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I've got this thing bubbling up in me and I'm going to try and type my way through it to see if I can get it to make sense.



I'm studying the feasts of the Lord all over again, looking at them from a different perspective, one that is challenging, fun, and thorny all at the same time. It's a couple of weeks past Resurrection/Easter and we're quickly moving in on Shavuot or Passover. Weekly readings in church plus my own readings on the feasts have churned up some interesting perspectives. Some, I'm sure that I've heard at least smatterings from other teachers, but I'm not sure how much.



I've been thinking a lot about the Israelites during the 50 or so years around the time of Messiah. Before Messiah, the Israelites were the People of the Promise. For several thousand years, there was the promise and the expectation of Messiah. When things were dark, when Elijah was sure that he was the only believer left on the face of the earth, the Lord Himself had to talk to Elijah and remind him that not only was he not alone, but in addition to the remnant, there was still One who had not given up on the plan that was from before the ages. Messiah was still a promise to the offspring of Abraham, especially through Isaac and through Jacob/Israel. Abba gave Elijah a faith transfusion and helped him survive tough times.



The Jews during the decades before Jesus' birth were again in dire straits. Things were tough. They were in political upheaval, the priesthood was corrupt, Rome was on the throne of Israel. Where was God when they needed Him? Maybe He's given up on the idea of redemption and was just going to let the vine that was Israel dry up and blow away. Who could blame Him, after all? Very dark times.



Enter Messiah. Quietly, in an unexpected way, unrecognized, a rather small little flicker of light in a very dark night. "And His own knew Him not..." There were some who rejected the concept that Messiah could come from Nazareth, that He could be a Galilean, that He could be at all mortal. These unbelievers in Messiah did not cease being people of the promise. They just could not grasp that they could have become the people of the Presence!



This was a very special time in human history, a time when Jesus walked the earth in the vessel of flesh. He was walking with and among His own creation! It was very much like when Adam enjoyed time with God in the cool of the evening. God Himself was walking among the people of the Promise, but they could not see.



How many of us walk without seeing? I know that I've done it. So intent on seeing something happen the way I envisioned it that I did not recognize it when it actually happened! Think about all the crazy little tidbits of the Gospels where the humanity of those in Jesus' life got in the way of the "big picture", if you will. The one scene where it seemed as though His mom and siblings were outside asking Him to cut out this silly ministry stuff and come home, back to the carpenter shop to fulfill their dream of what He should be--provider, carpenter, man of the house. Think about Judas who tried to force Jesus' hand by betraying Him; my guess is that Judas thought it would force Jesus to take the throne in the fashion that Judas and other Zealots had in mind. "Should we call down bolts of lightning on them?" "Let my sons sit at your left and right when you come into your kingdom..." There are SO many examples of Olympic class conclusion jumping. They could not get it, and He was there WITH THEM! Stunning.



Triumphal entry, capture, crucifixion, and burial. Egads, another HUGE dark time. Despair at the death of Hope incarnate, fear of reprisals from Rome and the Jewish political powers. They had invested heavily and now seemed on the edge of bankruptcy. Financial ruin, spiritual ruin, moral and cultural ruin. It was over! Well, not just yet. Then came the resurrection, a first ascension, and forty days of playing peek-a-boo with the disciples. He rebuilt their faith, showed them that what He has said had come to pass and, to steal a sort of vaudeville line, "You ain't seen nothing yet!" After a final 40 days on earth came the final ascension, leaving the newly ordained apostles with a whole lot of work to do, and not a whole lot of ideas about where to start. Except one cryptic last command: "Y'all stick around here in Jerusalem, and wait for what Father promised, just as I've told y'all before. John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"



Good grief! They're STUCK AGAIN! Jesus redeemed some few of the people of the Promise to become the people of the Presence, and just as He's getting ready for yet another major transition, these guys are still stuck in a time warp wondering about Messiah as King. Hallelujah that Father did not just say, "OY!" and turn away mumbling. They're still in the dark, wringing their hands, wondering about the consequences of their public displays of faith in Jesus as Messiah and how it was either going to cost them or how they were going to be courtiers to the new Jewish reign in the land. Makes me shake my head and smile all at the same time. I've been there and been that thick, not able to see the tree for the forest. The final ascension happens, and about ten days later, they were together again, probably still wondering what the heck Jesus meant by this baptized with the Holy Spirit thing, when it happens.



Supernatural noises and sights, what appeared to be something like tongues of flame, a mighty rushing wind (and the flames did not go out!!), and things began shouting out of their mouths that certainly did not come from their own minds. Imagine a group of ill-bred, nearly totally uneducated men, only a hair's breadth above slave class, not well dressed, not well-to-do, not endowed with anything that one might call "class". Now imagine them able to speak the highest, classiest, most cultured languages of the day, flawlessly, and to tell the magnificent story of the Gospel in ways that the Jewish pilgrims from near and far could hear the tales of Jesus told in ecstatic languages so the pilgrims could understand what the last 7 weeks of life in Jerusalem had wrought. These distraught men had just become people of the Power!



In their lifetimes, God had moved His people from being people of the Promise, to people of the physical Presence, and now to people of profound Power. Within a single generation! Think of physical revelations that have changed our world in short periods. Electricity. Automobiles. Airplanes. My grandmother was born in 1888, well before Henry Ford was puttering around Dearborn, Michigan. Her kin was IN DETROIT when Henry's first set of wheels made their debut. She was alive and had connections to Detroit Michigan when the Model T was introduced. She was in a choir and sang at the inaugural race of the Indianapolis Racetrack. She was alive and living not far from Dayton, Ohio when the Wright brothers made their first flight. She was alive when the first American stepped foot on the moon. That's an 80 year span of American history that changed our world a lot, but think about the 40 years that included Jesus' birth, death, resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. "One small step for a man" does not have ANY eternal significance. One giant leap into a virgin's womb has eternal significance for all who believe.



People of the Power. This phrase has had me going for a couple of weeks now. I think someone wrote a book about Pentecost People or People of Pentecost. I'm not sure that it's not on our wall somewhere. Think about the concept and ask, "Am I stuck in the Promise? Have I at least made it to His Presence? What does it mean to be one of the 'People of the Power'?"



Continued tomorrow night.

As dancers confronted with a new song to dance, we all face the temptation to interpret only the words of the song, even though we have the opportunity to say so much more. And so, what do I mean by that?



Each song is a piece of poetry that can be taken at face value. The words meaning just what they say and presented as someone translating those words in a literal way to movement for the song writer. This can be an effective way to interpret a song. But in in an interpretation, we always have the choice of using a movement that is literal, which may or may not convey the actual intent of the phrase....or a movement unrelated to the actual word definitions...but something that gives the sense of the overall message the song is trying to communicate. We move from language devices to conveying concept and character.



For example, the phrase "the whole world" could be expressed by drawing a circle in the air in the shape of a globe. That would be very literal. You are asking the viewer to picture a globe. To make a full body circle with arms reaching outward as you turned is a broader message of something going out to all parts of the earth. That is one layer deeper beyond the literal.



But there can be even more. What if the song begins to paint a picture of a story in your mind that is supported by the music and words, but is not connected to them in any supportable logical way? That can be a most compelling way to interpret a piece.



Some examples. Michael W. Smiths Agnus Dei. The song is a repetition of the cry before the throne, "Alleluia, alleluia, Holy Holy are You Lord God Almighty. Worthy is the Lamb. Amen" If we let that music transport us, we can write a story that unfolds as the elegant proclamation is sung. In one interpretation, a dancer representing the Bride celebrates before the throne with her attending maidens all around. In another, the song is the backdrop for the Annunciation--when the angel gives Mary the news that she will birth the coming Messiah..he dances with her and the piece ends with a wild angelic celebration.



Another example: the piece: Come, My Light, by Edye Jackson. An ethereal prayer of St. Dimitri You can listen to this piece and others mentioned in this post in the <URL url="http://zionfirefriends.com/index.php?showtopic=1890">ZFF Audio Library [You must be a registered member with 2+ posts to access the ZFF Audio Library ]



Come my light, illumine my darkness

Come my light, revive me from death

Come my physician and heal my wounds

Come, come



Come my king, sit upon the throne of my heart

Come my Lord, come and reign there

For you alone are my king and my Lord

Come, come



Come flame, flame of divine love

Burn up the thorns of my sin

Kindling my heart with the flame of

Your love, your love



For you alone are my king and my Lord

My Lord come, reign in me, reign in me

Revive me

For you alone are my king and my Lord

Come



We don't know what St. Dimitri was going through when he wrote this prayer. But we can imagine. As I listened to this beautiful quiet melody, I envisioned something. I'll share with you what it was.

Quote:Sometimes a piece of music gets a hold of you and evokes a whole story in your mind. Edye Jackson's song, Come My Light is one of those for me. It is an exquisite musical setting of a a prayer of St. Dimitri. The haunting quality of the melody and the passion of the words bring to my mind images of the fourth century saints. It was the Dark Ages of the church, a time when the Light was hard to find. It was a time when the Truth was all but lost, and yet, there was a remnant of those who held on to the Truth and the Light with all that was in them.



A documented phenomenon began to occur in some saints termed the stigmata. These were physical wounds that would mysteriously appear on a person in the same places that Jesus was wounded in His passion and crucifixion--the hands, feet, side and the head. It was thought that this was a heavenly gift and a sign of great favor that one could bear the marks of Jesus suffering and so share in it in a physical way. Some saints bore these marks only on occasion, and others for their entire lives.



I imagine that a believer, who could in those Dark Ages of the church, cry out so passionately for the Light, might also be branded with the stigmata. I can imagine that cry coming from a lonely place and the wondering, just as Elijah wondered, if there were any others who had remained true to the faith. And yet, in the cry is also the certainty that the prayer is answered and that the Lord is near. Let us too, cry out for the Light that heals and revives us, and let us too, bear the marks in our lives of the one who suffered and died for us.

And so, this piece became a silent stage play. I made a hooded cape, reminiscent of what one might imagine in a 4th century monastery. I crafted a tunic with a red jeweled square cross on the breast that was revealed as the cape opened. I attached jeweled emblems to the palms of my hands to represent the stigmata. And the dance was done holding a red candle in a way that displayed the stigmata emblems...the candle representing the eternal flame of Christ's life, held close as precious to that believer who felt so alone. And so, from a prayer about something unknown, a compelling story was told in the dance.



These are the sorts of choreographies that are embedded in peoples' spirits and memories and can be forever associated with that piece of music because it just seems that after you have seen it interpreted that way, you can't imagine it being done any other way.

Our small pageantry/dance team at our church presented a dance drama piece to John Elliot's Death Has Been Overwhelmed by Victory. A confidently triumphant piece celebrating the power of the resurrection.



Here is the shape of what we did:

The scene was the early morning hours before the Mary's came to the tomb to find it empty.



Sword wielding angels were guarding the entrance of the tomb. The <URL url="http://www.zionfire.com/Yeshua.html">Yeshua Messiah banner was covered with 4 white lengths of cloths, completely obscuring it from view.



As the piece progressed, the angels struck the stone, rolled it away and pulled the cloths off the banner. The remainder of the dance was a celebration with the empty grave clothes, and thrusting the evidence of the resurrection in the face of the enemy.



The piece can be listened to in the <URL url="http://zionfirefriends.com/index.php?showtopic=1890">ZFF Audio Library [Accessible by registered ZFFriends with 2+ posts.]

I offered this as the first in a series of classes on the calendar that God established for the tribes of Israel. It was shared with the adult Sunday School class at Church of the King on 3/29/2009.


<CENTER>

</CENTER>
This is the first of a series of classes on the calendars of the Church and the calendars established by God for His people Israel. [I could easily spend hours just on the introductory thoughts!] The basic reasons for this class are:<LIST type="decimal">

1. <LI>
2. that there is a relationship between the Christian calendar and what has become the Jewish religious calendar, and that we are better served if we are aware of the richness involved in both;</LI>
   <LI>
3. that God set some things in place through the people we now call "the Jews";</LI>
   <LI>
4. that Bishop Michael (our pastor) has a profound love of Israel and its people (as do Dean, Helena, and others at CCOTK), and wants to communicate that love and infect you with it;</LI>
   <LI>
5. that Bishop Michael is the ICCEC representative and main contact for things having to do with the Middle East, including geographic Israel (so we can more intentionally pray for Bishop’s assignment and responsibilities); and</LI>
   <LI>
6. that God is not yet finished with His people, Israel.</LI>
   

</LIST>Leviticus 11:45 is the key verse for that book, and actually for all of everything having to do with our relationship with Him. In it God says (and Dean paraphrases), "You be holy, because I am holy; you need to strive to be like Me."



It's so very hard to put so very many thoughts, feelings, and symbols into a single 40 minute presentation. That's part of why such historical religious holidays are annual events-it gives the opportunity to present some new material as well as some standard material over and over until it colors the fabric of our lives like grape juice or purple dye on a white shirt. Multiple applications will deepen the color, making it richer with each dip in the dye. It's my hope that this initial dip in the dye of Jewish history will cause a hunger for an unquenchable deepening of knowledge and appreciation of the Jewishness of our Savior, Y'shua ha Mashiach, Jesus the Christ. Like Moses, Jesus was the physical seed of Abraham, a Semite, specifically a Jew. He was born to a Jewish mother, raised in a Jewish home and community, and committed to ministering to the Jews. But unlike Moses, Jesus was first and foremost the Messiah, the Kinsman-Redeemer, the God-sent Salvation of the Jews. Then and only then, His salvation was offered to the Gentiles, through the Jewish genealogical lines, but across the cultural barrier. We are the heirs and beneficiaries of His ministry, joint-heirs with the Jews. "First to the Jews…" (Romans 1:16)



We must be careful in our application of scripture when it comes to the people of Israel (the Jewish people) and the gentiles we call the Church. Most of the Revelation has not happened yet! We WILL BECOME the "New Jerusalem", and in a prophetic sense, we are already, however, God continually proves that He is not finished with Israel. Paul teaches us that we are JOINT HEIRS with them. We're also carefully taught that God doesn't often repent, especially when it comes to promises made to His people and when it comes to gifts. There are a few times when God shares that He's pretty fed up with various people groups, but every time He backs away from the anger and redeems both the people and the situation. Truly, He is the God of the second chance--and more! We must carefully avoid replacement theology and look at what New Testament verses say about Israel in the end times. Israel is a barometer for what is to come. We must watch the signs of the times and how God deals with Israel if we want to be aware of the prophetic, apocryphal clock's ticking.



As Bishop Michael has shared so many times, it's important to know some details about the information surrounding an event. The original, Egyptian Passover was a singular event. The Passover Seder that Jesus shared with His disciples was a singular event, but it was one celebration among thousands of years' worth of Passover Seders. The annual question (usually asked by the youngest, reading child at the table, often seated immediately to the right of the head of the house) is "Why is this night unlike all the other nights?" John was the one seated at Jesus' right hand.



Bishop Michael has also shared many times that the Church calendar can be a positive and powerful influence on the mental health of individuals. Why would that be? The first time I heard him say that I had some serious doubts about where he was going with the premise, but the more I listened and thought with a Hebraic mindset instead of the Greek mindset that plagues us westerners, the more I could see it. Health is based on standards and stability. Stability is based on repeated and recognized patterns. It is very much like the whole concept of the liturgy of the Eucharist being seen as a framework on which our worship and praise is built, rather than an end in and of itself that cannot be adapted. The calendar gives structure to my spiritual life, just as it does my physical life. It gives predictable pattern and signposts and seasons along our spiritual journey. What comes to mind when I say "seasons"? Holidays, predictable events, colorful leaves, daffodils?



Like the Church, Israel and the Jews have two distinct calendars, one religious, one civil, and the two do not ever coincide. Again, the Church in the USA starts its liturgical year on a totally different day than the non-liturgical year. The Church year begins with the first Sunday of Advent, four Sundays prior to the celebration of Christmas. Our civil year begins January 1 and is a solar year. And on what do we base the civil calendar or the months or days of the year? Most of these time periods are named after "gods" of Rome, Scandinavia, Greece, and elsewhere. I'm not whining, that's just the system we inherited. The Jews have a different system, as do the Arabs, the Chinese, the Hindus, and a few other cultures around the world. Most have some relationship to lunar or solar years. I get a kick out of the Christians who get their hackles up when people call the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord by the name "Easter"; "The name had its roots with Ishtar and so should not be used!", they say. I've come to the point of asking if they've been to temple to worship Thor on Thursday recently or on Friday to worship Frieden. They don't seem to worry much about that regular usage in their daily and weekly vocabulary. The name is not so important. The reason for the celebration is of ultimate importance.



We have both secular and sacred calendars. The Jews have both secular and sacred calendars. Neither of them matches ours, but there are definite parallels. Those parallels are really what these classes will be about.



Some quick but important basics:



We use three different names for this group of people. It will help as we go on to find out who they really are.<LIST type="decimal">

1. <LI>
2. Hebrews--The descendents of Abraham through Isaac, through Jacob/Israel, were the twelve tribes of Israel. They lived in what came to be Canaan until they ended up in Egypt making bricks and then avoiding plagues. Then Moses came on the scene some 10 generations into their "Egypt period". In some "high" liturgies, they are known as the Hebrew Children. Hebrew is a term that has obscure roots. Some say it is related to a tribe of people in the area where Abram originally settled. Some say it means "pass over" or "pass through"; these say that it might have to do with Passover, or that it might have to do with crossing River Jordan or the Red Sea. Gen. 14:13 mentions "Abram the Hebrew". Another school is that it is related to Hebron, an area about 20 miles south of Jerusalem where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and some others of the patriarchal clan were buried and where they probably lived at least for a time. Abram in some of the ancient languages would be pronounced EEvram and have an "ear" relationship to eevRON, the modern city of Hevron or Hebron in English. It also was an ancient people group and their language. Scripture often refers to Jacob’s descendants as Hebrews, especially until the exodus.</LI>
   <LI>
3. Israel--When they returned from Egypt and moved back into Canaan, the children of Israel's sons become the nation Israel; it eventually split into northern & southern kingdoms, Israel and Judah. Israel is the name that "the man" gave to Jacob after they wrestled all night and after "the man" touched the socket of Jacob's thigh and caused him to limp the rest of his days. Israel is translated as either "he who strives with God" or "God strives". For hundreds of years, "Israel" was a people, not a place. "Sons of Israel" was a very common expression through most of the Pentateuch. It slowly changed to mean the conglomeration/congregation of people known as Israel. When the exodus ended with the tribes taking land in what had been Canaan, the nation (people-group) called Israel began to take form as a geographic entity. As a result, today most Jewish communities do not have much regard for the physical place where they worship. It's really only a tent. Their concern is about the congregation of people who gather. That's one reason they do not generally name their places of worship "temple" or "synagogue", even they might call their services temple or shul.</LI>
   <LI>
4. The Jews--After the destruction of the temple and all of its records, and after the complete annihilation of the northern kingdom of Israel, they took on the identity of Judah and eventually were known simply as "the Jews". The Jews refers back to the end of the kingdom of Israel. From a loose confederation of states named after the sons of Jacob/Israel, there rose war and division. Saul was the first king of the Israel that included all the tribes. At some time after Solomon, war created the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Israel become godless and was eventually annihilated. The kingdom of Judah became the only recognizable remnant of Hebrew lineage. When the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed, almost all the records of genealogy were destroyed. A few records survived through the time of Jesus and Paul, but most tribal lines and group identities were lost. The remnant became known as Judah and that got shortened over time to simply “the Jews”.</LI>
   

</LIST>To avoid confusion in the class, we're going to talk about all of these folks primarily as "the Jews", but it's important that you see that's something of a misnomer. These are the legitimate descendants of Abraham through his only begotten son Isaac. This is the family tree/vine into which we are grafted through Christ Jesus. The same "sap" flows through the veins of ALL the legitimate heirs of Abraham, including the Christians. Without their roots, we have no heritage and no Messiah. We need to learn about our relatives!



Now then, when it comes to calendar issues, along came the Church. We took a lesson from Israel and realized that there is great benefit in the regular remembrance of what God has done and is doing. We celebrate important days in the history of the Church and sometimes spend many days or weeks creating a whole season to celebrate and reflect. The Jews? Not so much. They have their holy days (holidays) that are usually called feasts. They have major and minor holidays. The majors are those ordained by God Himself. The minors commemorate very important times in Hebrew history, both sacred and secular, if you will, although for a believing Jew, the dividing line is pretty thin since God acts through and throughout history to affect the lives of His people Israel. It's not unlike Americans celebrating July 4th with a church service.



We're going to move from calendar to catechism. Bishop has shared lots of interesting and sometimes unique interpretations or definitions of words over his time with us. I think he found a definition for catechism that dealt with "speaking into the ear". Catechism itself has come to mean a question and answer type education with a strong implication of rote learning of important facts. The point of catechism is that through repetition of points of information, a new Christian learns the important aspects of faith, of doctrine, of liturgy, of Scripture, and all else important to his spiritual life. This is still important but how much more so when the vast majority of Christians could not read. Rabbi Shmuel Hirsch (1815-1889) taught, "The catechism of the Jew consists of his calendar." At every major feast and at most minor feasts, the events are rehearsed in detail at the family level so that those things are re-membered or brought back to vivid life complete with details. The Jews do not speak of those things in the past tense. Part of the Passover script says, "When we were in Egypt…" not our forefathers or our ancestors--WE! That’s important. Think about this in terms of Eucharist. "Whenever you do these things, do them to re-member Me." It's not about warm, fuzzy thoughts. It is about putting ourselves in Him and our sins in Him and on that cross. It's not about memories or imaginations of what it might have been like. When we do these things, He is ALIVE in them. Fr. Jim Ball's comments about intentional living fit very well here.



It's important to realize that in Leviticus, God Himself established Israel's religious calendar. God Himself established the major holy days and how they should be celebrated. And God Himself called those seven appointed feasts "My feasts, the feasts of the Lord your God." He did not say these are feasts for the sons of Israel and their kids. "MY feasts" and He went even further saying that they were for all generations. Let's look at Leviticus 23:1-8. Remember that this is three chapters before God gives Moses what we know as "The Ten Commandments" or "The Law".
<QUOTE author="Lev. 23:1-8">

Lev. 23:1-8 Wrote:And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.

The Sabbath [note:this is a weekly feast, God’s feast, not man’s]

'Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.

The Passover and Unleavened Bread

'These are the feasts of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD's Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.'"

Today's lesson is so very short but full of the sort of information in the hundreds of books waiting to be read. Today we're nearing the end of Lent and waiting for the celebration of the Resurrection. These are the spring holidays of the Church, at least for those of us on the same side of the equator as Jerusalem.



The feasts in this first part of Lev. 23 are Israel's spring feasts; there are some amazing parallels to our own Christian spring feasts. Passover was the celebration of liberation from slavery. This is when the lamb was slaughtered and the story of the Egyptian oppression of the Hebrews was and is told in detail, a celebration of God's redemption of a nation. Resurrection is our celebration of victory won for us by God Himself, victory over and redemption from the oppression of sin in our individual lives. When the celebrant says, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us," we respond "Therefore, let us keep the feast." This is the very feast that we are pledging to keep Sunday after Sunday. We need to learn about the feast that we promise weekly to keep.



Just as Lent runs into Palm Sunday and into Holy Week and climaxes in a crashing glorious celebration of Christ’s victory over the grave, so Passover’s one day feast moves immediately into the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It is so immediate that they virtually become one feast of eight days. For seven days (remember Lent and most of seven weeks?) the Jews are commanded to eat unleavened bread. That has been translated and expanded upon to the point where ALL leaven is forbidden during those seven days. It has become a time of introspection and examination, not unlike Lent is in some parts of the Church. This is not the deepest time of reflection, but it is the time of spring-cleaning and a little spring tonic in the form of a fast from leaven. Actually, what many families do each spring has significant roots right here in the feasts associated with Judaism.



Great pains are taken to clean everything and anything that could even be suspected of containing the forbidden leaven; it is all removed from the homes of practicing and devout Jews. Foods that were just fine on the 13th of the first month are no longer welcome on the 15th day of the first month. In the modern culture, believing households will sometimes sell their box of leavened goods to a gentile neighbor for a dollar and buy it back a week later so they can obey the letter of the law. Others will actually give any unopened food to deserving gentile charities. But the folks go further still! All of the normal dishes and cookware gets put in boxes and stored away. Special Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread stuff is pulled out much like we pull Christmas ornaments, plates, and linens.



Then, a few days before Passover & the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the household is completely clean and ready. The man of the house enters the home after services or work (depending on the tradition), says the prescribed prayers, and dresses in the appropriate garb. He picks up a candle (so he can look in the dark, hidden corners), a small wooden spoon (as a dust pan), a feather (a mini-broom), and makes a ceremonial inspection of the entire home, looking to collect any last bit of dust or dirt or other "leaven". The feather bearer finds the ceremonial leaven, feathers it into a wooden spoon without touching it (which would make him ceremonially unclean for the holy day), binds it in a cloth, and burns feather, spoon, linen, and leaven, all at once. He then pronounces the home ceremonially clean and ready for the rest of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Does that sound silly or extreme? Perhaps, but the picture of the week of Unleavened Bread really is a denial of self and an intentional purging of sinful practice; the family practice of the household purge is a teaching method. The only real silliness is that at the end of the week, they go buy back the leavened goods from the friendly gentile neighbor or just go get more stuff from the store! How very much like us when we give up chocolate and caramel for Lent and then go pig out (forgive the un-kosher expression!) on a super large turtle sundae at the local ice cream store on Easter Sunday afternoon.



What was God’s intention for the Feast of Unleavened Bread and for Lent? Yes, perhaps a time of doing without some of the goodies of life, but perhaps more for the chance to inspect the dark corners of our hearts and use the light of the Holy Spirit and the gentle feather called confession to cleanse real leaven from our hearts, but not for a week or even seven weeks. God is calling us to be holy because HE is holy and we need to want to be like our Father. We NEED to want to be like our Father.



The next installment will be shared on Pentecost Sunday when we'll talk about the Feast of First Fruits and the Jewish and Christian celebrations of the Feast of Pentecost.

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend recently. He is a younger man and a fairly new worship leader; he had heard tales of what used to be called Jericho Marches, especially within the Pentecostal tradition. We compared notes and discovered that what we knew or had heard about those marches seemed to be pretty much the same, that they were often related to a sort of faith-building exercise that was linked to a musical, singing march around the outside of the congregation. Lots of hoopla and often linked to offerings. There were also penny marches where people were encouraged to bring their pocket change for some specific project or cause.



We discussed his interest for a while and there emerged what I thought was a God-given plan for his non-liturgical congregation. Since it was just before the first Sunday of Lent, what would happen if he suggested a plan to his pastor to being a little more biblical character to the march? What would happen if the congregation was encouraged to march around the space in total silence, like the Hebrew community so long ago? They were told to make this parade in silence, circling the city once each day for six days... here, let's just quote from Joshua 6:
<QUOTE author="Joshua 6:2-5">

Joshua 6:2-5 Wrote:The LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days. Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead."

Later in the chapter, Joshua tells them not to say anything until commanded to do so, and then to shout and holler and otherwise raise a ruckus. The various translations are a little fuzzy about whether or not the priests sounded the trumpets on each of the days leading up to the defeat of Jericho, but either in silence or with only the sound of 7 rams' horn trumpets, can you imagine the watchers on the walls of Jericho looking down on the parade, scratching their heads and wondering what in the world these crazy Hebrews were doing, walking laps around their impenetrable city? Makes me smile thinking about it.



The Hebrews, under General Joshua, obeyed God's instructions. They walked without talking, but I'd bet there was a whole lot of praying going on. They had been told what would happen, how God would act and that the city would fall. God said it, that was enough, let's go! They were walking prophetically for their own deliverance from an oppressive force. And God delivered them.



Back to my young friend's proposal to his pastor. He has proposed that there be a brief explanation of the process and the fact that he feels God has given him this plan much as God instructed Joshua. What walled cities are in the lives of those in the pews in his congregation? What huge insurmountable, impenetrable things are preventing them from spiritual success? Sins such as unbelief, dishonesty, pornography or other sexual sin, or financial issues, discord in the family, or any other major issues that you can put a label on, God is interested in bringing down the walls for their victories. The folks will write these down and lay the papers on their seats face down while they walk the walls around their worship space. After their own silent march, the papers will be collected and on the seventh day the papers will be burned and there will be a shout of joy over the victory that our God will bring.



There were lots of chill bumps as we discussed this and as details of his vision for their own version of a Jericho March took shape. He presented it to his pastor and his pastor lit up! He thought it was a GREAT idea and they started it out on the first Sunday of Lent. The seventh "day" will be Resurrection Sunday. Tom is hoping to find some trumpets or at least some things to make a large joyful noise. He continues to encourage the folks in this endeavor, building their faith that not only CAN God do this, but that it is His purpose TO do it.



Tom, his pastor, and I are excited to hear the testimonies of what Father is going to do in the lives of that new congregation of mostly pretty new Christians. Thought I'd share so that y'all can begin to pray for their faith to rise and for God to meet that rising faith is amazing and tangible ways.

This is a hymn usually associated with Advent and Christmas season, but it carries rich meaning in Lent as well.  Sometimes the use of a seeming "out of season" hymn can jar our thinking and bring us to deeper appreciation of the the musical intent.



The video is a meditation set to an simple arrangement of this haunting melody using movie passion scenes and bits of artwork and scripture.  The video production is not high quality, but  I think you can appreciate the intent of the editing.







To listen to this hymn melody:  http://www.hymnsite.com/lyrics/umh626.sht


1.Let all mortal flesh keep silence,

and with fear and trembling stand;

ponder nothing earthly-minded,

for with blessing in his hand,

Christ our God to earth descendeth,

our full homage to demand.



2.King of kings, yet born of Mary,

as of old on earth he stood,

Lord of lords, in human vesture,

in the body and the blood;

he will give to all the faithful

his own self for heavenly food.



3.Rank on rank the host of heaven

spreads its vanguard on the way,

as the Light of light descendeth

from the realms of endless day,

that the powers of hell may vanish

as the darkness clears away.



4.At his feet the six-winged seraph,

cherubim, with sleepless eye,

veil their faces to the presence,

as with ceaseless voice they cry:

Alleluia, Alleluia,

Alleluia, Lord Most High!