Apocalyptic moments with God

Reflections are everywhere - in crystal blue lakes and shining, marble surfaces, in the glass of towering skyscrapers and the concave lenses of ever-present cameras. They capture my thinking and mesmerize me, enticing me to look again because there's more in the picture!

Literature differs from one era to the next.  The myths of really ancient literature, such as the ones told by the Egyptians differ in length and style and a few other ways from the myths told up the timeline by a couple thousand years in Greece.  The tales of the gods of the Norse people differ in style and content from the myths down the timeline a thousand years from the Greeks' tales.  So it goes.  Different eras produce different literature.

One would expect Hebrew literature not to be an exception.  One can see short narratives, for instance, in the earliest tales of the Hebrew people, but by the time of David, the narratives have lengthened and have a different purpose and style than the earlier narratives.  Poems of the Israelites can also be seen as early as the Exodus story (Exodus 15, which many call the Song of Moses), but its form, style, and type are certainly different from the forms exhibited in the book of poetry called Psalms.  A person can see the robust style and technique of a poem like Psalm 119 as very different from the straightforward and focused praise poem of Exodus 15.

So, it really should not surprise anyone at all that the New Testament, too, contains different forms of writing.  Even though it was a much more tightly constrained time period than any of the comparisons in the above paragraphs, its literature still shows variation because of place, time, purpose, and author.  An exercise in accounting for the differences between the synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John illustrates the affect of different circumstances for different audiences in different settings.  And as a person reads the New Testament as a whole, it would not take a genius to notice that the book of Revelation is very different from the other books of the New Testament.  It stands alone.  In fact, it has a greater similarity to a couple of Old Testament books (Daniel and Zechariah) than it does to any of the New Testament books.

But, literature exists in genres.  It would be the rarest of books that stand alone with no connection to other books of its type.  That should be a great indication to any reader that one might want to look for a genre of literature that Revelation fits even if he or she has to look outside the New Testament for comparisons.  At the same time that Revelation was being written, in fact, the books of Second Baruch and Second Esdras were penned.  They contain the same fanciful imagery, visions, and guidance of a human by heavenly beings that Revelation does.  First Enoch one of the first to be written, is somewhat older by a couple or three centuries, but it still contained the features that Revelation adopted of heavenly beings explaining the scheme of things to come to Enoch.  Second Enoch as well might be slightly older than Revelation, but its contents were very similar.  And the Apocalypse of Peter, written around the same time as Revelation, was actually given canonical status by Christan groups in Egypt and Ethiopia, but it never achieved that status by Roman Christians, who had a great deal of influence in canon formation.  Other apocalyptic material existed, but the mention of the above books helps one to see that apocalyptic writing was a genre and a style of writing over about a 400 year period that Revelation fits into.  Understanding the style and genre gives great insight into the interpretation of the New Testament's last book.

Revelation 16 is representative of the help one can receive in interpreting its symbols by knowing the genre of apocalyptic literature.  A series of angels are pouring bowls of wrath onto the Earth.  Immediately one notices that a literal understanding doesn't give insight.  Instead, one knows from other apocalyptic books that angels deliver God's messages to chosen humans.  These angels do things like ride in different directions around the Earth and report to God what they saw (as in Zechariah) or open scrolls and explain its contents (as in Daniel).  They measure things (as in Second Enoch and Ezekiel).  Or they interpret great battles' consequences for all who live on the Earth (as in Second Esdras).

The bowls of Revelation 16, then, are actions of angels with a message for the inhabitants of Earth.  They are symbols belonging to the story of Christians who have cried out for God to avenge their oppression and suffering that has been unfolding in previous chapters.  The seven seals, for instance, show that God has received reports from his angels of his people's suffering, then reveals that he is going to act on their behalf to avenge their suffering.  Seven trumpets follow to publicly announce to his people that God knows who exactly is responsible for the persecution against his son's followers and that their end is new.  After the trumpets, John sees a vision in the sky of an evil force (Satan), who tries to eliminate Christianity as it was being born from Judaism and that Roman leaders (the first beast) and Jewish leaders (the second beast) had been in cahoots with the Romans and on their own oppressing his sacred people, now those who follow the slain lamb.

In auspicious manner (because Revelation 15.1 says these seven angels' actions are God's πληγὰς ἑπτὰ τὰς ἐσχάτας... ἐτελέσθη ὁ θυμὸς τοῦ θεοῦ  ["seven last plagues... that finish his anger"]), seven angels start pouring out bowls of anger onto the Earth.  The first four recall God's dealings with the king of Egypt 1500 years prior to John's time in a Great Deliverance that alleviated his people's pain of suffering. The first four bowls of anger conjured up the accompanying signs of that Great Devliverance in foreshadowing what God was about to do for his people in John's time because the emperors of Rome, their governors, and Jews everywhere around the empire had been persistently persecuting them.

Verse 8

Καὶ ὁ τέταρτος ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν ἥλιον, καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ καυματίσαι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐν πυρί

(The fourth one poured his bowl out onto the sun causing people to suffer from extreme heat.)

Verse 9

καὶ ἐκαυματίσθησαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι καῦμα μέγα καὶ ἐβλασφήμησαν τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἔχοντος τὴν ἐξουσίαν ἐπὶ τὰς πληγὰς ταύτας καὶ οὐ μετενόησαν δοῦναι αὐτῷ δόξαν

(When people felt the tremendous heat, they spoke profanities against the name of God, the one having the power over these plagues, and refused to give him due honor.)

Verse 10

Καὶ ὁ πέμπτος ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν θρόνον τοῦ θηρίου, καὶ ἐγένετο ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ ἐσκοτωμένη, καὶ ἐμασῶντο τὰς γλώσσας αὐτῶν ἐκ τοῦ πόνου

(The fifth poured his bowl onto the beast's throne, and its kingdom became dark.  People bit their tongues to endure their suffering.)

Verse 11

καὶ ἐβλασφήμησαν τὸν θεὸν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἐκ τῶν πόνων αὐτῶν καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἑλκῶν αὐτῶν καὶ οὐ μετενόησαν ἐκ τῶν ἔργων αὐτῶν

(They spoke profanities against the God of Heaven since they had to endure suffering and had been covered in festering sores.  But they did not say they wanted to change the behavior that caused their pain.)

There are some very close parallels with Second Esdras at this point.  The first 4 bowls of anger speak to God's anger about the treatment of his people.  That also is a theme using the same kind of symbolic language of leading his people from torment out of Egypt in Second Esdras 15.5-12.  The fourth bowl of anger uses imagery with the sun and extreme heat.  The same kind of imagery of destruction of the abusers of God's people is used in Second Esdras 13.8-11.  The sun isn't mentioned in that context, but fire, flames, and sparks spewing from the Messiah's mouth to burn people and to show humanity that God is in control and through his anger he brings accountability  to a group of people mistreating those who live by his name is the same.  Rejection of God and refusal to change behavior by those who act profanely against him in the bowls poured out by angels 4 and 5 of John's vision parallels Second Esdras 9.7-13.  And although there is the same kind of imagery in Day of the Lord passages in the Old Testament, such as Isaiah 13.6-18, the details of apocalyptic imagery represent the denoument an age and a beginning of a new era, not just a cleansing.

The above parallels with Second Esdras make the point that God's people have called out to him, that he has heard them and will act against the ones subjecting them to mistreatment.  Both books were written about the same time with the same message.  They corroborate the treatment of God's people at the hands of the Romans, and both show that God is acting with superlative means and with supernatural, unmistakable, inimicable justice against this invincible empire.  Both make the comparison to the Egyptian deliverance, which was Judaism's pivotal, seminal event.  Both have overtones that this time God is acting on behalf of his people the Christians, including those Jews who believed and accepted Jesus for who he was, but excluding those Jews who believed Jesus to be a prophet, not the son of God or the messiah.

One of the reasons John's Apocalypse resonates with me is that, at times, I have found myself on the opposite side of Christianity.  I have been in situations when no one knew that I was a Christian, and so I saw others rail against it as an evil in the world.  I have heard people say God doesn't exist and Christianity is a mere superstition.  I have heard and been in the presence of scientists speaking about the impossibility of God's existence, that we as sentient beings have created a god out of necessity for controling the masses of people.

Admittedly, ashamedly, my silence against such terrible profanity against the Maker of Heaven and Earth fits into the category of these Romans and Jews who persecuted Christians for their beliefs in a superstition that God's son rose from the dead and will return for his followers.  Deservedly, I should accept my judgment of festering sores or death from not getting to drink Earth's lifesources of water.  My early years as an adult were characteristic of idealism and relentless pursuit of knowing more about God.  But my middle years were filled with silence as the scientific pursuits of knowledge encroached on my faith rather than supplementing it.

But, with knowledge, there is a tipping point.  It must decide to continue to supplant one's spiritual beliefs or decide to make it subsidiary to faith because knowledge seeks arrogance and self aggrandizement and doesn't coexist with the humble nature of faith well.  It was evident that supplanting my belief would place me in a kingdom that would become dark.  So I thank the God of the Great Deliverance from Egypt and the God of the Great Deliverance from Rome for allowing time for the profanity of silence to change  into a voice for the sake the kingdom of light.  I am grateful to have changed discomfort from the extreme heat of the sun into letting others see that God stands with his people and acts in their lives.  John's apocalypse, his disclosure of the One who stands with his people, even me, brings me to an unclouded moment with "the one who has the power over the plagues," who deserves my due honor!



[Introductory photo of reflection is found at https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8d/82/3a/8d823a0a3cc358656c1e2c48f6eb19a1--stunning-photography-photography-ideas.jpg]
[The first song is There Is A Cloud by Elevation Worship.  The second song is So Will I by Hillsong.]
[The Greek text used for the New Testament references is the Nestle Aland 28th edition]

[Translations from Greek are my own.]

Lord, act again

Reflections are everywhere - in crystal blue lakes and shining, marble surfaces, in the glass of towering skyscrapers and the concave lenses of ever-present cameras. They capture my thinking and mesmerize me, enticing me to look again because there's more in the picture!


John had a case against the Romans, for sure.  They had tried to kill him.  He had survived, so they allowed him to live out his life in banishment on an island, away from his beloved Ephesus with his Christian community.  It was also well known around christendom that Nero had had Paul killed and Agrippa had had Peter executed.  Even closer to the time of John's writing of Revelation, Antipas had been martyred.

Now the most ruthless ruler yet to govern the Roman Empire, Domitian, was in power.  He was the first to actually have the gall to claim full deity and had made his subjects call him "Lord", as if he ruled the whole universe.  The Romans had spiraled out of control.  They brutally killed to hold their power and they relentlessly exterminated those who believed superstitions, like that insidious belief that someone named Christ had been resurrected from the dead and would return for those who followed him one day, which to them was absolutely absurd!

On top of dealing with the Romans, he had had to tell the Jews that their God had warned them about their failure as his people.  He had even taken the time to write about all the acts of Jesus that showed the heart of God.  But he had moved on. Titus had leveled Jerusalem just 15 years before this writing. Masada with its mass suicides had fallen.  Qumran lay in ruins.  The Dead Sea Scrolls had vanished.  Judaism had given birth to followers of Christ. John had just finished writing that the beast, Satan, had tried to devour Christ and his movement at its inception, but had failed.  About all that was left was for God to eradicate that pestilence on the Earth called the Roman Empire.

John had to reassure the Christians he had led for half a century.  God was on the cusp of dealing with these barbaric Romans in a convincing manner.  Like he had done with the Egyptians for his people 1400 years prior to his time, God was about to demonstrate his power against these invincible- thinking, merciless, arrogant, and uncouth Romans to once again deliver his people from oppression.
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John sat, staring into the waves beating against the ragged rocks dividing the sea from this small island of Patmos in deep contemplation, ready to continue writing on his papyrus tablet.  Sixty years ago...

He didn't know why God had looked down in favor on him to choose him to walk alongside his son, his people's long awaited messiah, the one sent to show his father's nature to his people and to offer them life and an extraordinary place.  And because God had shown him this favor, he had felt compelled to remind his own people once more of God's offer - for all those that would accept him and believe who his son was, he would give them the power to become the children of God. He had written those two ideas a decade before in his memoirs of Jesus' actions as he presented his father's heart (John 1.12, John 14.10).

As he felt the spray of the waves hitting the rocks and boulders, John reviewed what he had written thus far in a new message to his beloved Jewish people and to the Christian community he had been a part of.  He had chosen the apocalyptic form as the vehicle for his message in the tradition of the books of Enoch and Esdras.  He had used the apocalyptic beginning of Zechariah to start the visions of his own book.  He had used Zechariah's four horses in a series of seals being broken to show how God was still being reported to about the condition of the world and that God was not complacent toward his children of this generation.  He had infused ideas from other times of great trouble like the time of the exodus of Egypt, some of the struggles referred to in the prophets against the nations around them, and a few of the captivity Psalms to depict that Christians had endured great hardship at the hands of the brutal Romans who ruled John's world.

He briefly contemplated the sixty years that had passed since the Romans had put down a Jewish rebellion by crucifying its "king." But that king had not vanished.  His tomb had actually been empty and he had followers.  The Romans had had to deal with that continuing movement.  It seemed like each decade the Romans had become a little more brutal with Jesus' followers than the last decade.  John remembered fondly over the last week or so all those he had written about on the previous pages of his tablet when he was summarizing the state of the world as the horsemen had reported it.  He had depicted his courageous friends as souls crying out from beneath an altar to God, clamoring for justice.

Revelation 6.10

καὶ ἔκραξαν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ λέγοντες· ἕως πότε, ὁ δεσπότης ὁ ἅγιος καὶ ἀληθινός, οὐ κρίνεις καὶ ἐκδικεῖς τὸ αἷμα ἡμῶν ἐκ τῶν κατοικούντων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς

(And they called with a loud voice, "How long, sacred Lord, the one we trust, are you going to hold out on judging the ones who govern the Earth and not punish them for our blood?")

John continued his thoughts of the judgment of God against "the ones who govern the Earth," the feared and hated Roman government.  He wanted to reassure the Christian community around him that the Romans could not and would not win in their battle against God's people.  What came to his mind to write (Revelation 16) was imagery of the total devastation of the Romans, a time when God would crush them for their brutalities.

He could not think of imagery any better than that from a very similar situation - the time the Jews had spent under a terrible Pharaoh in Egypt.  God had sent ten plagues to crush the pharaoh and to kill him under the waves of a sea.  So, John placed a vision in his writing of seven angels pouring out bowls of God's anger on the Earth that were filled with 4 of the most impacting of those plagues. 

John continued writing the images in his mind's eye. A loud voice was coming from the temple in his vision.  The voice told seven angels to pour out bowls of anger on the Earth.

Verse 2

Καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ὁ πρῶτος καὶ ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐγένετο ἕλκος κακὸν καὶ πονηρὸν ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τοὺς ἔχοντας τὸ χάραγμα τοῦ θηρίου καὶ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας τῇ εἰκόνι αὐτοῦ

(The first angel came and poured out his bowl on the Earth.  Festering and ugly sores appeared on those having the imprint of the beast and worshiping its image.)

In Pharaoh's Egypt, the magicians that represented the king had duplicated the first two plagues, failed in their attempt to duplicate the third, and were impotent in the fourth and fifth plagues.  But on the sixth plague, they were so covered in boils they couldn't even appear when Moses came calling at the palace.  God let Pharaoh see the condition of utter helplessness with the sixth plague.  John wanted to show this same helpless condition with the Romans.  So, he had started with the sixth plague.


The next two angels poured out God's anger on the seas, rivers, and springs of the Earth.

Verse 3

Καὶ ὁ δεύτερος ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, καὶ ἐγένετο αἷμα ὡς νεκροῦ, καὶ πᾶσα ψυχὴ ζωῆς ἀπέθανεν τὰ ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ

(The second poured out his bowl on the sea.  It changed to the blood of someone who had died, because every living creature of the sea had died.)

Verse 4

Καὶ ὁ τρίτος ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην αὐτοῦ εἰς τοὺς ποταμοὺς καὶ τὰς πηγὰς τῶν ὑδάτων, καὶ ἐγένετο αἷμα

(The third poured out his bowl on the rivers and water sources, and they too turned to blood.)

The second two angels poured anger onto the Earth's reservoirs of water.  John went back to the first plague of God against pharaoh.  For seven days, the River Nile and its tributaries ran red.  The Egyptians were desperate for water, digging in the mud on the banks of the river to see if they could uncover any non-bloody water.  God could alter their world in a way that demonstrated he was in complete control, not them.  It was God's way of saying, "I could exterminate all of you if I wanted to."  John saw that God would treat the Romans in the same way. 

But the Romans weren't the only group standing vehemently against Christians.  The Jews had stood firmly against Christians and even collaborated with the Romans in ridding the Earth of their presence.  The prophets had experience the Jews' wrath over a 400 year period of time because they tried to tell them what God had really wanted of them.  Jesus did the same with the same result.  And the followers of Jesus met with shame, ostracism, and death at the hands of the Jews.  John had just finished writing about two beasts who served a dragon who had tried to devour God's son.  But God's patience had been completely spent with these two beasts (Revleation 13.1, 6, 14, 15; Revelation 14.15, 16; Revelation 15.1, 7).  He was sending seven last plagues on the Earth, expressions of anger against two groups of people who had relentlessly tried to rid the Earth of his people the Christians.  Seven bowls of his anger would be poured out on the Earth and through them his anger would complete his judgment (Revelation 15.1) against these two "beasts" who had killed his prophets and his sacred children.


Verse 5

Καὶ ἤκουσα τοῦ ἀγγέλου τῶν ὑδάτων λέγοντος· 
      δίκαιος εἶ, ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν, ὁ ὅσιος, 
      ὅτι ταῦτα ἔκρινας

(I heard the angel of the waters speaking.
      You are the one who stands for right, the one who is and was, the one who is sacred,                      because you have judged their actions )

Verse 6

ὅτι αἷμα ἁγίων καὶ προφητῶν ἐξέχεαν 
      καὶ αἷμα αὐτοῖς δέδωκας πιεῖν, 
      ἄξιοί εἰσιν

(because they poured out the blood of the prophets and those who set themselves apart,
     And you have given them blood to drink.
     And they deserve it.)

Verse 7

Καὶ ἤκουσα τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου λέγοντος· 
     ναὶ κύριε ὁ  θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ, 
     ἀληθιναὶ καὶ δίκαιαι αἱ κρίσεις σου

(I heard a voice from the altar speaking.
         "Yes, Lord God Almighty,
          your judgments we can trust to be right.")

My heart has ached for God's relief before.  I understand the utter devastation caused by a force completely out of my control and the resulting helpless feeling in the wake of the onslaught of such a terrible force..  And when God sent his relief, I spoke out like the angel here in complete trust of his handling of the situation, "Your judgments I can trust to be right!"

Help me, Daddy, to cry out in chorus with others when life's treatment is so utterly out of control so that you can replace it with your morality and decency!


[Introductory photo of reflection is found at blog.enterpriseengagement.com]
[The first song is Like Incense by Hillsong.  The second song is Find Me by Jenn Johnson.]
[The Greek text used for the New Testament references is the Nestle Aland 28th edition]

[Translations from Greek are my own.]

Representation

Reflections are everywhere - in crystal blue lakes and shining, marble surfaces, in the glass of towering skyscrapers and the concave lenses of ever-present cameras. They capture my thinking and mesmerize me, enticing me to look again because there's more in the picture!

Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_image

From the early portions of the Old Testament, it appeared that God selected a people to represent him on the Earth.  But several hundred years later, the Prophets very plainly told the Jews they had not lived up to their calling.  Some prophets told them they had lost their chance.  God was moving on without them.  Other prophets said that although the Jews had totally squandered their chance to represent God on the Earth, he would grant them a second chance if they asked for forgiveness and changed their ways.  This second series of prophecies were what the Jews put their hope in.  So, they desperately tried to cleanse themselves of their weaknesses and live better lives. Over several hundred years and switches in world empires later, they thought they had accomplished this.  By the time Augustus Caesar became emperor of Rome and all of its conquered provinces, the Jews felt very much like they again represented God on the Earth, especially if put against the likes of the barbaric, evil, and bloodthirsty Romans.
But during the reign of Augustus something happened in the Jewish province of Rome that should have altered the entire direction of Jewish beliefs.  The Jews' whole world should have been rocked and people there should have repented of their impoverished representation of the One whose power created the Earth and directed the destinies of countries on the Earth.  God's chosen one that they all thought would come at some point in their history actually did come.  Their entire belief system and their very existence depended on the appearance of this messiah, but the Jews, especially their leaders, didn't acknowledge his presence or his teachings.  And they were definitely privy to his presence in their country.
70 years after this event in Judea, Luke traveled through the same realms of the world that Paul traveled, even traveling with Paul at times.  He saw what Paul saw.  The Jews still felt that they represented God wherever they had their communities. They ran Paul and his associates out of several towns and confronted Paul at nearly every turn for presenting the idea that they had missed their messiah, God's chosen.  And all in full view of the Romans, who thought that the Jews were a really obstinate, arrogant group, rebellious to the core, not the representatives of God on Earth.  
Luke knew how strongly the Jews denied that they had lost the opportunity to accept God's change by accepting Jesus' message, so he wrote stories such as the ones found in Luke 15 where Jesus told parables of God's patience to accept them if they wanted to be found.  But Luke also wanted the Jews to know their time had expired to represent God, and that they had had good warning. So, he included a story in his writings (Chapter 16) where Jesus dealt with the issue of a time when the Jewish leadership had been presented a chance and a choice to quit misrepresenting God.  Jesus' story was aimed directly at the majority party of the ruling sect in Jerusalem, the Sadducees.  Those leaders had been wealthy.  The people hadn't been.  And the people had seen the rulers accumulating money and power in a rather corrupt manner.
.Jesus had not been coy.  He told them that a wealthy house owner heard his manager was corrupt, so the owner called him into account for his actions.  The manager knew he would be canned because he was corrupt (from getting more money than he should have from people to line his own pockets and from treating those people poorly). The manager  went to all the owner's debtors and reduced their debts so that when the owner did fire him, they would take him in.  Thus, Jesus directed his words straight to the leaders who had cut deals with the Romans to retain their leadership and to keep their purses full.
Verse 9
Καὶ ἐγὼ ὑμῖν λέγω, ἑαυτοῖς ποιήσατε φίλους ἐκ τοῦ μαμωνᾶ τῆς ἀδικίας, ἵνα ὅταν ἐκλίπῃ δέξωνται ὑμᾶς εἰς τὰς αἰωνίους σκηνάς
(I say, go ahead and make friends of those you overcharged for your own gain and have now short-changed the house owner with.  When it disappears, those are the friends who will be the ones to accept you into their vain and empty lives for the rest of your days.)
 The Jewish leaders should have been interested in hearing about acceptance that would lead to a place for them for the rest of their days.  They had perpetuated a belief system that they alone had represented God on the Earth, and they would be rewarded for it.  The regular Jews understood that God wanted their undying love.  They saw God's heart.

But the leaders didn't see the same thing. They had dismissed the prophets that had told them otherwise and embraced the ones that told them they had been reinstated as the guardians of God on the Earth.  Jesus was telling their leaders otherwise.  But, they couldn't hear it.  Instead, they wanted to play games by quibbling over whether or not there even was a place to spend the rest of one's days.  The Sadducees, the majority party, had said no, the Pharisees, the minority, said yes.  And the two ruling sects were split on how to handle money as well.  Sadducees were aristocratic and didn't let religion get in the way of business while Pharisees placed a little more value on the use of money collected in God's name, namely the tithe and supporting temple worship.  But the Sadducees held the majority.  So, Jesus leveled his charge at them.  First, there was a place to spend the rest of a person's days, and second, their value of money from corruption in business was a determining factor in receiving that place.  
Verse 10
Ὁ πιστὸς ἐν ἐλαχίστῳ καὶ ἐν πολλῷ πιστός ἐστιν, καὶ ὁ ἐν ἐλαχίστῳ ἄδικος καὶ ἐν πολλῷ ἄδικός ἐστιν
(The  person who is trustworthy with a little is trustworthy with a lot.  And the one who is corrupt with a little is corrupt with a lot.)
Verse 11
εἰ οὖν ἐν τῷ ἀδίκῳ μαμωνᾷ πιστοὶ οὐκ ἐγένεσθε, τὸ ἀληθινὸν τίς ὑμῖν πιστεύσει
(So, if you can't be trustworthy in obtaining your riches through honest means, who will trust you with true riches? )
With clarity that even the Sadducees could not twist, Jesus tells them 
Verse 12
καὶ εἰ ἐν τῷ ἀλλοτρίῳ πιστοὶ οὐκ ἐγένεσθε, τὸ ὑμέτερον τίς ὑμῖν δώσει
(and if you can't be trustworthy with someone else's affairs, who will give you what could have been rightfully yours?)
The statement is in question form, but the question was not asking for information.  It was rhetorical and the apparent answer could not have been misunderstood by the majority group.  They had forgotten that the rule of reciprocation applied to a higher power than Rome.  God was on his throne and was faithful to those who reflected that principle.  

And, there was one more thing.  Although the statements Jesus used about corruption and wealth were metaphorical in his parable, he didn't want them to construe his metaphor into a claim that the story's moral didn't apply to their misrepresentation of God.  So Jesus didn't leave it unsaid.
Verse 13
Οὐδεὶς οἰκέτης δύναται δυσὶν κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει, ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει. οὐ δύνασθε θεῷ δουλεύειν καὶ μαμωνᾷ
(It is impossible for a household servant to serve two masters.  He will hate one and love the other or he will side with one and look contemptuously on the other. It is impossible to serve God and corruptly amassing wealth.)
And even though Jesus' statements were about faithfulness to God and the fact that God was rejecting those who represented him for their unfaithfulness, Jesus used another word to make it clear what their position was in the equation.  He didn't mince words.  His analogy was not of a loving father giving a message to his sons.  It wasn't of a loving God trying to woo his wayward chosen people.  It was of a house owner and his servant.  The Sadducees got it.  They were serving their ill-begotten money as if they were servants in its house.  They were not servants in God's house.
Jesus' words from Luke come at a time between what the prophets said and what Paul experienced, and Luke made them surface again during a time in the Empire after Titus had destroyed Jerusalem for Rome's sake.  Jesus tried to alter the Jews' thinking and get them to accept what God was telling them through him.  The one who called himself the Son of Man, the picture the Jews had made of God's handpicked person, and who identified himself in a number of instances as I AM, hadn't altered the Jews' track.  What a clear signal that Jews were on a whole different trajectory than Christians.  God had moved on.  The Jews had lost their standing to represent God.  Christians had received the standing to now show the world the Great I AM.
The signal is still clear.  It reminds me of what I should be in the business of doing.  I should be representing God by showing generosity to those who need it, not trying to look out for my own gain (in all areas, but money included).  People need acceptance and favor... and yes, money sometimes.  I think that more often than not, the question God asks me is, "Do I represent him or not in showering people with what they need?"  There was a countdown timer set for the Sadducees.  They let time expire without altering how they would spend the rest of their days.  Fortunately for me, my timer's still counting and I can walk through the rest of my life representing well one Lord, not two, since that is impossible.



[Introductory photo of reflection is found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_image]
[The first song is Everything I Do by Bryan Adams.  The second song is On the Throne by Kari Jobe.]
[The Greek text used for the New Testament references is the Nestle Aland 28th edition]

[Translations from Greek are my own.]

Those who accept

Reflections are everywhere - in crystal blue lakes and shining, marble surfaces, in the glass of towering skyscrapers and the concave lenses of ever-present cameras. They capture my thinking and mesmerize me, enticing me to look again because there's more in the picture!

I can imagine John, deep in thought, taking a walk through his adopted hometown of Ephesus.  The last two decades had been a far cry different from his days in Galilee.  Here the hustle and bustle of a large commercial center in the Roman Empire had drowned out the quiet memories of the homeland of his youth.  But he would never, never forget them.  Today they were fresh on his mind because he was observing the people around him.  The people here appeared to be consumed with trying to be so important to themselves, to impress others, to make a buck at everyone else's expense.  Where he grew up 55 years ago wasn't much different from that - until Jesus had come into the world.  After that, every little event that had happened and every insignificant person Jesus had acknowledged stuck in his memory because Jesus had time for people and treated them right.  And, most importantly, he represented God whose valued did not reflect those found on the Earth.

But here he was in the midst of an important Roman province where the Romans themselves were a ruthless, restless, and arrogant lot because of the extent of their great empire.  The Greeks, whose city he was now living and walking around in, had a certain arrogance too, but for different reasons.  They were the remnant of a worldwide empire whose glory years still appeared everywhere in their architecture and temples.  They were a sophisticated people because they had established an educated citizenry.  Ephesus had shared in that glory.

But as great as these two societies had been, both Romans and Greeks were guided by their own power and enlightenment even though they gave lip service to a pantheon of Gods.  They failed to acknowledge that one God allows nations to rise and fall.  They hadn't recognized the Maker of the world when he had arrived on his own created planet as light in the midst of darkness.

John Chaper 1

Verse 9

Ἦν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν, ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον, ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον

(He came into the world as true light, shining on everyone.)

John had for quite some time now wanted to write memoirs of a man who had had time to stop and affect people.  He thought of Jesus - absent in the lives of most people of this city - but so ever present in the lives of those he had touched.  Jesus had had time for people.  He had changed people.  John stopped his walk for a moment to watch people hustling around.  For sure the people in Ephesus needed time with the Teacher.  He wished they could feel his touch, change their lives, and know his spirit in their beings.  Then they could understand the concept that people don't have to die. They could believe Jesus is God's son, escape from a world of death, and look forward to a world of life.

John last saw Jesus on the Earth somewhere between 29 C.E. and 33 C.E.  From that point on, a tremendous turn of events had put Christianity on the path to become a worldwide religion.  Paul had converted to Christianity within four years of Jesus' death, and by the 40s had begun his journeys through Asia Minor, including this city of Ephesus where John was now hurting for his fellow townspeople. For 25 years Paul had followed God's lead all over the north Mediterranean world spreading the news of Jesus.  John had followed in some of Paul's footsteps and had ended up here in Ephesus.  John interrupted his walk again to muse over the question of why so many people who had had exposure to Jesus through Paul's tremendous efforts wouldn't change.  Why wouldn't they want to leave this world to go to their true home.  Why wouldn't they recognize Jesus and accept what he had to offer?

Verse 10

ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, καὶ ὁ κόσμος δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω

(He was in the world created at his hands, but the world didn't acknowledge him.)

John remembered feeling at Jesus' ascension into the heavens that Jesus' story was here to stay and would affect change in people's lives.  Somewhere in the 50s the collection of stories called Mark began to be circulated to help the events of Jesus coalesce instead of dissipate into thin air.  No longer would those events be merely a group of oral stories for centuries ahead to forget about.  Paul helped the cause as well, going to the center of the empire, Rome itself, to affect the Master's change in the lives of people in the world's capital.  Paul's story on the Earth ended there.  He left for his new home from Rome.  But the Romans had heard Paul tell them that Jesus had come to give them life and and an extraordinary place to go after their lives here had ended.  What a model for everyone!

During all of this time, Peter also had worked hard in spreading the story of Jesus.  He had ended up in Rome about the same time as Paul and closed his life on Earth near the same time.  John himself had migrated to Ephesus about a decade after Paul had been there and had become the renowned leader of the faith in the commercialized coastal area of western Asia Minor.  Yet even after almost 50 years after the presence of Jesus on the Earth and three great leaders to tell the people his story, here he was, wondering why so many people bustled about with no regard for the Teacher's touch.

John continued his walk through Ephesus thinking about how Jesus' story had come together even more with the efforts of Luke to recount Jesus' life and Paul's efforts for the people living in the northern Mediterranean.  At about the same time, another Jewish writer, had written the story of Jesus' life for the Jews of Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome in the fading years of the century before Domitian became Emperor in 81 C.E.  People called it Matthew because it had used stories circulated right after Jesus' life, the ones Mark recorded, but had added others from Matthew's connection to the family of Joseph.  He felt grateful that the Christian faith had taken root in most of the provinces across the Roman Empire as a result.

Now times had begun to change.  A really different kind of emperor had taken the seat of power in Rome who thought he was God.  Eyewitnesses to Jesus' life had disappeared.  Only he was left to combat this most imperious of all emperors to date.  For a moment he thought he knew how Jesus must have felt.

Verse 11

εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον

(He came to his own creation, but the people of his own creation didn't accept him.)

As the only remaining eyewitness to Jesus' life and teachings, death and resurrection, he resolved to take action.  The people needed the Teacher's touch and his forgiveness.  How could he convey that?  Not through simply retelling the events of Jesus' story.  That had been done.  John needed to share the heart of Jesus, the mind and soul of the Son of God.  He wanted people to believe that Jesus really had come in the flesh, died, and woken again to live.  He wanted people to trust the stories already in circulation, the stories of forgiveness for wrongs against others and God.  Someone needed to give insight to God's Imprint on humanity, the one who had been with God, who was God.  His light had pierced the darkness never to be extinguished.

Besides the Romans and Greeks in this city needing the Master's touch, a group of Christians called Gnostics, had emerged who actually disclaimed that Jesus, the Son of God, had walked the Earth.  Jesus had been only a man.  God could never inhabit a man's body - his psyche, maybe, but not his body.  They needed the real message of Jesus, and they needed his forgiveness.

John knew he had to quell that message.  He had to tell the stories of real people with real personalities that had seen a real Jesus and been changed.  Jesus had been authentic.  His teaching was actually and exactly what God wanted for his creation.  Who could really reject Jesus if they saw his heart fully and his father's unfailing love?

So, as John finished his walk and entered his house, he decided then and there that he would reach out to the people in Ephesus and the surrounding region.  He would put pen to parchment telling of actual people who had encountered Jesus, one after another, and changed the course of their lives here and in the next life, that extraordinary place where he was waiting for them.  He got excited to eloquently articulate and illustrate the mind, heart, and soul of Jesus and show that Jesus met people and changed each one.

Verse 12

οσοι δε ελαβον αυτον εδωκεν αυτοις εξουσιαν τεκνα θεου γενεσθαι τοις πιστευουσιν εις το ονομα αυτου

(But to all those that did accept him and believe who he was, he gave the power to become the children of God.)

John got what he wanted.  He wanted to write his memoirs so the people around him could see Jesus' heart, soul, and mind.  They saw it.  He changed Ephesus.  And he left behind two spiritual sons, Polycarp and Papias, who powerfully led God's flock after him in the area.

John's telling of Jesus' goodness, forgiveness, and love has allowed every Christians who has succeeded him, including me, to see the one who changed the world.  I can accept Jesus for who he was, believe and trust him, and receive the gift of the power to also become God's son.

And I do.  I accept... and believe... and trust... and have been on the path of transformation... from grace to grace... from death to life!



[Introductory photo of reflection is found at http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-child-children-little-boy-kissing-his-reflection-in-a-mirror-school-33689180.html]
[The first song is The Light of the World by Lauren Deigle.  The second song is Grace to Grace by Hillsong Worship.  The third song is Home by Chris Tomlin.  The fourth song is Forgiveness  by David Crowder.  The last song is Behold by Hillsong Worship.]
[The Greek text used for the New Testament references is the Nestle Aland 28th edition]
[Translations from Greek are my own.]

But he woke up

Reflections are everywhere - in crystal blue lakes and shining, marble surfaces, in the glass of towering skyscrapers and the concave lenses of ever-present cameras. They capture my thinking and mesmerize me, enticing me to look again because there's more in the picture!



I am surprised by people from time to time, but not usually.  However, Jesus surprises me with his teachings and actions frequently.  Reading the New Testament over a number of years produces little surprise for some people who have studied it.  Reading it again is merely a mundane or routine exercise in duty for them.  But for me it offers enchantment in places I have glossed over in the past or enrichment to the passages that I thought I had milked for meaning.  Here at the time of year when Jesus died and rose on the third day of death, a passage I have read a huge number of times has resonated in my mind and enriched me this weekend.

One aspect of the New Testament's rising from death has always been amazing to me.  The three famous "raisings" Jesus performed, Jairus' daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus, were mentioned as just one of many miracles and were not given "magnanimous" status.  The Church Fathers that followed in the years and centuries later didn't highlight those ocurrences either.  That's surprising to me.  Nobody returns from death, and so to be a living example of someone back from the dead should have been given tremendous more press than it received.  There should be an apocryphal book ascribed to Lazarus or to the widow's son, or to Jairus' daughter.  Church historians should have follow-up biosketches of the people Jesus raised, but they don't.  That's so amazing to me.

Matthew 27 records an event that should be just as amazing.  It should be in the annals of the Church Fathers for sure.  The examples in the above paragraph are raisings of single individuals, but Matthew records "many" people all at once being released from death, walking out of their graves, and mixing again with the people of Jerusalem.  If there is a superlative term greater than magnaninous, stupendous, or incredulous, I would use it for this miracle of miracles.  But the event is mentioned as a matter of course in the two effects of the aftermath of Jesus' death.

Verse 51

Καὶ ἰδοὺ τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ ἐσχίσθη ἀπ’ ἄνωθεν ἕως κάτω εἰς δύο καὶ ἡ γῆ ἐσείσθη καὶ αἱ πέτραι ἐσχίσθησαν

(And it happened that the curtain in the temple was ripped in half from top to bottom, the Earth was shaken, and rocks were split apart)

Verse 52

καὶ τὰ μνημεῖα ἀνεῴχθησαν καὶ πολλὰ σώματα τῶν κεκοιμημένων ἁγίων ἠγέρθησαν

(Tombs were shaken open and many bodies of good people who had fallen asleep were woken up.)

Verse 53

καὶ ἐξελθόντες ἐκ τῶν μνημείων μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ εἰσῆλθον εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν καὶ ἐνεφανίσθησαν πολλοῖς

(They left their tombs after his resurrection, came into the Holy City, and were seen by many.)

Many dead people mixing with many live people, πολλοῖς (many).  How does that get overlooked in a city of 75,000 inhabitants (an average of what scholars have estimated)?   Were they Christians or devout Jews since they were referred to as the ἁγίων (holy ones, good people)?  What kind of lives did these people live before and after their raising?  Did some of them change?  Did they wholeheartedly embrace the Christian movement as it separated itself from Judaism in the decades following their resurrection? Were they all followers of Jesus to begin with when they died or good Jews who would turn to Christianity after coming back?  Did they become Christian leaders in the years following Jesus' ascension?

The wording of the passage, πολλὰ σώματα (many bodies) could be interpreted that these many people who came back to be seen in Jerusalem appeared to others in the same way Jesus did when he appeared to the men from Emmaus or to his apostles and Mary.  He had qualities not quite like the rest of us humans.  He could just appear and disappear at will, and the ones mentioned above didn't recognize him at first.  However, he was in bodily form and everyone did finally recognize him.  Also, each of the main verbs used in the three verses, with the exception of came (verse 53), is passive.  Every action was caused by someone other than the subject of the sentence.  The agent causing the action is not mentioned except in the case of were seen by many in the Holy City (verse 53).  The other actions or verbs could only have one agent, but an implied one rather than an explicit one.  Only God or Jesus who had been charged by God could cause the earth to quake, the temple curtain in the Holy of Holies to rip in half, the rocks to split, tombs to open, and dead people to come alive again.  Only one person.  This would imply that that they were not under their own power.  So they didn't enter Jerusalem as if they were doing it of their own accord.  They were made manifest (were seen), ἐνεφανίσθησαν, so they might not have been continuously seen like they were when they were alive.

Either way the record reads many people! They were dead but came back to life.  That is no small event.

But I get it.  They are not the main attraction.  They were not the ones who taught about the Dominion of God.  They didn't raise themselves from the dead or perform many other miracles.  They didn't die a criminal's death or have all authority over the affairs of Heaven and Earth.  That was someone else - Jesus - God's son and chosen deliverer for his people of Israel.  Jesus, who said he could lay down his life and take it up again, told us he was going away to prepare for us a place and come again to take us to live with him.  Jesus, who told us he came so that we could have life and an extraordinary place, is the one with the story of stories to repeat for the generations to come - not Lazarus, the widow's son, or Jairus' daughter, and right, not even many people back from the dead, all at one time.

I plan to wake up from death when my life on Earth is over.  I look forward to having life in an extraordinary place after life here because Jesus was true to his father's charge to share his life with us.  He laid it down, he took it up again.  He woke up three days after he stopped breathing, appeared to many, many people, and is now preparing places for me and for all those who say, "You are the one who was chosen, the son of the living God."

[Introductory photo of reflection is found on Instagram's Natural Mirrors Amazing Places to Visit, retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/qaisarazeem/photography-of-nature/.  The second work of art Welcome Home is by Danny Hahlbohm and retrieved from http://www.fulcrumgallery.com/Danny-Hahlbohm/Welcome-Home_663673.htm]
[The first song is Alive in You by Jesus Culture.  The musical narration, He is Here, is found on Creative Sheep.com.  The last song is He Reigns by Newsboys]
[The Greek text used for the New Testament references is the Nestle Aland 28th edition]
[Translations from Greek are my own.]