He ain't heavy...or is he?

 In a world where everyone is a sinner there is no possible community, true, loving community, without dying to ourselves and laying our lives down for the good of the other.

There is no possible way to die to ourselves and lay our lives down for another without pain.  Without loss.  Without absorbing and being willing to absorb damage!  Innocent as doves, yet being willing to be afflicted both for and BY another in order to gain them.  In order to love them.  In order to one day see them and the community healed, whole, shalom.  To sometimes suffer long years in silent service for nothing more than the hope that God may use it to change their hearts or simply because we love them, and we would rather be hurt ourselves than stand by while they hurt themselves.

Are we willing to jump on a grenade for ...anyone?  Who do we love enough to sacrifice for?  Our family?  Our church?  Our neighbors?  The kids down in Sunday School who need teachers?  The "difficult" guy or girl that few people like?  Our sibling who still just doesn't get it and keeps dropping grenades in their own lives?  

Our society is largely rich enough to make many historic forms of suffering a choice now.  If you have enough resources, you can quite often avoid wholesale many forms of pain and trouble and hard work that our ancestors took for granted and therefore learned how to live with!  We lost a lot more than the ability to suffer when we became unwilling to.  We may have even lost the ligaments of community.

My version of Imagine

 "Therefore, I urge first of all that petitions, prayers, requests, and thanksgiving be made on behalf of all people, on behalf of kings and all those who are in authority, in order that we may live a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable before God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony at the proper time, for which I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am speaking the truth, I am not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger and dispute." 1 Tim 2:1-8

Oh that it should be so, Lord! Oh that your people were of one mind, one heart, one body! Oh that we with one breath, and that of the Spirit, plead with you for the lives of our families, the lives of our neighbors, the lives of our nations! That we would beseech you on behalf of all people everywhere! The small and the great. The servant wench and the general. The head of state and the lowliest beggar child. The leper and the supermodel. The athlete and the lame. The junkie and the CEO. The billionaire and the single mom on food stamps. What if we all, with one voice, cried out to You and tore our clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and fasted and denied ourselves until you heard from heaven and it rent your heart and you could not bear our sorrow any longer? What if the church actually was the church, your voice here on earth, your heart here in the midst of the people, in the midst of a lost world? What might You do then? What miracles might we see in our day?

This is my version of that inane song, Imagine.

Saved alone. What shall i do?

 Horatio Spafford was a successful Chicago businessman and elder in a Presbyterian church.  His lovely wife Anna and he had five beautiful children, a son and four daughters.  In 1870 their son died of Scarlett Fever.  In 1871 their business was wiped out by the Great Chicago Fire.  In 1873 they decided to holiday in Europe for time but business concerns held up Horatio so Anna and the girls took ship before him and the plan was he would take a later one and catch up with them presumably in France.  

On November 22 at 2AM, the Loch Earn, an iron sailing ship, collided with the Ville du Havre.  In the darkness, the Ville du Havre broke apart and sank in twelve minutes taking 226 passengers with her.  Four of those were Horatio and Anna's daughters.  Pulled from the water unconscious, Anna was taken to Wales.  Stricken with grief and paying by the word she sent this telegram to a husband who probably only knew the ship had sunk and was desperate for news:  "Saved Alone" "What shall I do"

Horatio immediately booked passage to England.  It comes down to us that during that voyage, the Captain of his ship called Horatio to the deck one day to tell him that they were over the resting place of his children.  The nature of steam and sail travel is time.  Time we don't usually have or take these days.  Horatio, a lawyer by profession, used this time to pen a poem. 

Horatio and Anna would have three more children as the years went by.  One of these would die of pneumonia.  They seemed to live a life Job would understand and one would be inhuman not to ask God why?  Why one family so much suffering?  

i don't know why.  i don't know why every day millions of people ride motorcycles and never strike a deer.  i don't know why every day millions of people have terrible accidents and are hardly bruised.  i don't know why my brother is in a coma or when he will wake or what his life will be like after.

But i do know that i am so very thankful that Horatio, my brother in Christ whom i never met, did not waste his grief or that idle time spent on  his voyage.  For almost one hundred and fifty years after he did, sitting in a lovely, shady little courtyard underneath the room where my brother's body lay in a hospital, his mind sank deep where none but God can go, i was able to sing Horatio's poem and find comfort in the God who knows all things and Savior who descended deeper than hell to rescue me.

When peace like a river attendeth my way

when sorrows like sea billows roll

whatever my lot Thou has taught me to say

it is well, it is well with my soul

Though the devil may ruin, dark trials will come

let this blest assurance control

that Christ has regarded my helpless estate

and he shed his own blood for my soul.

It is well

with my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul.

My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought

my sin, not in part, but the whole

is nailed to the cross and i bear it no more

it is well, it is well

with my soul.

And Lord hast the day when my faith shall be sight

the clouds be rolled back as a scroll

the trumpet shall sound and the Lord shall descend

even so, it is well, with my soul.

It is well,

with my soul,

it is well, it is well with my soul.

"Everything i have is yours..."

If it doesn't hurt, it's not generous.
If it doesn't cost you, it's not a gift.
If you don't absorb the debt, you didn't forgive.

If you don't lay your life down, then it isn't love. 

Covenant

 Grace.  Unmerited favor.  Undeserved blessing.  You initiate the covenant with us.  The covenant.  i say it As if it was a thing that just existed and we all just fell into it, or a contract that you signed with us.  Instead it is the deepest form of relationship there is.  The most powerful form of intimacy possible.  And it started, it emanated, it begins in You.  For the Covenant is the expression of and essence of Who You Are.  You are love.  You bleed for us.  You ache for us.  You grieve over us even before we know you.  Even before we existed outside of your imagination.  You knew us and loved us.  You committed yourself to us.  So much so that you would become one of us, suffer as one of us, more than any of us, For you took the justice we deserved for breaking your covenant, breaking your heart, for dishonoring your majesty, dismissing your affection, rejecting your love, rejecting You. For love’s sake, you forsook yourself, to save your lambs, to fold us into your love, binding us to You eternally.  For what you love can never be lost.  What you love can never diminish.  What you love can never die.  We will go on and on, ever more filled with your love, ever more filled with You, Consummating, completing, never knowing lack yet always there is more, ever more, at last, able to love you.

just a thought

 Of course we understand that the Spirit uses the good news of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection to change lives but do we understand that the very way we live those lives for those of us who believe actually increases the believability and desirability of that message? By living generous, sacrificial lives, even we who are not gifted evangelists make the job of the preachers so much easier! For they will be able to see the proof of the preacher's claims in us and our communities.

Hey Jealousy

 "Cruel is wrath and overwhelming is anger,

but who can stand before jealousy?" Prov 27:4

"..for I AM YHWH your God, a jealous God.." Deut 5:9

The greater the love, the greater the jealousy. Harm or dishonor that which He loves and of course wrath must follow. Dishonor and fail to uphold His holiness. Harm and exploit His creation. Harm and exploit and disregard the poor. Harm and exploit and dishonor His Bride the church. And of course incur His wrath.

But even so, all of this can be forgiven. But how much more if you dishonor Him by rejecting, disdaining or even just ignoring His only beloved Son in whom He loves the most and His most true act of love which He has done to win you?

For a time such as this...Esther 4; Only took a year...

 "Mordecai learned all that had been done and he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes.  And he went through the middle of the city and cried out a loud and bitter cry; he went up to the entrance of the gate of the king, for he could not go to the gate of the king in sackcloth."  Esther 4: 1, 2

It's been a while so let's review.

• This is an interpretation of the Book of Esther from the viewpoint that it is a parable, an allegory of the gospel itself.
• The King is God.
• Haman is Satan
• Esther is the Son of Man
• Mordecai and the Jews represent us

Got it?  With me?  No?  Well, then, go back to February of last year and read those posts first.  Or just muddle through like you did in high school when you didn't read the assigned pages and everyone was discussing the chapter and you were like, i have no idea what is going on here and i dearly hope the quiz isn't today!

The word has come down from on high.  Those who have been deemed the King's enemies are to be executed, not right away, but at a later date.  Their goods plundered.  All is lost!  Those who understand are distraught; they are the dead men walking.  They put on sackcloth and ashes and mourn loudly.

"And as the angel of YHWH spoke these words to all the Israelites, the people wept bitterly.  And they call the name of this place Bokim (weepers), and there they sacrificed to YHWH."  Judges 2: 4, 5

"And when the king heard the words of the law,  he tore his garments..."  2 Chron 34: 19

"For all of the people wept when they heard the words of the law."  Neh 8:9

Astonishment, fear, trembling, despair, these are what the Law of God bring us if our hearts are responsive and our minds not blinded by our sin.  God's law is perfect.  God's law is holy.  There is none of us righteous, no not one.  

    "Who may ascend the mountain of YHWH?

    And who may stand in his holy place?"  Ps 24: 3

    "Who has ascended to heaven and come down?  Who has gathered the wind in the hollow of his hand?  Who has wrapped water in a garment?  Who has established all the ends of the earth?  What is his name and what is the name of his child?  For surely you know."  Prov 30:4

Mordecai cannot come into the presence of the King himself.  He cannot even come into the near presence of the king in mourning.  He cannot advocate for himself and his people.  Another must do it.  Another who has position he does not.  Another who has power he does not.  Another who has access he does not.  If they do not, he and his people will surely die.

But one does take compassion on him. 

"And Esther's maids and her eunuchs came and they told her, and the queen was deeply distressed..."

One from the palace does care.  One does identify so closely with him and his people that she will share his fate, the fate of her people.  

"And no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven--the Son of Man.  And just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, thus it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up..."  John 3: 13, 14

"Therefore, since the children share in blood and flesh, he also in like manner shared in these same things..."  Heb 2: 14

"Who knows?" Mordecai muses to his niece/daughter Hadassah, his own flesh and blood, "Perhaps you have come to a royal position for a time such as this."

"For everything there is an appointed time, a time for every matter under heaven..." Ecc 3: 1

"But when the fullness of time came, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order that he might redeem those under the law...." Gal 4: 4, 5

But Esther is no suicidal fool.  She knows the law.  She too may die in the attempt to approach the king and all would be in vain.  The journey is too great for her, she needs the favor of God.

"Esther replied to Mordecai: "Go, gather all the Jews that are found in Susa and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, both night and day.  I and my young girls will fast likewise, and then I will go to the king..."  

"And they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray."  And he took along Peter and James and John with him, and he began to be distressed and troubled.  And he said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death.  Remain here and stay awake."  And going forward a little he fell to the ground and began to pray...."  Mark 14:32-35

 Just a crumb from reading Genesis 25 this morning...

Esau.  

Impulsive.  Crude.  Unrefined.  He eats, bolts down, slurps down, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and leaves.  Maybe he belches.  Maybe he doesn’t because he doesn’t feel like complimenting Jacob on his stew.  He does not think of the future.  He doesn’t hardly think at all.  He is like a beast.  A hairy red beast.  That is how the narrative wants us to think of him.  Interestingly appetite is the metaphor for both Esau and Isaac.  Appetite.  Men of their stomachs.  

How’m i doing, Lord?  How often am i not ruled by my stomach?  Forgetting even to thank you for my food before digging into it.  Fasting is ruling over the stomach.  Ruling over the appetites.  A beast thinks only of its next meal.  Survival.  A man can fast.  Can chose to forego the meal in order to seek something greater.  An infant screams because it is hungry.  A weaned child can sit calmly.  A man must rule over his appetites, desires and physical weakness.  Self-control.  A gift of the Spirit.  An attribute of Christ.  Man does not live by bread alone but by every Word which comes from the mouth of God.  Give us appetites for the Bread of Heaven.

And then God waited...

The last time God revealed himself to the whole world, there were only two people on it.  

God ordains the means.  This includes our ability to know Him.  Those two people were spoken to directly.  We know Cain was spoken to directly, oddly enough, we don't know if Abel was.  Enoch walked with YHWH, the rest of humanity walked away from Him.  Though all mankind should have had the ancestral knowledge and passing along of the true God, it is obvious they did not so that by the time God reveals Himself and His plan to Noah, only eight people, and seven of them probably not directly, have heard from Him and about Him.  A reset.  A reboot.  Through these eight, the race of men are given another chance to know YHWH and walk with him as one.  And as with Cain, it becomes painfully apparent right away that will not be the case.

And God is content to wait generations for one man and one barren woman.  Abram is chosen, among all the countless millions of people who were on the earth by that time, scattered by God himself at Babel, all with ancestral memory of the flood, all walking away from the True God.  Abram is chosen and renamed "Father of Nations."  Through Sarah and He, God would reveal Himself to the world...eventually.  And not even their whole family.  Not all of Abraham's children, but just the one, Isaac.  And not all of his children, but the one, Jacob.  In Jacob God chose to create a people for His own possession: Israel.

And so this one family, twelve clans, was chosen to be God's ambassadors, His representatives, His chosen priesthood of believers upon the earth and to the entire world.  And then God waited.  Four hundred years.

Taking no one's counsel but His own, when the time was right, God revealed Himself first to one man, Moses, then through the plea of prophecy and following, violent judgment, He revealed himself to both the nation of His sovereign election and their oppressors.  Upon leading them out of that land he led them to a mountain and allowed them to see just a hint of his holiness and glory.  And he gave them Words.  Ten words to live by, to know God by, and by obeying, to show the world what the One True God was like.  Then for forty years of wandering, He was manifestly in the midst of only one nation of all the nations and tribes in all the earth in a way they could physically see and hear.

And they walked away from Him.  Even while, literally, walking behind Him and holding His revelation in a box in a tent in their midst.  Their hearts, the box inside the tent of their bodies, the hearts of His chosen people, His royal priesthood of believers, were never with Him.  He let them die in the wilderness.  Their children entered the land following Joshua.  But where was the cloud?  It is never mentioned again.  Did it leave in a ceremony?  Did the presence of God fade away and none noticed enough to write it down?  After this there is only the revelation of prophets, chosen instruments of God's divine word.  And God waited.

And God is again content to wait for generations, four hundred years, for one man, a shepherd, David, whom he chooses from among the sheepfolds and makes king.  To this one, the one man and his one line, God will give a promise of eternal kingship.  His son, David's son, will build a kingdom that shall never pass away.  Of all the people, of all the nations of the earth, God has chosen this one man, of one tribe, of one nation to be His representative to the world again.  And then God waited.

No time for innocence

 It was small talk while we waited for an appraiser to tell me what i already knew, that my trade-in wasn't worth the electricity a crusher would take to make it into a manageable metal cube.  But it was interesting small talk.  Probably worth more than the truck i was considering purchasing.

The salesman was saying, given what he's seen in the world and the state of it now, back in '06 when he found out "we were pregnant" he was excited, of course he was excited and happy, but he.. he had reservations.  Was it right?  He didn't really want to finish the statement.  Perhaps he realized at that moment that he was talking to total strangers and sharing something intensely personal.  But maybe he left it hanging because there is a...there should be a.. a hesitation before voicing what so many of us may feel.  Is it right?  Is it good?  Is it ..moral.. to bring children into this world?

He was in perfectly safe company.  i had the same thoughts when my wife was pregnant.  i have the same thoughts now about my children having children.  i have those thoughts when i see all the new babies being born in our church.  What kind of world are we bringing them into?  What future awaits them?  My eschatology and my sense of the political winds agree that there are not just rough seas ahead, but rocks, and here there be dragons.  What kind of monster would hurl an infant child into that maelstrom?  

But in that instant, when my instincts were to nod and agree wholeheartedly, a new thought entered my head: 

But that would mean we, as a race, gave up.  If all that is required, as so many well meaning folk say, for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing, then what kind of victory would evil have if all well intentioned folk simply threw in the towel and allowed themselves to perish from the earth?  There's a dystopian novel in that idea, i'm sure of it.  And i'm fairly certain for many reasons that is all it will ever be: fiction, the feverish dreams and nightmares of grossly over pessimistic authors.  And i think the reasons for that are worth dwelling on because they are reasons to bless God and to rejoice and to repent and to find hope in an otherwise hopeless world!

First, blessing, and what is a child if not just that?  Pregnancy is sometimes called a miracle.  New life.  Which only God can bring and God has blessed and God has pronounced as good.  If the world is dark then bring light to it!  Bring children!  Bring life!  "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth," was a commandment before, "Do not eat."  What we could do, should do was here before what we should not do.  God's plan for the earth is wrapped up in this.  As a pastor i used to listen to used to say, there are two ways to outnumber the pagans, one is to convert them but the other is to simply breed them out!  Have more babies!  Being fruitful is always tied to the blessing of YHWH.  

A baby is a gift, always.  No matter the circumstances, the child did not create them.  The child we know to be a gift from God and thanksgiving is always appropriate in the face of God's gifts.  Rejoicing is the proper response.  To do anything else is ungrateful and to judge God's gifts and timing and come out saying you knew better.  To discredit the gift is to disgrace the giver, to dishonor the child is to dishonor the image of the Living God in the child.  You cannot mourn the birth of the prince without angering the King.  Rejoice!  Rejoice that God's favor has not turned from men!  In the amazing movie Children of Men, all people have become sterile, no child has been born for almost twenty years.  The human race knows it is dying.  Even pagans would have to admit the judgment of God in such an event.  

But no matter what has happened since the beginning of time no such judgment has come!  When an armageddon of ice crept down from the north, and humans were pushed south, they carried their young with them.  When God judged the earth with water, eight people (and countless animals!) he brought through and made them all fruitful and repopulated the earth.  When a wicked king demanded that the people of God throw their sons in the river, God kept giving them sons.  Through war, famine, pestilence, plague, economic depression, refugee flight, through generations of serfdom, slavery and oppression, God has given people children.  No age was too dark, no time too bleak, no trial too fiery for mothers and fathers to bear their young through it all.  How arrogant are we to think that no, this time, this age is just too bad to bring kids into, this future too hopeless?  

And so repent, you who like me may have disdained, even in idle thought, the blessing of God.  The very hope we need in this dark age is symbolized in the signs of grace God gives us in new life itself!  We who are the firstfruits of the new creation should recognize this more than anyone!  We who know Who our hope is have no justification for losing hope!  For we must never forget that it is our very hope who is in charge! 

“Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have deported from Jerusalem to Babylon, ‘Build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take for your sons wives, and give your daughters to men that they may bear sons and daughters, and multiply there, and you must not be few."  Jeremiah 29:4-6

Christians! On me!

 From my prayer journal this morning, a meditation on 2 Sam 10, Ps 60 and Ezekiel's visions of God's throne...

Then back to the campaigns of David with Psalm 60.  Which interestingly enough makes it sound as if they lost or were losing or the battles didn’t go as swimmingly as 2 Samuel makes it sound.  “You have rallied those who fear you round a banner out of bowshot, so that your beloved ones may be rescued.”  vs 4,5  A broken formation runs for its life as the archers pour arrow after arrow, as fast as they can knock, pull and release, into the lighter armor on the backs of the fleeing.  But then a banner raises up in their seeing.  It stands proud and tall and unfaltering and they recognize it and flee toward it.  And run beyond the arrows, re-muster, reform and gain strength and courage from their commander who reorders them for a second push.  Gathers the remnant to himself and forges it into a spear.  And now the enemy pursuers have lost formation, they have lost the integrity of their lines and each the help of his neighbor.  Now a hardened, orderly, cohesive phalanx can turn and break them into flight and cut them down on the retreat, one by one.

The banner, or better yet, your mobile throne, your chariot which Zeke saw, born up above the cherubim and the wheelwork.  If we were fleeing and saw this!  This would be the shadow we would gather under.  This would be the wings we would take refuge under.  “And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had, and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, holy and true Lord, will you not judge and avenge our blood from those who live on the earth?” And to each one of them a white robe was given, and it was said to them that they should rest yet a short time, until the number of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed as they had been were completed also.”  Rev 6:9-11  Those slaughtered for your name are surely gathering under your banner and out of bowshot.

God is good, all the time.

 [Direct from my prayer journal this morning... i dunno, but it may be helpful to somebody.  Peace and the prosperity of God to you, brothers and sisters.]

“For I know the plans that I am planning concerning you,”  declares YHWH, “plans for prosperity and not for harm, to give you a future and a hope.”  Jer 29:11

A very famous verse and one that prosperity gospel gets its name from.  One often taken out of context by both those who love it and those who want to debunk it.  No, it was not written about modern americans.  But what Scripture is there that is not God breathed and useful for all teaching and instruction and admonition?  What prophecy does not have both a near and a far meaning?  It is important to note that the prosperity that You gave them was one or two generations growing up knowing nothing but life in Babylon.  That three generations later, the grandchildren of the Jewish exiles will see Babylon destroyed by Cyrus.  A traumatic event.  And some will remain to serve the Persians.  And some will return to the land, the land they did not know and find filled with foreigners, and rebuild in their poverty a nation hated by its neighbors.  A land surrounded.  Mason’s packing heat in case of attack.  Hard work.  It’s not that your gifts are not good, Lord, they are.  It’s that we tend to misinterpret them.  We seek comfort and ease, and you seek discipline and training us up into the image of Christ, who suffered greatly in order to serve others and obey you.  Who was perfected through suffering.  And that is still true today.  Our prosperity is Christ.  Christ in us.  Christ for us.  Christ over us.  And you plan that for all your people.  

a public service announcement

 Don't know if this applies to the four or five of you who read this blog or if you're already getting notices about it, but it seems that if you get my blog by email, that service is going away.  i'll still be here.  Still be updating with my usual sporadic spitball manner but there will be no automatic email of said spitballs to you.  Sorry, talk to the lords of the interwebz.  i have no control over it.

thanks y'all,

justshane

All of this

 

i cannot stand 

 all of this 

i prayed that You would change

 all of this

i wept bitter tears over

all of this

i searched the Scriptures for the cause of

 all of this

i wanted to end

 all of this

i railed against

 all of this

i loathed

 all of this

i prayed that You would change

 all of this

i repented of

 all of this

i grudgingly accepted

 all of this

i learned to live with

 all of this

i saw the good in

 all of this

i saw You in

 all of this

i saw You working in

 all of this

i thank you for

 all of this

i see You changing

 some of this

i see You changing

 all of me.

Enter into the rest of your master

 In Matthew 24 Jesus tells his disciples what's going to happen, big, distressful things.  We often think we would be better off knowing the future, until we do.  Immediately though, Jesus seeks to allay their fears and anxiety in Matthew 25 by telling them, and us, what we should do in the meantime, in light of these coming cataclysms, wars, rulers and happenings.  i'm a guy who needs things simple.  i cannot keep but one complex command in my head for long enough to execute it and then give me the next one.  Jesus loves me, he seems to know that about me.  Matthew 25 boils down to three simple comparisons between those in covenant with Him and those who are not but act like they are.

1. There are virgins who are prepared for a long wait, and those who are not.

2. There are servants who love their master and show it by working for his wealth and fame, and one who does not.

3. There are sheep who love one another and generously give to those in need, and goats who do not.

There's obviously so much more we could say about this but there's also great value in looking and meditating on it in its most distilled form: Be prepared to wait a while.  Love God actively.  Love neighbor actively.

When you put it that way, it doesn't sound so tough, does it.

A momentary glimpse of eternity

 Yesterday, i had the overwhelming joy of hearing twelve anonymous strangers say the words, 

"Not Guilty,"

over a friend and brother whom i have walked through a dark time with for as long as i've known him, almost five years.  When i heard those words, "Not.  Guilty." spoken over him i cannot explain the emotions i felt.  The tears.  The joy.  The pure, clean, clear, so filling-every-hollow-spot, every-empty-chamber, every-dark-quarter-and-corner-with-rapturous-music-and-light joy that i'm still vibrating with it now.  And it occurs to me that...

If that's what twelve strangers saying, "Not Guilty," over a friend and brother in an aging, flaking, gaudy courtroom of this world does,

What will it be like to hear those words from the mouth of God over us ourselves in the glorious unapproachable light and utterly devastating beauty of His throne room in highest heaven?!  But not just those words!  As staggeringly ecstatic as they will be but added to them,

"Well done,

Good and Faithful Servant.

Enter into the Joy of your Master,

my Dearly

Beloved

Son."

Esther 3: The Enemy

"After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and he exalted him and set his position above all the officials who were with him."  Est 3

"You were anointed a guardian cherub,

    and I placed you on God's holy mountain;

you walked in the midst of stones of fire."  Ez 28

Enter the Adversary.  Created, not begotten.  Magnified by the King.  Put in high place.  Exalted.  Beautiful.  Regal.  Glorious.

And bent.

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other animal of the field which YHWH God had made." Gen 3

"You were blameless in your ways

from the day you were created,

until wickedness was found in you.

In the abundance of your trading,

    they filled the midst of you with violence, and you sinned,"  Ez 28

"And Haman saw that Mordecai was not kneeling and bowing down to him, and he was filled with anger.  But he considered it beneath him to lay hands on Mordecai only, for they told him of Mordecai's people, and Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who were in the kingdom of Ahasuerus."  Est 3

"And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, in order that whenever she gave birth to her child he could devour it."  "And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child."  "And the dragon was angry at the woman, and went away to fight against the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and who hold to the testimony about Jesus."  Rev 12

But powerful though he is, malevolent and bent on genocide as he is, Satan and Haman both, must seek the permission of the King to do any of the evil they desire to do.  Yet, deceivers to the heart, they cannot but work in subterfuge and intrigue, masking their intent and hatred beneath layers of calculated civility.

"And Haman said to King Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people scattered and deparated among the peoples in all of the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from every other people, and they do not observe the laws of the king; it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them.  If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to those who do the job, to bring into the treasury of the king."  Est 3

"Then Satan answered YHWH and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing?  Have you not put a fence around him and his household and around all that belongs to him on every side?  You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has increased in the land.  But, on the other hand, stretch out your hand and touch all that belongs to him and see whether he will curse you to your face."  Job 1

And the King gives the permission.  This calls for the patient endurance of the saints!  One king does so because he believes the lies and the deception but our King, our Jesus, does so for His own reasons which we can only guess at and usually not to our benefit.  Though His intentions can never be in doubt for He is good and He loves us as His own and has chosen us for Himself and means us no harm but only greater glory.  

For now though, in the story as in life, we see the Adversary ascendant and the King appears complicit and the slaughter of our people imminent and we, like the city of Susa, are bewildered.

Esther 2: A worthy queen.

 "Let them seek attractive young virgins for the king.  Let the king appoint chief officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, and let them gather every attractive young virgin to the harem in the citadel of Susa under the care of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let him give them their beauty treatment.  And let the young woman who is pleasing in the king's eyes become queen in place of Vashti."  Esther 2:2-4

Adam fell and was expelled from the Garden.  From that time on, God's redemptive purpose was acted out by His choosing, His sovereign election, of a person and choosing to cut a covenant with them.  To bind Himself to them.  To Seth.  To Noah.  To Abraham.  To Isaac.  To Jacob.  To Joseph.  To Judah.  To Perez.  To Moses.  To David.  To those whom the king finds lovely in his sight.  They are His by right.  King Ahasuerus could take any woman he pleased because he was king.  Even more so, God can take any man or woman he pleases because He is God.  He takes them, treats them like royalty, though subjects, he beautifies them, glorifies them, sanctifies them, yet each one was found wanting.  None was worthy to be queen.  No not one.  No matter whom God has chosen and blessed over the millennia, they have all fallen short of the glory of God.  None is worthy to redeem us.  None can save us.  None could ever give up their bodies for us to save us from our slavery to death.  

"There was a Jew in the citadel of Susa..."  Est 2:5

"...who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the temple service, and the promises, to whom belong the patriarchs, and from whom is the Christ, according to human descent, who is God over all, blessed forever.  Amen."  Romans 9:4,5

"And it happened, at the proclaiming of the edict of the king and his law, when many young women were being gathered to the citadel of Susa under Hegai's care, Esther was taken to the king's palace under the care of Hegai who was in charge of the women.  The young woman pleased him and she won favor in his presence, and he quickly provided for her beauty treatment and her portion of food, with seven chosen maids to give to her from the king's palace, and he advanced her and her maids to the best part of the harem."

"And Jesus was advancing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with people."  Luke 2:52

Side note, can we think of the king's eunuchs as representative of the angels?  The way we are cared for and watched over by these invisible ministers of our God?  Those who do His bidding directly.

"When the turn came near..."  Est 2:15

"But when the fullness of time came..." Gal 4:4

"Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus, to his palace...And the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won his favor and loyalty more than all the virgins..." Est 2:16,17

"Sixty queens there are, eighty concubines,
    and maidens beyond number.
My dove, she is the one;
    my perfect, she is the only one;
        she is the favorite of her mother who bore her.
Maidens see her and consider her fortunate;
    queens and concubines praise her:
"Who is this that looks down like the dawn,
beautiful as the moon,
    bright as the sun,
        overwhelming as an army with banners?"  Song of Songs 6:8-10

"And behold, there was a voice from heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."  Matt 3:17

"...so he put a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.  And the king gave a great banquet, Esther's banquet, for all his officials and servants.  And he granted tax amnesty to the provinces and he gave gifts with royal liberality."  Est 2:17,18

Two things happen when Christ comes, our debts are forgiven!  The debt we owe the King.  The debt of allegiance that we never gave.  The debt of holiness we could never pay.  The king's ransom was paid by Christ himself, the second, better and truer Adam, the acceptable sacrifice.  And the King gives gifts!  "Now to each one of us was give this grace, according to the measure of Christ's gift.  Therefore it says, "Ascending on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men."  Pentecost!  The Spirit that dwelt and rested on Christ is given now to all who call on and are called by His worthy Name.  

Esther 1: Call and Rejection

 "And when those days were completed, the king gave for all the people that were present in the citadel of Susa, both great and small, a banquet in the courtyard of the king's palace garden that lasted seven days... Esther 1:5

Maybe it was all the time i spent pondering the "two women" of Proverbs but this time i came to the book of Esther, i saw in it something i have never seen before.  An allegory.  A precursor.  A story that doesn't just tell of a time when the Jews were in dire peril and needed rescuing but, and this should really not surprise me at all by this point in my education, but a book that points directly to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Duh.  All the Bible tells that story!  Why wouldn't Esther?  

It began not with the two women though, but the thought, which comes from the Holy Spirit who whispers to us when we are fully engaged in studying His testimony, that this celebration of a king points to the banquet we all wait for... the Wedding Celebration of the Lamb.  The lavish descriptions of it's opulence, the incredulous length of time and preparation and supply it would have required, the regal generousness of it, the wealth, the liberal length of time for the feasting, the copious amounts of alcohol for merriment.  The openness of its guest list.  It's extravagant to the point of hyperbole!  Which can only point to the true feast which will have no end, to its time, to its food, to its libation, to its joy!  The feast which we lack the imagination to describe!

When that image struck me, it gave me a whole new lens to read the rest by.  

"On the seventh day, (a symbol of completeness, perfection, "at the fullness of time," "when the time was right,")

when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he said to [his] seven eunuchs attending King Ahasuerus, to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown...Esther 1:10,11

The wife of God, the King.  The One who married Himself to His people.  He called His people.  He has always called.  One and not another, His and not another man's wife, the one to whom He bestowed the His own crown of glory.  Seth and not Cain.  Isaac and not Ishmael.  Jacob and not Esau.  His sovereign election.  "For what great nation has for it a god near to it as YHWH our God, when ever we call upon him?  And what other great nation has for it just rules and regulations just like this whole law that I am setting before you today?"  Deut 4:7,8

"However, take care for yourself and watch your inner self closely, so that you do not forget the things that your eyes have seen..." Deut 4:9

"But Queen Vashti refused to come at the word of the king...And the king became very angry, and his anger burned in him." Esther 1:12

The Queen, the wife of the king, refuses him.  Now much has been made in modern times to excuse her behavior, to validate Vashti and paint King Ahasuerus as the villain and who knows but some of it may be true but i doubt it, not because i don't doubt that the king was a sinner and could have had less than noble purposes for his wife, but because the reason the story is recorded for us is to tell the story of God.  And God's queen rejects him for the same reason every time, pride.  She knows what's best for her, not Him.  It's not enough for her to be queen, she must be king!  But what happens when the one chosen by God to be His rejects Him?  The world is watching.  It does not happen in a vacuum but is witnessed by the nations.  The kingdom of priests, consecrated to be ambassadors for the One True God and His salvation through His Son, corrupt their message and teach the nations a lie.  The two women of Proverbs comes back to me: Wisdom and the Harlot- the mother of all whores, the one "with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality, and those who live on the earth became drunk with the wine of her sexual immorality."  Rev 17:2  One points us always, ever to God and His truth, the other, ever always away from Him.

"Not only has Queen Vashti done wrong to the king, but to all the officials and all of the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus.  For this deed of the queen will be known to all the women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands, as they will say, "King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him but she did not come!"  vs 16,17

The disobedience and faithlessness of God's people not only endangers themselves, but all the nations!  For if those to whom the special revelation came teach that God is to be treated with contempt, then who can be saved!  This is one reason why God had to so closely guard His holiness before the Ark when he killed Nadab and Abihu, when He broke out against Uzza, and when He cut down Ananias and Sapphira.  This is why apostasy cannot be treated lightly by God, it endangers His whole plan to save His people.  So God also rejects His queen when she rejects Him...

"If it pleases the king, let a royal edict go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of Persia and Media so that it will not be altered, that Vashti cannot come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to her neighbor who is better than she." v19

When the descendants of Abraham whom God called out of Egypt turned on Him at Kadesh and would not enter into the Land He had prepared for them, "As I swore in my anger, "They will never enter into my rest."" Heb 3:11  He gave them over to die in the desert and took in their children.  When Saul would not obey and in his foolishness and fear and persistent unbelief turned on Him, YHWH rejected him as king over Israel and gave his throne to David.  And when the "builders" rejected the "stone placed in Zion" they too were rejected and God called others, "And the king was angry and sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.  Then he said to his slaves, "The wedding celebration is ready, but those who had been invited were not worthy.  Therefore, go out to the places where the roads exit the city and invite to the wedding celebration as many people as you find."  And those slaves went out into the roads and gathered everyone whom they found, both evil and good, and the wedding celebration was filled with dinner guests."  Matt 22:7-10

"Then you will say, "Branches were broken off in order that I could be grafted in."  Well said!  They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand firm because of faith."  Rom 11:19,20