and overcoming death. It is astonishing how frequently references to death dominate Hebrews 11. Abel speaks even though dead (11.4); Noah saves his house from death (11.7); Sarah gave birth while Abraham was good as dead (11.11-12); Abraham sacrificed believing he would receive Isaac back from the dead (11.17-19); Jacob when dying (11.21) Joseph when near death (11.22) Moses saved the firstborn from death (11.23,28) Rahab was not killed (11.31) a whole litany of “unnamed” (i.e. Maccabees) in verses 33-37.
But with all this focus on death and at the climax of a “better resurrection,” the Sermonator does something strange, to us. He prefaces the entire list with this statement,
“By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible” (11.2).
What does that have to do with anything? How is that connected to faith in the face of death in Hebrews and chapter 11 in particular? A lot actually.
To put it succinctly, God the Creator is the ground for hope in God the Resurrector! The entire structure of Hebrews 11 has been shaped by a book the Sermonator and his congregation knows, Second Maccabees. In fact, there are a number of connections between what Second Maccabees does and what Hebrews is attempting to do. The Sermonator tells us that many in the congregation had indeed suffered loss of property (10.32-34) and status but “you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (12.4).
In 2 Maccabees, God’s people face unmitigated cruel persecution to the point of shedding blood. But they refuse to cave. They live in hope. If they die for Yahweh, they will live again. The tyrant cannot win. The hope of resurrection is tied directly to the Hebraic faith that the God of Israel is the Creator God. We see this in several places but 2 Maccabees 7 is of special importance. Here we find the legendary faithful mother exhorting her words to her sons to faithfully endure for God.
“I do not know how you appeared in my womb. I did not give you breath and life, nor did I arrange the elements in each of you. Therefore, the creator of the world, the one who formed the beginning of humanity and crafted the beginning of all things, will give you breath and life back again with mercy, since now you are disregarding yourselves for his laws” (2 Macc 7.22-23).
“I beg you, child … to recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. And in the same way the human race was created. Do not fear this executioner, but proving worthy of your brothers, welcome death in order that in God’s mercy, I might receive you back with your brothers” (2 Macc 7.28-29).
Before this remarkable exhortation from the mother of the seven brothers tortured and gruesomely killed, we find the brothers offering their hands, tongue and bodies because they will receive them all back in the resurrection (7.9, 11, 14).
There are numerous verbal connections throughout Hebrews 11 and 2 Maccabees 7. Two will suffice. It has never been doubted that Hebrews 11 talks about the Maccabean martyrs were were so famous in in the early church. The author writes,
“But Judas Maccabeus, with about nine others, got away to the wilderness and kept himself and his companions alive in the mountains as wild animals do; they continued to live on what grew wild, so that they might not share in the defilement.” (2 Macc 5.27)
“during the festival of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals” (2 Macc 10.6)
The Sermonator is drawing on this material because the Maccabees were in similar situation (and they know the book). But two should be noted. The mother expected her sons to be raised and the Sermonator says “women received back their dead” (11.35). Eleazar, the elderly priest “refused to be released” even though he could have escaped death (2 Macc 6.23-30) and the brothers refused to save their lives by being released (7.2,7-8, 24-30). And the Sermonator says “refusing to be released” (11.35).
But the mother directly and explicitly roots her faith in God raising her sons from the dead from the fact that God created their bodies in the first place. The heroes of Hebrews 11 are commended even though they had not received what had been promised (11.39). This clearly does not mean the ancients did not in fact receive the Promises God made, Abraham clearly did (this is made clear in the course of the Sermon itself). Rather the ancients have not attained the resurrection, yet! They have not been made “perfect” (11.40).
The Sermonator calls on the classic Hebraic faith in the God of Creation as the sustaining hope for resurrection. If, as the mother pointed out, that God can form you out of nothing then raising us bodily from the dead is not big deal for the Creator God.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11.1). The confidence, the vibrant hope, we have to face our trials is the same as all the Heroes of Israel also looked, like the Maccabees themselves, is that the creating God is the Resurrecting God. Those heroes have not received that promise but they live in unconquerable HOPE.
God’s people cannot be defeated by death. Resurrection of our body defeats death through, as the mother said, ‘the mercy of God.” Death was the tyrant’s ultimate weapon, but resurrection from the dead in both 2 Maccabees and Hebrews de-fangs death. Our God is the God of Resurrection. The God of victory over death!
We all will attain “perfection” together (11.40). Jesus himself has been “perfected,” (5.9) that is he has been raised from the dead. And Jesus will “perfect” us too (12.2). We, the Sermonator, Abraham, Sarah, Huldah, the Maccabees, Eleazar, David, all of us look forward to that glorious day when the Creator God raises the dead.
Throughout the Bible we find Creation and Redemption linked together. We find the same in Hebrews. The odd (to us moderns) mention of believing in creation at the beginning of the Hall of Fame of Faith is because faith in resurrecting God is based on the God who Creates and Loves what he Creates.
“For the Love of Christ Compels Me” (Saint Paul) “Justice and Justice alone you shall pursue” (Holy Spirit thru Moses)
Do you know who Blanche Bruce was? If not, that is why we need Black History Month.
By the time I moved to Mississippi in 1997, I knew who Blanche Bruce was from an anthology I bought in New Orleans called Crossing the Danger Water edited by Mullane. But I did not know much. As with Hiram Revels, not a person knew who he was (except Ernest Hargrove). After the Civil War it looked like Mississippi could be the leader in a new vision for America. But it was not to be.
BLANCHE BRUCE (1841-1898)
Blanche Bruce’s mother, Polly, was born to a slave woman who had been raped by a slave trader. She became the “property” of Lemuel Bruce who owned a plantation 60 miles west of Richmond, Virginia. Polly was a house slave. She would have eleven children, all of them fathered by white “masters.” Her first five children were fathered by Lemuel. When he died, he willed Polly to his white daughter Rebecca who married Pettis Parkinson. Polly would end up having six children fathered by Pettis, one of whom was Blanche Bruce born in 1841.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Blanche escaped slavery and ended up in Kansas. While hiding in Kansas he took up residence in Lawrence. He was in the town when Quantrill’s Raiders attacked the town on August 21, 1863 massacring almost 200 men and boys. Bruce survived by hiding in a thicket.
Following the War he entered Oberlin College and then migrated to Mississippi. He earned a reputation of being a savvy business man purchasing a 900 acres of land. He became a newspaper editor and then elected sheriff of Bolivar County in 1871.
SENATOR BRUCE (1874-1881)
In 1874, Bruce became the first black man to be elected to the Senate for a full term. Mississippi had sent Hiram Revels in 1870 to finish out the vacated terms by the treasonous Jefferson Davis. Blanch Bruce became the first full term African American to serve as a senator. And the first two black senators in American history came from Mississippi! And no one (any white person) I met in Mississippi had ever heard of either.
On March 5, 1875 new senators were welcomed into the chambers, escorted by the senior senator of their state arm in arm to stand before Vice President Henry Wilson to take the oath of office. When Bruce’s name was read, senior senator James Lusk Alcorn, of Mississippi, refused to stand and escort Blanche. A serious insult and breach of protocol. Bruce resigned himself to walk alone before the Vice President. As he began a voice rang in the chamber, “If I may, Mr. Bruce.” Roscoe Conkling, senator from New York took Blanche’s arm in his and escorted him.
With no help from his home state, Conkling became a mentor to Bruce. He ensured he was placed on important committees and had a genuine say in the Senate. They became life long friends. Later Bruce, and his wife Josephine, would name their only child Roscoe Conkling Bruce.
Senator Bruce was a constant advocate for the poor and vocal critic of racial violence. The Ku Klux Klan and the “Red Shirts” were terrorizing many. Senator Bruce stressed education and economic development in one of the poorest states in America, for blacks and poor whites. He insisted that 14th and 15th Amendments be enforced.
But it was a losing battle. Even as Bruce took office what has been called “The Mississippi Plan” of 1874 was coming into being. The beginning of “Redemption” as it was termed. What Mississippi could have been evaporated. The Mississippi Plan called for the elimination of the black electorate through any means necessary thus removing the “horror” of a Hiram Revels, John Lynch, and Blanche Bruce being in a white man’s government.
December 7 was a Day of Infamy long before Peal Harbor. December 7, 1874, Black Republicans gathered in Vicksburg for learning about civic rights, laws, how to vote, etc. They were attacked by whites and over 150 African Americans were murdered that day.
September 4, 1875 a similar massacre in Clinton took place. Black Republicans gathered with the same results. Over 50 were murdered.
President Grant sent in the Army to reestablish control but the soldiers did not stay. Ultimately, Mississippi led the Compromise of 1877 where Republicans surrendered the South back to the racists for control of the Presidency. Black voters were abandoned essentially until our own day. Frederick Douglass declared that the Republican Party had become the “party of money rather than the party of morals.“
Bruce was well aware of what was happening not only in Mississippi but across the old Confederacy. By 1879 a lynching spree was taking place across the South. Not just large scale massacres as in Vicksburg and Clinton but individual African Americans were murdered with impunity to intimidate all of them, especially in terms of civil rights. He stood up in the chamber in March 1876 and delivered an impassioned speech for simple justice. In such an environment, Bruce was not reelected in 1880.
BRUCE ON THE MONEY
In 1880, Bruce became one of six candidates to be the Vice President of the United States. James A. Garfield was elected and Chester Arthur became VP. Garfield appointed Blanche Bruce to be the United States Registrar of the Department of Treasury. The irony here is that every time the “Redeemers” in Mississippi (and across the South) spent a dollar, they exchanged money with the signature of Blanche K. Bruce on it. Bruce would have numerous federal appointments under various presidents until his death in 1898.
COLORED MAN?
Blanche Bruce was described by newspapers of the day as a “colored man.” Perhaps with his mother’s life long history, and his own, in his head he protested. He said, often, “I am a Negro and proud of it!”
The Bruce family went on to become some of the most influential families in America. Biographer and historian Lawrence Otis Graham went so far as to call the Bruce family “America’s first Black Dynasty.” Why had I never heard of him (them!) until 1996? Why is it that most Americans today have no idea who this man was and no idea of the family legacy. This beloved is why we need Black History Month.
I confess that one of the hardest aspects of Kingdom living is living out of an identity of being an alien, outsider, impoverished, the disinherited. I posted a meme of three people looking over a fence to illustrate the difference between so called “equality” and justice/equity/grace. For some it was self-evident. For a number it was quite controversial. “Who determines what is fair?” “The meme justifies stealing because they didn’t pay to see the game.” Numerous similar comments.
But the “critics” do not “identify” with the little person standing on top of two crates (two crates were needed). Why is this case?
In the Kingdom economy justice/righteousness/equity begins with grace to the alien/outside/poor/disinherited. The God of Israel chooses the poor. In the words of David Lipscomb, “the poor as a class constitute the elect!” But rare is the person who believes this.
Theologically, God identifies with the disinherited. King Jesus also identifies with the least of these (Matthew 25). But Scripture goes beyond telling us that GOD identifies with the disinherited. Scripture tells God’s People that THEY are to have this identity. The Sabbath command is rooted in Yahweh’s saving act for the disinherited and then in the command to “remember that you were a slave in Egypt” (Deuteronomy 5.12-15). In fact never forget that you were a slave. Being the “disinherited” is the “identity” of God’s graced people.
Moses puts it like this in the “Book of the Covenant” (Exodus 20:22-23:19).
“And a stranger/alien you must not wrong or oppress for strangers/aliens you were in the land of Egypt. Any widow or orphan you must not abuse. If you abuse, yes abuse, them I will listen, yes listen, to their cry …” (22.21-23, my translation)
What will Yahweh do when he listens to the cry (that expression echoes the Israelites own cry under oppression at the hands of Pharaoh in Exodus 1-2). One of the most terrifying verses in the entire Bible follows:
“I will listen, yes listen, to their cry. My wrath will be kindled and I will kill you with the sword” (22.23b-24).
God identified with the abused. God will do to the abuser what God did to Pharaoh. If a redeemed slave DARES to embrace the life from which they were redeemed, it is Yahweh they will contend with. Israel dare not become anything other than one who identifies with the least of these. Moses makes it explicit.
“A stranger/alien you MUST not oppress, You yourselves KNOW THE HEART OF THE STRANGER/ALIEN, for strangers/aliens you were in Egypt.” (Exodus 23.9)
God’s People do not identify with the people in the stands in the meme. God’s People do not identify with the person viewing the three people from behind. God’s People do not identify with the tall person who stands on his/her “own two feet” and sees just fine. Rather God’s People identify with the little person who was excluded, needed not one but two crates merely to see. God’s People identify with as the rescued, graced, aliens of Yahweh. When we identify with that “little person,” the excluded one, then the meme becomes crystal clear.
The People of God by definition “know the heart of the alien for/because you were aliens in Egypt.” This identify is found throughout the biblical narrative from the Exodus to Revelation. The Heroes of Israel are heroes of faith because they remain faithful while being aliens and migrants (Hebrews 11). Peter calls God’s people “exiles” and “strangers/aliens.” (1 Peter 1) James identifies us as exiles (James 1). The Book of Revelation identifies God’s People as the very definition of outsider.
The Son of Man, the living embodiment of God’s People, has no place to call home, is identified with the outsider, was anointed by God specifically to proclaim Jubilee to the very People that the God of Israel calls his own … the Nobodies. The ecclesia of God is nothing less than the liberated Nobodies where Jubilee is the law of grace in the land.
The Gospel of Matthew is the literary hinge between the so called “Old Testament” and the New.” Jesus’s story is the goal of Israel’s long history. Matthew opens with a “book of genesis” (1.1) of Jesus. Jesus is the inheritor of the treasure of Israel. He is not the father of but he is the “son of …”
Every Jew knew Jesus’s name. That is because Jesus’s name is Yeshua. Yeshua is “Joshua.” In fact, many Jewish parents named their son “Joshua.” It was as common as “Bob” in our North American culture. The name itself is both a statement of faith and a prayer. As the Jewish sage Jesus, the son of Sira tells us,
“Joshua son of Nun … became, as his name implies, a great savior of God’s elect … so that he might give Israel its inheritance” (Sirach 46.1).
People in Joshua/Jesus’s day named their sons with this great name because they were praying that Yahweh would save them in their day as God did in the days after Moses.
And the angel told Mary (whose name is actually Miraim) that this particular Yeshua, this one who is inheriting the entire history of Israel, is the One. “He will save his people” (1.21). He is the “son of” David, he is the “son of Abraham,” he is “born the King of the Jews” (2.2, messiah means king).
This Jesus/Joshua story has surprises. Unexpected scandal. There will be things that are going to be hard to believe, just as Israel’s history always had strange and unexpected twists. The presence of women (!) in the book of origins (i.e. Joshua’s genealogy) lets us know that the cast of unusual, unexpected, of scandal, of hard to believe will find expression in the Messiah. But again the “book of origins” lets us know that it is all according to how Yahweh has always worked.
Matthew prepares us for the biggest of all scandals (so far). The messiah comes from an unmarried young woman (Miriam was likely around 14, young in our world but not in hers). We pious religious folks like that language “with child.” It sounds almost religious. But no one talks like that in real life, the common English Bible translation tradition protects our religious sensibilities.
But Matthew had no such qualms and did not do that. And no one in Israel or Greece or Rome would have been reading the King James Version or the NIV. Some alternative renderings that say in regular English the meaning.
“Mary, his mother, was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married it was found that she was about to become a mother” (Goodspeed’s NT).
“His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married she found out she was going to have a baby” (Today’s English Version).
“His mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph; but before they came together she turned out to be pregnant” (Kingdom New Testament).
“His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant” (The Message).
The unmarried teenager was pregnant. Often, in my experience anyway, religious people today would not have been as kind as Joseph was to Miriam. Joseph wanted to get rid of her (divorce her!) but not shame her. Churches in my lifetime have engaged in lots of shaming of girls who were pregnant and unmarried. Mary/Miriam, on the first page of the New Testament, is both.
But the King came through an unwed mother. Now this subverted every notion of the Messiah but it actually has precedent throughout the history the Messiah inherited. The biggest surprise is that this Messiah from the unwed Mary (who believed her that she was a virgin? Joseph did not until he had a dream. I wonder how many people suggested to him his dream was merely ‘wishful thinking?’ Now we believe in the virgin birth, but these people lived in real life and I know how real life is) is Immanuel.
God has not only come to save his people but to LIVE WITH THEM. Just as God always desired to do.
From Genesis to Malachi (and Tobit to 4 Maccabees if we throw in the Apocrypha) the fundamental truth proclaimed is Yahweh Creates and Yahweh Saves. To put it succinctly, the Hebrew Bible proclaims as loudly as can be proclaimed this Hesed based message:
– Exodus Comes Before Sinai
– Grace/Hesed Comes before Faith (worship)
– It Always Has … It Always Will
This beloved, is proclaimed on every line in the Torah, the Prophets and the Psalms.
Worship in the “Old Testament” is the response of joy and gratitude for what Yahweh has done. Israel did not worship trying to earn atonement (forgiveness). Such thinking is a gross misunderstanding.
Israel was saved in the Exodus. Israel was saved before she ever entered into the Mosaic covenant. For 20 chapters the Book of Exodus narrates the mighty acts of God’s Hesed to redeem Israel. A redemption which Israel did nothing and did not deserve.
The first “worship service” recorded in the Bible literally comes right after the great moment of salvation, on the very shores of the Red Sea. The prophet Moses and the prophet Miriam lead the newly saved by grace slaves in the worship of the redeemer Yahweh. They sing. They praise. They dance.
Exodus 15 is the response of joy to salvation by grace/hesed. Israel certainly did not try to worship to get atonement.
On the contrary, the text tells us the Israelites had zero faith. They wanted to string Moses up on the very shores of the sea. Yahweh tells the people to “shut up and watch the salvation of their God” (paraphrase of 14.13-18,
“Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.”
Read all of Exodus 14 then chapter 15. Israel “contributed” nothing. They certainly were not doing anything to get/earn Yahweh’s love for them. Israel was saved because Yahweh already loved them (Deuteronomy 7.7-9, 12, NIV. It is a “covenant of love“). We should actually read that text,
“The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments …”
At the head of the festivals – worship – of Israel are the Sabbath and Passover. Sabbath is commanded in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Sabbath is response to God’s Act. In Exodus 20, Israel “remembers” the Sabbath because of the Hesed/Grace of creation. In Deuteronomy 5, Israel “remembers” the Sabbath because Yahweh redeemed her by grace. There is not a Jew on the planet that tries to earn “atonement” or “forgiveness” through Sabbath observance. Sabbath preaches God’s prior grace. God created the world out of Hesed. God saved Israel out of Hesed (see Psalm 136 which captures both poles of the Sabbath. Remembering is about Joy.
The Passover, which extends that Deuteronomy 5 part of the Sabbath, is the central annual festival/worship of Israel. Passover and Sabbath are intertwined. Directions for worship in the Passover are in fact given in Exodus 12, embedded in the very narrative of redemption by Hesed. Passover, like the Sabbath every week, preaches God loved Israel before Israel was born. It preaches that Yahweh saved Israel, Israel did not save herself. It preaches while Israel had no faith, Hesed triumphed!
Everyone of the festivals of Israel, Passover, Weeks/Pentecost, Tabernacles, all proclaim the the prior mighty act of Hesed of Yahweh. The most common thing associated with these festivals is gratitude or JOY. Yahweh (thru Moses) tells Israel she is always to “rejoice before the LORD” (Deuteronomy 12.7,12,18; 14.26; 26.11; 27.7; etc, etc).
Worship in Israel was the response of joyful thanksgiving to Yahweh’s mighty act of Hesed in creating the world and his mighty act of Hesed in redeeming Israel. It is difficult to read the Psalms (all about worship) and imagine Israel thought they were coming to earn salvation, coming to Yahweh to get God to love them.
“Let the redeemed of the LORD say so …” (Psalm 107.2, NRSV)
A good exercise as we close the thoughts of this post is go read the the rest of Psalm 107 just quoted. Read Psalm 100. And read – out loud – Psalm 136.
Exodus Comes Before Sinai
Hesed Comes Before … it is the ground of … Worship
Worship – like faith itself – is response to Yahweh’s Grace.
