Oh, Israel, do you know?

I scurried about this week, busy with the business of my days. Clothes to wash, meals to prepare, lessons to plan, and what will I wear to that wedding? Cancel that appointment, schedule the haircut, get out the door to make it to practice on time. Don't forget to fill out the paperwork before the first meeting, and remember to take those test results when you go to see the specialist. Did anyone let the dog out?  Feed the cat? Clean the fishbowl? Get the mail? Check that message? And, oh! This Sunday is Easter!

And somewhere in the midst of the scurry, I slowed to wonder if the self-absorbed scramble of my present was somehow reminiscent of the past.

I wondered if that week of Passover, in Jerusalem, when the Promised One came riding in on the foal of a donkey and they cried, "Hosanna!"  ("Save now!") . . .

... I wondered if they then returned to the busy business of their days, preparing for the Feast, sweeping the specks from the corners of their homes and tossing the yeast from their kitchens, but missing the planks in their eyes, forgetting the leaven in their hearts, and looking right past the One who came to fulfill the very Feast for which they prepared.

I've been finding planks in my own eye, stubborn leaven in my heart.

And I've been praying that God would give me eyes like His eyes, that He'd give me a heart like His, that He'd teach me to love like He does the people He calls the apple of His eye.

I stood in that city, Jerusalem, just two weeks ago.  City buzzing with laughter and life.  City that has captured my heart and never fails to take my breath away.

A little girl chases a ball in the Jewish quarter, another walks with her grandfather through the souks, up cobbled paths, and through the crowd. Old men argue at tables along the way, and shopkeepers call out that they have the best price on that item you're not sure you'll ever need.  Soldiers patrol the streets of the city, and families wander the ancient paths. The city is alive with life and all this living.  But do they know the One who died that they might live?

Do they know, as they remember the Passover this weekend, the One who is our Passover Lamb?

Do they know that, after his sweat poured like blood in the garden of the pressing, that place we know as Gethsemane, Gat-Sh'manin, the "oil press" - where the olive trees grow still and the oil once flowed from olives crushed in the press -

- do they know that He hung on a cross at the place of the skull, Golgotha, and a woman wept as the blood of her son soaked the earth beneath His pierced hands and feet?

Do they know - as they pray for the peace of Jerusalem, as they press their prayers into the Wall - do they know this One who is the Prince of Peace?  

Have they heard, as they touch the mezuzah at Zion Gate and remember: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad, (Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One) that the One God gave His One and Only Son that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life?

As the sun slips away beneath the western sky tonight, I remember those waking soon in Jerusalem. Do they know that the One they've waited for so long is longing for them now to know He lives?

Then the angel spoke to the women.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  

He isn't here! He is risen from the dead, just as He said would happen."  

Matthew 28:5-6, NLT

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Digging Through the Roof

Nearly twenty years have passed since I first stood in that place, smoothing hands across stone columns, wiping fingers across wet cheeks in awe.

Nearly twenty treks of the earth around the sun since I carried a heart-still-broken across continents and seas and stood in that place where He once stood, restoring bodies broken by this world.

And something dead in me rose to live again that day.  Some wild hope burst right through my stone-cold heart, and hot tears ran like rivers, healing springs.

The stone pillars of that ancient synagogue became my Ebenezers, memorial stones, reminders of the work that God had done, those broken stones bearing witness to the pieces of a shattered heart restored.

And though Jesus had cried out against that city because of unbelief, for this heart, it was a place of believing.

***

I stood there again, two Sundays past, licking raindrops from my lips, breathing in the sweet scent of late winter rain.  And I wondered about the ones who had dug though the roof of a house nearby, believing for their friend who lay trapped in a body unmoving.  I wondered about the ones in the house below, brushing caked mud and straw and broken branches from their hair as the roof caved in above them.  I wondered about those raindrops falling as we stood there, a bit of earth's roof and heaven's floorboards come dripping down on top of our bare heads.

He asked us as we stood there... "Will you be the one?"  He spoke of archaeology and excavations and historical accuracy.  And then he said this:  "Pray that you will be the friend who will do whatever it takes."

Those friends were willing to tear the roof right off that place, to dig straight through to get to Jesus.

When Jesus returned to Capernaum... While He was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat.  They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head.  Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus.  Mark 2:1-4, NLT (emphasis mine)

***

Will I be that kind of friend?

I have that kind of friend.  She's dug though the roof a time or twenty, two hundred even, for me.  When my boy-child lay struggling hard for each breath, and I lay on the floor by his bed, willing him to keep going, pleading with him to just keep breathing; she lay awake, digging though the roof. Night after night, for a year and more, she carried him to Jesus with her prayers. And I slept at last, knowing the One who watched over Israel and my boy-child never slumbered or slept, and knowing I had a friend who was storming heaven with her pleas for the health of my child.

***

We turned pages, from Mark's story of the ones who dug through the roof, to John's account of the man who didn't have a friend to help.  Thirty-eight years he lay paralyzed, hoping for a chance to slip into the healing waters.  Thirty-eight years he lay waiting for a friend to help.  When Jesus asked him if he wanted to be well, the man replied, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool."

No one.

No friend to carry him to Jesus.  No brother to lift his body into the healing waters.  No sister to bear him up on wings of prayer.

No one.

Our friend asked us, after he told us about the archaeology, the excavations, the history of that place, "Will you be the friend who will do whatever it takes?"

And I swallowed hard.

What if it takes digging through the roof?  What if I have to get my hands dirty?  What if it takes every ounce of strength that I have?  What if it takes courage, the guts to do what no one else is doing?  What if it's hard and out of my comfort zone?  What if it takes time - time I had planned to use for something else?  What it keeps me awake at night?  What if everyone in town is blocking the way, and I have to step out in wild faith?

I like my comfortable life, my scheduled weeks, my well-planned worship gatherings.  I like following the rules (mostly) and doing what others expect and knowing their pleasure.

What if I have to step out on a limb?

I remember Amanda Jones saying of a giant step of faith she and her husband, Curtis, took:  "We were way out on a limb with God.  But the view of His faithfulness was spectacular."

But I know that kind of view comes with a certain risk.

Am I willing to take the risk?

Will I be that kind of friend?

Will you?

Even if it means digging through the roof?

Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, 

"My child, your sins are forgiven."

Mark 2:5, NLT

(emphasis mine)

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Eight Nights, Eight Lights... The Story of Hanukkah and Christmas

What would you say if I told you that Jesus celebrated Hanukkah?

What would you think if you discovered that the only biblical reference to Hanukkah appears in the New Testament?

How would you respond if I told you that Hanukkah is not just a Jewish holiday, that without Hanukkah, there would be no Christmas?

It's true!

You see, during the years we commonly refer to as the "400 years of silence," the time during which we have no record of God giving His people any word through His prophets, the people of Israel came under the oppression of the Greco-Syrian Empire.  By 168 A.D., Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the ruthlessly cruel Syrian ruler, had destroyed Jerusalem in a flash of relentless anger and had completely desecrated the Temple of the Lord.  He then set out to annihilate the Jews, declaring that all Jews who would not embrace the culture and religious practices of Hellenism (pagan Greek religion and culture) must be put to death.  Faithful Jews fled to the hills to live in caves, but many were hunted down and viciously murdered by the savage Syrian armies.  Jewish history records the stories of devout Jews who, though brutally tortured and facing certain death, refused to turn from the Lord or dishonor His Name.

In the midst of this relentless persecution and oppression, one family among the Jewish people rose up to lead the people of Israel back to reclaim, restore, and rededicate the Temple of the Lord.  Led by the son known as Judah Maccabee ("the Hammer"), these sons of the priest, Mattathias, and those with them, eventually defeated the Syrian armies and reclaimed the Temple.  On Kislev 25, 165 B.C. (December of that year), the Maccabees rededicated the altar in the Temple of the Lord.

Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud, says that only one day's worth of pure oil remained in the Temple but that the menorah burned for eight days.  Jewish people, today, remember and celebrate that miracle by lighting eight lights for eight nights on their Hanukkiyahs (the nine-branch menorahs that hold one candle for each of the eight nights, plus one shammash (servant) candle which is used to light the others.)

So why does it matter to us?  What's the connection?

If Antiochus Ephiphanes and his soldiers had succeeded in annihilating the Jews, there would have been no Jewish baby born to be Messiah.

The reclaiming, restoring, and rededication of the Temple by those fiercely loyal Jews prepared the way for a certain young Jewish girl and her husband to take their baby boy to the Temple and place Him in the arms of Simeon, who proclaimed,

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen your salvation

which you have prepared in the sight of all people

a light for revelation to the Gentiles 

and for glory to your people, Israel.

Luke 2:29-32, NIV 1984

And the Gospel of John records that when that baby boy grew up...

"Jesus was in Jerusalem at the time of Hanukkah, 

the Feast of Dedication.  

He was in the Temple, walking through the section

 known as Solomon's Colonnade."  

John 10:22-23, NLT

So why celebrate Hanukkah?
Because Jesus did!

Why light eight lights during these eight nights?
Because it's not just a Jewish holiday!

It's a celebration of the faithfulness of our amazing God to preserve, against all odds, the people He had set apart for Himself, those through whom He had promised to send a Savior who would be the light of the world.

So light the candles!  And worship the Lord!  Celebrate!  Tell the whole world the great things our God has done!

Because in so doing, we remember how the Lord preserved His people and prepared the way for the coming King.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death

a light has dawned.

Isaiah 9:2, NIV 1984

The Word gave life to everything that was created,

And His life brought light to everyone.

The light shines in the darkness,

And the darkness can never extinguish it!

John 1:4-5, NLT

*****

If you would like to know more about the Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication, and how God used the events celebrated during this holiday to prepare the way of the Lord, I highly recommend the following resources:

The Feasts of the Lord, by Kevin Howard and Marvin Rosenthal
The following articles by Dr. Mitch Glaser, president of Chosen People Ministries
   "No Hanukkah, No Christmas"
   "Hanukkah and Christmas, Bridging the Great Divide"

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