Friends: Scripture, prophecy, and promises notwithstanding, Jesus was the only participant who understood Holy Week.  Easter blessings to all … He is risen, indeed.  Bob

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Spirituality Column #906

March 26, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Missed Signals, Part 2

By Bob Walters

“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures.” – Luke 24:45

Everything that happened in Jerusalem to and around Jesus during Holy Week – what some Christians refer to as the “Easter Octave” which is the eight-day period from Jesus’s arrival on Palm Sunday to his resurrection a week later – was predicted in scripture, was anticipated by Israel, and was explained by Jesus … in His own way.

Still, nobody understood what was going on, really.  Why?

Because Jesus was not what anybody, especially the Jews, expected; Jesus is still not what the world expects or wants.  Mankind generally wants and covets “its own truth,” not God’s.  Israel was looking for a righteous, fearsome, divine warrior king to come and kill the Romans and to declare their kingdom Israel rulers over all the earth.

Instead, this infinitely and mysteriously wise teacher, this worker of miracles, this vexer of the Jewish leaders – with this new language of “God’s Son” – preached not the killing of one’s enemies, but of loving them and sacrificially loving all mankind.

The life and lesson of Jesus, properly understood, is to learn, know, believe, and live in God’s divine love, mercy, grace, freedom, forgiveness, redemption and adoption into the Kingdom of God.  Does this glorify God?  Yes.  But is is also the heavenly blueprint for a thriving and glorifying humanity that exists, acts, and lives as God intended.  The vision of Jesus is the vision of humanity as God created it to be.

Our fallen world does not operate on love, faith, trust, and righteousness.  We live in a transactional world of punishment, retribution, and power of our own sinful making … with the encouragement of Satan, the father of lies against God.

One day yet to come, the character of the Messiah the Jews wanted, will arrive in the thundering return of Jesus the Christ on a white warhorse (Revelation 19:10).  That is when God’s fearsome righteousness will be on full display for all the earth.

But that’s not why Jesus appeared as a man – as a Jew – two thousand years ago.  In God’s timing, it was time for humanity to return to God, and God’s chosen people Israel were unique in their knowledge of and faith in the one true God.  No other culture believed that.  In fact, all other cultures had long since wandered far from relationship with the Creator God.  Only the Jews had the scriptural key to humanity’s saving message of Jesus which would restore relationship with God.

But instead of recognizing, from their own scripture, the promised Messiah in his humility, sacrificial love, and grace, Jewish leaders were blinded to His message and threatened by His presence.  When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, taught the truth, vexed the Pharisees, and gave himself for a sacrifice, it was a message of God’s redemption for all mankind that was too shocking and too difficult to understand.

It was a week nobody but Jesus understood.  Until later.

“Why did it all have to happen that way?” many Christians ask.  Many more people don’t bother to ask the question.  But all the foretold events of Jesus’s life and of the Gospel events of His death and resurrection, were hiding in the plain sight of scripture.  It was God’s plan, and not until it had been accomplished was truth revealed.

The long and short of it is simply this: “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” says Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:26).

And while we are still trying to make sense of it two thousand years later, it is our faith in “Yes, He did” that we live out His mission and signal the world of His love.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures the truth is there whether you believe it or not.

Friends: The first Palm Sunday was a celebration that didn’t last because too many people were blinded to the truth.  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #905

March 19, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Missed Signals, Part 1

By Bob Walters

“…because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Jesus, Luke 19:44

I try to imagine the raucous, palm-waving, salvation-promising, hope-expressing, Messiah-worshipping, “Palm Sunday” arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

Wouldn’t a reception like that – a cheering, Sunday throng of “your own people” – be terrifically encouraging? Yeah, maybe.  But not if you already know what Friday promises. And not if you realize the cheers are empty of understanding.

That loving cheering Sunday throng would be a bloodthirsty jeering Friday mob.

While specific timing is difficult to pin down in Jesus’s last couple of weeks before the crucifixion, tradition and Bible savvy tell a highly emotional tale of a highly emotional Jesus in His final earthly days. Jesus weeps loudly and bitterly twice prior to Jerusalem.

Tradition tells us, I think with adequate biblical back-up, that it was the weekend prior to the Triumphal Entry when “Jesus wept” for his dead friend Lazarus outside Bethany. Jesus then called a very much alive Lazarus out of the grave.  This communicated two astonishing facts to two different groups in two different eras.

First, the raising of Lazarus is what triggered the Jewish leaders, namely Caiaphas, to call for Jesus’s death: “it is better for one man to die” etc. (John 11:50). That was in Jerusalem the week prior to Palm Sunday; Jesus was condemned to die.

Second was the astonishing message to the Greeks, years later, who read John’s Gospel that “God,” i.e. Jesus, the Son of God, fully God and fully man, was capable of emotion.  The Greeks saw God as incapable of being moved to joy or sorrow, because that would give a human being power – if only for a moment – over God. Assumed to have been written late in the first century, John’s Gospel totally re-set the Greek view of who God actually was … and is. Even most of the Jews missed it.

It was evidence that God could indeed be “love.” As Barclay writes, “The greatest thing that Jesus did for us was to bring us the news of a God who cares.” Jesus wept.

Then we have Jesus approaching Jerusalem on that Sunday morning, riding a donkey.  But the cacophony didn’t begin in Jerusalem.  It began back in Bethany and Bethpage, where the donkey came from and the disciples telling its owner, “The Lord needs it” (Luke 19:34). Even there, onlookers put their cloaks in Jesus’s path, and the disciples began to sing loudly and praise Jesus joyfully.

A pharisee in the traveling crowd told Jesus to stifle the blasphemy of his disciples, who were hailing him as “king” and “Lord” and “the highest” (Luke 19:38).  But Jesus said, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40).

Then Jesus saw Jerusalem and wept a wailing scream of impending, devastating loss, but not for himself.  Jesus shrieked because he knew Jerusalem would fall, and its destruction would “not leave one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”  God’s chosen people … had chosen destruction.

Israel’s time to recognize the promised Messiah had come … and would be gone with Jesus’s crucifixion a few days later. Even his Easter resurrection would not convince many Jews that Jesus was the prophesied and true Son of God, the Messiah Christ, and the promised Savior of all mankind.  Jerusalem missed the signals.

The adoring crowds of greeting largely had no idea of what would happen, nor all that Jesus knew.  It was an entry that, ultimately, was anything but triumphant for Israel.

But it was a triumph of Jesus’s will and obedience that freed all who believe.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) missed most of God’s signals for most of his life.

P.S. See Bob’s March 17 E91 Traditional Service communion meditation at the 34:00 mark of this LINK – E91 Traditional. E91 Executive Pastor Adrian Fehl leads the service (he had earlier mentioned snakes in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day, etc.).

 Friends: That faith is somehow separate from truth and reality is one of Satan’s great lies.  See the column below.  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #904

March 12, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Faith as Truth

By Bob Walters

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” – Hebrews 11:1

“Truth” for the secular world is that which one can see, touch, explain, predict with confidence, and which generally, it thinks, does not require faith.

I mean, it DOES require faith, but only in one’s opinion or imagination; not God.

The whole ball game with God, Jesus, and the Spirit – in other words, with the idea of eternity, eternal life, eternal divine relationship, and humanity’s eternal participation in that relationship – requires little else but faith.

Life with God surprises us at every turn, and it is faith that allows us to see, touch, and explain God.  Maybe only to ourselves, but with the certainty of truth.

Humanity can and does have a zillion opinions about this eternal thing called God, but it all adds up, or rather combines in, manifests, and is known through, our life with Jesus and the central instruction of the Spirit: Love God, and love others.

That, my friends, is truth.  God’s truth.  Real Truth. True virtue sits at that table.

The secular world, by all accounts, hates this idea of being only a franchise of the truth, not the Holy Truth itself. It is faith, sureness, and hope in something we cannot see in a looking glass, philosophy tract, or lab experiment.  We imagine a “truth” abiding in our hearts, minds, and souls, but it is a table where the chairs constantly change.

Humans wonder what animates us, gives us life, gives us yearnings, creativity, aspirations, and a wonderful freedom filled with responsibility and purpose. In the life of a Christian, that’s easy: God does that with Jesus and the Spirit.  We get to participate.

In a life without God, these questions are worse than unanswerable: they seem irrelevant, silly, lacking in gravitas … unhelpful.  As if divine faith is unimportant, God is unproven, Jesus is a myth, the Spirit is a superstition, and the Bible is just an old book.

I know because that was once my life; it was my long-time intellectual narrative.

It is not a bad thing to reassess ones overall intellectual motivation, but I must confess that I didn’t arrive in church one day because I had some notion there was “more to life” than I already knew.  It just turned out it was there waiting for me.

First Peter 3:15 says we are supposed to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have.” In myself I’m satisfied with this reason: Jesus.  Why someone else may have faith is for them to decide, and for me to nurture and help them with as I can.  I certainly want to help, but faith is funny about who any particular soul allows into the inmost part of ones being. The Spirit rules.

It is easy for me to say that my life’s purpose is to glorify God, to participate personally in that glory, and to share, give, promote, exemplify, and help deliver God’s glory to others in love; ideally with kindness, gentleness, and respect.  I think that is the outworking of Matthew 22:39: “Love God, and love others as you love yourself.” 

Easy to share, yes, but it is the Holy Spirit’s job to imprint that truth on another soul.

The great thinkers of all religions, philosophies, generations, and cultures surround this notion of faith with the cloak of virtue: What is best for mankind?  Satan and his minions of course want broken virtue and chaos amid lies, but God’s great creative gift to humanity is a mind that wonders, “What is good? How do I know truth?”

It is this trust that virtue exists, is knowable, actionable, and true that is the gift of Jesus to all mankind. Thankfully, Jesus’ virtue is not a wavering human guidepost.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can explain his own faith, but probably not yours.

Friends: Job, in the Bible, sounds a lot like people today who are mad at God. Let’s talk about that.  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #903

March 5, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Mad at God?

By Bob Walters

“In the land of Uz, there was a man named Job …” – Job 1:1

My new friend, correspondence pal, and “Finding Genius” podcast host Rich Jacobs (LINK) has somewhat recently germinated a deep personal interest in the Bible … something new to him in his adult life.  I can relate; I found faith, scripture, and Jesus at age 47.

Outside the podcast in our other communications, Rich has on occasion asked – or made poignant observations – about biblical, doctrinal, and theological matters. We had the following recent text exchange about the Bible’s book of Job …

RICH – I'm going through the book of Job, and Job sounds remarkably like people today who are mad at God and who come up with all kinds of reasons to impugn God's character.

BOB – ’Got an old column about that (LINK #82 6-3-08, With Friends Like These). P.S., notice that Job was only “patient” for a couple of chapters. His wife, not so much.

RICH – Read your link. I still have many questions... for instance: Why doesn't Job think about the devil as the cause of his misery, not God?

BOB – The most faithful witness is when you don't spend much time worrying about Satan. Job thought about God; he may not have known about Satan. Job wasn't Jewish, and wouldn't have known the Torah / Mosaic books. The lesson to learn from Job is to remain faithful and in communication with God, to seek and trust His righteousness. Our best play is to not rail at Satan – don't talk to him – but to stand and talk with God, i.e., Jesus, God’s light.

RICH – Many say the book of Job predates Genesis, but other elements in it put the writing perhaps after many Old Testament books. What did George Bebawi think?

BOB – Older than all, George was sure. Not "older than Genesis Creation," obviously, but Job predates Israel.  God was around long before the Jews.

RICH – Did George think that Moses wrote it? (fyi, George was Bob’s longtime mentor.)

BOB – Never asked him.  But the point isn't Moses; the point is God and righteousness.

RICH – I still don't understand the purpose of the book of Job. He apologizes to God and humbles himself after God chastises him, but there is no explanation as to why God allowed it or what happened with the devil after Job was restored.

BOB – It is a lesson about trusting God's righteousness, and our power to withstand and overcome Satan's attacks with that trust. God's message to Satan was that man is His Creation, not Satan’s.  Also, Job grew to more fully understood who God was. God wasn't just chewing Job out; God was revealing more fully who He is. It is also a lesson about who we listen to regarding faith. I notice that almost no matter how one expresses, shares, or shows their faith, someone will tell them they are doing it wrong (like Job’s friends). And often, the deep purpose of difficult scripture is only revealed to us after we marinate in it for a while. So... give it time.

RICH – Why was God more angry with Job's friends than with Job for complaining for 25 chapters?

BOB – Because they were giving Job bad counsel. Notice ... Job never gave up on God. It is OK to complain to God; it is misrepresenting God that Job's friends - and Satan - were guilty of. Job was not focusing on God’s righteousness, just his own misery. But Job kept talking.

RICH – Thanks. It seems like each book of the Bible is confronting, challenging, and somewhat scary to read and contemplate. In Job 38 (approx.), when God speaks to Job, it gave me the chills. Same as when Jesus speaks in the Gospels. I get a weird feeling - a bit of fear, mixed with awe, mixed with a seriousness beyond all seriousness.

BOB – Awe is good, btw. Not so much "shock and awe." But, "love and awe." Never forget ... God is love. We're miserable sinners (just ask anyone in church... they're happy to remind us!), but grace and forgiveness are gifts we mustn't ignore.

BOB (again) – And laugh a little. God's mirth is His most under-rated attribute. 

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), after this exchange, went back to his NIV Study Bible and re-read its introduction to Job and Googled “earliest written Hebrew language.” Illuminating.