I thought I'd share this comment with you.
Without trying to be a brain fart, and in all sincerity and a true spirit of brotherly and Godly love, why Easter and not Passover?And why don't we honour Penetecost since it marks the very start of the church especially since Jesus is at the very centre of these Holy days?These aren't glib questions. I know the 2nd grade Sunday school answers. If I could perhaps ask, first consider why would anyone choose NOT to observe Easter or Passover for the other before considering why we do.
Hey Great Comment!
Lots to think about here.
You are not a brainfart!
We need to think about this stuff.
I think we need to celebrate in our hearts and with our brothers and sisters and with great joy, ALL of the celebrations that have significance to our relationship with God. We need to celebrate unceasing, for Gods mercy is great and His love endures forever.
There are so many reasons why people choose not to celebrate as we do. I can think of many reasons. Ashamedly, I see how I am partly to blame, along with my brothers and sisters. I think of how we are often bad examples of God's love. When we should be examples of love, we reject. When given opportunity to do something good, we do something bad. When we are sure that we have done everything right and good and just, then we fill ourselves with this righeous pride that drives the seeker away.
Like 2 ends of a magnet.
Who can bridge the gap?
Who can mediate?...
Job 9:30-40 (New International Version)
33 If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both,
34 someone to remove God's rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more.
35 Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot
We need to be Jesus for this world.
They need to see Him through us.
We need to ask ourselves continuously
What Would Jesus Do?
I'll tell you one thing....
He'd join us in celebration whenever and wherever we chose to celebrate God's loving kindness,
mercy and grace, faithfulness and goodness, holiness and righteousness.
Can we share this with the world?
or better still....
How?
I've said enough...what do you think?
I dont really think I answered the question well enough.
I have prayed and read and thought on this subject every day since you first tossed it back because I find it incredibly important and yet strangely unimportant at the same time.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I completely understand what you are saying and how you feel when you say...
"I think we need to celebrate in our hearts and with our brothers and sisters and with great joy, ALL of the celebrations that have significance to our relationship with God. We need to celebrate unceasing, for Gods mercy is great and His love endures forever."
and....
"We need to be Jesus for this world. They need to see Him through us. We need to ask ourselves continuously What Would Jesus Do?"
and especially...
"He'd join us in celebration whenever and wherever we chose to celebrate God's loving kindness, mercy and grace, faithfulness and goodness, holiness and righteousness."
That while I understand what you are saying, I have to say I disagree with these statements, not just for the "Church-speak" jargon, but mostly because of your very last statement here of "whenever and wherever WE chose". There are many, many examples in the bible of God turning away and not “joining us…whenever and wherever we chose”
The Sabbath’s and Holy Days like Passover were given by God to the children of Abraham as a perpetual covenant as we read in Exodus 31:13 - But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.’
And in verse 16 - 16 ‘So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’
(of course by Israel, it includes those grafted into the vine thru Jesus).
As we read how God declared the Sabbath and the Holy Days and the significance God places on them for signs that both sanctify us from the world and bind us to him serving as a shadow (or foreshadow) of the things which are to come, you see a sharp contrast between his commanded plan of worship to the holidays we have chosen by our own declaration and deductive interpretation of the events in the New Testament.
The Jews mistake wasn’t that they were wrong about WHEN they worshiped, or that their Holy Days were inferior or irrelevant because of Jesus, it was that they let their religion become a burden on the backs of the people, that they lost the connection to God and in doing so couldn't recognize God in Jesus, and lost their compassion to those in need around them by way of their man made traditions. Their religion got in the way of their worship.
But look at our man made traditions and the misplaced symbols that surround our worship like the Easter bunny and Easter eggs, ancient pagan fertility symbols, mistle toe, holly & poinsettias for their colour to symbolize the rebirth of the earth from the dead of winder, yule logs and yule tide wishes left over from the celebration of the winter solstice. And while we are no longer mindful of the pagan gods they were used to worship, are the meaning of these symbols lost on or forgotten or ignored by God?
While it’s generally considered the Christmas tree made its way into our symbols of worship for the Christmas season in the 16th century, consider Jeremiah 10 verses 3 & 4 - For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. And if you followed the link I left on Easter to the Catholic Encyclopedia and took the time to read about the political deal making surrounding the hows and whys of the declaration of the method of observing Easter and the subsequent political fallout you’d begin to understand why I ask the question.
On the one hand God is very clear declaring the days and times and meaning of his Holy Days, on the other mankind has compromised, cajoled, bartered and self-justified the method by which we’ve come to worship God for the last 2,000 years.
And the best reason I could come up with why we don’t celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the Church, a day marked in the bible and attended by the apostles in union with the Holy Spirit is that to do so, you’d have to have to first mark Passover then begin to count 50 days from the first Sabbath after Passover, two observances we no longer remember.
Having said all that, here’s my thought on why it’s completely unimportant. In the years that followed Solomon, namely the split of Israel from Judah as described in the books of Kings and Chronicles, the kings of Israel and Judah committed terrible sins against God. But God was slow to anger, allowing them to live in their sins for literally hundreds of years before God chose to deal with their transgressions. Many were born, lived and died, never fully comprehending the error of their ways, probably not much different than many of us live today with little or no significant retribution. God dealt with the problem in his own time according to his own will but it only really affected those that were alive when the Assyrians took Israel into captivity and the Babylonians carried off Judah. If it’s important to God, God will surely make it known and will bring about correction in his own time. Let God defend his Holy Days.
But what if before that happens we were able to sweep the closet of our worship of the old gods, turn our backs to the institutions established by the Catholic Church and go back to worship the way God instructed us? We’d have Holy days that Abraham, David, Jesus & the apostles kept, in the spirit of Jesus to heal the sick on the Sabbath day, or to walk a grain field and eat if we were hungry unfettered by the religion of the Pharisee’s, scribes and the Sanhedrin. Couple that with the love of thy neighbour taught by Hanni and we’d have a pretty good representation of the best of times in our relationship with God ever written in the bible. But then, that’s just not our nature.
I guess the whole subject has me still waiting as a sheep to hear the voice of a different sheppard than the ones I’ve heard.
Sorry for the delay in responding.
ReplyDeleteInitially I bowed my head in shame for the brash and bold statement that I made. I too have read in the Old Testament that which you refer. After a couple of years immersed in the OT, I see where you would get that idea. There are many instances where God wont come beside His people. Heck, God is so Holy that He even struck down the fellow that inappropraitely touched the arc. So many different things point to your statement as correct. So I began to feel bad about what I said.
BUT BUT then I started to question Are we living in OT times? Are we bound by the same coveneant? Just what was it that Jesus came to do, and did He do it?
I was reminded in Jeremiah
31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,"when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt,because they broke my covenant,though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
I have this picture of Jesus being the New Covenant. I am reminded when Jesus said that there would come a time when we would worship neither on this hill or that, but in the spirit of truth.
I dont think God is angry with us any more. I think that Jesus fixed that. I beleive that God calls us to love Him with all our hearts, minds and soul and that we should love our neighbour as ourselves.
I beleive that God sees directly into our hearts. We no longer have to do things to prove our love and obedience. God himself said that he despised our rituals because we began to beleive that through our rituals, we would be saved. The fact in my mind is that by our faith and our love in Jesus that we can now be justified. We honor Him by our hearts. The time is now where God can simply be our God and we can simply be His children. With sincere and loving hearts we need to worship Him. Not by a set of rules, but by our desire to love and please him, in the sprit of truth.
So I beleive we are now free. Is there responsibility in this freedom? YES!
For the record, I despise Satan Clause and the Easter Rhino or bunny or whatever it is. When I worship God during these times, He knows that it is He that I worship and not the man made alternatives.
I dont beleive that God sits and waits for certain special days so that He can be honored. No He is honored when I wake in the morning and give Him praise and when I go to bed at night and give Him thanks.
Even after thinking about this for so long, I still have responded in haste between phone calls...Shame on me, as your comments deserve more.
Please don’t apologize for taking your time to respond. These questions are important to me and when anyone takes their time in answering it shows me they’re actually reflecting on them and I appreciate that. And certainly don’t concern yourself with how you respond; I know your hearts in the right place.
ReplyDeleteI guess I don’t see one God in the Old Testament and a different God in the New Testament. I’m not sure that God whose existence is infinite in time has changed his mind about how we should live our lives in relation to Him or that by Jesus becoming man did God learn to understand love or develop compassion. I have to believe that the love Jesus taught is a love that’s been in God’s nature from the very beginning when he devised his Holy Days. So I guess I see OT times and NT times as one. The OT and NT are just dividers in a book.
You also ask ‘Just what was it Jesus came to do and did he do it?’ And to that I have come to believe that he came for three primary reasons. First, to die as the unblemished true Passover lamb (at Passover) that we might be forgiven of our sins to one day stand justified before God. Second, to bring the message of hope of the Kingdom of God. And third, to give us something to do until that time, a commission to spread that message. These things I believe he accomplished. But I don’t yet believe we are at that point, that we have yet received the new covenant, only that Jesus qualified to be the mediator of that new covenant.
And your point from Jeremiah is my point also, but I think we need to really take a good look at what Jeremiah is saying with a fresh pair of eyes. You believe we are now living under the new covenant, that this church age is God’s Kingdom on earth. While I’m not certain that’s the case, that we still await what Jeremiah describes. I have to ask here, are we really living in an age where no longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. I’d say that even we professing Christians don’t yet truly know the Lord and teach and are taught by our neighbors constantly and yet cannot plainly see or agree on the same things. I mean it’s clear to you, and it’s clear to me, but we don’t agree, it’s really quite fascinating.
You mentioned Matthew 22:38-40 – love God, love thy neighbour, the two principles upon which all the commandments and prophets are based, principles that formed the lynch pin of all God has ever commanded us to do since our beginning. The ten commandments upon which the first 4 instruct us how to love God and the remaining 6 command us how to love each other. Not that by doing them would we earn salvation because we can’t earn it. Salvation is only obtained by the grace of God. But if we kept the commandments it would be because we wanted to out of love of God because it’s all he’s ever asked of us.
I’m not sure why you think that by observing God’s sabbaths you’d think that would be the only time that individual would spend with God while you’re walk with God is everyday? Surely someone who remembers God’s sabbaths and holy days over Sunday, Christmas and Easter would participate in meditation and prayer and study the same as you. But you would view that person as being confined to days and times to worship? I would suggest they simply recognize the weighted significance of the day and the way God has worked out his salvation according to his Holy Days (Passover, Pentecost, etc.) like you would lend significance to Sunday, Easter or Christmas.
Matthew 5:18 – “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Has Heaven and earth passed away? Then perhaps all is not yet accomplished and we still have the Law? Not that by the law we can obtain salvation, but that by it we might obtain the earthly promises of peace and prosperity. Perhaps at the very least, we are between covenants awaiting the covenant to be made at Christ’s return?
Compare the many instances in both the Old and New Testament where God instructs us to keep his commandments and ask yourself if they are really a different set of commandments or if now through Jesus we have been taught a more complete understanding….
Exodus 20:6 – And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
John 14:15 – If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Deuteronomy 5:10 - And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
John 14:21 – He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me:
1 John 2:3-4 – By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
When the rich young man went to Jesus and said ‘Lord what must I do to have eternal life?’, would have been an excellent time to tell him to ‘give your life to the Lord and confess my name’, but instead he tells the man that to have eternal life he must keep the commandments and even goes on to list several of them. But again, can’t stress this enough since it seems to be the main argument against keeping the commandments, not that by keeping the commandments do we prove ourselves or earn for ourselves the right to salvation, but that we simply turn from our own method of worship, our own special days, to the ones taught by God and taught by Jesus because we recognize we have a ‘responsibility’ and in fervent desire to obey God, not as simply a set of rules to bend our backs.
Proverbs 7:1-2 – My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, And my teaching as the apple of your eye.
Consider Psalm 119 and listen to the joy David expresses in the Lord that I’ve heard you describe on your blog but consider David’s love for the guiding hand of his creator compared to today’s desire not to be “hindered with rules”.
Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbs wrote in one of his collectables, ‘everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to do what it takes to get there.’ Not that by doing it do we earn the right to salvation, but simply because we love God and will not share our worship with the forgotten gods that litter our holidays.
John the Baptist said, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. One day it may very well be important to know that what we are to repent of is more than simply running with sissors or doing 55 in a 40 while talking on a cell phone.
Not trying to poke you with a sharp stick, but I've been confused by what you were thinking when you made the statement..."God is so Holy that He even struck down the fellow that inappropraitely touched the arc."?
ReplyDeleteHow does killing a guy for trying to catch something as important as the Ark when it looked like it was going to fall demonstrate how Holy God is?
I know God's ways are so much beyond our ways as to understand, but surely not everything has to be lumped into the 'mystery' category, that surely we can be allowed to attempt to understand what God causes to happen?
Try this on as a possibility for why that poor man had to die from the pages of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia...
Ark of the Covenant
Speculations that the Ark of the Covenant may have operated as an electrical capacitor are common amongst some electrical engineers (Nikola Tesla being the earliest); they say that the design of it allowed it to store electric charge, and thus could facilitate an electric discharge between the cherubs. The theory suggests that it resembles a capacitor (of radiant energy) in its construction. The biblical accounts of individuals sudden deaths from touching the Ark could correspond to death by a lethal high voltage charge. Louis Ginzberg’s "Legends of the Jews" has ancient oral traditions referring to "sparks" from the cherubim. These "fiery jets" occasionally burned and destroyed close objects. Other biblical accounts could correspond with exposure to some high frequency electromagnetic fields. Jewish legend has occasional records of a "cloud" between the cherubim. The Ark was considered dangerous at these times and Moses would not approach it.
Tesla, in the article "A fairy tale of electricity" (published September 9, 1915), stated in regards to the Ark:
"The records, though scanty, are of a nature to fill us with conviction that a few initiated, at least, had a deeper knowledge of amber phenomena. To mention one, Moses was undoubtedly a practical and skillful electrician far in advance of his time. The Bible describes precisely, and minutely, arrangements constituting a machine in which electricity was generated by friction of air against silk curtains, and stored in a box constructed like a condenser. It is very plausible to assume that the sons of Aaron were killed by a high-tension discharge, and that the vestal fires of the Romans were electrical." [2]
Archaeological discoveries of the last century (which include the Baghdad Battery among others), indicate that a working knowledge of energy devices might have been present in ancient Middle Eastern cultures, and therefore it might not have been beyond Moses' specialized training in the house of Pharaoh (Exodus 2:10).
It is known that the acacia wood acts as an insulator, while the gold (the purest available at that time) is known as a good conductor. An electric charge could have accumulated from constant exposure to static electricity in the Middle East climate (among other possible sources). The Ark's upper surface has a rim of gold (a single coil of angels figures). Over the ark, the cherubs could form a spark gap, producing a dynamic radiance that would inspire awe in the observer, and act as a lightning source to kill anyone that touched it.—Num. 7:9; 10:21; 4:5,19, 20; 1 Kings 8:3, 6; Lev. 16:2; Num. 7:89; 2 Sam. 6:6, 7.
Around 1999, author Richard Andrews built a model of the ark. He claims that when tested, it demonstrated that it would act as an electromagnetic accumulator.
But I would argue that it wasn't Moses' knowledge of electricity but God's since the design was entirely God's. There's still much to consider as to what more God designed this tool for than just carrying things? Fascinating stuff...
I cant beleive you said that. Go back and read the scriptures! Reread the references you gave in the article and add 2 Sam 6 to the list. Then ask yourself...Is this God holy?
ReplyDeleteInteresting read about the flux capacitor (stolen from startrek or was it indiana jones)
Very surprising that you would see it this way especially since your remarks earlier from whence this all began.
Doh! Now I'm guilty of not being thorough in my posting. About 20 years ago I had heard of the electro magnetic properties of the ark in a university project that built a crude replica. The electrical properties were so unstable it had to be destroyed. So I Googled "ark of the covenant" and electricity and came across the Wikipedia article and cut and paste it into my post, without reading the references! Sorry!! I was just looking to present an alternate possibility to your thought that "God is so Holy that He even struck down the fellow that inappropraitely touched the arc".
ReplyDeleteSo, I've just gone back and read the article and the references and the scripture you suggested. Why am I to ask myself, "Then ask yourself...Is this God holy?" I don't think either of us question whether God is holy, I'm just not sure why you're asking it here?
And why would the possibility that the guys death was really an unfortunate accident rather than because God decided a guy should die for touching a box be such a reach?
And then lastly, in what way is seeing this single event this way inconsistant with any of my previous posts?
This subject is a bit of a tangent, isn't it?