J. Thomas

Walking on Water (Matthew 14:22-23)

In the Gospel according to Matthew, after Jesus fed five-thousand men along with an unspecified number of women and children with a mere five loaves of bread and two small fish, we find the following recollection:

²²Immediately he [Jesus] made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. ²³And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, ²⁴but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. ²⁵And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. ²⁶But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. ²⁷But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
²⁸Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” ²⁹He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. ³⁰But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” ³¹Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” ³²When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. ³³And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Matthew 14:22-33, NRSV

Let’s begin by reflecting on the image of Jesus walking on the sea. Two historical narratives are bound up with this picture. They are creation and Israel’s exodus from Egypt.

We notice first in verse 25 that the disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea. The word translated sea is the Greek word thalassa. That’s an unusual word to use for a body of water like Galilee. In the first century A.D. thalassa was more commonly used to describe larger, ocean-like bodies like the Mediterranean. The Gospel of Luke reflects the more common Greek term for smaller bodies of water like Galilee—limnē (lake). So, why do Matthew and Mark choose to call Galilee a thalassa (a sea)? Because of creation and the Exodus.

In the beginning, when God created, everything was covered by the waters. On the second day of creation, God separated the waters above from the waters below and created an expanse between them which He called the heavens. Then, on the third day, God gathered the waters below the heavens and separated them from the land. These gathered waters He called yamiym, in Hebrew—seas. When the Hebrew was translated into Greek, the translators used the word thalassas to translate yamiym.

So, calling gathered waters seas, irrespective of their size, is reflective of the terminology of creation. And this is why during the Exodus, the body of water that God parted before the Israelites was called a yam, a sea—more specifically, the yam-sūph, the Sea of Reeds or, in the Greek translation, the Red Sea.

When the psalmist, Asaph, recalled the crossing of the Israelites through the yam-sūph, he told the story this way:

¹⁶When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; the very deep trembled.
¹⁷The clouds poured out water; the skies thundered; your arrows flashed on every side.
¹⁸The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook.
¹⁹Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen.
²⁰You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Psalm 77:16-20, NRSV

Of course, the path the Israelites walked through the sea, led by God’s unseen feet, was on dry ground. Jesus did not part the waters of the sea in this instance in Matthew. He walked upon them. But, in the case that this might cause us to miss the Passover/Exodus significance of what Jesus was doing, the Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus intended to pass by them. Mark used the Greek verb par-erchomai to explain Jesus’ intent. Par-erchomai is the Greek verb used to translate the Hebrew pasach, to pass over.

When the disciples witness this event, they are terrified because they think they are seeing a phantasma, in Greek. The NRSV translates the word as ghost, and it can mean that. But, the translation ghost misses something. The word phantasma relates to an apparition or a supernatural appearance of something. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 12, verse 21 of his epistle used the verb form of the word to describe the appearance of God to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. He also described Moses as terrified in that moment. Matthew’s language is meant to indicate that Jesus was revealing Himself to the disciples in ways similar to those by which God revealed Himself to Israel in the events of the Exodus and at Sinai.

And these connotations are highlighted even further by Jesus’ response to the disciples’ fear. Jesus said, “Tharseite, egō eimi; mē phobeisthe.” Literally it translates, “Take courage, I am; do not be afraid.” The same command against fear is spoken by God when He appeared to Abraham in Genesis 15:1, to Hagar in Genesis 21:17, to Isaac in Genesis 26:24, and to Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28:13. And in this instance Jesus designates Himself as egō eimi, I am. It could be translated as “It is I.” But, given the creation-Passover-Exodus context of this event, it more likely reflects the divine name of God revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14:

¹⁴God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ ”
Exodus 3:14, NRSV

And then Peter interrogates the moment.

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

The Greek word for water is plural, reflecting again the Hebrew mayim, waters, of original creation. And Peter uses the Greek word Kyrios to address Jesus. This is not surprising. Kyrios simply means lord or master and means generally what Adonai means in Hebrew. However, Kyrios is also the word that the writers of the New Testament and the Greek translators of the First Testament used to translate the divine name, Yahweh. Was Peter saying, “If it is you, Jesus, command me to come to you on the water”? Or was Peter suggesting, “If you are the Lord, Jesus, command me to come to you on the water”? I suspect Peter was wrestling with a bit of both of these questions.

Perhaps surprisingly, Jesus invites Peter to step onto the waters with Him, and perhaps more surprisingly still, Peter gets out of the boat and actually takes a few steps upon the waters. But, then something happens…

³⁰But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Matthew says it was the wind that scared Peter at that moment—not the walking on water, not the realization that it was Jesus who had summoned him out of the boat and into this miracle. It was the mighty wind that took his attention off of Jesus, and for good reason, I’m sure. Peter was a fisherman on this very lake, and certainly he knew the difference between a survivable storm and a perilous one. Despite the miracle, despite the revelation of Jesus, despite even the presence of Jesus, Peter knew where he was, and he knew its peril. As the Egyptians before him, he began to sink into the waters.

But, then Peter remembered Jesus, and he called to Him for help, using the same address—Kyrios, Lord! And, as God had delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt by His outstretched arm, Jesus delivered Peter from the waters and into the boat. And then Jesus asked Peter the hardest of questions:

“You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

The word translated little faith is rare in Greek. It does not occur in the First Testament Greek translations, and it occurs only five times in the New Testament—four times in Matthew and once in Luke. And, in each case Jesus uttered it, He was reprimanding folks who were allowing earthly concerns to diminish their trust in God. In Matthew 6:30 Jesus called those who worry about clothing “you of little faith.” In Matthew 8:26, Jesus used the phrase of His disciples when they were afraid of another storm on the Sea of Galilee. In Matthew 16:8, Jesus again used the phrase to accuse His disciples when they were worried about not having enough to eat. And, here, in Matthew 14:31, Jesus uses it to describe Peter.

And Jesus proceeded to ask Peter, “Why did you doubt?” The Greek word here is distazō. It means to hesitate or to be uncertain. Jesus might as well have asked Peter, “Why were you uncertain which to trust—Me or the wind?” It’s a penetrating question. Which do we trust more? Food or Jesus? Clothing or Jesus? Housing or Jesus? Nature or Jesus?

Why do you suppose Peter was uncertain? Could it be because he knew from personal experience, as we do, that God does not always deliver us from earthly perils? Could it be that even with the miracle of walking on water and the presence of Jesus with him, Peter wasn’t sure that the wind could be safely ignored? That is familiar space for me—certain that God can deliver me, but not certain that God will deliver me. Why would Jesus reprimand such a dilemma? After all, Jesus Himself was soon to be crucified—the waters of death soon to rise above His head. And that, too, was God’s will. How can one trust such a God? Wasn’t Peter justified in being uncertain about the danger the wind posed to him?

But, of course, as the life and teachings of Jesus demonstrate abundantly, Jesus’ criticism was not meant to indicate that there are no dangers in the world when one walks with God. Jesus Himself would subject Himself to those dangers and perish in the flesh at their hands. So, the point of this reprimand from Jesus could not have been that those with sufficient faith will not fall prey to earthly perils. Peter himself would one day be executed for his faith in Christ. The wind was certainly dangerous to him.

So, what was Jesus looking for that day? I think Jesus was saying to Peter,

“Don’t let the wind distract you, not because it is not dangerous, nor because it cannot kill you. Don’t fear the wind, Peter, because God can order the chaos. God walks upon the waters. God created out of nothing and ordered what was lifeless. God can raise the dead. The threat of death is real, but the fear of death is slavery. Are you afraid to die, Peter? Are you afraid to suffer? Then the wind has you, and the world is your master. Keep your eyes fixed on me, and then, even if the winds kill you, I will deliver you from the waters.”

And still today, where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also. So long as we fear sickness, so long as we fear suffering, so long as we fear loss, starvation, exposure, and death, the world will have us—we will remain slaves to sin and death and the world and the worldly will remain our masters. To follow Jesus out of the boat and into the chaos no matter the road no matter the cost, is life everlasting. This is what it means to become a Christian, and it is the road carved out by Jesus for all who would be His disciples.

“You of little faith, why do you doubt?”

Will you follow Him?

The Narrow Way (Matthew 7:13-14)

Near the conclusion of His Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus exhorted His disciples with the following words:

¹³“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. ¹⁴For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mt 7:13–14.

It is not surprising that Jesus encouraged His disciples in this way in this context. Matthew chapters 5-7 include some of the most challenging teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. The way of discipleship for Jesus certainly is narrow, but what precisely did Jesus mean to convey with this language?

Does Jesus mean to say that folks can only pass through this gate single file? Must one wait in line? Is Jesus saying something akin to Yoda when Luke asked him if the dark side of the force was stronger? “No! No…quicker, easier, more seductive.” Was George Lucas borrowing from Jesus? Possibly…but not quite.

The New Testament word translated narrow is the Greek word stenós. Stenós is an adjective in Greek, and narrow is a pretty good translation. However, in my view it would be a mistake to assume Jesus’ intention begins and ends with the Greek language. The Gospels have translated Jesus’ teachings into Greek, but beneath that translation lie the Semitic languages of Aramaic and Hebrew. When the word stenós is used to translate the Hebrew of the First Testament, the Hebrew word it translates is tsar. Tsar is usually used in the First Testament to indicate distress—e.g., 2 Samuel 24:14:

¹⁴Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress; let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into human hands.”
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), 2 Sa 24:14.

The way of discipleship, according to Jesus, is narrow in the sense that it is pressing or squeezing. In other words, Jesus is not describing a one-lane highway, or a footpath in a field, or even a neglected road in a forest. He is describing a tight squeeze that is challenging to pass through. And this is more evident still by Jesus’ further description of the road that leads to life as hard. Hard is the Greek word thlibō. Thlibō means pressed, squeezed, or pinched, and it can be used metaphorically to refer to oppression, affliction, or distress.

To use the Hebrew word, the gate and the road that lead to life are tsar—roads of distress, of pressure. It’s no wonder that few find such a way. Who’s looking for a tight squeeze? Is anybody really searching for a pressure-filled road? Of course not. That’s why Jesus indicates that few find it. It’s not that it’s hidden or that it requires a special map to find. The way of life is plain enough in the teachings of Scripture. But, it hides in plain sight from those who wish to find a way that is free of suffering and distress.

Jesus describes the road to destruction, on the other hand, as quite easy on the suspension. The word translated wide (platús) indicates broadness or flatness, and the word translated easy (eurú-chōros) also means roomy or wide. In other words, the road to destruction presents itself as an easier, more relaxed way, and Jesus insists that many choose to enter it.

The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7 delineates what the twentieth-century theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, described as the cost of discipleship. Even a cursory read of Jesus’ description of the way to the Kingdom of Heaven can leave a leisurely traveler full of despair. On another occasion described for us in Matthew 19:16-30, Jesus instructed a wealthy man to sell all his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and only afterwards to follow Him. After the man walked away sad, Jesus said that it was near impossible for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, to which His disciples exclaimed:

“Then who can be saved?”
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Matt. 19:25.

Jesus’ only encouragement to them was that with God all things are possible.

This exchange dovetails well with Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount because, to extend the metaphor, the narrow way may require the shedding of gear to pass through. If we truly wish to follow Jesus, we will need to pass through some squeezes so tight that we will have to shed weight and provisions in order to continue the journey.

Of course, Jesus’ encouragement is that His disciples do not make this journey on their own. Jesus is with them, and God will make the journey possible. But still, it will be no relaxed trip. The way of life presses on those who take it, squeezes those who wish to pass through it. It is a way of pressure and distress. Judged by mere appearances, only a fool would take it. But, we who claim faith in Jesus follow Him, and Jesus denied Himself, took up His cross, and squeezed through the narrow gate.

The history of Christianity is filled with people, both clergy and laity alike, who have sought to widen the passes of the narrow way so that it might appear more appealing to a greater variety of people. Others have sought to place greater emphasis on the destination and leave the road itself undescribed as a way of enticing folks to begin the journey without full awareness of their commitment. And, then, of course, there are plenty who have switched the signs, identifying the wide road as leading to life and the narrow road as leading to destruction.

Do not be deceived by these tactics. The road to life is a pressing road, and those who find it are seeking the way of Jesus, however difficult a squeeze it may be.

If we are to seek the pressing, squeezing road and follow Jesus, we must divest ourselves of the desire for safety, security, ease, and pleasure. These experiences are to be received with thanksgiving when they are given by God in proper season, but they cannot be sought. If we are to find the pressing, squeezing road that Jesus trailblazed before us, we must be looking for precisely that. Jesus goes on in the next verses in Matthew 7 to warn His disciples not to fall prey to false teachers and false prophets. That is a fitting warning because such folks always diminish the pressing, squeezing, distressing facets of the road of discipleship.

False prophets and false teachers offer shorter ways, short cuts, easy principles, and can’t-miss formulas. Jesus never pretended that the road to life was anything but impossible by human effort alone. The way of life is traversable only by those who have gone all-in with Jesus and who are enabled by God Himself. For those looking for a road possible to traverse without God, you will find only the road to destruction. The pressing, squeezing, distressed way that leads to life cannot be traversed without God, and this is precisely why so few find it.

Seek the narrow way. If it is described in the teachings of Scripture and looks to be impossible, you’ve found the gate. You will only enter by placing faith in Jesus to make the impossible possible. This is the road to life. Embrace the call to find it.

~ J. Thomas ~

Return (Isaiah 1:1-20)

²Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. ³The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.
⁴Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the Holy One of Israel, who are utterly estranged! ⁵Why do you seek further beatings? Why do you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ⁶From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they have not been drained, or bound up, or softened with oil.
⁷Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence aliens devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. ⁸And daughter Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a shelter in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. ⁹If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we would have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.
¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! ¹¹What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. ¹²When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; ¹³bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
¹⁴Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. ¹⁵When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. ¹⁶Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, ¹⁷learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
¹⁸Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. ¹⁹If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; ²⁰but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Is 1:2–20.

It is difficult to read words like this, especially when they are presented as proceeding from the mouth of God. Some Christians find it hard to believe God would ever speak in such a way. The caricature of Jesus that is drawn in many modern descriptions of Jesus is so tender and gentle that a few contemporary theologians seem to suggest that Israel only imagined these words into the mouth of God in hindsight after the devastation the Babylonians brought to Israel in the 500s B.C.

And yet, these words should not be surprising to us. The covenant God made with Israel at Mount Sinai promised such curses if Israel broke the covenant, which the people did, over and over again. God sent prophet after prophet, curse after curse, judgment after judgment for over 800 years before these words of Isaiah were finally fulfilled. And yet, God’s children did not return to the covenant God had made with them. They continued to follow their own hearts and to go their own way.

Though, the question still remains: Do such words still apply in the New Covenant of Jesus? After all, those of us who have been reconciled to God by faith in the faithfulness and trustworthiness of Jesus did not enter into a written covenant with God. We simply let our yes be yes and our no be no. We agreed to be the people of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Who became flesh in the Person of Jesus by following Jesus and honoring Him as Lord. There was no written Law. We are being saved by faith. So, without Law, there can be no just consequence, can there? Perhaps this covenant, this agreement, allows for no tangible correction.

And yet, the same God who authored the covenant of Sinai, is the God Who became flesh in the Person of Jesus. What does it mean to have faith in Him? What would be the consequence of faithlessness? Perhaps part of our response must begin with a different question. Were the curses of the covenant of Sinai more like punishments or more like consequences? This could be a distinction without a difference, but I do not believe such to be the case.

My sense of the curses of the Covenant of Sinai is that they were specified consequences of God’s turning away from Israel. In the beginning, when God created, the earth was formless and void and darkness covered the deep, while the Spirit of God was brooding over the waters. This primal chaos was created by God in the beginning, but God did not leave the chaos as it was. He proceeded to shape the chaos through separation and organization. He separated light from darkness and then water from water and then land from sea. And then, He organized the light and darkness with the creation of sun, moon, and stars, the waters and sky with sea creatures and birds, and the land with land creatures.

God created space for life by separating the chaotic waters. Life depends on God. But, what was happening in Israel in the days of Isaiah was akin to what happened with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The people wished for autonomy—they wished to chart their own course. When we rebel against God, seeking autonomy and self-direction, we ask God to depart; we fail to appreciate our and creation’s utter dependence on God for its existence. The covenant of Sinai anticipated this eventuality, and prepared the people for it by describing a world without God. In the curses of Sinai, God identified specific aspects of the waters—the chaos—that He would allow to flow into Israel if they were intent on making their way without Him. These were punishments, certainly, but they were punishments precisely because they were inevitable consequences.

Essentially, these curses were meant to convey a truth to Israel: If you get what you want, and God vacates creation, chaos and lifelessness will ensue. There is no world in which creatures exist without their Creator. There is no life without God and His creativity. And the guidelines God gives are essential to the maintaining of the world He has created. Without God’s Laws, there is no life, no universe. Nothing created is simply free to do as it sees fit. Creation depends fundamentally on the architecture of God.

Understood in this way, the Covenant of Sinai is as much a caution as it is an agreement. Part of what this implies for me is that even in the New Covenant of Jesus, the rules of creation have not changed. The consequence for endeavoring to build a world without need of God is always the same—chaos and lifelessness. And over and over through history, God has endeavored to demonstrate the truthfulness of this testimony. Of course, we are still here, but Scripture teaches that such is the case because God made a promise to Noah that remains in effect and is signified by the rainbow. God has promised to keep creation from total devastation until the coming of the end.

So, Isaiah still speaks to the church, even if it speaks to us out of a different context. These warnings to Israel were rooted in covenant. These warnings to the Church are rooted in creation. The world has been asking God to depart for a very long time, whether consciously or unconsciously. The Lord has been insisting to me in my spirit that the upheaval of our day—personally, societally, and environmentally—are consequences, God’s preview of what it would look like to live in this world as the atheists and agnostics imagine it.

These events are muted, of course. If God truly withdrew, nothing would survive. He promised that He would not do that again until the end. But, over and over, God continues to call to His children, asking them to depart from their pursuit of independence and return to Him. So, perhaps we should read Isaiah’s prophecy again as not only covenantal, but also as cosmic.

The sins from which God warned Israel to turn still persist in the nations of the world. And it is not surprising that the pursuit of secular humanism has resulted in chaos, war, tyranny, and ever increasing moral depravity. The road of independence from God always results in these things. They are inevitable. Without God, there is no life. Chaos is the natural state of things. The more freedom from God we possess, the further from life we progress.

In these days, the Lord is once again turning His face from the nations of the earth; once again He is providing us a foretaste of the world without Him. But, God is doing this to warn us. For it is not only unbelievers who pursue independence and freedom. Those who call themselves Christians value these things, too. The body has lost connection with the Head. The church, in many places, has become indistinguishable from the world. We have allowed the Gospel of Jesus to become a license to live free of God and the boundaries He has set.

The world can hear the warnings and experience the foretaste, but the worldly mind cannot comprehend the meaning of these things. They see only godless nature and natural consequence. They cannot hear the voice of God calling to the people of the earth to forsake the path of independence and return to Him that they might live. But, the children of God must see and hear differently. We must recognize the warning God is giving us, and the opportunity.

All that we’ve experienced so far is consequence…a small foretaste of what the withdrawal of God means for life on earth. If we are to heed these warnings, we must return to the teachings of God, as they have been preserved by His prophets and apostles in the Christian Scriptures. We must place faith again in Jesus by living as God has taught us to live, within the bounds of His creativity.

However, so that God’s children might hear His voice, what comes next has been declared in advance. What comes next is not random consequence. God has chosen it. These are His locusts. What is coming on the east coast of the United States is for our reclamation.

Repent, children of God. Depart from your rebellion. Relinquish your buildings and your institutions. Release your desire for significance and influence. Follow God again into the wilderness. Pursue godliness. Depart from greatness. Call God’s people to repentance. Worship God not in song or celebration. The pagans pursue these things, and God is not hungry for them. Worship God in holiness of heart and life, by denying yourself daily, by embracing the cost of discipleship, and by walking in the way of Jesus.

The world and its ways are passing away. Do not tether yourself to the nations of the earth. What follows is for our reclamation. Repent, for the kingdom of God draws ever nearer.

~ J. Thomas ~

Eternal Life (1 Corinthians 13)

Recently, I watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager that aired in the mid-1990s. It was called “Death Wish,” and it recounted the tale of an immortal, omnipotent being who wanted to die but was condemned to go on living forever. He explained his dilemma to Voyager’s Captain Janeway as follows:

Because it has all been said. Everyone has heard everything, seen everything. They haven’t had to speak to each other in ten millennia. There’s nothing left to say. Captain, you’re an explorer. What if you had nothing left to explore? Would you want to live forever under those circumstances? You want me to prove to you that I suffer in terms that you can equate with pain or disease. Look at us. When life has become futile, meaningless, unendurable, it must be allowed to end. Can’t you see, Captain? For us the disease is immortality.
Star Trek Voyager, season 2, episode 18: Death Wish (February 19, 1996).

As I reflected on this exchange, I began thinking about the purpose of life. The question is not so simple as it may first appear. In this episode of Star Trek, the chief end of all creatures is to learn, to grow, to acquire knowledge and experiences. That road, of course, has an ending. Once all knowledge has been acquired and all experience has been tasted and all places have been known, what then? In the words of Wallace Stevens:

We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning (1923),” Cleanth Brooks, R. W. B. Lewis, Robert Penn Warren, eds., American Literature: The Makers and the Making, Vol. II (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1973), 2154-2155.

In Christian teaching, the acquisition of knowledge and experience is not the chief end of existence. In fact, the Christian Bible begins with the cautionary tale of the deception of the first humans by a spiritual being called, in Hebrew, the nachash, translated usually as “the serpent.” It was humanity’s thirst for knowledge that the nachash exploited in Genesis, chapter 3 as he enticed them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge—a tree God forbade them from eating from.

But, if not exploration, knowledge, experience, what then is the purpose of life? Christians have long pondered this question. Perhaps one of the more oft-cited responses in recent centuries has come from The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which was published in A. D. 1647.

The first question addressed therein was:

“What is the chief and highest end of man [sic]?”

And the response was:

“Man’s [sic] chief and highest end is, to glorifie [sic] God, and fully to enjoy him forever.”
“The Westminster Shorter Catechism, A. D. 1647,” Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom with a History and Critical Notes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1983), 676.

Whenever I’ve heard this response, I’ve assumed that the enjoyment of God implied here is a road of perpetual discovery. I’ve imagined serving God, worshipping Him, and exploring creation in proper relationship to God and to all He has made. And until recently, I’ve been content with those assumptions. After all, if God is infinite, then the journey to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever would be eternal, as well.

However, in reflecting again on the purpose of life this week, I was reminded of Paul’s discussion of hesed—of love (translated from Hebrew into Greek as agape)—in 1 Corinthians 13.

¹If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13, NRSV.

In these verses, Paul seems to agree with the character of the immortal being in Star Trek Voyager. Prophecies will end, speaking will cease, and knowledge, too, will find its conclusion. All these roads are finite. But, then Paul speaks of three aspects of reality which will abide, which are eternal, which define a road without end: faith, hope, and hesed (love)—the greatest of which is hesed.

Now, as Paul’s description of hesed in these verses makes clear, this is not love as an experience, or as infatuation, or as unconditional acceptance, or some other contemporary conceptualization of love. This is not an experience reserved for lovers or for family relationships or even for close friendships. Hesed, as Paul has explained it, is the incarnation of patience, kindness, contentment, humility, unselfishness, and purity. Hesed is loyalty, longsuffering, steadfast endurance, which is why Paul explains it as bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things.

In other words, hesed—love—is not a road, but something more akin to character—a way a person is irrespective of circumstance. The part of life that endures is the engagement of life itself. The purpose of life and the permanence of life is one and the same—hesed (love). The following exchange from the life of Jesus may help to strengthen this reflection:

³⁴When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
³⁷He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 22:34-40, NRSV.

“What is the chief and highest end of humanity?” When the question is put to us, how might we, as Christians, respond?

Perhaps, it is as simple as it is profound… The chief and highest end of humanity is to embody hesed first to God and secondarily to other creatures in all circumstances, thereby embracing our creation as beings made in the image of God—a God Who is hesed (1 John 4:6).

~ J. Thomas ~

When the Deliverer Comes (1 Samuel 30:1-31)

Cain killed Abel because Abel’s sacrifice was pleasing to God and Cain’s was not. Esau sought to kill Jacob because Jacob had swindled his birthright and his blessing. But, as with Cain, we were told at the beginning of the boys’ lives that God had chosen Jacob and had not chosen Esau. So, Esau’s vengeance was born of envy, as was Cain’s.

Over a millennia later, the story was repeating itself again in the persons of Saul and David. Saul had forfeited his anointing due to his failure to obey what God had told him to do through the prophet Samuel. David had been anointed to replace Saul, and, though Samuel never told Saul whom he had anointed to succeed him, Saul realized quickly that David was the most likely candidate. So, as Cain conspired to kill Abel and Esau conspired to kill Jacob, Saul conspired to kill David who, at that time, was one of the most successful soldiers in his army.

And yet, despite Saul’s repeated attempts to end David’s life, David refused to take any hostile action against Saul, even when given the opportunity. And, perhaps more surprising still, David also continued to fight the enemies of Israel on Saul’s behalf while Saul was pursuing his life. But, David could not carry out his campaign while living in Israel due to the threat of Saul. So, David lived amongst the Philistines and pretended to fight for them, while, in fact, he continued to raid Israel’s hostile neighbors.

While playing this dangerous game, David resided in Ziklag. And during one of David’s excursions, Ziklag was raided by a band of Amalekite warriors. The events that follow are preserved for us in 1 Samuel 30:

¹Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid on the Negeb and on Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag, burned it down, ²and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great; they killed none of them, but carried them off, and went their way. ³When David and his men came to the city, they found it burned down, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. ⁴Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept, until they had no more strength to weep. ⁵David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. ⁶David was in great danger; for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in spirit for their sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
1 Samuel 30:1-6, NRSV

After inquiring of the Lord and receiving assurance from God of victory, David pursued the Amalekite raiders. He set out, at first, with six hundred men, but two hundred dropped out before the search was completed. After having found an informant who revealed the location of the raiders, David and his remaining four hundred men descended upon the Amalekite camp.

¹⁶When he had taken him down, they were spread out all over the ground, eating and drinking and dancing, because of the great amount of spoil they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. ¹⁷David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not one of them escaped, except four hundred young men, who mounted camels and fled. ¹⁸David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken; and David rescued his two wives. ¹⁹Nothing was missing, whether small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything that had been taken; David brought back everything. ²⁰David also captured all the flocks and herds, which were driven ahead of the other cattle; people said, “This is David’s spoil.”
1 Samuel 30:16-20, NRSV

Having recovered what was taken, David also decided to share the bounty with the two hundred men who had neither completed the journey nor fought in the battle. Needless to say, a number of those who had remained to the end objected to David’s decision, but not only did David share the spoils anyway, but he also sent some of the proceeds to the elders of the tribe of Judah in whose territory the Amalekites had been operating.

When reflecting on a story like this it is tempting read oneself into the story in the role of David. But, the canon of Christian Scriptures cautions us from reading this story in that way. Why? Because David was the anointed king of Israel. He may not yet have ascended the throne, but God had already anointed him through Samuel. We cannot anoint ourselves king. We are not David. In fact, only one is truly the heir of the promises made to David; only one is the true Messiah who has been anointed by God to rule His Kingdom—Jesus, our Messiah.

When we read the tales of David, it is important to understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of David. And though it is true that David’s story includes moral and legal failures to which Jesus did not succumb, it is Jesus who fills the role of the true King of Israel in the Christian Scriptures. Read in that way, this story from 1 Samuel 30 finds fulfillment in the second coming of Jesus.

As Adam and Eve found themselves alone with the Serpent in Genesis 3 and as the people of Ziklag found themselves alone with the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 30, so, we too, have found ourselves alone with the enemies of God since Jesus ascended into the heavens. Of course, the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the Church, and God has not left us as orphans in the world. But, the Kingdom of God is not yet manifest and the King is not yet with us in the flesh. Our Messiah has not yet returned.

And while Jesus has been seated at the right hand of the Father in the heavens, the book of Revelation tells us that the Serpent has been pursuing the woman who gave Him birth—Israel—and her children—those who have become children of God by faith in Jesus, our Messiah, our King. We are those in Ziklag, and we have been taken by the enemies of God while our King has been away.

Some of us know we are now living in enemy territory, whereas others have forgotten that we were kidnapped at all. Some seem convinced that the Amalekites are working for David. But such convictions are folly. The children of God have been kidnapped, and the second coming of Jesus, the gathering of the remnant, the awakening of those who are sleeping are ways of saying that just as David led an army to liberate those who had been stolen, so Jesus is coming to deliver His children from their bondage to the enemies of God.

Wherever we live—in whatever nation or tribe or culture—we who follow Jesus must remember that we are exiles in a land not our own. We are citizens of another Kingdom—a Kingdom not of this world. And though we are enslaved by the enemies of God in bondage to our captors, both human and spiritual, our King will not leave us in exile. Our King is coming to deliver His children; our Shepherd is coming to gather His scattered sheep. The enemies of God have prepared themselves for Jesus’ coming, and they will not surrender to Him. So, as God did battle with the gods of Egypt in the events of Exodus, God must do battle with our captors, as well.

For those who have not followed Jesus and have not given their allegiance, both body and spirit, to Him, the days to come will be terrifying. But, for those of us who know we are living in slavery to foreign leaders and false gods, we will shine as lights in the darkness, rejoicing in the suffering of those days for the joy set before us will embolden us. As David rescued the captives of Ziklag, so Jesus is coming to gather His children. Do not waver in your faith in the days to come, children of God. However powerful the Amalekites, as God assured David of victory, so the Father has declared victory for the Son. Do not turn back, children of God. Jesus is coming.

~ J. Thomas Johnson ~