It’s been almost a year since I set foot back on American soil after spending five months exploring the Holy Land. Within the next few months, I’ll be releasing a twenty-chapter book exploring the land and book we call holy. In the coming weeks, I’ll be offering a few sample chapters from Of Dust and Sun. I hope you enjoy the first chapter! (below). If you are interested in purchasing either an ebook or hard copy version of the book, email me at mcibry@bethel.edu.

Of Dust and Sun Preview – Chapter 1

Of Dust and Sun Preview – Chapter 3

My chest thumps, and I smile at the realization (more than ever) that our God has energized creation with an inertia, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds….”(Gen 1:24)

The story of His love begins with an imperative: we’ve been created to create, to give form and function to the breath of God that, even now, races through the veins of each and every member of the human race. Apathy is a slap in the face of the fiery-eyed God who, with a certain giddiness (I’m starting to believe), looks on as we give form to His burning heart. He’s given us a wooden pattern: calvary. We need only to dream and do with cross-shaped lenses, grateful that our hearts are a bell He aims to ring.

With this in mind, as my plane began to descended into the Minneapolis/Saint Paul International Airport Sunday evening, I wrote a poem.

According to their Kind

A buried bell beneath my chest
Rocks the depths, rolls tide
Like earth beneath the sea
When the wills of coral kings collide
And this is His, His pulse, His breath
Reverberations of His grandeur
To pull back waters
like velvet curtains
Legacy
We, the Spirit’s crystalline decanter
We, the clanging of chaos answered.

Having returned Thursday evening from a six day tour through Jordan, I’ve found myself scrambling to finalize preparations for my return trip home. Yesterday afternoon I left JUC before making my way across town with my friend Ryan. I had been graciously invited to stay the night at the ministry where Ryan volunteers, a home for Kurdish children who have holes in their hearts. They (and usually their mothers) come from points all across the Arab world (Iraq, Morocco, etc.) and prayerfully await a call from doctors in Tel Aviv who volunteer their time to heal kids who can’t pay a dime.

You can find more about this ministry by visiting the Shevet Achim website.

I was invited to hang out with a couple of the kids yesterday afternoon before the staff, Ryan and I shared in a Shabbat meal together–a VERY welcome surprise just a day before I leave Israel. It’s rather fitting that my final 24 hours in this country overlap with the weekly Shabbat, a time set aside by the Scriptures, a time when men are invited to share in the restfulness of the finished work of God. We don’t Sabbath well (or ever) in the US, but here, on Saturday mornings, the streets are empty. Jerusalem (or at least West Jerusalem [since most Arabs don't celebrate Shabbat]) slows to a crawl. I spent the morning in a park under the shade of a massive pine tree reflecting on the past five months. Deep in thought (as often happens) my eyes scanned the horizon line. Suddenly, applause erupted from the other side of the park as a group of parents sat with smiles while little girls took turns dancing barefoot on the grass.

I turned the page of my journal and wrote a poem, an ode to Shabbat:

Shabbat

Beneath the jade tree, Shabbat spins
a little girl all bangs and bows
Bowing to the pregnant wind
Waxing poem and waning prose
I smile from my vantage point
A pilgrim cast upon her dance
I rise and fall with every twirl
Filled with love and bled of chance
Irony is earth and sky,
Her wasteful dance, the heart of heaven

And high atop my rubbish heap,
I pick through years of toil and leaven.
‘Till tumbled down and wild-eyed
I seek my jade tree harbor
My clumsy feet, my life and home,
And I, Shabbat’s martyr.

Today has been by far the hardest.

The unfinishedness of my redeemed heart is staring me in the face like a cracked and flaking urn some ancient potter meant to serve as a gold plated home for spring flowers.

Six days in the Jordanian wilderness stand between me and a return trip to the place I’ve called home for the first 29 years of my life. I’m the same person who boarded a frosty December plane a few months back…only, my eyelids have been stretched wider. I’ve seen places I’ve never dreamed I would behold. I’ve seen facets of my heart that are still crying out for a savior and lie within prisons of self-imposed fear. I am broken in, like my high school baseball glove.

Can I muster a final statement, a barrel-chested proclamation of what I’ve learned in Israel? No doubt people will ask me upon my return, “So, how was it?” I’ll smile back and probably say something smug like, “How ’bout you take me out to coffee and I’ll tell you all about it!” or, “You should read my blog.” But I think it’s important to offer a sort of summation to those who simply don’t have the time sift through my stories or can’t afford coffee (though I promise I’ll only order drip coffee). Honestly, I’m ok with that.

Within the confines of a day where I feel like I’ve been sucker-punched and left staggering; unable to pray, read Scripture, or even journal, all I can offer is agonized assertion that Christ still wants everything.

Let me explain…

The university I attend literally sits atop Mount Zion, a place that functioned as a sort of second name for the Jewish place of worship Bible. Worship: the act of pouring out our hearts before our Creator.

Amid heartache, hopelessness, wonderment and gratitude; wherever the waves of our fickle hearts toss us, God’s love cuts our seas like the frayed edge of a garment, pulling us from the tumult and gazing deep into our eyes.

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God (Psalm 69:1-3).

Whatever condition our hearts are in, however mangled they’ve become before we sigh and send them to the foot of the cross…God isn’t surprised. God wants all of us, every square inch of the flesh he first breathed into and brought to life.

Traveling back and forth across the Holy Land has unveiled the legacy of God’s bride in all her nuanced imperfection: pain, sin, aching, astonishment, awe…God has taken everything, the entire tapestry of human history and carefully woven it into something beautiful: billions of lives connected by the careful hands of Love’s embodiment.

So often when we approach God (or his people) we hold back and grow silent, believing the condition of our hearts to be too grave for grace. God isn’t intimidated. He made us.

Breathe. Trust. Smile under the weight of His love. He wants everything.

Familiarity is a funny thing. Our hearts naturally grow accustomed to familiar surroundings: smells, traffic patterns, and wardrobes of passing pedestrians. Jerusalem has, over the course of these past four and half months, become familiar. I know where to get the best falafel in the Old City. I’ve discovered the city’s best used book store. I’ve even uncovered the best place to get a pint and write poetry. I rise every morning smelling the flowers outside my window, yawn, walk (sometimes barefoot) across the cobblestone pathway which leads from my dorm room to the cafeteria where Nat and Shirley (our Texan chefs) have faithfully blended massive amounts of TLC with my morning granola.

Jerusalem has become familiar…it will never be home.

Over the course of my time in this land of dust and sun I’ve learned that true homecoming is an inward reality. Our faint hearts finally rest when we submit to the staggering truth that He is our home. And so wherever we are, whatever corner of the globe our feet march across, when our hearts have found peace with Christ, our sojourning will forever fail in carrying us beyond the threshold of His grip. Wherever we are, we are home.

I think back to the weather beaten Greek Orthodox monastery that housed me during my first month in Israel. I was lonely there. I waded through long nights of tears wrestling with the question of who I am when separated from friends, possessions and familiarities. As wind and rain created a rhythm to those winter nights, I began a long journey home while in the midst of a foreign land.

Soon after I arrived in Israel, a friend of mine released a worship album. One song in particular drove a stake through the center of all I was feeling while on the top of the Mount of Olives and became a sort of anthem for the journey I was on. The chorus goes like this:

Hold my hand
I’m sick of fighting in a foreign land
Dreaming of home again,
when home’s the only place I’ve never been
Heart in hand,
your child’s asking for the Promised Land
In your arms again
I find I’m closer than I’ve ever been.

In less than two weeks I’ll be coming “home.” In truth, I’ve never left.

There have been days over the course of the past four and a half months when while sitting in class or standing atop some precipice overlooking the Biblical landscape I thought my head would explode. New information raced along electrified neurons like speed skaters atop an Olympic track.

But most of the time, my interaction with the bones, stones, sand and shoreline of Scripture superseded words and cast my heart deep into the realm of mystery. These things are both clothing me and beyond me.

I’m willing to say, “I don’t know” a lot more.

As devotion has increased, pretense has waned. I’ve started writing poetry again–a means to perhaps reflect the way in which my soul has been wooed into mystery.

This morning I sat in a coffee shop pondering these things: hope, truth, Christ’s cross, and the ways in which His Spirit has whittled away the things I thought the writer of Hebrews meant when he refers his intended audience (who probably walked the same broken streets I did this morning on my way to the aforementioned coffee shop) to the saving reality of faith.

This morning I wrote a poem:

I bend down beside the water’s edge
Wedge my feet between sanity and eternity
And the moon over me, all around me
Like the undiluted glory cradling the face of the prophet
And my chattering teeth preach before ancient pews
Hewn by the breath of God before time could crawl.
These words cast fog against the black
Each sentence lacking synthesis, failing to match
The rhythm of the story pulsing beneath my chest.

I rest.

The stars blinking back at me,
Knowingly
Expecting nothing but the whole of me
To bend my knees and surrender to a mystery
Encompassing both sanity and eternity.

I’ve long feared my heart is like an angry freight train churning downhill into oblivion. Sometimes, amid moments of clarity, I stop and ask myself, “Why?”

I’m convinced that the fall of humanity purchased a consequence especially applicable to me,

…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground… (Genesis 3:17-19).

Our self-imposed slavery often leaves us at the twilight of our projects and pursuits wondering whether the awkward and diluted sense of accomplishment we feel was really what we were seeking all along. But we keep going, like the mouse on the wheel, like the freight train pummeling down the cliff: we’re racing toward an unforeseen end.

Every Friday night sirens pierce the fading light.

Shabbat. Selah.

Twenty five hours of rest, each one serving as a silent commentary on my Westernized soul. If I’m honest, I believe my worth is intimately intertwined with what I’m able to produce. Scripture is clear: our identity is intrinsic. We are who we are by the breath and the grace of God.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; mail and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).

Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (Genesis 2:7).

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation (Genesis 2:2-3).

I suppose it goes without saying that we could learn a thing or two from God. God creates. Everything is deemed “very good.” There’s no Hebrew word for “perfect”, but it’s clear that creation is unfinished. Human beings are placed atop sod with a purpose, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

Humanity stands on the brink of a hope, a purpose. Moments (seemingly) later, everything goes wrong. Creation falls apart. God knows exactly what is about to happen. Creation, His prize, His masterpiece, is about to unravel.

Still, He rests.

Are we able to pull back from our work, even when it remains unfinished, imperfect, and even possessing the distinct possibility to crumble, leaving us look vulnerable and…rest?

One of my professors tells the story of a bathroom remodeling project he hired out to a Jerusalemite. It was Friday and the project was well behind schedule (Middle Eastern time is a bit different than we’re used to). Morning bled into afternoon, and as the sun sunk into the Judean Hill Country, the remodeler’s pace quickened. Suddenly, the man tossed his tools to the tile, raced out of the house, and sped off into the sunset. He never returned. Sabbath called, and he answered.

Upon returning home, I want to let go. I’ll always remember jogging through the center of the streets of West Jerusalem on Saturday afternoons. People don’t drive on Sabbath. Life shuts down. People come together and look to their Maker in an attempt to reclaim the sense of dignity we, as His creation, have been endowed with.

In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity. The island is the seventh day, the Sabbath, a day of detachment from things, instruments and practical affairs as well as of attachment to the spirit (Abraham Joshua Heschel)

My plane skipped and sped down the runway, dropped her arms and climbed. I gazed out the window at my snowy home, said “goodbye” with a full heart and watched as clouds slowly bled across backyards and housetops until I was blind and my 4 1/2 month separation from the place I know as home  has begun.

These were the opening words to a brand new journal, a journal that is now torn, tattered, and has only two or three pages left empty.

My time in Israel is quickly coming to an end. Airplane tires will soon race and rise as I skip across three continents on my way back home. And as I peer into my final week here at Jerusalem University College, I wanted to take an opportunity to share how I anticipate that the next few weeks and months will look.

Next week: During finals week, (along with studying for two exams and writing a paper) I’ll be reflecting on the past 4+ months, sharing a few highlights from my time here. This will perhaps be mostly an endeavor for my own benefit, but I think (as I ponder what it means to pack up and leave) it will be a healthy thing for me to do.

May 8-13: My final week at JUC will consist of a field trip to Jordan. We’ll be spending five nights living with a Bedouin community in remote Southern Edom (Jordan). There, I will have the opportunity to ride camels through Wadi Rum, battle scorpions and poisonous snakes (meaning, avoid them), shepherd sheep, and reflect on the sort of experiences that would have typified the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I’ll be taking a ton of photos and perhaps shooting some videos; however, without electricity (or running water) my experiences will have to wait until after my return to Minneapolis to be documented.

May 16th (5:00 a.m.): After checking out of my dorm, I’ll be spending a day and a half in Tel Aviv before heading home. I may have an opportunity to post some reflections from my time in Jordan while in Tel Aviv; however, my Internet access may be limited.

June-August: Much of my summer will be spent editing photos, videos and blog posts in anticipation of proposing a manuscript to publishers by early Fall. My hope is that this book will be profoundly interactive, taking those who may never have had the opportunity to journey to the Holy Land for an extended period of time into the heart of the land of dust and sun.

I would sincerely covet your prayers during this time of transition. While I am eager to return home and reconnect with the people and places I love, I know that I will miss this beautiful place.

Thank you for your love and support!

In His Grip,

Bryan

There is good reason to be afraid. Sin has marred our frame and carried us far away from the Creator. Adam’s curse is an ancient poison that has seeped its way into the very fabric of our DNA, informing our race of death’s inevitability and our culpability is the mess spread out before us.

Sin: Defiance. Mocking God to His face. We are the bent ones who have been created for so much more.

For a thousand years the path to reconciliation with God was necessarily strewn with the bloodied carcasses of goats and lambs. A priest stood shaking before the presence of God, clinging to a promise,

…he [the high priest] shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and…[sprinkle] it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. Thus he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanliness of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sin….” (Leviticus 16:15-16).

Written within the Levitical code is a powerful picture of what our sin cost. Namely, blood. There will be blood. Something (or someone) must die to pay the penalty of our rebellion, our unwillingness to live in the image of the One who breathed into our lungs and gave us life.

Year after year this went on. People began to count on the fact that no matter what they had done, no matter how far they strayed from the commandments of God, He was somehow obligated to forgive them. But we’re dealing with a God who is interested in our hearts, not our religion. Amidst tears [I imagine], God speaks through the prophet Amos,

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. (5:22).

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the sacrifices stopped…for the most part.

A month or two ago, I wrote about the small community of peculiar people who are found throughout Scripture (and at that time were a much larger group), the Samaritans (click here to read about them). Tucked atop Mount Gerizim (Joshua 8:30-35) is a community of about 350 Samartians (half of the worldwide population), and since they believe Solomon’s Temple was actually stood (before it was destroyed by the Babylonians) on Mount Gerizim, they continue to carry the Leviticus 16 commandment, annually.

Yesterday was a bad day for the sheep of Mount Gerizim.

Some people carried their sheep to the slaughter, some rolled them in.

I arrived with very little expectation of how I would react. The place was packed with curious folks from all regions of the globe representing a multitude of religious affiliations. Since only Samaritans were allowed in (and people like my friend Tim who managed to jump a massive fence [aka trespass]), I was forced to scale the side of a building in hopes of catching the “action” atop an adjacent rooftop. My camera began snapping.

The Samaritan men (in anticipation for what they seek God to do in regards to their souls as a response to their offering) wear all white, and filled the fading daylight with a sense of anticipation and celebration. Hugs were exchanged and children (who were in no way protected from the bloodshed that was about to take place) were scooped into the arms of loved ones.

The Samaritans are a close knit community who have struggled resist assimilation into the Jewish and Arab populations that surround them. They speak Arabic in everyday conversation (Nablus [biblical Shechem], the closet city, is in fact one of the largest Palestinian cities), however, their liturgy is conducted an ancient dialect of Hebrew. Samaritans always intermarry, which due to their small numbers unfortunately result in devastating birth defects. They are resolute, firm in their convictions (which was made explicitly clear last night), and pride themselves on being extremely hospitable.

As the sun set, I spotted a procession moving into the sacrificial area directly below me. The head of the high priest was covered by a talit (prayer shawl), and he was surrounded by several lesser priests (as well as several Israeli police officers). A hush took hold of the crowd. Prayers were led over a loud speaker. Devout Samaritans began to respond with a bowed heads and memorized responses.

Night fell. Prayers stopped. Suddenly, gleaming knives emerged from the right pant legs of the men. Sheep were pressed down to the ground by entire families, and as the angry roar of men pierced the night everyone wondered, “what’s happening?”

And Aaron [the priest] shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins (Leviticus 16:21).

Everyone was shouting there sins at the sheep. Then there was blood…everywhere.

Note the blood on the back of the man in the center of the picture...also, the headless sheep next to him.

The final seconds of a young sheep’s life found it both berated and butchered.

My heart broke…because I’m not a Samaritan. Two thousand years ago, however, I stood in the same place: knife in hand, curses pouring off my lips, mocking a broken man who would be pierced through.

We arrived back in Jerusalem around 10pm and during the half hour walk back to campus from the bus stop, Tim and I spoke of what we’d seen. “What do you think God thinks about all this?” he asked. I thought for a moment, “I think it breaks His heart.”

The writer of Hebrews tells us,

[Jesus] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh. How much more with the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (9:12-14).

God on the cross, Jesus as the bloody lamb on the floor of the sacrificial place in Samaria, is not simply about purification from sin. He isn’t my “get out of Hell free” card. I think what grieves the heart of God the most about what happens annually atop Mount Gerizim is that this tiny community (and everyone who does not cling to the cross) is missing the heart of the Father–the One who in response to the massive rift we’ve created between His holiness and our depravity would choose to bridge the gap with His own broken body. A lesser god would hand us a to-do list, would burden our backs with blistering requirements in order that we might pay penance. Instead, the one who bled on our behalf whispered,

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

We need a burden bearer, because we’re buried under the weight of our sin. We need a rest-giver, because offering a bloody sacrifice year after year wears us out, and if we’re honest, there are questions in our mind regarding weather a bleating lamb is enough to make right all I’ve turned wrong.

We have Christ. We have hope. It is finished.

In Jesus’ day, the Galilee region constituted a meeting point of cultures from all corners of the known world, a place where orthodox Judaism collided with the pagan rites, and Jewish zealots clashed with Roman legions, often times with tragic consequences. From the very beginning of his earthly ministry, Jesus was making it perfectly clear that His Gospel was to have an international audience; confronting Jewish fishermen, Samaritan adulterers and Romanized tax collectors with truth like a sharp, double-edged sword. The towns surrounding the Sea of Galilee spoke powerfully of the region’s diversity. Tiberius (on the western shore) was the crown jewel of Herod Antipas’ governorship, a strictly Jewish city where the Rabbinical movement gained significant ground after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Across the sea, on the eastern shore, lay the Decapolis cities–ten cities that through their Corinthians columns, hippodromes, basaltic amphitheaters (below) and pagan shrines testified to the lordship of Caesar.

Naturally, the Decapolis cities were rarely visited by observant Jews, Jews who were interested in maintaining their piety and believed pagan Gentiles and Hellenized Jews were lost causes. Which, of course, made them perfect contexts for the pioneer of our faith to make manifest His love, a love transcending borders and pointing light into pagan places:

Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me. (Luke 8:26-28).

Jesus walks into a Gentile graveyard, confronts an unclean, demon possessed man as pigs graze all around.  In what is perhaps the most unclean place imaginable–a non-Kosher wonderland swirling around a set of awestruck disciples–Jesus unfurls grace like a banner of burning truth.

Gerash (the likely site of "the Gerasenes") and the ruins of an ancient tomb area

…For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion,’ for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside…(Luke 8:29-32a).

I’m trying to think of parallels in our modern context that might convey the lengths Jesus is going to in order to reach out to an individual even his pagan neighbors considered unclean, weird, and way too far gone:

Mother Theresa dips a sparking white habit into the sewage gutters of Calcutta.

A group of college students decide to do something about the horror of Uganda.

A raped mother carries a child to term and loves her boy like the child of God he is.

While certainly admirable pursuits of justice, the audacity of Jesus is the paradigmatic foundation by which these pursuits of love learn their trajectory.

And it isn’t just that Jesus met with outcasts. He goes to them, proclaiming the reality of the coming Kingdom in massive places like Gerash, hilltop cities that were meant to be testimonies to Caesar’s unrivaled rule and enduring kingdom. Sure, Caesar can command armies by shouting orders to able bodied generals. Big deal. Jesus can cast powers of darkness out of raging grave-dwellers by breathing orders into the midnight air. He is King. He is general. He is all:

The ruins of Gerash, looking north in the Golan Heights

Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned…The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him (Luke 8:32-33, 38-39).

Have there been places you’ve ended up, places you believed yourself to have finally lost God? Then God showed up, in the midst of your raving lunacy, broke your chains, opened your eyes, and sent the sin in your life sliding down the hill into the sea? Yes? Take a moment and thank the One who shows up in our Gerash’s and calls us His own. Then, follow the bit of advice Jesus gives to the former grave-dweller, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

Do you sit is chains still today, cursing the darkness and writhing in agony? Look up. Dare to believe that a Kingdom has come and is coming, and the King, His eyes burn with a zealous love for you. He’s near even now, stretching out His hand…

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for, ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ (Acts 17:26-28).