Thursday, 24 October 2013
Thursday, 10 October 2013
John chapter 2 ... Transformation.
(Painting by Susan-Angelo DeBay http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/susan-debay.html)
This is not a
fast lane; traveling through the Gospel of John.
Chapter 2, is to
me about transformations; one happy occasion and one not so happy … at least
for some.
As the video says
in the previous entry marriage is about transforming from two separate
individuals to one unit where a man and a woman will work with and for each
other and for each other’s best. In the best of worlds that is what we want but
in this broken world millions of people find themselves with a broken
relationship and a broken heart, So marriage is about transformation that needs a lot of work and
attention.
I couldn’t let
go of the thought that there must be more to the story about the wedding feast
in Cana; and I stopped and looked at the jars that were used in the purification ritual. That led me to an article I read years ago about the
Mikvah/Mikveh. (depending how you decide to spell it)
Wikipedia says:
“Mikvah = is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism. The word "mikveh", as used in the Hebrew Bible, literally means a "collection" –
generally, a collection of water.[3] Ancient mikvehs dating from before the late first
century can be found throughout the land of Israel as well as in historic communities of the Jewish diaspora”
“A mikveh must,
according to the classical regulations, contain enough water to cover the
entire body of an average-sized person; based on a mikveh with the dimensions
of 3 cubits long, 1 cubit wide, and 1 cubit deep, the necessary
volume of water was estimated as being 40 seah of water.[8][9] The exact volume referred to by a seah is
debated, and classical rabbinical literature specifies only that it is enough
to fit 144 eggs;[10] most Orthodox Jews use the stringent ruling of the Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, according to which one seah is 14.3 litres,
and therefore a mikveh must contain approximately 575 litres.” [
There are rules
about how and when you make these immersions in a Mikvah and I’m not going to
dwell on that because you can read more about if you like, on the Internet.
The purpose of
the immersion was to cleanse impurity of the soul and stepping down into the
Mikvah and stepping up from the water was a symbol of being “born again” The
transformation from impurity to purity had taken place in the water.
It
was not a happenstance that Jesus chose the jars of purification for the “water-to-wine-miracle”.
The detail about how many jars there were and how much water each jar could contain wasn’t a happenstance
either.
To the Messianic Jews who heard/read the gospel of John it had a
special meaning and it pointed to the purification not by water but through the
blood of Jesus the Messiah.
Yesterday
I came across a book written by Max Lucado. It’s title is “In the grip of
Grace” and in one chapter he asks a question that puts some light on the
impossibility for man to purify himself through a ritual. The question was: “How much does a sin cost?”
Free
translation from Swedish:
“If we
do a good deed for
every bad will the account then break even? If I can
even out my curses
with compliments, my desires with loyalty, my
complaints with the sacrifices
my bad habits with
self-conquest - will
not my account be leveled out?
It would be, if it were not for two things. Firstly, I do not know the
price of every sin. Secondly, I do not always know when I commit a sin. There
are times when I sin without having a clue about it. What about the sins I commit
today without knowing it? What if someone discovers that it is actually a sin
to play golf? Then I'd be in trouble! And what about our secret sins? What then
should we do?
Listen to the apostle Paul in Romans 3
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God, 24 and all are
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through the shedding of his blood—to
be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness,
because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand
unpunished— 26 he
did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just
and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
Simply put; the price for my
sin is so high that I cannot pay for it and the gift of God is greater than I can imagine ... Rom.3:28
says …. a man is justified by
faith.”
(end of translation)
What I want to emphasize from the story of the wedding
in Cana, is not only that Jesus makes a
miracle with water but that
he also does a miracle in my life when he cleanses
my sins.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of Jesus,
his Son, purifies us from all sin.
John 2:11
What Jesus did in Cana of Galilee was the
first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples
believed in him.
Jesus could do whatever he liked with water.
Remember he was there when earth was created:
“And God said, “Let the water under the sky be
gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God
called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God
saw that it was good”…
.... he
walked on water …. he slept through a
storm on water … but the water wasn’t
the whole point …
He was the whole
point and he had authority to do whatever he wanted and He chose to save the
world.
Now … going on to
another more turbulent place …
Thursday, 26 September 2013
Saturday, 21 September 2013
1, 2, 3, 4, .... and million more disciples
Andrew,
Peter, Philip, Nathanael …
... are mentioned in John as followers and disciples
of Jesus. Jesus had confidence in them and asked them to come and join him. It
was an honor to be called to follow a Rabbi. It was usually earned by
fulfilling grades in the School of Torah.
In order to follow a Rabbi you had to proof that you were worthy of the
task.
But to work as
fishermen by the Sea of Galilee and be called to be disciples of a Rabbi wasn't
following tradition as they knew it but something new and very different. Jesus must
have seen beyond traditional expectations when he called these men because
regardless who they were when they started out on their journey with Jesus they
were never to be the same again. Jesus met them at where they were when he called them but he had a vision to make them into another kind of fishermen - fishers of men for the Kingdom of God.
When Jesus meets
two of these men he makes remarks about their personalities. Simon Peter is going to be a “rock” and
Nathanael is praised as “a
true son of Isra’el — nothing false in him!”
Simon Peter was
not a courageous man although he usually made “statements” when nobody else had
anything to say and just before Nathanael met Jesus he had questioned the
credibility of Jesus by pointing out that very few good things, if any, came
from Nazareth.
But it didn’t
stop Jesus from seeing the potential in these men. They were going to learn
from the Living Torah, personified in Jesus himself.
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