Tomorrow is Holy Thursday and the celebration of the Lord's Supper when He perfects and completes and fulfills the Passover by Himself becoming the Lamb of God to give us His Flesh and Blood to drink to save us from the angel of death and nourish us with His heavenly food on our journey to the Promised Land, heaven. Almost three months ago I wrote about the Last Supper in two entries. Here is the first one published on December 24, 2007 and entitled "The Three Passovers":
Most everyone is familiar with the Passover which is explained in Exodus 12; it was the last and most powerful plague that was the impetus for the Egyptians freeing their Israelite slaves. The plague attacked all the Egyptian firstborn; for the Israelite firstborn to be passed over, they had to slaughter an unblemished year-old male lamb, put its blood on their doorpost using a hyssop branch, and eat the lamb.
The Last Supper is a re-presentation of the Passover; Jesus is re-making and fulfilling this ancient and liberating sacrifice and meal. A very important difference in the Last Supper is that Jesus did not finish the Passover as usual; there were four cups of wine in the Passover, but Jesus stopped after the third. He finished the Passover as He was crucified on the cross and drank the vinegar (cheap wine) from the sponge on the hyssop branch: “After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, ‘It is finished’; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:28-30). What Jesus finished is the re-making of the Passover.
The Last Supper and the Crucifixion are of one piece “For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (1Cor.5:7). Jesus takes on the role that the lamb plays in the Passover. He is sacrificed, and we are passed over. As the Israelites had to sprinkle the lamb’s blood on the doorpost and eat the lamb to be passed over, so we need to be baptized and receive Holy Communion. Baptism is the lamb’s blood on the doorpost because the “doorway” into our “house” is our eyes and face; therefore, the doorpost is our forehead. The water of baptism is the blood of Christ since we are baptized into Jesus’ death. Through these two essential sacraments, we are given the grace to be passed over by the angel of death.
The one Passover that is usually forgotten is Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac back in Genesis 22. I talked about this momentous event a few days ago on 12/19/07, and it is this event and the faithfulness of both Abraham and Isaac that brings about God’s saving actions with his ancestors, the Israelites. The foundation for the Passover is Isaac’s self offering for it is the only time God explicitly swears an oath. The Crucifixion is mostly a re-presentation and fulfillment of Isaac’s sacrifice, and the Last Supper is mostly a re-presentation and fulfillment of the Passover. Thus, there is a parallel structure of events that forms one piece, one reality:
A Isaac’s Sacrifice
B Passover
B’ Last Supper
A’ Jesus’ Sacrifice
One of the common themes here in these three Passovers is the first-born son. In the Passover, not only were the first born Egyptians killed and the first-born Israelites passed over, all of Israel was passed over for they are God’s first-born son: “And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me’; if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your first-born son’” (Exodus 4:22-23).
The other common theme in all of these is the symbolism of baptism and the Eucharist. Even after the Passover, the Israelites had not completed their escape from their enemies. The Egyptians pursued Israel and had them trapped up against the Red Sea with no where to escape. God opened up a way of escape through the water which gave new life to Israel and destroyed their enemies in the process. Once they were out in the wilderness, they grew hungry, and God provided food from heaven. After leaving Egypt, the Israelites again were saved through the water and fed by the heavenly bread. A further structure could look like this:
A Isaac’s Sacrifice
B Passover
C Through the Red Sea (symbolic of Baptism)
C' Manna in the Wilderness (symbolic of the Eucharist)
B’ Last Supper
A’ Jesus’ Sacrifice
One thing we can learn from all this is the immense importance of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. If we receive baptism and Holy Communion, we are given the grace to pick up our cross and follow Jesus; we are given the new heart, the new tree of life, so that we can lay down our life in our everyday activity, so that we can be a person for others, so that we can love God with all our heart, mind and soul; we are given the grace to lay down our life for our friends and to be crucified alongside our Savior Jesus.
We, the baptized, are making our journey through the desert of this life on our way to the Promised Land, heaven. To make our way well, we need our daily bread which is daily prayer and Holy Communion. Many of the Israelites who ate the manna died along the way and did not make it to the Promised Land because of their faithless hearts. Likewise, just receiving the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist does not guarantee anything. We still have to step out in faith and follow our Lord wherever He leads and do whatever He asks. We still need to give ourselves entirely to Him. Thankfully, He provides even the grace to do that.
What I would like to examine next is the significance of the first-born in these key events and how it might possibly relate to the Fall of Adam and Eve.
This is where the first post ends.
The second post on the Passovers was published in the early morning of Christmas Eve, 2007, and it is entitled, "The Meaning of Life." Here it is:
I left off on Tuesday in my post on The Three Passovers introducing the idea of the importance of the first-born. The three Passovers, Isaac’s sacrifice, the Passover, and Jesus’ sacrifice all deal with the first-born. Isaac is the first-born, and he offers himself up as a sacrifice; he was passed over with a ram taking his place. Israel is God’s first-born, and they were passed over by the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and by eating the lamb. Jesus is the Father’s only-begotten Son: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). Jesus, as pre-eminent first-born, sacrifices Himself in order for you and me to be passed over. We are united to Him in baptism and Holy Communion wherein we put His blood on our doorpost and eat the Lamb, respectively.
In the first two Passovers, the first-born was passed over; in the final one, the first-born is the sacrifice. Is there another first-born that was passed over in Jesus’ saving actions? -Perhaps it is you and me: “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:14-16). Paul speaks of the Church as the Israel of God; therefore, since Israel is God’s first-born, and we are now the New Israel, we and all members of the Church are God’s first-born. So we are first-born who are passed over by the angel of death, and our Passover Lamb is Jesus at the Last Supper and on the Cross.
The question that arises in my mind is why is the first-born so important, and why does it hold such a pivotal place in these highly important events in Salvation History? As usual, I think the answer lies in the events at the beginning. The course the man and the woman set the human race upon is the answer to much of human history and to the questions we have today. According to my theory, the direct result of the Fall was the conception of Cain. They wanted him and were trying to get him; hence, his name means gotten. He was the first-born of the human race. He was a murderer and a son of the evil one. The first-born son of man belonged, in a certain respect, to satan, and Cain gave himself over to his ways and so slaughtered his righteous brother.
Cain imitated his fathers in killing his brother: humanity is like a brother to the angels, and satan wants to destroy us and has destroyed many of us; Adam’s fall resulted in the spiritual death of the human race. Both satan and Adam murdered their brothers so to speak, and Cain only imitated what they did. In one sense it is amazing just how bad the very first person born of man was, yet in another sense, Cain was merely a chip off the old block. Either way you look at it, humanity’s fruitfulness started off with a horrible beginning. And his name was Cain for he was gotten. He was gotten.
So why did the first-born need to be sacrificed or passed over? A clue resides in the three main sacrifices of the Old Testament: bulls, sheep and goats. Bulls needed to be sacrificed because people were worshipping bulls and the bull-god, Apis. The Golden Calf was part of this worship where people were seeking fertility and prosperity and so the men and women would imitate what bulls would do to female cattle. Seeking life, they had an orgy. The result, they hoped, would be a conception: thus, the golden calf. Here, too, they were seeking a child, and they sought this child in a way contrary to their dignity, to God’s plan, and to trusting in God. After the golden calf, bulls needed to be sacrificed as a financial penance and so that the people would no longer worship them.
After the Golden Calf, the people went after another false god symbolized by goats. It was another fertility cult, and the people were again seeking life and a child in their own way and by their own terms. “So they shall no more slay their sacrifices for satyrs, after whom they play the harlot” (Leviticus 17:7). The satyrs are the goat gods who are obsessed with continually having sex, and those who worship these false gods would imitate them. Since the people were involved with this evil practice, God had them sacrifice goats. Again, it was a financial difficulty to sacrifice one’s livestock, and one’s gods did not look kindly on being killed. It was a God-given help to avoid this near occasion of sin.
Sacrificing bulls and goats was mandated because they were worshipped. Sheep were never worshipped, so why would God have us sacrifice them? A sheep is the sacrifice of the Passover, and Jesus is the Lamb of God. They are the most important animal sacrifice, but why does God mandate this sacrifice? Was their any sin associated with sheep or lambs? I think there was. Sheep symbolize humanity. We are like sheep; we are incredibly stupid. So sheep need to be sacrificed because they symbolize us; we worshipped ourselves. When did we do this? We do it every time we sin, but we do it especially when we seek humans over God.
The man and the woman sought a child over and against God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God wanted them to have a child, but He wanted to give it to them virginally as He did with Mary. They sought a child, and they got him, and they named him gotten (Cain). So here the theme of the first-born and sheep come together. The Passovers all have to do with sheep and with first-borns because our first parents worshiped, as it were, their first-born son and even disobeyed God to get him. Their souls were sold to satan in order to get Gotten; that is why he and all of the human family needs to be bought back or redeemed from the prince of this world.
We all deserve death and are in bondage to sin and satan, and we are like lambs, so the solution is for a lamb to take our place that we may be passed over and live. That is why sheep were sacrificed in the Old Testament, but those “sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper” (Hebrews 9:9). These Old Testament laws were good, but they were the symbol, not the reality. “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near” (Hebrews 10:1). Those sacrifices do not make perfect; however, Jesus’ sacrifice is capable of such a feat.
“For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book” (Hebrews 10:4-7). We are given a body in order to have something to sacrifice, and with our bodily sacrifices we are praying with the body. We are given a will in order that we can sacrifice that, too, and by saying “Thy will be done,” we are praying the most important prayer. Prayer and sacrifice, the prayer of the heart and of prayer of the body, when they are combined are the most powerful. When we completely trust God and seek to do whatever He asks of us, especially what He asks us to do with our bodies, then we are far along the path to unity with Him. It is in this full faithfulness that we have abundant life and belong to Him, and that is the meaning of life.
That is the end of the second entry.
May you and yours be fully blessed by your losing yourself in the celebration of this most Holy Triduum of our Dear Savior's awesome saving deeds. Remember His words: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you" and ask Him that you, too, may earnestly desire to eat this Passover which is Him.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Isaac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isaac. Show all posts
2.25.2008
"Those Who Trust in You Cannot Be Put to Shame"
Tuesday’s first reading comes from the book of Daniel 3: 25, 34-43. Azariah (named Abednego by the Babylonian in charge of him) and two others from the tribe of Judah would not fall down and worship the false god King Nebuchadnezzar set up. For their punishment, they were thrown into the fiery furnace. While in the fiery furnace, Azariah stood up and prayed aloud:
“For your name’s sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever, or make void your covenant. Do not take away your mercy from us, for the sake of Abraham, your beloved, Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one, to whom you promised to multiply their offspring like the stars of heaven, or the sand on the shore of the sea. For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation, brought low everywhere in the world this day because of our sins. We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader, no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation, or incense, no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you. But with contrite heart and humble spirit let us be received; as though it were burnt offerings of rams and bullocks, or thousands of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be in your presence today as we follow you unreservedly; for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame. And now we follow you with our whole heart, we fear you and we pray to you. Do not let us be put to shame, but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy. Deliver us by your wonders, and bring glory to your name, O Lord.”
Surely this is an extremely heartfelt and urgent prayer showing forth the beauty of the heart that trusts in God. Let’s examine this prayer a bit. The beginning asks for God’s mercy as He remembers His covenants with the patriarchs, and then it moves to acknowledging his sins and the sins of God’s people. In their present state, both he and God’s people have nothing of sacrifices to offer God, nor have they a leader to draw them closer to Him.
The heart of the prayer is in the center: even though we have sinned and have nothing for leadership or in the way of sacrifices, we do have humble, contrite hearts which, entirely trusting in God, follow Him without reserve. Azariah prays to God that He might accept his sacrifice of following God with his whole heart in place of burnt offerings and sacrifices which were usually offered. He ends his prayer seeking God’s kindness and great mercy to deliver them from their ever-present and all-consuming ordeal.
The story ends with God delivering the three young men from the fiery furnace. Once again, the centrality and immense importance of the heart that loves, trusts and obeys God above all things is shown forth clearly. We have God’s life in our souls when our heart completely trusts God and follows Him in all things; it is the tree of life, and there is no other. God desires us to have such a heart beating within the walls of our rib cage, and His plan is to give us that heart, Jesus’ heart pierced on the cross and resurrected to new life, in the Holy Eucharist. That is what the Eucharist is, and, as such, it is our tree of life which enables us to love, trust and obey God in all things and at all times, so that we too may offer ourselves as living sacrifices upon the Calvary of our life.
On another, related note, the gospel today, Matthew 18: 21-35, is powerful. It is hitting home with me in new and more powerful ways; on my retreat, it was one of the main themes that was running through my mind. God has been and is so merciful to me on countless occasions, and how little am I merciful to those indebted to me. May I have God’s mercy in my heart to those in my debt.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
“For your name’s sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever, or make void your covenant. Do not take away your mercy from us, for the sake of Abraham, your beloved, Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one, to whom you promised to multiply their offspring like the stars of heaven, or the sand on the shore of the sea. For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation, brought low everywhere in the world this day because of our sins. We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader, no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation, or incense, no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you. But with contrite heart and humble spirit let us be received; as though it were burnt offerings of rams and bullocks, or thousands of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be in your presence today as we follow you unreservedly; for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame. And now we follow you with our whole heart, we fear you and we pray to you. Do not let us be put to shame, but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy. Deliver us by your wonders, and bring glory to your name, O Lord.”
Surely this is an extremely heartfelt and urgent prayer showing forth the beauty of the heart that trusts in God. Let’s examine this prayer a bit. The beginning asks for God’s mercy as He remembers His covenants with the patriarchs, and then it moves to acknowledging his sins and the sins of God’s people. In their present state, both he and God’s people have nothing of sacrifices to offer God, nor have they a leader to draw them closer to Him.
The heart of the prayer is in the center: even though we have sinned and have nothing for leadership or in the way of sacrifices, we do have humble, contrite hearts which, entirely trusting in God, follow Him without reserve. Azariah prays to God that He might accept his sacrifice of following God with his whole heart in place of burnt offerings and sacrifices which were usually offered. He ends his prayer seeking God’s kindness and great mercy to deliver them from their ever-present and all-consuming ordeal.
The story ends with God delivering the three young men from the fiery furnace. Once again, the centrality and immense importance of the heart that loves, trusts and obeys God above all things is shown forth clearly. We have God’s life in our souls when our heart completely trusts God and follows Him in all things; it is the tree of life, and there is no other. God desires us to have such a heart beating within the walls of our rib cage, and His plan is to give us that heart, Jesus’ heart pierced on the cross and resurrected to new life, in the Holy Eucharist. That is what the Eucharist is, and, as such, it is our tree of life which enables us to love, trust and obey God in all things and at all times, so that we too may offer ourselves as living sacrifices upon the Calvary of our life.
On another, related note, the gospel today, Matthew 18: 21-35, is powerful. It is hitting home with me in new and more powerful ways; on my retreat, it was one of the main themes that was running through my mind. God has been and is so merciful to me on countless occasions, and how little am I merciful to those indebted to me. May I have God’s mercy in my heart to those in my debt.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
2.03.2008
The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
It is late at night, so it is Sunday now; however, it still feels like today, Saturday, and not tomorrow, Sunday, because I am still awake. All day I’ve wanted to write about the feast of Saturday: the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. For a good while, I’ve suspected there is some connection of my theory with the need to present one’s children in the temple and redeem them. Why does one need to present and redeem one’s newly-born child?
The first instance of this mentioned in the Bible comes from Exodus 13:11-16, right after the Passover and the Exodus, which states: “And when the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the LORD all that first opens the womb. All the firstlings of your cattle that are males shall be the LORD’s. Every firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every first-born of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By strength of hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of cattle. Therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all the males that first open the womb; but all the first-born of my sons I redeem.’ It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes; for by a strong hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt.”
All first-born male cattle are sacrificed to God; a first-born ass can be redeemed with the sacrifice of a lamb instead or it can be sacrificed itself; all first-born sons need to be redeemed. It does not say how our sons are to be redeemed here; we will find that out in a later passage. God passed over all Israel’s first born in Egypt as He set them free, so now they need to sacrifice or redeem all the first-born.
A woman needs to be purified after she gives birth; she needs to wait forty days for having a boy and eighty days for having a girl. The presentation of a baby in the temple is also about the woman being purified after birth. Here we find out with what a child is redeemed. “And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the door of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the LORD, and make atonement for her; then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean” (Leviticus 12: 6-8).
A baby was to be redeemed with the sacrifice of a lamb as a burnt offering. A young pigeon or a turtledove was also sacrificed for a sin offering. The poor do not need to sacrifice a lamb; rather, they are allowed to bring a pair of turtledoves or pigeons for both of these sacrifices—the burnt offering and the sin offering.
We also find out that man’s redemption price is five shekels of silver. “Everything that opens the womb of all flesh, whether man or beast, which they offer to the LORD, shall be yours; nevertheless the first-born of man you shall redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts you shall redeem. And their redemption price (at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs” (Numbers 18: 15-16).
So here is what I am thinking right now about all of this:
My theory is: The man and the woman in the Garden of Eden sought after a child of their own, they wanted to be creative like God and make a man, and so they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is they had relations, and they conceived and had Cain. Since they had children in a manner contrary to God’s command, the children they bore were children of men, not children of God, so they were born without God’s life in them, which we call sanctifying grace, and their passions were disordered, which we call original sin.
Abraham is given a similar test as the man and the woman, and after ten years of waiting for his promised son, Abraham sins and has relations with Hagar, his wife’s servant. Twenty-five years later, they finally give birth to their own son, Isaac. Since they never really passed the test, God tested Abraham again and told him to sacrifice Isaac. As Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac, God stops him, and Isaac is passed over for the ram caught by the horns of its head in a thorn bush.
Because of Abraham and Isaac’s faithfulness, God swears by Himself to make his descendants a blessing to all nations. It was because of this covenant God makes here that about five hundred years later the Israelites are redeemed and set free from Egypt. The first and foundational Passover was Isaac, and the second was the Passover of all the first-born from Egypt. Because of God’s redeeming work of freeing Israel from Egypt, for all their descendants afterward they need to present and redeem all children shortly after they are born.
Due to the fear of death, the fear of not having children, sin entered the world. The second reading for the Presentation is from Hebrews 2: 14-18. “Since the children share in blood and flesh, Jesus likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the Devil, and free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life” (2: 14-15). It was the fear of death that led humanity into slavery; it is Jesus’ death which destroys this fear and power of death.
Jesus destroys the power of death by dying on the cross; we participate in His death by our baptism since by baptism we die with Christ and are raised up with Him in His resurrection. In the Old Covenant, children had to be redeemed shortly after birth; in the New Covenant, children are redeemed shortly after birth in baptism. Now instead of redeeming our children with the sacrifice of a lamb or a pigeon or turtledove, our kids are redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb. This turns our sons of men into children of God, and the original problem from the beginning is fixed. The specific antidote to the Fall is found first of all in Jesus’ crucifixion, death and resurrection and secondly in our participation in those saving deeds most notably through baptism and Holy Eucharist.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
The first instance of this mentioned in the Bible comes from Exodus 13:11-16, right after the Passover and the Exodus, which states: “And when the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the LORD all that first opens the womb. All the firstlings of your cattle that are males shall be the LORD’s. Every firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every first-born of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By strength of hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of cattle. Therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all the males that first open the womb; but all the first-born of my sons I redeem.’ It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes; for by a strong hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt.”
All first-born male cattle are sacrificed to God; a first-born ass can be redeemed with the sacrifice of a lamb instead or it can be sacrificed itself; all first-born sons need to be redeemed. It does not say how our sons are to be redeemed here; we will find that out in a later passage. God passed over all Israel’s first born in Egypt as He set them free, so now they need to sacrifice or redeem all the first-born.
A woman needs to be purified after she gives birth; she needs to wait forty days for having a boy and eighty days for having a girl. The presentation of a baby in the temple is also about the woman being purified after birth. Here we find out with what a child is redeemed. “And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the door of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the LORD, and make atonement for her; then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean” (Leviticus 12: 6-8).
A baby was to be redeemed with the sacrifice of a lamb as a burnt offering. A young pigeon or a turtledove was also sacrificed for a sin offering. The poor do not need to sacrifice a lamb; rather, they are allowed to bring a pair of turtledoves or pigeons for both of these sacrifices—the burnt offering and the sin offering.
We also find out that man’s redemption price is five shekels of silver. “Everything that opens the womb of all flesh, whether man or beast, which they offer to the LORD, shall be yours; nevertheless the first-born of man you shall redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts you shall redeem. And their redemption price (at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs” (Numbers 18: 15-16).
So here is what I am thinking right now about all of this:
My theory is: The man and the woman in the Garden of Eden sought after a child of their own, they wanted to be creative like God and make a man, and so they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is they had relations, and they conceived and had Cain. Since they had children in a manner contrary to God’s command, the children they bore were children of men, not children of God, so they were born without God’s life in them, which we call sanctifying grace, and their passions were disordered, which we call original sin.
Abraham is given a similar test as the man and the woman, and after ten years of waiting for his promised son, Abraham sins and has relations with Hagar, his wife’s servant. Twenty-five years later, they finally give birth to their own son, Isaac. Since they never really passed the test, God tested Abraham again and told him to sacrifice Isaac. As Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac, God stops him, and Isaac is passed over for the ram caught by the horns of its head in a thorn bush.
Because of Abraham and Isaac’s faithfulness, God swears by Himself to make his descendants a blessing to all nations. It was because of this covenant God makes here that about five hundred years later the Israelites are redeemed and set free from Egypt. The first and foundational Passover was Isaac, and the second was the Passover of all the first-born from Egypt. Because of God’s redeeming work of freeing Israel from Egypt, for all their descendants afterward they need to present and redeem all children shortly after they are born.
Due to the fear of death, the fear of not having children, sin entered the world. The second reading for the Presentation is from Hebrews 2: 14-18. “Since the children share in blood and flesh, Jesus likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the Devil, and free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life” (2: 14-15). It was the fear of death that led humanity into slavery; it is Jesus’ death which destroys this fear and power of death.
Jesus destroys the power of death by dying on the cross; we participate in His death by our baptism since by baptism we die with Christ and are raised up with Him in His resurrection. In the Old Covenant, children had to be redeemed shortly after birth; in the New Covenant, children are redeemed shortly after birth in baptism. Now instead of redeeming our children with the sacrifice of a lamb or a pigeon or turtledove, our kids are redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb. This turns our sons of men into children of God, and the original problem from the beginning is fixed. The specific antidote to the Fall is found first of all in Jesus’ crucifixion, death and resurrection and secondly in our participation in those saving deeds most notably through baptism and Holy Eucharist.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
1.28.2008
Jesus as New David, New Isaac, New Melchizedek and Mary as True Ark of the Covenant
Tomorrow’s first reading contains a number of interesting elements. David is bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and he acts in some rather strange and unusual ways. Here is a portion of tomorrow’s reading:
“Then David, girt with a linen apron, came dancing before the LORD with abandon, as he and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts of joy and to the sound of the horn. The ark of the LORD was brought in and set in its place within the tent David had pitched for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. When he finished making these offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts. He then distributed among all the people, to each man and each woman in the entire multitude of Israel, a loaf of bread, a cut of roast meat, and a raisin cake” (2 Samuel 6:14-15, 17-19).
What are the atypical actions: he is wearing a linen apron, he is dancing with abandon before the Lord, he is offering sacrifices, he blesses the people, and he gives food to the people. The linen apron seems to have a connection to what a priest would wear; his joy before the Lord shows a love of God; and he offers sacrifices and blesses as a priest would. The translation of the Hebrew of the food David gave is challenging. The bread is clear, but the rest is not so clear. Instead of a cut of roast and a raisin cake, it could be understood to be wine. If that is true, David gave the people bread and wine.
At first, there seems to be no precedent for David’s behavior here in this story. He, the king of Jerusalem, acts like a priest and gives the people bread and wine. But, alas, there is a precedent: Melchizedek. Melchizedek was priest of God Most High and the king of Salem/Jerusalem who offered bread and wine. He was not a Levitical priest, for Levi had not even been born yet; rather, he was a priest/king of Jerusalem who blessed Abraham after Abraham had gained peace from all his enemies round about Jerusalem (Genesis 14).
David has just or is completing the process of gaining peace from all his enemies round about: “Now when the king dwelt in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies round about, the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent’ ” (2 Samuel 7:1-2). After the second generation of the Israelites who were set free from Egypt sinned again at the end of the forty years of wandering, God gave them a new set of laws, a second law called Deuteronomy. Only in this other law is it mandated that there be one place of worship in the Promised Land. Following is the passage:
“You shall not do according to all that we are doing here this day, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes; for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the LORD your God gives you. But when you go over the Jordan, and live in the land which the LORD your God gives you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you live in safety, then to the place which the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, thither you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering that you present, and all your votive offerings which you vow to the LORD. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. Take heed that you do not offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see; but at the place which the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you” (Deuteronomy 12:8-14).
God’s plan as set forth in Deuteronomy is that there will be one place to worship Him. David understands that that one place is in Jerusalem, and it will take place when the Israelites have peace from their enemies living round about them. David has just fully taken over the Promised Land and established his base in Jerusalem, so his next step is to fulfill Deuteronomy and establish Jerusalem as the center of Israelite worship. He brings the Ark of the Covenant to town, and rejoices greatly before the Lord.
Not only is David fulfilling Deuteronomy, but he is also fulfilling Genesis 14-22. David is a new Melchizedek: he is the priest/king of Jerusalem who offers bread and wine and gives a blessing after peace has been obtained from the enemies round about. In some respect, David could be said to be a new Isaac: he offers up his whole self as he dances before the Lord with abandon, and he offered sacrifices as Isaac offered himself at first and instead sacrificed a ram in his place. In response to Isaac’s self-offering, God blessed Abraham and Isaac and all the nations of the earth; likewise, David blesses the people. Jesus, then, comes to fulfill the Old Testament, and He is a new Melchizedek, a new Isaac, and a new David; he is the priest/king of Jerusalem who makes a sacrifice by offering up Himself, and He blesses the people with His offering of bread and wine.
The gospel passage fits in with the first reading; it ends with, “For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). Obedience to God makes us God’s children and family; Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, and David were all obedient to God and thus were His chosen people. Mary is the one who is obedient more than anyone else in the entire human race; that is why she is Mother of God, because of her obedience to Him.
The Ark of the Covenant, the item which makes the temple holy, the sacred home that David is rejoicing before as he brings it into Jerusalem, is a type or symbol of Mary. It held the Ten Commandments, the Manna, and Aaron’s rod; the first is the word of God, the second is the bread of heaven, and the third is the priest’s sign of authority and leadership. Mary was home to the Word of God, the Bread of Heaven, and the High Priest and God Himself. Mary is the True Ark of the Covenant. Another parallel is that before David brings the ark into Jerusalem and leaps before it, it spends three months in the hill country; Mary spends three months in the hill country with her cousin Elizabeth, and John the Baptist leaps for joy in his mother's womb upon hearing the voice of Mary.
The holy items of God are what made the Ark holy, and the Ark is what made the temple holy; likewise, Jesus is who makes Mary holy, and Mary is who makes God’s home, earth, holy because of who she carries within her. In a similar manner, each of us is to be a mother to Christ, bringing Him within ourselves and making the world holy. Also, each of us is to be spouse and bride of Christ, becoming one mind and heart with Him, becoming one flesh with Him, becoming another Christ. Christ within us makes us holy and we become partakers of the divine nature, which is to say that we become self-sacrificing lovers as He is. As self-sacrificing lovers, we bring His presence to the world, which brings peace from our enemies round about. World peace is only found here.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
“Then David, girt with a linen apron, came dancing before the LORD with abandon, as he and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts of joy and to the sound of the horn. The ark of the LORD was brought in and set in its place within the tent David had pitched for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. When he finished making these offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts. He then distributed among all the people, to each man and each woman in the entire multitude of Israel, a loaf of bread, a cut of roast meat, and a raisin cake” (2 Samuel 6:14-15, 17-19).
What are the atypical actions: he is wearing a linen apron, he is dancing with abandon before the Lord, he is offering sacrifices, he blesses the people, and he gives food to the people. The linen apron seems to have a connection to what a priest would wear; his joy before the Lord shows a love of God; and he offers sacrifices and blesses as a priest would. The translation of the Hebrew of the food David gave is challenging. The bread is clear, but the rest is not so clear. Instead of a cut of roast and a raisin cake, it could be understood to be wine. If that is true, David gave the people bread and wine.
At first, there seems to be no precedent for David’s behavior here in this story. He, the king of Jerusalem, acts like a priest and gives the people bread and wine. But, alas, there is a precedent: Melchizedek. Melchizedek was priest of God Most High and the king of Salem/Jerusalem who offered bread and wine. He was not a Levitical priest, for Levi had not even been born yet; rather, he was a priest/king of Jerusalem who blessed Abraham after Abraham had gained peace from all his enemies round about Jerusalem (Genesis 14).
David has just or is completing the process of gaining peace from all his enemies round about: “Now when the king dwelt in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies round about, the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent’ ” (2 Samuel 7:1-2). After the second generation of the Israelites who were set free from Egypt sinned again at the end of the forty years of wandering, God gave them a new set of laws, a second law called Deuteronomy. Only in this other law is it mandated that there be one place of worship in the Promised Land. Following is the passage:
“You shall not do according to all that we are doing here this day, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes; for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the LORD your God gives you. But when you go over the Jordan, and live in the land which the LORD your God gives you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you live in safety, then to the place which the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, thither you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering that you present, and all your votive offerings which you vow to the LORD. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. Take heed that you do not offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see; but at the place which the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you” (Deuteronomy 12:8-14).
God’s plan as set forth in Deuteronomy is that there will be one place to worship Him. David understands that that one place is in Jerusalem, and it will take place when the Israelites have peace from their enemies living round about them. David has just fully taken over the Promised Land and established his base in Jerusalem, so his next step is to fulfill Deuteronomy and establish Jerusalem as the center of Israelite worship. He brings the Ark of the Covenant to town, and rejoices greatly before the Lord.
Not only is David fulfilling Deuteronomy, but he is also fulfilling Genesis 14-22. David is a new Melchizedek: he is the priest/king of Jerusalem who offers bread and wine and gives a blessing after peace has been obtained from the enemies round about. In some respect, David could be said to be a new Isaac: he offers up his whole self as he dances before the Lord with abandon, and he offered sacrifices as Isaac offered himself at first and instead sacrificed a ram in his place. In response to Isaac’s self-offering, God blessed Abraham and Isaac and all the nations of the earth; likewise, David blesses the people. Jesus, then, comes to fulfill the Old Testament, and He is a new Melchizedek, a new Isaac, and a new David; he is the priest/king of Jerusalem who makes a sacrifice by offering up Himself, and He blesses the people with His offering of bread and wine.
The gospel passage fits in with the first reading; it ends with, “For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). Obedience to God makes us God’s children and family; Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, and David were all obedient to God and thus were His chosen people. Mary is the one who is obedient more than anyone else in the entire human race; that is why she is Mother of God, because of her obedience to Him.
The Ark of the Covenant, the item which makes the temple holy, the sacred home that David is rejoicing before as he brings it into Jerusalem, is a type or symbol of Mary. It held the Ten Commandments, the Manna, and Aaron’s rod; the first is the word of God, the second is the bread of heaven, and the third is the priest’s sign of authority and leadership. Mary was home to the Word of God, the Bread of Heaven, and the High Priest and God Himself. Mary is the True Ark of the Covenant. Another parallel is that before David brings the ark into Jerusalem and leaps before it, it spends three months in the hill country; Mary spends three months in the hill country with her cousin Elizabeth, and John the Baptist leaps for joy in his mother's womb upon hearing the voice of Mary.
The holy items of God are what made the Ark holy, and the Ark is what made the temple holy; likewise, Jesus is who makes Mary holy, and Mary is who makes God’s home, earth, holy because of who she carries within her. In a similar manner, each of us is to be a mother to Christ, bringing Him within ourselves and making the world holy. Also, each of us is to be spouse and bride of Christ, becoming one mind and heart with Him, becoming one flesh with Him, becoming another Christ. Christ within us makes us holy and we become partakers of the divine nature, which is to say that we become self-sacrificing lovers as He is. As self-sacrificing lovers, we bring His presence to the world, which brings peace from our enemies round about. World peace is only found here.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.30.2007
The Desire: Divine Union
There are two main themes that run throughout the Old Testament and are fulfilled in the New: the quest for a child (a son, to be specific) and the quest for the Promised Land. These two quests are distinct but are often intertwined. They are the desires for land and a home together with the desires for children, a family, and fruitfulness. Another quest that is related to the quest for a child is the quest for a bride; sometimes it goes hand-in-hand with the quest for a son and other times they are completely separate.
Abraham’s quest was primarily for a son and secondarily for the land; the wife quest was only present in his life insofar as he “lost” his wife twice when he told two other guys she was his sister (she was his half sister). Isaac began with a quest for a wife, and he ended with a quest for a son. He was forty when he married Rebekah, but she was barren. He prayed for her to be fruitful, but almost twenty years went by before she conceived. When Isaac was sixty, Rebekah gave birth to twins: Esau and Jacob.
Jacob gets the blessing from Isaac and then flees for his life from his irate brother Esau. His quest begins with seeking a wife, and he ends up with two: Leah and Rachel. Rachel is barren and Leah has four sons one after the other. In the baby race, Rachel gives Jacob her maid who conceives two sons. Then Leah gives Jacob her maid who also has two sons. Leah herself has two more sons, and finally Rachel conceives Joseph and much later, Benjamin. Although Jacob had so many sons, his quest for a son was for his first-love and “true” wife, Rachel, to have a baby. She did have one only after a very long time of being barren. Jacob treated Joseph in some ways as his only son, and that is why his ten older half-brothers hated him so and devised a plan to kill him. Jacob eventually makes his way back to the Promised Land. Hence, Jacob had all three quests in his life, and after the Joseph story in Egypt, Jacob and his entire family leaves the Promised Land again and sets up camp down in Egypt.
400 years later, Moses had a mini quest for a wife and an even smaller one for a son; his main quest was for the Promised Land. He, of course, led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to make it to the Promised Land. Moses got close enough to see the Promised Land in the distance, but he himself did not bring the people in, Joshua did.
There are many other instances of the people of God seeking one or a combination of these three quests. There was Manoah and his wife who were barren, and God gave them Samson. Elkanah and Hannah were barren, and God eventually sent them the great priest and prophet, Samuel. In the New Testament we have Elizabeth and Zechariah who were of old age and barren, and God sent them John the Baptist. These three were all primarily seeking a son. Another instance of someone seeking a wife is Tobias, son of Tobit, who was given Sarah, and God protected Tobias from the demon who had killed all of Sarah’s previous husbands. Almost all of the faithful people of God were seeking to continue to live in the Promised Land, live in the Promised Land in freedom, or they were seeking to get back to it. The quest for the land is perhaps the most universal and constant.
How does this relate to the first man and woman? I say that God gave the woman to the man as wife, but He put them through a test saying be fruitful and multiply but do not have relations. They were to live as brother and sister like Joseph and Mary did, but they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they had relations and conceived Cain. So Adam was on a quest first of all for a child, and to get that child, he sought a wife in a way that God had forbidden him. In this respect, he was seeking both a son and a wife. He was seeking to preserve his life, and in so doing, he received emptiness, nakedness and death.
Did Adam and Eve have a quest for the land? It is commonly understood that they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. I say that the Garden of Eden as the Garden of Delight refers more to the man and the woman themselves. God gave planted many “trees” in their garden/bodies, especially the tree of life/the heart and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil/the generative powers. As God’s garden of delight, they were united to God. The Garden of Eden is a symbol of the Promised Land which is a symbol of heaven. Heaven is union with God. After they fell and lost sanctifying grace, the life of God in their souls, they lost that union with God, and so, in that sense, they were kicked out of the garden. They were created as temples of the Holy Spirit, and they ended up as empty vessels of clay. From that point forward, all humanity seeks that original unity with God our first parents had. That union with God that we all seek, whether we know we are seeking for that or not, that union with Him is symbolized in the quest for the land. In the land we have a home, and that home is for God.
All of our desires as humans can be reduced down, at the core, to this desire for union with God. Everyone, deep down, wants an unending, complete and total communion with the divine being. That is how God created us when He made us in His image and likeness, and that is what we are all looking for. Most of us think something else will make us happy, such as money, pleasure or power, but that is a fleeting shallow happiness. The quest for a spouse is tied up with this desire for union with God. God is meant to be our primary spouse, and in heaven we will all be married to Him forever; we will no longer have a human spouse. The quest for a son is tied up with these other two quests. True love is meant to be fruitful, and in our love for God, we want to bear fruit. Mary loved God so much and trusted in Him completely, and she bore the Son of God. You and I bear fruit for God when we love, trust and obey Him with the good deeds that flow out of our heart.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Abraham’s quest was primarily for a son and secondarily for the land; the wife quest was only present in his life insofar as he “lost” his wife twice when he told two other guys she was his sister (she was his half sister). Isaac began with a quest for a wife, and he ended with a quest for a son. He was forty when he married Rebekah, but she was barren. He prayed for her to be fruitful, but almost twenty years went by before she conceived. When Isaac was sixty, Rebekah gave birth to twins: Esau and Jacob.
Jacob gets the blessing from Isaac and then flees for his life from his irate brother Esau. His quest begins with seeking a wife, and he ends up with two: Leah and Rachel. Rachel is barren and Leah has four sons one after the other. In the baby race, Rachel gives Jacob her maid who conceives two sons. Then Leah gives Jacob her maid who also has two sons. Leah herself has two more sons, and finally Rachel conceives Joseph and much later, Benjamin. Although Jacob had so many sons, his quest for a son was for his first-love and “true” wife, Rachel, to have a baby. She did have one only after a very long time of being barren. Jacob treated Joseph in some ways as his only son, and that is why his ten older half-brothers hated him so and devised a plan to kill him. Jacob eventually makes his way back to the Promised Land. Hence, Jacob had all three quests in his life, and after the Joseph story in Egypt, Jacob and his entire family leaves the Promised Land again and sets up camp down in Egypt.
400 years later, Moses had a mini quest for a wife and an even smaller one for a son; his main quest was for the Promised Land. He, of course, led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to make it to the Promised Land. Moses got close enough to see the Promised Land in the distance, but he himself did not bring the people in, Joshua did.
There are many other instances of the people of God seeking one or a combination of these three quests. There was Manoah and his wife who were barren, and God gave them Samson. Elkanah and Hannah were barren, and God eventually sent them the great priest and prophet, Samuel. In the New Testament we have Elizabeth and Zechariah who were of old age and barren, and God sent them John the Baptist. These three were all primarily seeking a son. Another instance of someone seeking a wife is Tobias, son of Tobit, who was given Sarah, and God protected Tobias from the demon who had killed all of Sarah’s previous husbands. Almost all of the faithful people of God were seeking to continue to live in the Promised Land, live in the Promised Land in freedom, or they were seeking to get back to it. The quest for the land is perhaps the most universal and constant.
How does this relate to the first man and woman? I say that God gave the woman to the man as wife, but He put them through a test saying be fruitful and multiply but do not have relations. They were to live as brother and sister like Joseph and Mary did, but they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they had relations and conceived Cain. So Adam was on a quest first of all for a child, and to get that child, he sought a wife in a way that God had forbidden him. In this respect, he was seeking both a son and a wife. He was seeking to preserve his life, and in so doing, he received emptiness, nakedness and death.
Did Adam and Eve have a quest for the land? It is commonly understood that they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. I say that the Garden of Eden as the Garden of Delight refers more to the man and the woman themselves. God gave planted many “trees” in their garden/bodies, especially the tree of life/the heart and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil/the generative powers. As God’s garden of delight, they were united to God. The Garden of Eden is a symbol of the Promised Land which is a symbol of heaven. Heaven is union with God. After they fell and lost sanctifying grace, the life of God in their souls, they lost that union with God, and so, in that sense, they were kicked out of the garden. They were created as temples of the Holy Spirit, and they ended up as empty vessels of clay. From that point forward, all humanity seeks that original unity with God our first parents had. That union with God that we all seek, whether we know we are seeking for that or not, that union with Him is symbolized in the quest for the land. In the land we have a home, and that home is for God.
All of our desires as humans can be reduced down, at the core, to this desire for union with God. Everyone, deep down, wants an unending, complete and total communion with the divine being. That is how God created us when He made us in His image and likeness, and that is what we are all looking for. Most of us think something else will make us happy, such as money, pleasure or power, but that is a fleeting shallow happiness. The quest for a spouse is tied up with this desire for union with God. God is meant to be our primary spouse, and in heaven we will all be married to Him forever; we will no longer have a human spouse. The quest for a son is tied up with these other two quests. True love is meant to be fruitful, and in our love for God, we want to bear fruit. Mary loved God so much and trusted in Him completely, and she bore the Son of God. You and I bear fruit for God when we love, trust and obey Him with the good deeds that flow out of our heart.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.28.2007
The Meaning of Life
I left off on Tuesday in my post on The Three Passovers introducing the idea of the importance of the first-born. The three Passovers, Isaac’s sacrifice, the Passover, and Jesus’ sacrifice, all deal with the first-born. Isaac is the first-born, and he offers himself up as a sacrifice; he was passed over with a ram taking his place. Israel is God’s first-born, and they were passed over by the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and by eating the lamb. Jesus is the Father’s only-begotten Son: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). Jesus, as pre-eminent first-born, sacrifices Himself in order for you and me to be passed over. We are united to Him in baptism and Holy Communion wherein we put His blood on our doorpost and eat the Lamb, respectively.
In the first two Passovers, the first-born was passed over; in the final one, the first-born is the sacrifice. Is there another first-born that was passed over in Jesus’ saving actions? -Perhaps it is you and me: “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:14-16). Paul speaks of the Church as the Israel of God; therefore, since Israel is God’s first-born, and we are now the New Israel, we and all members of the Church are God’s first-born. So we are first-born who are passed over by the angel of death, and our Passover Lamb is Jesus at the Last Supper and on the Cross.
The question that arises in my mind is why is the first-born so important, and why does it hold such a pivotal place in these highly important events in Salvation History? As usual, I think the answer lies in the events at the beginning. The course the man and the woman set the human race upon is the answer to much of human history and to the questions we have today. According to my theory, the direct result of the Fall was the conception of Cain. They wanted him and were trying to get him; hence, his name means gotten. He was the first-born of the human race. He was a murderer and a son of the evil one. The first-born son of man belonged, in a certain respect, to satan, and Cain gave himself over to his ways and so slaughtered his righteous brother.
Cain imitated his fathers in killing his brother: humanity is like a brother to the angels, and satan wants to destroy us and has destroyed many of us; Adam’s fall resulted in the spiritual death of the human race. Both satan and Adam murdered their brothers so to speak, and Cain only imitated what they did. In one sense it is amazing just how bad the very first person born of man was, yet in another sense, Cain was merely a chip off the old block. Either way you look at it, humanity’s fruitfulness started off with a horrible beginning. And his name was Cain for he was gotten. He was gotten.
So why did the first-born need to be sacrificed or passed over? A clue resides in the three main sacrifices of the Old Testament: bulls, sheep and goats. Bulls needed to be sacrificed because people were worshipping bulls and the bull-god, Apis. The Golden Calf was part of this worship where people were seeking fertility and prosperity and so the men and women would imitated what bulls would do to female cattle. Seeking life, they had an orgy. The result, they hoped, would be a conception: thus, the golden calf. Here, too, they were seeking a child, and they sought this child in a way contrary to their dignity, to God’s plan, and to trusting in God. After the golden calf, bulls needed to be sacrificed as a financial penance and so that the people would no longer worship them.
After the Golden Calf, the people went after another false god symbolized by goats. It was another fertility cult, and the people were again seeking life and a child in their own way and by their own terms. “So they shall no more slay their sacrifices for satyrs, after whom they play the harlot” (Leviticus 17:7). The satyrs are the goat gods who are obsessed with continually having sex, and those who worship these false gods would imitate them. Since the people were involved with this evil practice, God had them sacrifice goats. Again, it was a financial difficulty to sacrifice one’s livestock, and one’s gods did not look kindly on being killed. It was a God-given help to avoid this near occasion of sin.
Sacrificing bulls and goats was mandated because they were worshipped. Sheep were never worshipped, so why would God have us sacrifice them? A sheep is the sacrifice of the Passover, and Jesus is the Lamb of God. They are the most important animal sacrifice, but why does God mandate this sacrifice? Was their any sin associated with sheep or lambs? I think there was. Sheep symbolize humanity. We are like sheep; we are incredibly stupid. So sheep need to be sacrificed because they symbolize us; we worshipped ourselves. When did we do this? We do it every time we sin, but we do it especially when we seek humans over God.
The man and the woman sought a child over and against God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God wanted them to have a child, but He wanted to give it to them virginally as He did with Mary. They sought a child, and they got him, and they named him gotten (Cain). So here the theme of the first-born and sheep come together. The Passovers all have to do with sheep and with first-borns because our first parents worshiped, as it were, their first-born son and even disobeyed God to get him. Their souls were sold to satan in order to get Gotten; that is why he and all of the human family needs to be bought back or redeemed from the prince of this world.
We all deserve death and are in bondage to sin and satan, and we are like lambs, so the solution is for a lamb to take our place that we may be passed over and live. That is why sheep were sacrificed in the Old Testament, but those “sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper” (Hebrews 9:9). These Old Testament laws were good, but they were the symbol, not the reality. “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near” (Hebrews 10:1). Those sacrifices do not make perfect; however, Jesus’ sacrifice is capable of such a feat.
“For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book” (Hebrews 10:4-7). We are given a body in order to have something to sacrifice, and with our bodily sacrifices we are praying with the body. We are given a will in order that we can sacrifice that, too, and by saying “Thy will be done,” we are praying the most important prayer. Prayer and sacrifice, the prayer of the heart and of prayer of the body, when they are combined are the most powerful. When we completely trust God and seek to do whatever He asks of us, especially what He asks us to do with our bodies, then we are far along the path to unity with Him. It is in this full faithfulness that we have abundant life and belong to Him, and that is the meaning of life.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
In the first two Passovers, the first-born was passed over; in the final one, the first-born is the sacrifice. Is there another first-born that was passed over in Jesus’ saving actions? -Perhaps it is you and me: “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:14-16). Paul speaks of the Church as the Israel of God; therefore, since Israel is God’s first-born, and we are now the New Israel, we and all members of the Church are God’s first-born. So we are first-born who are passed over by the angel of death, and our Passover Lamb is Jesus at the Last Supper and on the Cross.
The question that arises in my mind is why is the first-born so important, and why does it hold such a pivotal place in these highly important events in Salvation History? As usual, I think the answer lies in the events at the beginning. The course the man and the woman set the human race upon is the answer to much of human history and to the questions we have today. According to my theory, the direct result of the Fall was the conception of Cain. They wanted him and were trying to get him; hence, his name means gotten. He was the first-born of the human race. He was a murderer and a son of the evil one. The first-born son of man belonged, in a certain respect, to satan, and Cain gave himself over to his ways and so slaughtered his righteous brother.
Cain imitated his fathers in killing his brother: humanity is like a brother to the angels, and satan wants to destroy us and has destroyed many of us; Adam’s fall resulted in the spiritual death of the human race. Both satan and Adam murdered their brothers so to speak, and Cain only imitated what they did. In one sense it is amazing just how bad the very first person born of man was, yet in another sense, Cain was merely a chip off the old block. Either way you look at it, humanity’s fruitfulness started off with a horrible beginning. And his name was Cain for he was gotten. He was gotten.
So why did the first-born need to be sacrificed or passed over? A clue resides in the three main sacrifices of the Old Testament: bulls, sheep and goats. Bulls needed to be sacrificed because people were worshipping bulls and the bull-god, Apis. The Golden Calf was part of this worship where people were seeking fertility and prosperity and so the men and women would imitated what bulls would do to female cattle. Seeking life, they had an orgy. The result, they hoped, would be a conception: thus, the golden calf. Here, too, they were seeking a child, and they sought this child in a way contrary to their dignity, to God’s plan, and to trusting in God. After the golden calf, bulls needed to be sacrificed as a financial penance and so that the people would no longer worship them.
After the Golden Calf, the people went after another false god symbolized by goats. It was another fertility cult, and the people were again seeking life and a child in their own way and by their own terms. “So they shall no more slay their sacrifices for satyrs, after whom they play the harlot” (Leviticus 17:7). The satyrs are the goat gods who are obsessed with continually having sex, and those who worship these false gods would imitate them. Since the people were involved with this evil practice, God had them sacrifice goats. Again, it was a financial difficulty to sacrifice one’s livestock, and one’s gods did not look kindly on being killed. It was a God-given help to avoid this near occasion of sin.
Sacrificing bulls and goats was mandated because they were worshipped. Sheep were never worshipped, so why would God have us sacrifice them? A sheep is the sacrifice of the Passover, and Jesus is the Lamb of God. They are the most important animal sacrifice, but why does God mandate this sacrifice? Was their any sin associated with sheep or lambs? I think there was. Sheep symbolize humanity. We are like sheep; we are incredibly stupid. So sheep need to be sacrificed because they symbolize us; we worshipped ourselves. When did we do this? We do it every time we sin, but we do it especially when we seek humans over God.
The man and the woman sought a child over and against God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God wanted them to have a child, but He wanted to give it to them virginally as He did with Mary. They sought a child, and they got him, and they named him gotten (Cain). So here the theme of the first-born and sheep come together. The Passovers all have to do with sheep and with first-borns because our first parents worshiped, as it were, their first-born son and even disobeyed God to get him. Their souls were sold to satan in order to get Gotten; that is why he and all of the human family needs to be bought back or redeemed from the prince of this world.
We all deserve death and are in bondage to sin and satan, and we are like lambs, so the solution is for a lamb to take our place that we may be passed over and live. That is why sheep were sacrificed in the Old Testament, but those “sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper” (Hebrews 9:9). These Old Testament laws were good, but they were the symbol, not the reality. “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near” (Hebrews 10:1). Those sacrifices do not make perfect; however, Jesus’ sacrifice is capable of such a feat.
“For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book” (Hebrews 10:4-7). We are given a body in order to have something to sacrifice, and with our bodily sacrifices we are praying with the body. We are given a will in order that we can sacrifice that, too, and by saying “Thy will be done,” we are praying the most important prayer. Prayer and sacrifice, the prayer of the heart and of prayer of the body, when they are combined are the most powerful. When we completely trust God and seek to do whatever He asks of us, especially what He asks us to do with our bodies, then we are far along the path to unity with Him. It is in this full faithfulness that we have abundant life and belong to Him, and that is the meaning of life.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.24.2007
God Himself Will Provide the Lamb
There is an interesting dialogue going on in the comments of my post of 12/19/07, The Heart of a Son. I want to direct you there for I have written a decent amount in those comments.
I decided to include my latest response to a question here as a post since my response was so long. Here it is:
In the comments, CCS said, “Tom B./Jeff Cavin’s question is whether Abraham could have known that he wouldn’t go through with killing Isaac. Hebrews 11:17-19 doesn’t seem to make sense if you read it with the perspective of Abraham knowing he wouldn’t be going through with it.”
I agree, for I do not think that Abraham knew that he would not have to go through with it. He wouldn’t and couldn’t know that. I do think he could have thought that or wondered whether it was a possibility; although, I do not think it was that likely that he thought that.
CCS, you said, “God could have come up with additional choices for Himself. John the Baptist said that God could raise children of Abraham from stones. He could have let Abraham kill Isaac and have Isaac remain dead and yet still produce heirs. Why not?” Of course God could have done as you say, in a certain sense. Because God had said that it was through Isaac that Abraham’s descendants should come, for God to let Isaac die never to rise again would have been the breaking of His word. God, in that sense, had to make sure Isaac lived to father children.
It had to be Isaac and no one else to give Abraham descendants. Abraham’s fall was seeking a son on his own strength with Hagar. Abraham had Ishmael with her, but God told him to send Ishmael away. Genesis 21:8-12 says: “And the child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.’ And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Be not displeased because of the lad and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your descendants be named’.”
God promised Abraham a son, and that son was Isaac. He promised that it was this son who would give Abraham many descendants. Paul talks at length about the importance of it being Isaac who gives Abraham children: “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise” (Galatians 4:22-23).
An enormous amount of the Abraham story revolves around this point of his two sons.
“But what does the scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4: 30). Everyone knows that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Everyone seems to know that except God.
“He [God] said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you’” (Genesis 22:2). In God’s eyes, Isaac is Abraham’s only son. He is the son God promised to give Abraham when he was seventy-five and then finally did give him when he was 100. Abraham slipped up when he was eighty-five fathering Ishmael, and it is because Abraham fails this test of waiting for God to provide him the promised son that Abraham needs to be tested once again. It is because Abraham has two sons, which indicates that he did not trust in God fully, that God has to re-test him by asking him to sacrifice his only remaining son. God could have certainly given Abraham descendants through Ishmael, and He did, but Ishmael was not considered to be his son. Isaac is the only way.
CCS, you also said, “Abraham could have meant that, after he kills his son, he will come back bringing with him his son’s dead body.” From the quote from Genesis in the previous paragraph, Isaac was going to be a burnt offering. Burnt offerings are entirely consumed by fire; that is why Isaac was carrying all the wood; the wood is needed to have a burnt offering.
I still only see two good options of what God could do here: raise Isaac from the dead (and even ash heap), or stop Abraham before he sacrifices his son. The letter to the Hebrews indicates that it was the former, so I would go with that. That still does not entirely rule out the possibility that it crossed Abraham’s mind that God would stop him beforehand. Abraham did have three days to think it all over. Either way, Abraham was prepared and ready and willing to offer up the son of the promise; and he did offer him up; God only stopped him at the last moment. Here Abraham passes the test, and God swears an oath to bless Abraham:
“By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:16-18). All the world will be blessed because of Abraham and Isaac’s faithfulness when Jesus comes to fulfill the self offering, when God provides the lamb.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
I decided to include my latest response to a question here as a post since my response was so long. Here it is:
In the comments, CCS said, “Tom B./Jeff Cavin’s question is whether Abraham could have known that he wouldn’t go through with killing Isaac. Hebrews 11:17-19 doesn’t seem to make sense if you read it with the perspective of Abraham knowing he wouldn’t be going through with it.”
I agree, for I do not think that Abraham knew that he would not have to go through with it. He wouldn’t and couldn’t know that. I do think he could have thought that or wondered whether it was a possibility; although, I do not think it was that likely that he thought that.
CCS, you said, “God could have come up with additional choices for Himself. John the Baptist said that God could raise children of Abraham from stones. He could have let Abraham kill Isaac and have Isaac remain dead and yet still produce heirs. Why not?” Of course God could have done as you say, in a certain sense. Because God had said that it was through Isaac that Abraham’s descendants should come, for God to let Isaac die never to rise again would have been the breaking of His word. God, in that sense, had to make sure Isaac lived to father children.
It had to be Isaac and no one else to give Abraham descendants. Abraham’s fall was seeking a son on his own strength with Hagar. Abraham had Ishmael with her, but God told him to send Ishmael away. Genesis 21:8-12 says: “And the child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.’ And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Be not displeased because of the lad and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your descendants be named’.”
God promised Abraham a son, and that son was Isaac. He promised that it was this son who would give Abraham many descendants. Paul talks at length about the importance of it being Isaac who gives Abraham children: “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise” (Galatians 4:22-23).
An enormous amount of the Abraham story revolves around this point of his two sons.
“But what does the scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4: 30). Everyone knows that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Everyone seems to know that except God.
“He [God] said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you’” (Genesis 22:2). In God’s eyes, Isaac is Abraham’s only son. He is the son God promised to give Abraham when he was seventy-five and then finally did give him when he was 100. Abraham slipped up when he was eighty-five fathering Ishmael, and it is because Abraham fails this test of waiting for God to provide him the promised son that Abraham needs to be tested once again. It is because Abraham has two sons, which indicates that he did not trust in God fully, that God has to re-test him by asking him to sacrifice his only remaining son. God could have certainly given Abraham descendants through Ishmael, and He did, but Ishmael was not considered to be his son. Isaac is the only way.
CCS, you also said, “Abraham could have meant that, after he kills his son, he will come back bringing with him his son’s dead body.” From the quote from Genesis in the previous paragraph, Isaac was going to be a burnt offering. Burnt offerings are entirely consumed by fire; that is why Isaac was carrying all the wood; the wood is needed to have a burnt offering.
I still only see two good options of what God could do here: raise Isaac from the dead (and even ash heap), or stop Abraham before he sacrifices his son. The letter to the Hebrews indicates that it was the former, so I would go with that. That still does not entirely rule out the possibility that it crossed Abraham’s mind that God would stop him beforehand. Abraham did have three days to think it all over. Either way, Abraham was prepared and ready and willing to offer up the son of the promise; and he did offer him up; God only stopped him at the last moment. Here Abraham passes the test, and God swears an oath to bless Abraham:
“By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:16-18). All the world will be blessed because of Abraham and Isaac’s faithfulness when Jesus comes to fulfill the self offering, when God provides the lamb.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
The Three Passovers
Most everyone is familiar with the Passover which is explained in Exodus 12; it was the last and most powerful plague that was the impetus for the Egyptians freeing their Israelite slaves. The plague attacked all the Egyptian firstborn; for the Israelite firstborn to be passed over, they had to slaughter an unblemished year-old male lamb, put its blood on their doorpost using a hyssop branch, and eat the lamb.
The Last Supper is a re-presentation of the Passover; Jesus is re-making and fulfilling this ancient and liberating sacrifice and meal. A very important difference in the Last Supper is that Jesus did not finish the Passover as usual; there were four cups of wine in the Passover, but Jesus stopped after the third. He finished the Passover as He was crucified on the cross and drank the vinegar (cheap wine) from the sponge on the hyssop branch: “After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, ‘It is finished’; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:28-30). What Jesus finished is the re-making of the Passover.
The Last Supper and the Crucifixion are of one piece “For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (1Cor.5:7). Jesus takes on the role that the lamb plays in the Passover. He is sacrificed, and we are passed over. As the Israelites had to sprinkle the lamb’s blood on the doorpost and eat the lamb to be passed over, so we need to be baptized and receive Holy Communion. Baptism is the lamb’s blood on the doorpost because the “doorway” into our “house” is our eyes and face; therefore, the doorpost is our forehead. The water of baptism is the blood of Christ since we are baptized into Jesus’ death. Through these two essential sacraments, we are given the grace to be passed over by the angel of death.
The one Passover that is usually forgotten is Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac back in Genesis 22. I talked about this momentous event a few days ago on 12/19/07, and it is this event and the faithfulness of both Abraham and Isaac that brings about God’s saving actions with his ancestors, the Israelites. The foundation for the Passover is Isaac’s self offering for it is the only time God explicitly swears an oath. The Crucifixion is mostly a re-presentation and fulfillment of Isaac’s sacrifice, and the Last Supper is mostly a re-presentation and fulfillment of the Passover. Thus, there is a parallel structure of events that forms one piece, one reality:
A Isaac’s Sacrifice
B Passover
B’ Last Supper
A’ Jesus’ Sacrifice
One of the common themes here in these three Passovers is the first-born son. In the Passover, not only were the first born Egyptians killed and the first-born Israelites passed over, all of Israel was passed over for they are God’s first-born son: “And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me’; if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your first-born son’” (Exodus 4:22-23).
The other common theme in all of these is the symbolism of baptism and the Eucharist. Even after the Passover, the Israelites had not completed their escape from their enemies. The Egyptians pursued Israel and had them trapped up against the Red Sea with no where to escape. God opened up a way of escape through the water which gave new life to Israel and destroyed their enemies in the process. Once they were out in the wilderness, they grew hungry, and God provided food from heaven. After leaving Egypt, the Israelites again were saved through the water and fed by the heavenly bread. A further structure could look like this:
A Isaac’s Sacrifice
B Passover
C Through the Red Sea
C' Manna in the Wilderness
B’ Last Supper
A’ Jesus’ Sacrifice
One thing we can learn from all this is the immense importance of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. If we receive baptism and Holy Communion, we are given the grace to pick up our cross and follow Jesus; we are given the new heart, the new tree of life, so that we can lay down our life in our everyday activity, so that we can be a person for others, so that we can love God with all our heart, mind and soul; we are given the grace to lay down our life for our friends and to be crucified alongside our Savior Jesus.
We, the baptized, are making our journey through the desert of this life on our way to the Promised Land, heaven. To make our way well, we need our daily bread which is daily prayer and Holy Communion. Many of the Israelites who ate the manna died along the way and did not make it to the Promised Land because of their faithless hearts. Likewise, just receiving the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist does not guarantee anything. We still have to step out in faith and follow our Lord wherever He leads and do whatever He asks. We still need to give ourselves entirely to Him. Thankfully, He provides even the grace to do that.
What I would like to examine next is the significance of the first-born in these key events and how it might possibly relate to the Fall of Adam and Eve.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
The Last Supper is a re-presentation of the Passover; Jesus is re-making and fulfilling this ancient and liberating sacrifice and meal. A very important difference in the Last Supper is that Jesus did not finish the Passover as usual; there were four cups of wine in the Passover, but Jesus stopped after the third. He finished the Passover as He was crucified on the cross and drank the vinegar (cheap wine) from the sponge on the hyssop branch: “After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, ‘It is finished’; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:28-30). What Jesus finished is the re-making of the Passover.
The Last Supper and the Crucifixion are of one piece “For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (1Cor.5:7). Jesus takes on the role that the lamb plays in the Passover. He is sacrificed, and we are passed over. As the Israelites had to sprinkle the lamb’s blood on the doorpost and eat the lamb to be passed over, so we need to be baptized and receive Holy Communion. Baptism is the lamb’s blood on the doorpost because the “doorway” into our “house” is our eyes and face; therefore, the doorpost is our forehead. The water of baptism is the blood of Christ since we are baptized into Jesus’ death. Through these two essential sacraments, we are given the grace to be passed over by the angel of death.
The one Passover that is usually forgotten is Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac back in Genesis 22. I talked about this momentous event a few days ago on 12/19/07, and it is this event and the faithfulness of both Abraham and Isaac that brings about God’s saving actions with his ancestors, the Israelites. The foundation for the Passover is Isaac’s self offering for it is the only time God explicitly swears an oath. The Crucifixion is mostly a re-presentation and fulfillment of Isaac’s sacrifice, and the Last Supper is mostly a re-presentation and fulfillment of the Passover. Thus, there is a parallel structure of events that forms one piece, one reality:
A Isaac’s Sacrifice
B Passover
B’ Last Supper
A’ Jesus’ Sacrifice
One of the common themes here in these three Passovers is the first-born son. In the Passover, not only were the first born Egyptians killed and the first-born Israelites passed over, all of Israel was passed over for they are God’s first-born son: “And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me’; if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your first-born son’” (Exodus 4:22-23).
The other common theme in all of these is the symbolism of baptism and the Eucharist. Even after the Passover, the Israelites had not completed their escape from their enemies. The Egyptians pursued Israel and had them trapped up against the Red Sea with no where to escape. God opened up a way of escape through the water which gave new life to Israel and destroyed their enemies in the process. Once they were out in the wilderness, they grew hungry, and God provided food from heaven. After leaving Egypt, the Israelites again were saved through the water and fed by the heavenly bread. A further structure could look like this:
A Isaac’s Sacrifice
B Passover
C Through the Red Sea
C' Manna in the Wilderness
B’ Last Supper
A’ Jesus’ Sacrifice
One thing we can learn from all this is the immense importance of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. If we receive baptism and Holy Communion, we are given the grace to pick up our cross and follow Jesus; we are given the new heart, the new tree of life, so that we can lay down our life in our everyday activity, so that we can be a person for others, so that we can love God with all our heart, mind and soul; we are given the grace to lay down our life for our friends and to be crucified alongside our Savior Jesus.
We, the baptized, are making our journey through the desert of this life on our way to the Promised Land, heaven. To make our way well, we need our daily bread which is daily prayer and Holy Communion. Many of the Israelites who ate the manna died along the way and did not make it to the Promised Land because of their faithless hearts. Likewise, just receiving the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist does not guarantee anything. We still have to step out in faith and follow our Lord wherever He leads and do whatever He asks. We still need to give ourselves entirely to Him. Thankfully, He provides even the grace to do that.
What I would like to examine next is the significance of the first-born in these key events and how it might possibly relate to the Fall of Adam and Eve.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.19.2007
The Heart of a Son
One of the greatest events of the Old Testament is the sacrifice of Isaac. God directed Abraham to sacrifice his only son; this was the trial of faith God sent Abraham to see if he really trusted and loved God. This time, Abraham passed this very difficult test. There are many parallels between Isaac and Jesus here.
Abraham had to walk for three days to get to the place of the sacrifice. In his mind, Isaac was as good as dead for those three days. “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the ass; I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.’ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together” (Genesis 22:4-6). Isaac carried the wood for the burnt offering; this is no task for a young boy for that is a decent amount of wood to be carried to a place “afar off.”
This carrying of the wood is fulfilled when Jesus takes up His cross to His sacrifice. Another similarity between the two is that Isaac’s sacrifice and Calvary where Jesus was sacrificed are both on Mount Moriah, so they both take place in the same general geographical location. Jesus and Isaac are both righteous first-born sons and only children who are sacrificed by their father. Both are tests of faith. Instead of Isaac actually being killed, there was a ram caught by its horns in a thorn bush, and this is a symbol of Jesus being crowned with thorns.
Jesus willingly offered Himself up to the Father. Did Isaac willingly offer himself? Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, and now Isaac is at least a teenager which would make Abraham somewhere between 115 and 135 years old. If Isaac is strong enough to carry all that wood such a long distance, surely he is strong enough to escape from an elderly man. Since Abraham bound Isaac, doesn’t that mean Isaac was not a willing victim? Not necessarily. If Isaac could easily overpower his father, then he would want to be bound before he offered himself so that he would not escape when the time arrived. Out of fear Isaac could change his mind and escape from his father if he is not bound; he does not want to do escape; he wants to offer himself.
At the first, Isaac did not know that he was going to be the victim. He was walking with his father with the wood on his back, “and Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here am I, my son.’ He said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’ So they went both of them together (Genesis 22:7-8). Isaac soon finds out that he is the sacrifice, that he is the lamb. Yet on another level, Abraham is prophesying about the Lamb of God that the Father will send—Jesus.
As Abraham was in the act of sacrificing his son, “the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me’” (Genesis 22:11-12). Abraham passes his ultimate test of faith for he believes God will raise Isaac even from the dead. Isaac, too, believes in God that God will resurrect his body so that he can go on to be the father of a multitude. For three days, Abraham considered his son to be dead, and on this third day, he re-gains his only son; this, of course, parallels Jesus’ three-day-old death which was followed by his resurrection.
Isaac is spared the knife, but a sacrifice still needs to take place. Abraham looked up and saw a ram with his horns entangled in a thorn bush. “Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place The LORD will provide; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided’” (Genesis 22:13-14). Isaac was passed over, and God provided the sacrifice.
God is so pleased with Abraham and Isaac’s trusting hearts that He does something which is no where else recorded in Scripture. He swears by Himself and puts Himself under a curse. “By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22: 16-18).
This is Israel’s life-insurance policy which saves them and brings them out of Egypt, keeps them alive after the Golden Calf, keeps them alive after the ten faithless spies don’t trust God to give them the Promised Land, keeps them alive with all their grumbling in the desert, keeps them alive when the second generation was about to go into the promised land and they sinned again with Baal of Peor. It is Abraham and Isaac’s faithfulness which keeps them going, for God has sworn to bless them and to have all the nations bless themselves by Abraham’s descendants.
This sacrifice brought down so many blessing upon the earth. It became Israel’s life-line, and it would be what called down God from heaven. Because God swore an oath to bless the nations through Abraham’s descendants, He was under a curse to make this happen. Jesus takes this curse upon Himself as Paul explains: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree’—that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14). Paul is quoting Deuteronomy 21:23, and he sees the curse Christ took on for our sakes as the fulfillment of the oath sworn to Abraham. God became accursed so we could be blessed.
God tests us, and that testing is not only for our sakes and benefit. When we are faithful to God, in whatever capacity and to whatever degree, we bring blessings upon the earth. God does not save us against our will and in spite of ourselves; He wants us to cooperate with Him and to participate in our own and others’ redemption. Insofar as we imitate Abraham and Isaac and their unreserved and total gift of self, insofar as we lay down our life for our beloved like Jesus, this is the degree we are blessed by God and bring many blessing upon the world around us. World peace comes about through this type of self-sacrifice.
In baptism we receive adoption as sons, “and because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). These are the words of Isaac as he asked his father where the sacrificial lamb was that they were going to slay. Abraham tells him a bit later that Isaac himself is the lamb. Baptism makes us children of God who are willing to lay down our lives for others and to be faithful to God to the point of shedding our blood. The Eucharist is that pierced heart of Jesus on the cross that replaces our dead, stony heart so that we, too, can love with such a love and lay down our life in service to others in all that we do, both big and small.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Abraham had to walk for three days to get to the place of the sacrifice. In his mind, Isaac was as good as dead for those three days. “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the ass; I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.’ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together” (Genesis 22:4-6). Isaac carried the wood for the burnt offering; this is no task for a young boy for that is a decent amount of wood to be carried to a place “afar off.”
This carrying of the wood is fulfilled when Jesus takes up His cross to His sacrifice. Another similarity between the two is that Isaac’s sacrifice and Calvary where Jesus was sacrificed are both on Mount Moriah, so they both take place in the same general geographical location. Jesus and Isaac are both righteous first-born sons and only children who are sacrificed by their father. Both are tests of faith. Instead of Isaac actually being killed, there was a ram caught by its horns in a thorn bush, and this is a symbol of Jesus being crowned with thorns.
Jesus willingly offered Himself up to the Father. Did Isaac willingly offer himself? Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, and now Isaac is at least a teenager which would make Abraham somewhere between 115 and 135 years old. If Isaac is strong enough to carry all that wood such a long distance, surely he is strong enough to escape from an elderly man. Since Abraham bound Isaac, doesn’t that mean Isaac was not a willing victim? Not necessarily. If Isaac could easily overpower his father, then he would want to be bound before he offered himself so that he would not escape when the time arrived. Out of fear Isaac could change his mind and escape from his father if he is not bound; he does not want to do escape; he wants to offer himself.
At the first, Isaac did not know that he was going to be the victim. He was walking with his father with the wood on his back, “and Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here am I, my son.’ He said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’ So they went both of them together (Genesis 22:7-8). Isaac soon finds out that he is the sacrifice, that he is the lamb. Yet on another level, Abraham is prophesying about the Lamb of God that the Father will send—Jesus.
As Abraham was in the act of sacrificing his son, “the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me’” (Genesis 22:11-12). Abraham passes his ultimate test of faith for he believes God will raise Isaac even from the dead. Isaac, too, believes in God that God will resurrect his body so that he can go on to be the father of a multitude. For three days, Abraham considered his son to be dead, and on this third day, he re-gains his only son; this, of course, parallels Jesus’ three-day-old death which was followed by his resurrection.
Isaac is spared the knife, but a sacrifice still needs to take place. Abraham looked up and saw a ram with his horns entangled in a thorn bush. “Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place The LORD will provide; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided’” (Genesis 22:13-14). Isaac was passed over, and God provided the sacrifice.
God is so pleased with Abraham and Isaac’s trusting hearts that He does something which is no where else recorded in Scripture. He swears by Himself and puts Himself under a curse. “By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22: 16-18).
This is Israel’s life-insurance policy which saves them and brings them out of Egypt, keeps them alive after the Golden Calf, keeps them alive after the ten faithless spies don’t trust God to give them the Promised Land, keeps them alive with all their grumbling in the desert, keeps them alive when the second generation was about to go into the promised land and they sinned again with Baal of Peor. It is Abraham and Isaac’s faithfulness which keeps them going, for God has sworn to bless them and to have all the nations bless themselves by Abraham’s descendants.
This sacrifice brought down so many blessing upon the earth. It became Israel’s life-line, and it would be what called down God from heaven. Because God swore an oath to bless the nations through Abraham’s descendants, He was under a curse to make this happen. Jesus takes this curse upon Himself as Paul explains: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree’—that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14). Paul is quoting Deuteronomy 21:23, and he sees the curse Christ took on for our sakes as the fulfillment of the oath sworn to Abraham. God became accursed so we could be blessed.
God tests us, and that testing is not only for our sakes and benefit. When we are faithful to God, in whatever capacity and to whatever degree, we bring blessings upon the earth. God does not save us against our will and in spite of ourselves; He wants us to cooperate with Him and to participate in our own and others’ redemption. Insofar as we imitate Abraham and Isaac and their unreserved and total gift of self, insofar as we lay down our life for our beloved like Jesus, this is the degree we are blessed by God and bring many blessing upon the world around us. World peace comes about through this type of self-sacrifice.
In baptism we receive adoption as sons, “and because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). These are the words of Isaac as he asked his father where the sacrificial lamb was that they were going to slay. Abraham tells him a bit later that Isaac himself is the lamb. Baptism makes us children of God who are willing to lay down our lives for others and to be faithful to God to the point of shedding our blood. The Eucharist is that pierced heart of Jesus on the cross that replaces our dead, stony heart so that we, too, can love with such a love and lay down our life in service to others in all that we do, both big and small.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.18.2007
A Living Sacrifice
God promised a son to Abraham when he was seventy-five, and God gave him that son twenty-five years later when he was 100 years old. Isaac grew up and became a strong young man. “After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you’” (Genesis 22:1-2).
Abraham had failed his first major trail of faith fifteen years before when he listened to the voice of his wife and went in to her maid to try to fulfill God’s promise. Ishmael was the fruit, and circumcision was his penitential punishment and symbolized what needed to happen to his heart. This, now, is Abraham’s second chance to live by faith, eat of the tree of life, and trust God in the face of death. God’s asking Abraham to sacrifice his son is the fulfillment of what circumcision symbolized: a heart of faith that trusts and obeys God even when intellectually it makes no sense.
What is the significance of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son? This was the promised son who took twenty-five years for an elderly barren couple to birth at the ages of 100 and ninety. They had waited what seemed like forever, and all human hope had long ago vanished that they would ever conceive a baby. When they heard of the updated promise that he was still going to come to them, they simply laughed. It was preposterous that a ninety-nine and eighty-nine year old should conceive a son, so all they could do was laugh. And they did.
Beyond just the extremely long and impossible waiting for the promised son, this son was incredibly important. This was the boy through whom God had promised to make Abraham a multitude of nations and a father of descendants greater than the sands on the sea shore. This Isaac and no other was the one who would marry, have a family, and be the beginning of an enormous number of people. This Isaac was the one God asked Abraham to sacrifice.
This makes no human sense. God had promised both to give Abraham a son and that this son would be father of an innumerable quantity of descendants; it is similar to God’s command for our first parents to be fruitful and multiply. God then asks Abraham to kill this son which God had given him; this is similar to God asking our first parents and Mary to remain virgins (which normally means one is not going to have children). All of these appear to be contradictory commands/directives from God. They don’t make sense. Our intellect does not know how to handle this discrepancy.
All Abraham has left is his faith to pass this test. He has to eat of his tree of life, which is to believe in his heart that God knows what He is doing, and obey what God asks of him. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.’ He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham’s descendants would come through Isaac, so if God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, God must be planning to raise Isaac from the dead. That is how much Abraham believed in God, that, even though he had never seen it, Abraham believed that God would raise his son from the dead.
The quest for a son that Abraham embarks on many years before comes to completion here when he offers up his only son, Isaac. This quest and Abraham’s faithfulness in the face of his only son’s death, is one of the very most important events in the Old Testament. God stops the hand of Abraham, and He Himself provides the sacrifice: a ram caught by its horns in a thorn bush. This prefigures what God will ultimately do when He sends His only Son crowned by thorns. Abraham’s sacrifice is also the first Passover, for Isaac was passed over. It is his faithfulness which brings down God’s blessings and grace and is the reason for the Israelites’ Passover which set them free from Egypt.
May we eat of the tree of life and so imitate our self-sacrificing Savior and bring down God’s grace and blessings to all those around us; let us offer up our bodies in penance and lay them down in the service of others; let us be willing to be a sacrifice as Isaac was, and if God sees fit, let us be a sacrifice as Jesus was. There is the prayer of the heart, and there is the prayer of the body; we need both, and together they are very powerful. “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (Romans 12:1).
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Abraham had failed his first major trail of faith fifteen years before when he listened to the voice of his wife and went in to her maid to try to fulfill God’s promise. Ishmael was the fruit, and circumcision was his penitential punishment and symbolized what needed to happen to his heart. This, now, is Abraham’s second chance to live by faith, eat of the tree of life, and trust God in the face of death. God’s asking Abraham to sacrifice his son is the fulfillment of what circumcision symbolized: a heart of faith that trusts and obeys God even when intellectually it makes no sense.
What is the significance of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son? This was the promised son who took twenty-five years for an elderly barren couple to birth at the ages of 100 and ninety. They had waited what seemed like forever, and all human hope had long ago vanished that they would ever conceive a baby. When they heard of the updated promise that he was still going to come to them, they simply laughed. It was preposterous that a ninety-nine and eighty-nine year old should conceive a son, so all they could do was laugh. And they did.
Beyond just the extremely long and impossible waiting for the promised son, this son was incredibly important. This was the boy through whom God had promised to make Abraham a multitude of nations and a father of descendants greater than the sands on the sea shore. This Isaac and no other was the one who would marry, have a family, and be the beginning of an enormous number of people. This Isaac was the one God asked Abraham to sacrifice.
This makes no human sense. God had promised both to give Abraham a son and that this son would be father of an innumerable quantity of descendants; it is similar to God’s command for our first parents to be fruitful and multiply. God then asks Abraham to kill this son which God had given him; this is similar to God asking our first parents and Mary to remain virgins (which normally means one is not going to have children). All of these appear to be contradictory commands/directives from God. They don’t make sense. Our intellect does not know how to handle this discrepancy.
All Abraham has left is his faith to pass this test. He has to eat of his tree of life, which is to believe in his heart that God knows what He is doing, and obey what God asks of him. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.’ He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham’s descendants would come through Isaac, so if God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, God must be planning to raise Isaac from the dead. That is how much Abraham believed in God, that, even though he had never seen it, Abraham believed that God would raise his son from the dead.
The quest for a son that Abraham embarks on many years before comes to completion here when he offers up his only son, Isaac. This quest and Abraham’s faithfulness in the face of his only son’s death, is one of the very most important events in the Old Testament. God stops the hand of Abraham, and He Himself provides the sacrifice: a ram caught by its horns in a thorn bush. This prefigures what God will ultimately do when He sends His only Son crowned by thorns. Abraham’s sacrifice is also the first Passover, for Isaac was passed over. It is his faithfulness which brings down God’s blessings and grace and is the reason for the Israelites’ Passover which set them free from Egypt.
May we eat of the tree of life and so imitate our self-sacrificing Savior and bring down God’s grace and blessings to all those around us; let us offer up our bodies in penance and lay them down in the service of others; let us be willing to be a sacrifice as Isaac was, and if God sees fit, let us be a sacrifice as Jesus was. There is the prayer of the heart, and there is the prayer of the body; we need both, and together they are very powerful. “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (Romans 12:1).
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Abraham's Understandable Fall
God tested Abraham a number of times during his life: He called him to come to the Promised Land, had him fight in that foreign land against four kings to redeem his nephew Lot, and promised to give him a baby of his own. Abraham passed all these minor tests very well. When God promised to send Abraham his own son, Abraham believed that God would be faithful to His promise. For his belief, God considered Abraham to be righteous. Everything looked wonderful for Abraham who always did what God asked of him and who always believed in God in his heart.
To fully and truly test Abraham, however, God would need to pass Abraham through a trial of faith. He would have to give him a test that would go beyond his intellectual ability to pass the test; the only way to pass such a test when the intellect is rendered useless is to have a full and pure trust in God. So God delayed in sending the promised son. Time is of the essence to an elderly, barren couple. Every day is like a thousand years. After about 3,650 days, when Abraham was eighty-five and Sarah was seventy-five, which seemed like 3,650,000 days, it became humanly obvious that Sarah was not going to have a child.
Sarah, at her wits end, logically and prudently discovered another path to fulfilling God’s promise: Hagar. Maybe God wanted to give them a son through Sarah’s maid. God helps those who help themselves, so it became time to take matters into their own hands. If God was going to send a son, He would have and could have and should have done it already. It must be that God wanted us to use our reason, she must have thought, to figure out a way to make good on what God said would happen. The rationalization that took place is so easy to understand and relate to for we in the modern world do this sort of thing all the time.
At our worst times, we utterly forget God and His providential care of us and think that everything depends on us. At our best, we work as though everything depends on us, but we always are fully aware that it is really up to God. The first is a totally man centered attitude and the second is God centered. The first is fueled by despair and its fruit is selfishness; the second is enlivened by hope and its fruit is the joyful and peaceful offering of self.
Sarah, understandably, gave bad advice to her husband, and he followed it and fell. All of us can relate to such a logical and reasonable and, at root, faithless response for we have all done it ourselves. Abraham, who had perfectly passed three minor tests, does not endure the ultimate test of faith. He lasted for ten years of hell, but then he fell. God needed to send him another test to purify and bring to maturity Abraham’s faith.
To pass this next test, Abraham would have to have complete trust that God would be faithful to His promises, even though what God asked made no human sense. Abraham would need to eat fully of the tree of life. How is this done? God shows Abraham through the covenant of circumcision. On the one hand, it is a penance showing that it is not by human power or ability that we have life; on the other it is a symbol of the stony heart which needs to be broken so that the heart of flesh, the heart that loves and obeys, which lies underneath the heart of stone may beat once again and trust in God no matter how absurd.
God ends up asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac; this seems to contradict God’s promise to give Abraham a vast multitude of descendants through this son. This time Abraham believes God completely, for “he considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19). This will be our topic for tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
To fully and truly test Abraham, however, God would need to pass Abraham through a trial of faith. He would have to give him a test that would go beyond his intellectual ability to pass the test; the only way to pass such a test when the intellect is rendered useless is to have a full and pure trust in God. So God delayed in sending the promised son. Time is of the essence to an elderly, barren couple. Every day is like a thousand years. After about 3,650 days, when Abraham was eighty-five and Sarah was seventy-five, which seemed like 3,650,000 days, it became humanly obvious that Sarah was not going to have a child.
Sarah, at her wits end, logically and prudently discovered another path to fulfilling God’s promise: Hagar. Maybe God wanted to give them a son through Sarah’s maid. God helps those who help themselves, so it became time to take matters into their own hands. If God was going to send a son, He would have and could have and should have done it already. It must be that God wanted us to use our reason, she must have thought, to figure out a way to make good on what God said would happen. The rationalization that took place is so easy to understand and relate to for we in the modern world do this sort of thing all the time.
At our worst times, we utterly forget God and His providential care of us and think that everything depends on us. At our best, we work as though everything depends on us, but we always are fully aware that it is really up to God. The first is a totally man centered attitude and the second is God centered. The first is fueled by despair and its fruit is selfishness; the second is enlivened by hope and its fruit is the joyful and peaceful offering of self.
Sarah, understandably, gave bad advice to her husband, and he followed it and fell. All of us can relate to such a logical and reasonable and, at root, faithless response for we have all done it ourselves. Abraham, who had perfectly passed three minor tests, does not endure the ultimate test of faith. He lasted for ten years of hell, but then he fell. God needed to send him another test to purify and bring to maturity Abraham’s faith.
To pass this next test, Abraham would have to have complete trust that God would be faithful to His promises, even though what God asked made no human sense. Abraham would need to eat fully of the tree of life. How is this done? God shows Abraham through the covenant of circumcision. On the one hand, it is a penance showing that it is not by human power or ability that we have life; on the other it is a symbol of the stony heart which needs to be broken so that the heart of flesh, the heart that loves and obeys, which lies underneath the heart of stone may beat once again and trust in God no matter how absurd.
God ends up asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac; this seems to contradict God’s promise to give Abraham a vast multitude of descendants through this son. This time Abraham believes God completely, for “he considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19). This will be our topic for tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.17.2007
Quest for a Baby Part Three
God promised Abraham a child when he was seventy-five but did not give him a son until he was 100. When Abraham was eighty-five he listened to the voice of his wife who encouraged him to have relations with her maid. Ishmael was the result. Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian maid, was the mother. Abraham does indeed have a son, but this is not the son that God had promised. This is the son that Abraham gets by his own efforts and contrary to the plan God had: to give him a baby through his wife.
This is a re-enactment of the original baby quest with Adam and Eve. They wanted a child and to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, but God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is not to have marital relations. Adam listened to the voice of his wife, and viola, Cain was conceived. They realize they were naked, and the woman’s pain in bearing children is increased. The man’s ability to plant good things in the ground is diminished for he just planted his seed (semen) into the ground (his wife), and it brought forth a thorn and thistle: Cain.
Ishmael was conceived when Abraham was eighty-five, and he was born when Abraham was eighty-six. Thirteen years later, God talks with Abraham and once again promises to make him and his wife the parents of child which will lead to a vast multitude of generations to follow. God makes a new covenant with him and requires for the first time that all the males be circumcised. All newborns will be circumcised at eight days old, and anyone who wants to be a part of the family of God will need to be circumcised before he is considered so.
Then, God again promises to give a baby to Abraham and his wife. “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in thy sight!’” (Genesis 17:17-18). Abraham still wants God to fulfill His promise of many descendants through Ishmael; in the end, Ishmael is not even considered Abraham’s son; Isaac is Abraham’s only son. Isaac means laughter, and that name was given to him because both his parents laughed when they heard that God was going to give them a baby.
God still blessed and multiplied Ishmael who is a major patriarch of the Islamic religion, for Middle-Eastern Muslims trace their genealogy back to him. Ishmael was circumcised when he was thirteen years old, which was the custom of the Egyptians as a right of passage into manhood. By circumcising him at thirteen, it signifies that he is an Egyptian, born of an Egyptian slave, and not a true member of the household of Abraham. “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise.” (Galatians 4:22-23).
Paul continues saying, “Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4:28-31). Gob blesses Ishmael, but he does not become a member of God’s people. He is a slave with a slave’s mentality, and even today the Islamic religion is one where they see themselves as slaves and God as supreme master. It is blasphemy for them to call God “Father.”
Because Abraham relied on the power of his flesh to conceive a son and not on the promise God had given him, God punishes him in the flesh and the exact part of the flesh. He relied on his sexual organ to give life, and so now that organ needs to be cut around as a penance and reminder that life comes from God. It would have been no easy thing to be circumcised at age ninety-nine, yet so Abraham was. Because Abraham did not trust in his heart that God would be faithful to accomplish what He promised, Abraham turned to Hagar. Because he did not eat of his tree of life, he turned instead to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
What is the significance of circumcision? It says in Deuteronomy 10:16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” There seems to be some connection between circumcision and the heart. At the end of Deuteronomy, there is a very interesting passage about circumcision of the heart:
“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…. And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD, and keep all his commandments which I command you this day. The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body…and in the fruit of your ground; for the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (30:6-10).
Circumcision of the heart is loving and turning to God with all one’s heart, and it is obeying all His commands. God delights (Eden) in us and prospers our work and the fruit of our bodies (children). Abraham failed his test when he did not wait upon the Lord just as Adam gave up waiting, too. They stopped waiting and trusting in God and so took matters into their own hands to gain life; they tried to save their life and so lost it.
Paul talks a good deal about circumcision in both his letter to Rome and Galatia. In Romans he says: “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (2:28-29). Real circumcision is an internal, spiritual matter of the heart. Circumcision is a sign of what needs to happen to our hearts.
Our tendency is to turn our trust from God and put it in our abilities, especially our ability to generate children; God gives circumcision to remind us that it is not by our strength and might that we have life; life is given to those who eat of the tree of life, to those who trust in God. Life does not come from the goods of the earth but from God and His commands to us, as Jesus said during His temptation: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
The tree of life is the heart because it is only by means of a trusting, loving and obedient heart that we have life: this is a circumcised heart. Our hearts need to be circumcised because at the Fall they turned from God and became dead and stony. We need new hearts of flesh, a circumcised heart. Jesus gives us his pierced heart which loves and obeys unto death when we receive the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
This is a re-enactment of the original baby quest with Adam and Eve. They wanted a child and to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, but God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is not to have marital relations. Adam listened to the voice of his wife, and viola, Cain was conceived. They realize they were naked, and the woman’s pain in bearing children is increased. The man’s ability to plant good things in the ground is diminished for he just planted his seed (semen) into the ground (his wife), and it brought forth a thorn and thistle: Cain.
Ishmael was conceived when Abraham was eighty-five, and he was born when Abraham was eighty-six. Thirteen years later, God talks with Abraham and once again promises to make him and his wife the parents of child which will lead to a vast multitude of generations to follow. God makes a new covenant with him and requires for the first time that all the males be circumcised. All newborns will be circumcised at eight days old, and anyone who wants to be a part of the family of God will need to be circumcised before he is considered so.
Then, God again promises to give a baby to Abraham and his wife. “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in thy sight!’” (Genesis 17:17-18). Abraham still wants God to fulfill His promise of many descendants through Ishmael; in the end, Ishmael is not even considered Abraham’s son; Isaac is Abraham’s only son. Isaac means laughter, and that name was given to him because both his parents laughed when they heard that God was going to give them a baby.
God still blessed and multiplied Ishmael who is a major patriarch of the Islamic religion, for Middle-Eastern Muslims trace their genealogy back to him. Ishmael was circumcised when he was thirteen years old, which was the custom of the Egyptians as a right of passage into manhood. By circumcising him at thirteen, it signifies that he is an Egyptian, born of an Egyptian slave, and not a true member of the household of Abraham. “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise.” (Galatians 4:22-23).
Paul continues saying, “Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4:28-31). Gob blesses Ishmael, but he does not become a member of God’s people. He is a slave with a slave’s mentality, and even today the Islamic religion is one where they see themselves as slaves and God as supreme master. It is blasphemy for them to call God “Father.”
Because Abraham relied on the power of his flesh to conceive a son and not on the promise God had given him, God punishes him in the flesh and the exact part of the flesh. He relied on his sexual organ to give life, and so now that organ needs to be cut around as a penance and reminder that life comes from God. It would have been no easy thing to be circumcised at age ninety-nine, yet so Abraham was. Because Abraham did not trust in his heart that God would be faithful to accomplish what He promised, Abraham turned to Hagar. Because he did not eat of his tree of life, he turned instead to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
What is the significance of circumcision? It says in Deuteronomy 10:16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” There seems to be some connection between circumcision and the heart. At the end of Deuteronomy, there is a very interesting passage about circumcision of the heart:
“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…. And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD, and keep all his commandments which I command you this day. The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body…and in the fruit of your ground; for the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (30:6-10).
Circumcision of the heart is loving and turning to God with all one’s heart, and it is obeying all His commands. God delights (Eden) in us and prospers our work and the fruit of our bodies (children). Abraham failed his test when he did not wait upon the Lord just as Adam gave up waiting, too. They stopped waiting and trusting in God and so took matters into their own hands to gain life; they tried to save their life and so lost it.
Paul talks a good deal about circumcision in both his letter to Rome and Galatia. In Romans he says: “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (2:28-29). Real circumcision is an internal, spiritual matter of the heart. Circumcision is a sign of what needs to happen to our hearts.
Our tendency is to turn our trust from God and put it in our abilities, especially our ability to generate children; God gives circumcision to remind us that it is not by our strength and might that we have life; life is given to those who eat of the tree of life, to those who trust in God. Life does not come from the goods of the earth but from God and His commands to us, as Jesus said during His temptation: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
The tree of life is the heart because it is only by means of a trusting, loving and obedient heart that we have life: this is a circumcised heart. Our hearts need to be circumcised because at the Fall they turned from God and became dead and stony. We need new hearts of flesh, a circumcised heart. Jesus gives us his pierced heart which loves and obeys unto death when we receive the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.12.2007
Sex is Good
Over the past fifteen years that I have been pondering this theory and meditating upon it, I have shared it with many people, both priests and religious, theologians and lawyers, moms and dads, young and old, single and married, laity and consecrated virgins, writers and publishers, highly educated and not so much, and just about anyone who seemed willing to listen. There has been one main concern mentioned by two of these people, and that was the theory sounds a bit Manichean or that the body and sex is bad.
I understand this concern, but this would be a misunderstanding of the theory. I think that a closer look at the theory will show that my theory would fall apart if sex were bad. On my post of 11/15/07, I talked about how the tree of the knowledge of good and evil must be good for good people to have chosen it. In itself, it must have been a good tree; the man and woman had no inclination toward evil and no disordered passions, so choosing an evil would not have been appealing to them. The deception of the serpent was not getting them to think that the tree was good, but it was getting them to distrust God and to think that disobeying His singular command would be good for them. God had given them an extremely difficult trial of faith, and instead of trusting in Him and eating of the tree of life, they trusted in themselves for life and received death.
What I want to highlight today is that sex is good. It is the highest good of the created order. To be more precise, I mean marital relations or sex between spouses. Any sexual activity outside of marital relations open to life is intrinsically disordered and evil, but the marital embrace open to life is a beautiful and holy reality. It is the symbol of God’s relationship to man. God wants the most intimate union with humanity, and He created the marital embrace to symbolize that heavenly reality. Of course sex is not bad; it is holy and is the most awesome activity of this world. Part of its greatness comes because of it symbolism of Christ and His Church. The reality that sex is a symbol of, will only be fully realized in Heaven with God (although in mystical marriage, some of that reality is given).
Now for those partaking of immoral sexual behavior, which is anything outside of marriage that is open to life, of course that behavior is bad. It is not the sex that is bad, but it is the use of that sex that is bad. A knife is not bad; in and of itself it is good; morally, it is neither good nor bad. If the knife is used to make dinner, it is used well. If the knife is used to murder an innocent person, it is used badly and in an evil manner. Sex is far better than an object like a knife, as I said above, but even the best of things can certainly be used for evil or used in an evil manner.
Sex is meant to be used under very precise and exacting circumstances because it is so good and so powerful. To use some more analogies, it is like dynamite or nuclear power; used in the correct manner, time and place, it brings a fuller life; used in the wrong way, time or place, it brings mass destruction. Sex is like that, too. It always has been like that.
Adam and Eve were tested by God as well as were Abraham and Isaac. Each one of us is tested throughout our lives; many tests are small, and a few are large. The test of virginity (which is what I think Adam and Eve’s test was as well as Mary and Joseph’s) is still a common test today. Every priest and sister and nun has passed through that test. Married couples and singles are all called to chastity, and that is a test and a trial, too. In our sex-crazed society, purity in marriage is a challenge; singles are called to live celibate lives until and if ever they get married: that is a struggle. Many voices today say that it is not even possible or healthy to keep sex only for married couples open to life; certainly, then, this is a test. Things haven’t changed much, and it is in our faithful living according to what God wants (summarized in the Ten Commandments and the two Great Commandments of Jesus), that we please Him and are fully alive.
Mistreating sex as just another appetite to be satiated whenever and with whomever I please, only brings loneliness, separation, sickness, misery, destruction and death. The irony is that those who claim Christianity teaches that sex is evil or bad or dirty, are the ones who treat sex as no big deal; they are the ones who degrade sex and make it like simply blowing one’s nose. It is like using fine china as a Frisbee, or a rose as a hammer, or a Ferrari as a bulldozer. It turns people into objects for use, for pleasure. It degrades humanity. Treating sex as sacred personalizes people and gives them great dignity. The proper use and respect of sex breeds deep and lasting joy, peace and life; without such reverence in the face of such a mystery, there is only discord, divorce, disease and death.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
I understand this concern, but this would be a misunderstanding of the theory. I think that a closer look at the theory will show that my theory would fall apart if sex were bad. On my post of 11/15/07, I talked about how the tree of the knowledge of good and evil must be good for good people to have chosen it. In itself, it must have been a good tree; the man and woman had no inclination toward evil and no disordered passions, so choosing an evil would not have been appealing to them. The deception of the serpent was not getting them to think that the tree was good, but it was getting them to distrust God and to think that disobeying His singular command would be good for them. God had given them an extremely difficult trial of faith, and instead of trusting in Him and eating of the tree of life, they trusted in themselves for life and received death.
What I want to highlight today is that sex is good. It is the highest good of the created order. To be more precise, I mean marital relations or sex between spouses. Any sexual activity outside of marital relations open to life is intrinsically disordered and evil, but the marital embrace open to life is a beautiful and holy reality. It is the symbol of God’s relationship to man. God wants the most intimate union with humanity, and He created the marital embrace to symbolize that heavenly reality. Of course sex is not bad; it is holy and is the most awesome activity of this world. Part of its greatness comes because of it symbolism of Christ and His Church. The reality that sex is a symbol of, will only be fully realized in Heaven with God (although in mystical marriage, some of that reality is given).
Now for those partaking of immoral sexual behavior, which is anything outside of marriage that is open to life, of course that behavior is bad. It is not the sex that is bad, but it is the use of that sex that is bad. A knife is not bad; in and of itself it is good; morally, it is neither good nor bad. If the knife is used to make dinner, it is used well. If the knife is used to murder an innocent person, it is used badly and in an evil manner. Sex is far better than an object like a knife, as I said above, but even the best of things can certainly be used for evil or used in an evil manner.
Sex is meant to be used under very precise and exacting circumstances because it is so good and so powerful. To use some more analogies, it is like dynamite or nuclear power; used in the correct manner, time and place, it brings a fuller life; used in the wrong way, time or place, it brings mass destruction. Sex is like that, too. It always has been like that.
Adam and Eve were tested by God as well as were Abraham and Isaac. Each one of us is tested throughout our lives; many tests are small, and a few are large. The test of virginity (which is what I think Adam and Eve’s test was as well as Mary and Joseph’s) is still a common test today. Every priest and sister and nun has passed through that test. Married couples and singles are all called to chastity, and that is a test and a trial, too. In our sex-crazed society, purity in marriage is a challenge; singles are called to live celibate lives until and if ever they get married: that is a struggle. Many voices today say that it is not even possible or healthy to keep sex only for married couples open to life; certainly, then, this is a test. Things haven’t changed much, and it is in our faithful living according to what God wants (summarized in the Ten Commandments and the two Great Commandments of Jesus), that we please Him and are fully alive.
Mistreating sex as just another appetite to be satiated whenever and with whomever I please, only brings loneliness, separation, sickness, misery, destruction and death. The irony is that those who claim Christianity teaches that sex is evil or bad or dirty, are the ones who treat sex as no big deal; they are the ones who degrade sex and make it like simply blowing one’s nose. It is like using fine china as a Frisbee, or a rose as a hammer, or a Ferrari as a bulldozer. It turns people into objects for use, for pleasure. It degrades humanity. Treating sex as sacred personalizes people and gives them great dignity. The proper use and respect of sex breeds deep and lasting joy, peace and life; without such reverence in the face of such a mystery, there is only discord, divorce, disease and death.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.10.2007
The Quest for the Son Begins Again
Last night we discussed how Abraham was called back to his ancestral home to reclaim the family’s rightful inheritance; once he established a peace from his enemies round about, the undisputed head of the family, Shem/Melchizedek, comes out to bless Abraham. Shem is also the King of Salem and priest of God Most High who celebrates using bread and wine. It is possible that Salem, which means peace, later becomes Jerusalem when the Hebrew word for “it will be provided” is added as a prefix. It was added later in Abraham’s story when he offers up his only son in chapter twenty-two and says that God Himself will provide the lamb.
Shem was one of a handful of righteous first-born sons, and he is the king of peace in (Jeru)salem who offers bread and wine. Later, in this same location, Abraham/Isaac offer up Isaac, and God provides the lamb. This provision is all fulfilled when the true King of Kings and King of Peace, the true King of Jerusalem comes offering bread and wine; Jesus is the Lamb that God provided on Calvary in the same general location as Mount Moriah where Isaac offered himself up. Isaac was passed over, becoming the reason God provides the Passover to the Israelites in Egypt, and Jesus fulfills all of these prefigurements when He remakes the Passover at the Last Supper which ends with His own self-offering as the Lamb of God upon the cross.
Abraham is blessed by Shem when Abraham retakes the Promised Land, which solidifies the constant quest for the Promised Land by his descendants. The other primary quest now comes to fruition: the quest for a son. The very first thing that is mentioned after the blessing sequence is completed, is that God speaks to Abraham who immediately asks for a son. Blessings/the inheritance are meant to be passed on to one’s son. This is no ordinary blessing but a powerful, life-changing reality, and it is meant for one’s son. Abraham was quite wealthy before, but now that Abraham has been endowed with such a blessing from the patriarch, Shem, he knows he needs a son and so asks for one the first chance he gets. Thus begins anew the quest for the son.
God does not take long to respond: “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6). God wants to give Abraham a son; that was His plan from the beginning and why He called Him to come to his homeland. Abraham trusts God and believes that God will provide him a son, even though he is at the age of 75 and his wife is 65 and has been barren her whole life.
Ten years later, Abraham and Sarah still have not been given a son. There are key parallels to this story and the Adam and Eve story. Here Abraham and Sarah, with the God-given promise of a son, have been given something like the command to be fruitful and multiply. They have not been given the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they are tempted to have a child outside of the ordinary way children come to couples. In both stories, the husband listens to the voice of his wife and sins. Both tried to fulfill God’s will by their own strength instead of allowing God to provide the son. Eve conceived Cain, and Hagar conceived Ishmael. Neither was the son God promised.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Shem was one of a handful of righteous first-born sons, and he is the king of peace in (Jeru)salem who offers bread and wine. Later, in this same location, Abraham/Isaac offer up Isaac, and God provides the lamb. This provision is all fulfilled when the true King of Kings and King of Peace, the true King of Jerusalem comes offering bread and wine; Jesus is the Lamb that God provided on Calvary in the same general location as Mount Moriah where Isaac offered himself up. Isaac was passed over, becoming the reason God provides the Passover to the Israelites in Egypt, and Jesus fulfills all of these prefigurements when He remakes the Passover at the Last Supper which ends with His own self-offering as the Lamb of God upon the cross.
Abraham is blessed by Shem when Abraham retakes the Promised Land, which solidifies the constant quest for the Promised Land by his descendants. The other primary quest now comes to fruition: the quest for a son. The very first thing that is mentioned after the blessing sequence is completed, is that God speaks to Abraham who immediately asks for a son. Blessings/the inheritance are meant to be passed on to one’s son. This is no ordinary blessing but a powerful, life-changing reality, and it is meant for one’s son. Abraham was quite wealthy before, but now that Abraham has been endowed with such a blessing from the patriarch, Shem, he knows he needs a son and so asks for one the first chance he gets. Thus begins anew the quest for the son.
God does not take long to respond: “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6). God wants to give Abraham a son; that was His plan from the beginning and why He called Him to come to his homeland. Abraham trusts God and believes that God will provide him a son, even though he is at the age of 75 and his wife is 65 and has been barren her whole life.
Ten years later, Abraham and Sarah still have not been given a son. There are key parallels to this story and the Adam and Eve story. Here Abraham and Sarah, with the God-given promise of a son, have been given something like the command to be fruitful and multiply. They have not been given the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they are tempted to have a child outside of the ordinary way children come to couples. In both stories, the husband listens to the voice of his wife and sins. Both tried to fulfill God’s will by their own strength instead of allowing God to provide the son. Eve conceived Cain, and Hagar conceived Ishmael. Neither was the son God promised.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
11.27.2007
Mystical Marriage
Today is the the day eight years ago that my wife and I married. Out of nowhere, freezing temperatures came to town and are holding all of us in Minneapolis hostage. My dear parents came over after work to watch our four little ones while my wife, six-month old and I ventured out into the biting, dark cold to partake of a nice, nearby restaurant. My wife and I had a very nice, quiet chat while our littlest one was content to sit in our laps most of the meal and smile at everyone within sight.
One of our points of conversation was about this blog. I love writing it. I haven't gotten any sleep the past two and a half weeks, but I love writing, and I have so much more I want to say. I need to reorganize my very busy schedule a bit so that sleep is not on the bottom of the list of importance all of the time. We also turned our conversation to marriage, of all things, on this night eight years ago when we began ours. Marriage is all I have been thinking about these past fifteen plus years.
One of the reasons I took the theory that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was sexual relations with some seriousness when I first began looking into it was because I knew from my reading of the spiritual classics from Saint John of the Cross and Saint Theresa of Avila in the Great Books Honors program at Franciscan University of Steubenville that the endpoint of the spiritual life is known as mystical marriage. The fullness of the prayer life is to be married to God. If our final goal in this life and for all eternity is to be married to God, then it would make sense that that is why God created us from the beginning.
Saint John of the Cross, who reached the heights of mystical union with God before he met Saint Theresa of Avila and led her there when he was only twenty-five and she fifty-two, wrote much about the dark night of the soul. Before one reaches mystical marriage with God, he has to undergo a purgation. Any immaturity in one's relationship with God needs to be washed away, so all sense perceptible feelings are entirely bypassed: one does not in any way feel like they love God and all feelings that God even exists are taken away so that one may have a pure and mighty faith, hope and love of God that is unshakable and in no way selfish. When one has successfully climbed past this test, one is truly prepared to receive God in all His fullness (insofar that that is possible on earth).
The reason why God puts a person serious about loving God above all things through all this is that it is the only way to arrive at the fullness of love. Everyone has to go through a test like Adam and Eve or Abraham and Isaac or Mary and Joseph and pass it with an unshakable faith and love if they fully want to bear abundant fruit for God. For it is only on the other side of such a test successfully endured that complete union with God is found. God asks: "Will you marry me?" Saying yes is the easy part; giving ourselves entirely to Him come what may, especially to our crucifixion, is the part that makes most of us shy away and be content with a something less that full relationship.
Earthly marriage has many similarities to our marriage with God; God created the first as a symbol of our union with Him, after all. The point I want to highlight here is that marriage in the mature and full sense of the word, in both cases, has precious little to do with feelings. Feelings are like the wind and come and go and change day by day. Marriage is for life and is unchanging, especially when it comes to God.
One of the greatest roots of the dysfunction and misery in our world today is that we live our life based on our feelings. Sure, feelings are there like the wind is sometimes blowing and is sometimes warm and other times cold, sometimes from the north and occasionally from the south, sometimes with great wrath and other times with a soft caress, but we don't live by the wind. We live in a home that stands strong and is not moved by the wind, no matter how strong or fierce, that isn't bothered by the scorching sun or the whipping rain or the driving, slicing snow. Love is not a feeling. It is a decision. Feelings are present from time to time, but the decision to love remains and endures and does not alter in times of trouble or change.
There comes a time when the pure love of commitment and self-sacrifice grow deep and strong, and it is at this time when all the feelings which supported and propped up that love are stripped away. Only when the crutches and braces and fiberglass casts are removed from our weak legs can we begin to run. The dark night of the soul is a wonderful blessing, and it brings forth the beautiful, pure fruit of love that is never blown with the wind but shines with the light and warmth of the sun.
P.S. Recently, it was revealed that Mother Theresa toward the end of her life had no feeling that God existed. That shouldn't surprise you or shake your faith. That is a wonderful sign that Jesus was bringing her very close to the consuming fire of his bridegroom's heart.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
One of our points of conversation was about this blog. I love writing it. I haven't gotten any sleep the past two and a half weeks, but I love writing, and I have so much more I want to say. I need to reorganize my very busy schedule a bit so that sleep is not on the bottom of the list of importance all of the time. We also turned our conversation to marriage, of all things, on this night eight years ago when we began ours. Marriage is all I have been thinking about these past fifteen plus years.
One of the reasons I took the theory that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was sexual relations with some seriousness when I first began looking into it was because I knew from my reading of the spiritual classics from Saint John of the Cross and Saint Theresa of Avila in the Great Books Honors program at Franciscan University of Steubenville that the endpoint of the spiritual life is known as mystical marriage. The fullness of the prayer life is to be married to God. If our final goal in this life and for all eternity is to be married to God, then it would make sense that that is why God created us from the beginning.
Saint John of the Cross, who reached the heights of mystical union with God before he met Saint Theresa of Avila and led her there when he was only twenty-five and she fifty-two, wrote much about the dark night of the soul. Before one reaches mystical marriage with God, he has to undergo a purgation. Any immaturity in one's relationship with God needs to be washed away, so all sense perceptible feelings are entirely bypassed: one does not in any way feel like they love God and all feelings that God even exists are taken away so that one may have a pure and mighty faith, hope and love of God that is unshakable and in no way selfish. When one has successfully climbed past this test, one is truly prepared to receive God in all His fullness (insofar that that is possible on earth).
The reason why God puts a person serious about loving God above all things through all this is that it is the only way to arrive at the fullness of love. Everyone has to go through a test like Adam and Eve or Abraham and Isaac or Mary and Joseph and pass it with an unshakable faith and love if they fully want to bear abundant fruit for God. For it is only on the other side of such a test successfully endured that complete union with God is found. God asks: "Will you marry me?" Saying yes is the easy part; giving ourselves entirely to Him come what may, especially to our crucifixion, is the part that makes most of us shy away and be content with a something less that full relationship.
Earthly marriage has many similarities to our marriage with God; God created the first as a symbol of our union with Him, after all. The point I want to highlight here is that marriage in the mature and full sense of the word, in both cases, has precious little to do with feelings. Feelings are like the wind and come and go and change day by day. Marriage is for life and is unchanging, especially when it comes to God.
One of the greatest roots of the dysfunction and misery in our world today is that we live our life based on our feelings. Sure, feelings are there like the wind is sometimes blowing and is sometimes warm and other times cold, sometimes from the north and occasionally from the south, sometimes with great wrath and other times with a soft caress, but we don't live by the wind. We live in a home that stands strong and is not moved by the wind, no matter how strong or fierce, that isn't bothered by the scorching sun or the whipping rain or the driving, slicing snow. Love is not a feeling. It is a decision. Feelings are present from time to time, but the decision to love remains and endures and does not alter in times of trouble or change.
There comes a time when the pure love of commitment and self-sacrifice grow deep and strong, and it is at this time when all the feelings which supported and propped up that love are stripped away. Only when the crutches and braces and fiberglass casts are removed from our weak legs can we begin to run. The dark night of the soul is a wonderful blessing, and it brings forth the beautiful, pure fruit of love that is never blown with the wind but shines with the light and warmth of the sun.
P.S. Recently, it was revealed that Mother Theresa toward the end of her life had no feeling that God existed. That shouldn't surprise you or shake your faith. That is a wonderful sign that Jesus was bringing her very close to the consuming fire of his bridegroom's heart.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
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