The Jerusalem Experiment

In Luke 15, Jesus tells the story of two sons and a father. The youngest son asks for his share of the inheritance, takes off to a distant country where he squanders everything. The father, lamenting his son’s wayward heart and longing for his return, drops everything and sets off to find him. We don’t know where the youngest son was on his return trip home with the Father met and embraced him. The text only tells us that he was, “A long way off.”

Five hundred years before Jesus gave us  the Prodigal Son parable, the Babylonians stormed Jerusalem, set fire to its gates and laid waste to the Temple. For the first time in five hundred years there was no Jewish presence in Jerusalem. A multitude of heartbroken Jews followed their kinsmen in the North (who had been sent into exile by the Assyrians 150 years earlier), with shackled hands and torn garments, into a distant country. Exile was a word that carried weight to the first century Jew; therefore, Jesus’ Prodigal Son Parable would have stirred up dusty images of the Euphrates, of muttering musicians hanging their harps on twisted trees (Psalm 137)–of exile. The youngest son goes into exile, a self-imposed exile. Exile is never happenstance, we punch our own tickets to foreign land with our open embrace of idols.

Scripture bills exile as the final stop on a long and meticulous journey from wholehearted devotion to outright paganism. Exile doesn’t just happen; rather, we welcome it with open arms, as sunlight dances off the carved images we’ve scattered across hilltops. Neither drought, famine, bleeding prophets, or ancient prohibitions against our obstinacy can sway our hardened hearts. Calvin rightly asserted that each of our hearts is an idol factory.

The prophet Jeremiah was sent into a world of blatant paganism, a world on the verge of being turned upside down by the Babylonians. His advice: stop trying to manufacture alliances with nations who can’t protect you from what God has decreed. Turn your hearts back to God and welcome exile as the just punishment of your sins.

Enter scene: Babylon, and almost 2,500 years of Jewish exile. Sure, King Cyrus allowed a remnant to return and rebuild the Temple, but ever since, the Land has been controlled by vast foreign empires: Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Ottoman, British, etc.

It wasn’t until 1948 that the Jews were able to call Israel their own, when they finally came out of exile.

I wonder what exile looks like for the Christian? Certainly we deserve nothing less. The empire embrace of our forefathers, the bloodshed of the crusades and the false accusations of the inquisition. We’ve wielded our Bibles in various attempts the carve shiny idols: slavery, manifest destiny, social gospel and genocide. It’s no small wonder that Babylon isn’t busting down the doors of our megachurches.

There are two sons in Jesus’ parable. And while in His 1st century context, we are to perhaps understand the elder son as the Pharisaic religious authority, parables are not rooted in time and place, but constitute truths which transcend both.  They may not have literally happened, but they happen, everyday. Today, we Christians are too often the elder sons; exiled while within the confines of the Kingdom, under a self-imposed house arrest.

Holy of holies at Arad

Most people remember Solomon as a righteous king, having taken his father’s dream of what Israel might be and pushing it into reality. He built the Temple, established trade along international routes, and built cities on the frontiers of the Promised Land (like here in Arad). Within the last century, archeologists have excavated the Eastern Negev city of Arad and found something interesting: a sacrificial altar and holy place. The setup mimicked that of Solomon’s temple, with one major difference: inside the holy of holies excavators discovered two standing stones and two incense altars. Apparently, during the illustrious reign of Solomon, folks in the South practiced polytheism. Scholars believe that the two stones (one is larger than the other) represent YHWH and Asheroth (the Caananite female goddess of fertility). It makes sense. Arad only receives a few inches of annual rain, barely enough to sustain life. Crops would be planted, sheep would be sent out to pasture in hopes that God would provide. If not, entire villages would be wiped out. One of the stones found in the holy of holies (the smaller one, the one representing Asheroth) was pushed down (face down)…by someone during the time of Solomon, likely a prophet.

In a sense, the idolatry represented at Arad points to the innate sense in all of us to want deify things precious to us (for the residents of Arad, it was a fertile landscape), to pull God down to our level, labeling Him according to the things we treasure. While God wants us to treasure Him. The acts of the prophets in pulling down these idolatrous places lift our eyes from the easy answers, so often leading to pantheism and polytheism. God is always beyond our language, weather patterns, circumstances; and yet, intimately involved in everything. Transcendent and imminent.

We enter exile every time we bend a knee to things which are meant to point to Him, wasting our sweat, tears and praise on undeserving and transient pieces of dust. For the Jews, exile has been both a geographical and spiritual reality: the younger son experiences his distance from the father while sitting along the riverbanks of the Euphrates. But we Christians know exile as well. While in the Father’s house, kept by Christ, we can still personify the elder son–every bit the exile his younger brother is. Our idols my not be Asheroth, “loose living”, or squandered a inheritance; perhaps, we instead cling to individualism, materialism, nationalism or a sense of entitlement. We think we’re home, we see the Father, but in our hearts, we’ve wandered so far.

May we pull down our idols, look toward the horizon, and welcome the Father as He races towards us to pull our hardened hearts for our self-imposed exile.

A little Israeli boy dancing to the beat of drums and the shofar at the top of Masada

Eight-year-old children have a two percent success rate when it comes to predicting their future profession. Unfortunately not everyone can be a superhero (no matter how awesome they look in tights). If we lived in a society comprised solely of firemen and police officers our taxes would hover around the 700% range. When I was eight I was convinced I would one day pitch for Texas A&M, enter the draft early, and enjoy a lengthy career twisting fork balls and sliders past unsuspecting cleanup hitters en route to numerous World Series M.V.P. awards. I would be humble, of course, devoting my free time to those who were (for whatever reason) unable to achieve their dreams.

In the summer following my forth grade year I was on the light blue team, surrounded by pre-pubescent boys who shared the same dream of future glory. When the coach asked me what position I played I about laughed in his face. “Obviously I’m a pitcher,” I said. I’m left-handed, which severely limits my ability to play, say, second base. Thus, from the time I was six I began hurling fastballs with my dad at the park. “Yeah coach, I’m definitely a pitcher.” I was selected to put on a pitching display at the first practice. I strutted my way to the mound, kicked up a cloud of dust as I dug in, and threw my first pitch. Clink. Jacob sent my forty mile per hour fastball into shallow left field (which is basically a home run in forth grade baseball). I hung my head, mustered up every remaining shred of confidence that was currently leaking from my left arm and served Tony another fastball. Tony actually made Jacob’s hit look like a foul tip. A whispered snicker emerged from the dugout. I obviously wasn’t throwing hard enough. I though to myself as Nick walked to the plate (a big smile drawn across his face), “What if I just threw the ball as hard as I could?” So I did. I reached back into Memphis, drew my arm back across the corn fields of Iowa, and unleashed a lethal fastball straight up the heart of the Mississippi River. Nick only saw the vapor trail. I struck out eight batters in the three innings during the first game of the season. The rest of the season went like that. I was well on my way to unspeakable glory. Soon there would be Aggies scouts at my games and a series of zeros on my paychecks (which would certainly beat my $5/week allowance).

West of the Judean Hill Country lies what is called the Shephelah (the “western foothills” in your Bible). This stretch of rolling limestone hills historically demarcated the border between Israel and Philistia. If Israel was able to penetrate the Shephelah and enter the Coastal Plain, into cities like Ekron and Gath, they would have easy access to key international trade routes and the taxation rights which went along with the lands. However, if Philistia entered the Judean Hill Country towns like Bethlehem, Hebron and Gibeah could easily be taken. It was a risk the Israelites were (on many occasions) willing to take. 1 Samuel 17 tells the familiar tale of David and Goliath.

Five stones overlooking the Elah Valley--the battleground of David and Goliath

We all know the story: David’s brothers are at a lookout spot over the Elah Valley staring at a mounting Philistine army scattered across the hillsides beneath the town of Azekah like locusts. Saul, their fearless king, the one all of Israel cried out for just a few chapters earlier, is shaking in his boots. He knows that if the Philistines defeat him (and all signs point to the fact that they will), nothing will stand between them and Bethlehem. Saul knows that if Bethlehem falls, so too will his capital at Gibeah. A challenge arises from Philistine camp. A mammoth man marches his way toward the valley floor, looks into the wide eyes of the Israelite army, and begins cursing their leaders, their courage, and their God. David shows up. Jesse (his father) sent him to the front lines in order to bring a bit of food to Saul and his brothers, as well as to gather a report. Jesse wants to know whether or not he should start rounding up the sheep, packing the family’s belongings, and preparing for exile. David hears the giant’s taunting, slips beneath the shivering hearts of the soldiers, down the hillside, and face-to-face with the blasphemer. David is victorious; not with a sword or a legion of soldiers, but with a single stone which he sinks between the eyes of the giant. Saul, after shaking off the shock of watching a shepherd boy take down the giant, pursues the bewildered Philistines as far as Ashdod and Ekron…all the way to the sea.

The possible site of the Philistine camp at the Valley of Elah

Have you ever wondered why God used David to accomplish such a feat? A generation or two earlier, the roles were reversed. Israel had a giant of its own: Samson. The flowing-locked man from just outside of Beth-Shemesh terrorized the Philistine heartland (at one point storming Gaza [its capital], tearing off the gate to the city, and carrying it 50 miles East and 3,000 feet straight uphill to Hebron). Imagine Samson and Goliath stepping toe-to-toe in the Valley of Elah. Frazier and Ali, Tyson and Holyfield (minus the ear chewing), this would have been billed as, “The Battle of B.C.”

Of course, it didn’t work out that way. Samson’s end was bittersweet, his blind eyes searching the heavens for one last surge of strength to send the House of Dagon (the Philistine pagan temple that stood in the center of Gaza) down on top of him. God didn’t send Samson to Elah, He sent David. Goliath laughed in his face. He was insulted at the thought of Israel sending a boy to face the full force of his strength, to do their dirty work. His mocking was silenced the moment David loosed his sling.

A shepherd with his sheep and goats near Azekah

I continued to throw hard. Fifth and sixth grades swept by in a blur. Fame and accolades were always just around the corner. I was silencing my critics, it seemed, with every pitch. Then seventh grade struck like a tax audit. I’m convinced that seventh grade is percentage-wise (and I realize I have no way of proving this) the most horrible year of life for the majority of Americans. My arm stopped working that year. I’d pitch an inning, feeling like my elbow was on fire, hang my head, and stumble back to the dugout. My days of throwing hellfire fastballs past starstruck hitters was over. For good. I was never again called “Samson”.  My hair was cut. From eighth grade on, the outs I made for our team were due to accurate pitch placement and mastery of off-speed pitches. Scouts were never impressed and Texas A&M never called. I’m David, not Samson. I’m the shepherd boy sent to the hills to write poems and point ignorant sheep to sparse strips of winter grass at the far edges of civilization. And when I embrace my David-ness, when I start swinging my shepherd’s sling over my head, God is going to do something beautiful.

When I was seventeen I was invited to join the student ministry team at my church. I was a brand new Christian, had not yet begun reading my glossy, new Bible, and failed to realize the poetic book in the middle of the Bible was pronounced with a silent “P”. Pssss-alm eighteen quickly became my favorite passage, a place where the gloss quickly wore away and the first lines of ink were spilled underneath heart-churning metaphors,

I love you, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge (18:1-2a).

Much of my childhood had been surrounded in inconsistency, where reality and rest were always shifting concepts. God as a “rock” and “fortress”– unchanging, shiftless, steady and strong–made a lot of sense to me. A fortress kind of God rung a dusty bell inside my heart and stirred me into believing that the things I’d always hoped might be true about my life could find their form in the God of the Bible.

The Super Bowl (world's largest erosion crater--southeast of En Gedi)

David’s psalms were written in the heart of the wilderness, forgotten arid wastelands that are totally incapable of sustaining even the most resilient lifeforms. Many believe David wrote the majority of his poems while on the run from Saul, while ducking and hiding between cliffs and in caves that dot the Negev like chicken pox on an infected five year old. The dust, sun, crumbling rock forms and oppressive lack of water would have left the languishing Bethlehemite on a frantic, daily search for places of rest, refuge and restoration. The wilderness offered little,

The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge…

A thousand years after David, Herod the Great ruled the modern day state of Israel. His job was to protect the southeastern frontier of the Roman Empire safe from the Arabian threat. During his life Herod built a number of impressive fortresses throughout the Holy Land: Caesarea (on the Mediterranean), Herodium (just south of Jerusalem), Jericho and Masada, to name only a few. Masada (the Hebrew word for fortress) was by far the most awe-inspiring. Essentially, Herod turned a dusty mountaintop in the middle of a suffocating wilderness into a vast oasis with pools, steam rooms, a series of palaces, with a casemate wall encircling its perimeter.

Herod's Masada

We’re not sure if Herod ever actually visited the palace. He had many such places. Why? Well, in Herod’s economy of stewardship of tax revenue the better question is, “Why not?” Three decades after the resurrection of Christ (in 66 or 67 A.D.), Masada, a place of little strategic significance to the Roman Empire, fell into the hands of Jewish zealots. Eventually, Herod’s successors wanted the famous place back. A massive siege ramp was built along the spur line of a small hill which rests against the base of Masada. In 74 Masada fell. Josephus tells us that the Jews who dwelt atop the fortress committed mass suicide just before the Romans stormed the top. Scholars are skeptical as to whether or not this really is the case. Either way, this massive, seemingly impenetrable wilderness hideaway eventually bowed again to the power of Rome.

Fortresses are made to fall. As I’ve spent the past couple of months zig-zagging across the Holy Land I’ve been struck by the number of ancient cities (walled, sealed and defended strongholds) eventually succumbed to invasion. It seems as though no matter how securely folks on the Biblical frontier fortified their communities, armies with more resolve, strength and resources quickly broke down doors and crashed through “impenetrable walls” before laying waste to entire societies.

David was looking for the sort of hideaway that would hem him in and hold him safe. As king, David would reinforce walls around the newly captured Jerusalem, establishing the community of faith within a sort of fortress. But David refused to cling to illusion. It was only a matter of time before Nebuchadnezzar would tear down Jerusalem’s walls, burn the Temple, and send a weeping nation into the seething jaws of exile.

Ancient site at Arad.

Man-made fortresses are porous hideaways. The walls we build, brick by brick, are incapable of keeping tragedy at bay. As we sojourn through life (a journey that so often presents itself as a vast wilderness lacking simple necessities) we anxiously scan the horizon for powerful fortresses where we can steady our hearts and revive our spirits.

Masadas always fall. The LORD alone will stand, nailed to a cross, drawing weary ones to Himself. May He, indeed, be our fortress.

Last week I had the opportunity to celebrate my first Jewish Holy Day–Purim. Purim commemorates God’s deliverance of  Jews scattered across the Persian Empire in the 5th century B.C. On the Sunday evening of Purim weekend in synagogues all over the world, the entire book of Esther is chanted (in Hebrew, of course). At each point where the text reads the name “Haman” the synagogue erupts with a chorus of boos, screams, and other various vocalizations of disapproval. Granted, Haman was a bad dude, but a quick skim of the narrative of scripture brings to mind a myriad of folks who deserve a boo or two: Cain, Goliath, Sennacherib, Manasseh (Hezekiah’s son), and Nebuchadnezzar, for example. What was so especially vile about Haman that warrants a legacy of annual scoffing? After all, I’ve always understood the book of Esther to be a rather obscure book of the Bible. God is never explicitly mentioned, there is no Temple to be spoken of, in fact the entire story takes place in modern day Southwestern Iran. Why give so much weight to the book of Esther and the annual mocking of Haman?

In January I did something rather stupid. I agreed to run a half marathon on March 18th. This is the sort of thing that is easy to say yes to, but very difficult to follow through with. Training is involved. I started jogging around the Old City: about three miles (granted this route takes you up and down massive limestone hills). Later I journeyed with my friend Paul to Bethlehem: 7.2 miles. I was rather proud of myself after completing what amounted to the longest distance I’d ever run before. My pride disintegrated, however, when I did the math and realized in order to actually complete the half marathon I’d have to virtually double my distance. I cringed. Today I ran ten miles. Slowly (very slowly) I’m starting to believe that I might actually be able to finish what I’ve agreed to do: run the Jerusalem Half Marathon. I’ve never been good at finishing what I start. Looking back over the past 29 years of my life I can see a long line of forgotten plans, unfinished projects, and broken relationships. When I was a little kid (my mom tells me) I was fascinated with new toys. I would play with them for hours and hours until, all of the sudden, I became disinterested and eager for the next thing.

The story of Esther actually begins in the book of Exodus (which is ironic given that fact that Exodus is a book about leaving exile and Esther is a book that takes place in exile). As the nation of Israel leaves the Egyptian chariots floating in the sea behind them, a new enemy approaches–the Amalekites. Joshua and an unspecified number of men engage Amalek in battle while Moses, Aaron, and Hur look on. Exodus 17 tells us that as long as Moses kept his hand held up, the people of Israel prevailed. Eventually the Amalekites are overwhelmed and Israel is victorious. Then the LORD says to Moses,

‘Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.’ And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, the LORD is My Banner, saying ‘A hand upon the throne of the LORD! The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation’ (Ex. 17:14-16).

In a sense, what God is saying, “Wipe Amalek’s name out, but never forget it.” Hundreds of years pass. The Israelites beg for a king and God gives them Saul–a shiny king who though his faith is as thin as a sheet of formica, at least he looks the part. One of his biggest blunders Saul makes as king occurs in 1 Samuel 15,

And Samuel said to Saul, ‘The LORD sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey’ (vv. 1-3).

Saul fails when he fails to kill King Agag, the leader of the Amalekites. It’s important to note that Jewish spirituality is all about symbols. Nothing in Scripture is arbitrary, everything has significance. It’s just that sometimes we have to dig a bit deeper. For the Jews, Amalek is not a people group, but the personification of evil that has been nipping at the heals of the people of God since Eden. “Amalek” was used throughout first century B.C. in reference to Israel’s oppressors, and more recently in reference to Hitler and even Sadaam Hussein (when Scud missiles rained down on Tel Aviv during the first Gulf War).

About seven years ago my friend Tony preached a sermon entitled, “Finish Strong”. I’ve heard hundreds of sermons over the course of my twelve years as a Christian, but this one stuck. Because so often I finish poorly, or don’t finish at all. If we as the people of God are meant to embody character of God, we must be people who finish what we start. God always does.

Five hundred years after Saul, the Israelites find themselves in exile. Babylon destroyed the Temple, Persia conquered Babylon, and suddenly the Jews are face to face with Amalek once again. The two main characters in the book of Esther (in addition to Esther, of course) are Mordecai and Haman. Mordecai is a Jew who refuses to bow to anyone other than God. We are given his genealogy (which seems rather arbitrary at first glance),

Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite. (Esther 2:6).

Why not just, “There was a Jew name Mordecai”? Because every word of Scripture is important. Kish takes a back a few hundred years,

There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish…And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. (1 Sam. 9:1-2).

Mordecai (the author of Esther wants us to know) was a direct descendant of Saul.

Haman is a power-hungry…Agagite. What does that mean? Well, it means that Haman is a descendant of King Agag. Remember? This was the king Saul was supposed to kill, but doesn’t. Agag the Amalekite has a son, grandson, great-grandsons, eventually a young Haman, a thousand miles away from where his ancestor Agag the Amalekite threw down with Saul, steps onto the scene. Mordecai and Haman are a personification of the ancient battle that God is waging against “Amalek”, the forces of evil. And just as the wilderness-dwelling Amalekites seek to wipe out the Jews in Exodus 17, and just as King Agag seeks to wipe out the newly monarchical Jewish community in 1 Samuel 15, Haman convinces the King of Persia to sign a degree authorizing the mass genocide of all Jews throughout the empire.

Thankfully God is poised to finish what He starts. God is constantly at war against the “Amaleks” in our midst.

Living in Jerusalem inevitably sobers one to the reality that this land is no more “holy” than, say, Chicago. People don’t glow, levitate or heal unsuspecting ailments while standing on street corners (as cool as that would be). Last Sunday, during Purim, a group of Orthodox Jews entered the Temple Mount (a place reserved for Muslims). They apparently caused a scene and attempted to stay overnight near the Dome of the Rock. Eventually people started throwing stones at them. Israeli police rushed in, shots were fired, people were hurt (possibly killed). Amalek is alive and well. God hasn’t finished what He started…but He will. There’s no chance He’ll fail to reach mile thirteen. And so my (attempt at) running the Jerusalem Half Marathon is a sort of prayer, a prayer that God would establish my heart in such a way that I would be the kind of man who is known for finishing what he starts, honoring his commitments, and therein reflecting the God who finishes everything He starts. But my running is also a prayer, a prayer that Christ, the Messiah, would come quickly and sweep down the Mount Olives, reestablishing justice and drive the final stake through the heart of Amalek.

The burning heart of God is profoundly incarnational. Immanuel: God (is) with us. God condescends immediately following creation, walking side-by-side with his prized possession (Gen. 3:8). In the time of Moses, the Ancient Near East was obsessed with gods who ruled specific corners of creation: rivers, weather patterns, mountaintops and battlefields. The Exodus narrative speaks of a single God driving a chosen people into the most arid landscape imaginable, a place where no gods were believed to dwell.

The Exodus is not primarily the story of a people who journey from Egypt to Jericho, but of a God who against all odds proves his sovereignty by carrying and sustaining a stubborn would-be nation through absolute nothingness into promise. Poultry and flakes of bread fall from the sky, water gushes from rocks, and clothing fails to wear out. The majority of the final fifteen chapters of the book of Exodus describe in great detail the construction of the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, and the Tent of Meeting. In Exodus 25:8, God says, “And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst.”

Clearly, the function of this sacred space was to serve as a potent illustration, a symbolic representation of what has always been true–Immanuel. Immediately following the completion the massive Temple in Jerusalem (about 450 years after the Exodus), Solomon lifted his hands and confessed, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” (1 Ki. 8:27). And yet, here He is, walking with us in the garden.

The Ark of the Covenant traveled with Israel through the “great and terrible wilderness” of the Sinai, and eventually across the Jordan River. The book of Joshua has two distinct storylines. The first is read like a Mel Gibson epic: war, blood, destruction, and a series of ravaged cities left behind. But in the wake of the community of Israel’s glorious victories, a question emerges, “What does it look like to live in a community, to call this place home, to worship God in a settled place?” The Tent of Meeting (which held the Ark of the Covenant) eventually comes to reside in a place called Shiloh,

“Then the whole congregation of the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there. The land lay subdued before them” (Josh. 18:1).

Joshua, likely stood here, facing the massive and uncomfortably close limestone foothills (typical of Central Ephraim), which would have served as bleachers for thousands of Israelites. The landscape creates the perfect place for a pre-electricity rock concert (or in this case, state of the union speech).

The tribes are admonished to settle the far corners of the promised land, but it seems clear that Shiloh is meant to remain meeting point, the religious center of Israel for the next 300 hundred years. The narrative of Judges moves swiftly as promised people learn quickly that conquering the entirety of the land is easier said than done, especially when one wavers so severely in their devotion to God,

And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them…. (Jud. 2:11-13).

Shiloh became an afterthought, an off-the-beaten-path holy site where an ancient God was reverenced. Dust settles on the Ark at Shiloh, and the site only reemerges at the close of the book of Judges. The Benjaminites ravage an Ephraimite concubine, the other tribes are called to action, war ensues, and the Benjaminites are almost completely wiped out. Only Benjaminite men reamain. Leary of allowing an entire tribe of Israel to vanish (because it takes women to make babies too), the Israelites create a rather disturbing way of providing wives for the remaining men (see Jud. 21). The interesting thing about the story is the reemergence of Shiloh,

Behold, there is the yearly feast of the LORD at Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, on the east of highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah (21:19).

It boggles my mind that the route to Shiloh has to be described in such detail. I’m really good at getting lost, but not in places I frequent. It’s important to keep in mind that, as verse 16 indicates, the elders of the congregation are speaking to each other. These are folks who are supposed to continue the traditions, point people to the LORD, reminded Israel of the fact that their lives are held in the grip of the God who carried them across the Sinai.

Imagine the Pope asking directions to the Vatican, or a Orthodox Jew inquiring about how one might get to Jerusalem! Unthinkable.

The ancient walls of Shiloh

Everything has gone wrong. Shiloh is a forgotten place. The LORD’s mighty deeds have vanished from the minds of His people. Judges closes on an eerie tone that fits the forgetful hearts of the people of God, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jud. 21:25).

It is clear that throughout the period of Judges, Shiloh remained the epicenter for the worship of the LORD, but the people had forgotten, embraced other idols, shinier gods, easier answers.

The saga of Shiloh is picked up in the book of 1 Samuel. Eli is the priest who ministers at the Tent of Meeting. His sons have wandered away from the LORD, and as the Philistines press into the Hill Country of Ephraim from their headquarters on the Mediterranean coast, the sons of Eli, misunderstanding the purpose of the Ark of the Covenant (likening it to an idol), march it into battle. The Philistines route the Israelites (1 Sam. 4:1-11) and take the Ark. The Psalmist laments,

Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God and did not keep his testimonies, but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers; they twisted like a deceitful bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places; they moved him to jealousy with their idols. When Hod heard, he was full of wrath, and he utterly rejected Isarel. He forsook his dwelling place at Shiloh, the tent where he dwelt among mankind. (Ps. 78:56-61)

There’s verb that lies at the heart of the Israelite predicament. The Ark is gone, what do we do now? If God’s an idol, then we have no hope. What do we worship?

The verb: remember

The psalmist begins his lament:

I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us.We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. (Ps 78:2-4)

Remember: The spaces where we encounter God are symbolic structures meant to point our hearts to the brevity of His incarnation.

Remember: The Spirit of God is just as thick in desert wastelands as He is in emerald landscapes.

An ancient Crusader church at Shiloh

Remember. Because in remembering the God who has carried us through so much, given us so much, and forgiven us so completely, we’re awakened to the reality that the idols we so easily embrace are worthless. We are cut from the cloth of a God whose glory cannot be contained by the expanse of existence, and yet, a God who has bent down, broken the boundary between heaven and earth, and walks with us in the cool of the garden.

May Shiloh always be remembered.

Every puff of air we breathe back into this fragile world is a gift. We’ve done nothing to earn life, there are no awards given to newborns congratulating them on a successful piloting of their fragile bodies through the birth canal. Birth is embraced by most as a sacred moment, a divine gift, an unsearchable blessing. Not all moments are equally cherished. Parents lament, “Oh how quickly my children have grown!” It’s as if the older we get, the more we lose sight of the fact that we are alive, and that we have done nothing to earn such an honor.

Pray begins at the point where we cease our striving, still our souls, and acknowledge the fact that God in control of all that swirls around us. For whatever reason He has chosen to craft us and place us in the center of it all. With such a posture we are able to petition God in authentic humility, assured that we deserve nothing, though confident in His goodness.

If everything is a gift, what does it mean to embrace everything in such a way that God is honored?

At what point does a gift become an idol?

In Deuteronomy 11, God described the difference between Egypt and the Promised Land:

“For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated, like a garden of vegetables. But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year” (11:10-12).

The Western edge of the Judean Hill Country (about 10 miles West of Jerusalem)

Israel was not to be a place of plenty but a land of enough, and in having enough Israel was commanded to remain obedient to God, acknowledging Him as the giver of everything. The earliest inhabited cities of the Promised Land (by the Exodus community) were likely the Biblical cities of Shechem and Shiloh– in the Eastern Hill Country of Ephraim. Settlement quickly grew in this lush, terraced and fertile area. Olive trees, grape vines and wide-open sheep pastures made the area perfectly suitable for population growth. The land was likely experienced as an astonishing blessing compared to the “great and terrible” deserts the community of Israel had sojourned through between Egypt and Jericho.

Years passed, and the potency of the gift that were lands of Ephraim and Manasseh dulled in the minds of the Israelites. They began to peer over the foothills that stand on the Western edge of Ephraim and wonder whether they might also have their way with the armies of the Canaanites and Philistines who stood between them and the Mediterranean.

My professor calls this ten mile (East-West) stretch of land reaching from Joppa in the North to Gaza in the South “cookie land” because the Israelites didn’t need this land (like a cookie, although some times a cookie sure hits the spot). The Israelties had everything they needed in the Hill Country, but as their political aspirations grew from settlement, to kingdom, to Empire, their lust for land and the resource rich trade routes that zig-zag across the Coastal Plain became insatiable. Enough was no longer enough. The gift God had given His people was no longer held with grateful hands, but instead was clutched with a steel trap embrace, pulled close and deemed insufficient.

So back to my question: At what point does a gift become an idol?

My life bears the marks of an undeserving and blessed sinner. I have so much: relationships, gifts, possessions, opportunities. How do I hold these up in gratitude and carefully steward them, while maintaining a sort distance from them so that if God pulls them from my grip, I am not offended?

I’m not sure how to answer the question (I’d love to hear your thoughts).

For now, I’m wondering whether Sabbath has something to do with the answer. At sunset every Friday night in Jerusalem a siren pierces the sky, signaling Shabbot (Sabbath). Sabbath (contrary to popular thought) is not set aside day of the week to bear the weight of nit-picky rules, but rather, an opportunity to rest and reflect on the fact that the truth, the salvation of the universe is not contingent upon us. Abraham Joshua Heschel said it this way,

In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity.

These “islands of stillness,” Heschel argues, are the Sabbath. Why? Because in Sabbath we are invited to detach our groping hearts from our agendas, ambitions and day timers. In Sabbath we are forced to, “be still and know that [He] is God.” In Sabbath we are confronted by the profound reality that our identity is not bound to what we have, what we are able to accomplish, or who we know and call “friend.” Instead, we realize, that God holds the final word on the whole of our lives and we are His. Heschel reminds us,

All week we may ponder and worry whether we are rich or poor, whether we succeed or fail in our occupations, whether we accomplish or fall short of reaching our goals. But who could feel distressed when gazing at spectral glimpses of eternity; except to feel startled by the vanity of being so distressed.

The answer to the question of what it looks like to receive what we are given as a gift or hoard it like an idol may not be as easy as Sabbath, but in being still, in confessing with our mouths and minds that God owns everything…in giving God the space for God to, as Heschel says, “ring our hearts like a bell,” perhaps we’ll learn.

So may we restfully crawl back into our Eastern Hills, praise the Creator with open hands, and sigh under the profound weight of knowing that all that we have and all that we are aim to point our frail hearts toward the constant, loving gaze of our Father.

Check out some of my reflections, poolside, from Bethesda:

Jesus’ movement in John 4 & 5 from the woman at the well to the cripple man beside the Pool of Bethesda is intentional. It has a rhythm. In a sense, John 3-5 is a net cast by Christ, wide enough to grip and drag each of us (kicking and screaming, if need be) into the Kingdom of God. Perhaps we have a hard time identifying with the pious religiosity of Nicodemus or the wanton immorality of the Samaritan woman. If this is the case, we will certainly find our place atop a worn and dusty poolside mat beside Bethesda.

This past summer I celebrated the 10th anniversary of my baptism. It was an early August evening in rural Minnesota. The water was calm and inviting as a multitude of shiny souls lined the shore of Lake Sagatagan. None of us had any idea what we were getting ourselves into. Paul tells us that we are buried with Christ in baptism. There’s a violence in such imagery that doesn’t seem to match what I felt that night. Falling into the waters was easy, it was the expected thing to do. Only after, in the years that followed my “burial”, did I begin to feel the full sting of death. I had no idea how deep the stain of sin that marred my heart went. Compulsions, involuntary reactions, lusts and insecurities began to gnaw away at my soul and reach into my consciousness. The last two years of my college career were grounded in a indescribable haze of depression. As a leader in a student-led campus ministry, I felt the weight of the expectations and perceptions that I had the Christian life all figured out. I didn’t. My faith was running through my fingers like dry sand on a windy day. I was tired of pretense and facades, but had no idea how to let go. Because in truth, I liked the attention, enjoyed the illusion of perfection I had created.

I attended a conference. We sang songs and everyone lifted their hands. I felt nothing, pushed back tears and threw my hands in the air, hoping no one would notice what to me was clear–I didn’t belong. After the session was over, a new friend asked if we could chat for a while. I had just met this guy, he had no idea how lost I felt. His questions violently tore at my soul, “Bryan, why do you lift your hands in worship? Why do you dance around? Is that what you really feel?” These were the questions I was too afraid to ask myself. In truth I felt out of place because I had imposed upon God a posture of disappointment, assuming that He had already given up on me. I believed the people around me had a right to lift their hands. Their smiles spoke to me of their perfection, of the vast chasm separating their level of sanctification from my blackened heart.

Two roads are available to those who know themselves to be both saved by grace and yet the most violent sinner in the room. The first leads to a poolside view of Bethesda.

Rain water runs across the top of the watershed ridge from the hill country of Ephraim and Benjamin before eventually making its way into Jerusalem. The massive Pool of Bethesda is a gathering point for this runoff water. During the time of Jesus, geological insight was at a minimum and many believed that the only explanation for the movement of the water into Bethesda was the activity of a mysterious god. Water pouring into the pools, “stirring the waters”, became a cue for afflicted people to race into the waters and claim their healing. Legend held that the water-stirring god would heal the first person to reach the water as it began to stir. No good Jew would dare to visit this pool, it was a gathering point for Roman pagans, a place where their mysterious god was reverenced. Jesus, of course, has a habit of showing up in broken-hearted places (like a Samaritan well). At Bethesda he meets a Jewish man who had been waiting for 38 years for his healing. His condition kept him from worshiping in the Temple (which sat directly adjacent to Bethesda). Day after day the man hopelessly waited for someone to carry him into the waters as they moved. No one ever came. Caught between a pagan promise of healing, a Jewish religious system which kept him from crying out to the true God, and a condition that completely immobilized him, I can only imagine the internal battles this man faced–a child of Israel with a broken body and hungry heart.

Two roads are available to those who know themselves to be both saved by grace and yet the most violent sinner in the room. The second is found as we expose our conditions to the careful hands of Christ without fear of how the watching world might respond.

I see it on every youth retreat l lead. There comes a point during the week or weekend when emotions come to a head. Good youth directors provide prayer-soaked contexts in which these emotions can be expressed and responded to with grace. Students gather amid silence. Everyone has something deep within them that they want to share. Philo of Alexandra, a first century B.C. Jew warns, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” These retreats provide safe spaces to speak of such battles, inviting others to join in the fight. At first everyone is silent and everyone wonders, “What if nobody says anything? Will we be here all night in silence?” But the Spirit possesses a potency that renders such fears baseless. A tiny voice inevitably cuts through the night, someone’s bleeding heart grants permission for everyone else to be honest. Confessions collide and lives are healed. It’s as if we are all, in that moment, sitting beside Bethesda, caught in between an invitation into authenticity and the willingness to settle for little gods who can only stir water but can’t really heal us. It’s as if Jesus is asking, “Do you want to be well?”

No one can help the circumstances they are born into. God fashions and forms our fragile frames and sends us forth into families and cultures which shape the way we perceive reality as we grow.  We are not bound to these beginnings; however, it seems as though the more vile our roots, the more potent their inertia and unless we are shaken into the light we will likely recycle familiar tragedies, wearing them as stained hand-me-downs.

In John 3-5, the gospel writer tells of Jesus’ interaction with three individuals who, if they met at a social function, would likely have had nothing to do with each other. At first glance there is nothing which unites Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and the cripple man lying beside Bethesda, save their profound need for a Savior. Jesus, from the water’s edge, calls each:

To Nicodemus:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (3:5).

To the Samaritan woman:

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water’ (4:10).

To the man at Bethesda:

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him. ‘Do you want to be healed?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me’ (5:6-7)

Let’s begin with the Samaritan woman in John 4:

The view from Mount Gerizim toward a foggy Mount Ebal. Shechem (Nabulus) lies below.

Her History

The Assyrian Empire invaded and captured Samaria (the tribal territories of Ephraim and Manasseh) in 722 B.C. Many were beaten, bound and sent into exile. A few remained. The same fate befell Judah 150 years later. The temple was destroyed, few were able to avoid exile to Babylon (some fled to Egypt). After Babylon was defeated by the Persians, Ezra and (later) Nehemiah were allowed to return and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The Samaritans were upset. Their severely shrunken community had remain faithful to the sacrificial system (atop Gerizim) throughout both exiles. For them, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem had changed nothing. Darius’ (the emperor of Persia) granting permission for the Jews to rebuild was taken as an affront. Alexander captured Persia, the Greeks were kind to the Samaritans and the sacrifices continued. Two centuries later, the Maccabean revolt ignited. The Samaritans were understood as Hellenized half-breeds. A massacre ensued, the Samaritan temple was torn down, and Jerusalem solidified its place as the monotheistic capital of the world.

About 60 years after the Hasmonean (Maccabean) dynasty fell, Jesus shows up. At this point, both Samaria and Judah are definitively in the hands of the Rome Empire, but the angst between the Jews and Samaritans remains. Samaritans and Jews don’t associate with each other. While Samaritans point to Gerizim (the place they believe the Garden of Eden existed, Noah’s Ark rested, and the binding of Isaac occurred), the Jews point to Jerusalem.

The Samartian Levite we had the opportunity to meet with

Today, only 750 Samaritans remain. They are a proud people, they keep the bloody sacrificial ordinance of Passover, maintain strict devotion to the God of the Pentateuch (their Bible includes only the first five books of the Old Testament), and intermarry (unfortunately, their shrinking gene pool means that intermarriage often leads to devastating birth defects). Relations between Jews and Samaritans have softened over the years. The Samaritans are no longer understood as a threat, and Jews generally maintain a sort of curious tolerance toward the tiny sect. They speak Arabic, worship in an ancient Hebrew dialect, send their children to Arab schools and refuse to take sides in Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

His Mystery

After his interaction with Nicodemus, John tells us, “[Jesus] left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria” (4:3-4). The necessity had nothing to do with geography. One need not travel through Samaria in order to reach Galilee. There are other routes, and Jesus knew them well. For example, Mark traces Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem as having gone through Jericho. Technically, Jesus could have taken the Rift Valley Route all the way from Galilee to Jericho, bypassing Samaria altogether. He didn’t have to go through Samaria (and he certainly didn’t have to go through the heart of Samaria–Shechem (Sychar). But Jesus has a habit of walking into places few would enter. The severity of his mercy demanded he go through Samaria. He had to pass through Samaria.

The Samaritan Village atop Mount Gerizim

Jesus is famished and “stumbles” upon a well. Did God not see this coming? The site: Jacob’s well. Thousands of years earlier Jacob’s daughter wandered into Shechem where the prince of the city (named Shechem) raped the young woman. Undoubtedly crushed and (in the Ancient Near Eastern cultural context) left without options, Jacob agrees to grant Dinah in marriage to her rapist. Her brothers have other plans. They plunder the city and kill the guilty men. The story closes without resolution, however. Dinah is no longer a virgin, does she ever get married? Does her rape carry with it a sentence of singleness and childlessness? Who will take care of her now? It is amid a mess of sexual sin, violence and hatred that Jacob’s well is established.

There’s a woman at the well. Five men have called her bride. She’s a Samaritan, a half-breed. No one can help the circumstances they are born into. God fashions and forms our fragile frames and sends us forth into families and cultures which shape the way we perceive reality as we grow. This particular woman allowed the inertia of her heritage to determine her trajectory. She lived according to what the religious Jews of her day believed her to be: a lost cause. The woman at the well fights through the shock that a Jew (and a Rabbi) would humble themselves to speak to a Samaritan and asks, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink form me, a woman of Samaria?” When Jesus asks her about her husbands, she refuses to walk down the road of her many mistakes and changes the subject, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain (Gerizim), but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” She’s establishing distance, reminding Jesus of her heritage, her half-breed identity. Jesus invites her into a different story, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerualem will you worship…But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…” Can you see Jesus’ aim?

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account (Heb. 4:12-13).

The words Jesus speaks to the woman at the well cut through history’s petty reasons why the two should not converse, pierce the hand-me-down story of her heretical heritage, wrap a flame around the roots of her sin before setting the whole thing on fire. Her and Jesus share the same well, the same watering bucket, the same particles of air pumping between their lungs…and now, they share the same Father. Everything has changed.

Lost in the Fog. Somewhere in Ephraim.

Our Reality

What do we do when our pasts beg us to be people we know we’re not? How did Jesus handle the scowls and snickers of those who believed him to be the bastard child of an unplanned pregnancy? How do we stand and fight when our past claws its way back up through the ground we buried it under?

“Father.”

It’s a word rarely attributed to God in the Old Testament. If God is distant and uninvolved, He’s probably angry with us all. Of course, He has the right to be. We all have stories of why we ought to be forgotten and forsaken by the One who created everything. But when He shows up at our dusty well, shrugs off our sins, our broken pasts,  and calls us children…everything changes.

Coming soon: John 5

As our tour bus climbed the steep, chalky limestone hills west of Jericho, the landscape quickly changed from an arid and uninhabitable wasteland to a green (albeit rather rocky) stretch of grain fields, olives tree covered terraces, and Arab towns scattered atop sun-drenched hilltops. The Central Benjamin Plateau is an emerald set in the heartland of Israel. As the ground began to even out, I noticed the metal skeleton of a lonely building off to my right, perched atop a hill looking back towards Jordan. Dr. Wright grabbed the microphone and explained, “As you know, this was Jordanian territory prior to the six day war (1967). A few months before the fighting broke out, King Hussein of Jordan began constructing a palace atop that hill.” I later learned “that hill” is the Arab town of el-Jib, the Biblical town of Gibeah, the hometown of another former king: Saul.

King Hussein's 1967 still unfinished palace at Gibeah. From flickr: wbchan

Legacy is the essence of what remains, the infinite echo of one’s name after his beating heart has finally surrendered. Anyone can build a kingdom of brick and mortar, gold and ivory; however, most will fail to lay a single brick for the Kingdom of God.

It’s in our nature to seek a king. In his Institutes, Calvin rightly asserts, “The human heart is a perpetual factory of idols.” We frequently cling to the shiny rather than the substantive.

And so it was simply a matter of time before Israel cast aside an aging Samuel, the centuries old leadership of the judges, and began crying out for a king. After all, every other nation had one.

And the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them’ (1 Sam. 8:7).

God’s choice for Israel’s first king served as a divine commentary on the superficiality of the promised peoples’ craving,

There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people (2 Sam. 9:1-2).

Behold: the shiny man, Saul. Tall, rich and handsome.

And Samuel said to all the people, ‘Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.’ And all the people shouted, ‘Long live the king.’ (2 Sam. 10:24)

The barrel-chested Saul makes a shiny introduction, rolling over the Ammonites at Jabesh-Gilead. Samuel fades into the sunset at Gilgal immediately following Saul’s first victory, and it appears as though Israel is on the fast-track to earning the status of empire. But, as Shakespeare once wrote:

All that glisters is not gold; / Often have you heard that told. / Many a man his life hath sold / But my outside to behold. / Gilded tombs do worms enfold (The Merchant of Venice II, vii)

Saul, like King Hussein, left a half-built monstrosity standing tall above the town of Gibeah, hollow against the horizon. The first sign of the kind of legacy Saul would leave appears in 1 Samuel 13. The newly commissioned king and his relatively small army were encamped at Gilgal (near Jericho), awaiting Samuel’s arrival. Samuel was the priest, and therefore was the only one who could offer the appointed sacrifice. Saul was impatient and feared the growing angst of his trembling army–3,000 men who would soon be asked to go up against 30,000 Philistines. He thought that he could expedite the LORD’s blessing on the seemingly inevitable battle, and so he offered the sacrifice himself. Bad idea. Eventually Samuel shows up,

You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought a man after his own heart…And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal. The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army; they went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin (2 Sam. 13:13-15).

Two chapters later, after another incident proving a lack of character on Saul’s part, we are given a vivid and heartbreaking glimpse into Saul and Samuel’s final meeting,

Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. (1 Sam. 15:34-35).

Ramah, Samuel's hometown

Samuel to Ramah, Saul to Gibeah. The two cities stand about three miles away, and yet, and endless gulf seems to separate the two men. From Ramah, the LORD sends Samuel about ten miles south, to Bethlehem. There, a young shepherd boy named David is anointed the future king of Israel. So much going one within such a small stretch of land: kingdoms rising and falling, idolatry, devotion, and prophetic dreams. David’s resume stands in complete contrast to Saul’s. Whereas Saul is identified as handsome, tall and rich, David’s qualifications are affirmed through God’s rebuke of Samuel,

When [David's oldest brother] came, he looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him. But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look o his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man see; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart’ (2 Sam. 16:6-7).

Saul was a man after a nation’s praise, David was a man after God’s heart. Saul pointed people to himself, David pointed hungry hearts to the sovereignty of the One who had carried a nation out of slavery and into promise.

With every breath we are building something. Our seconds, minutes, hours and years are spent constructing literal or spiritual structures. We brush past each other everyday, not knowing what kind of symphony the blue lines racing across our paper hearts are composing. Legacy is an abstraction, a word that will only truly be concretely defined for each of us on the day Christ will judge.

Nevertheless, what we’re doing right now is turning into focus the image of what our legacy will be. We have a choice, two roads: one leading to Gibeah, the other to Bethlehem. Paul explains:

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw–each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done (1 Cor. 3:12-13).

What will your legacy be?