As the Christian world celebrates the resurrection of Christ this Easter Sunday, let us not forget our Jewish brothers and sisters who this same day celebrate Yom Bikkerim (The Feast of Firstfruits).  What is the connection of this Jewish Feast and the Christian celebration of Easter?  Is there something we can learn from this ancient holiday?

We find the command God gave His people to celebrate seven specific feasts or festivals in Leviticus 23.  The third holiday given was the Feast of Firstfruits which was to be held the Sunday after the Sabbath following Passover, which just happens to be today.  So what is the significance of this holiday?

The Feast of Firstfruits was a celebration where the people would bring God the very first heads of the grain harvest.  It was their way of saying “This is all we have, we give it to you and trust you for the rest”.   It is a kind of faith promise.  This holiday was closely associated with Passover and Unleavened Bread, which happen just a few days prior.

In the days prior to Jesus’ crucifixion Jesus was preparing for the Passover celebration in which he would be offered as fulfillment of the Passover lamb.  He was buried on unleavened bread, as the nation was praying for bread, or life out of the earth.  On that year we believe Passover was on Friday, Unleavend Bread on Saturday and Firstfruits on Sunday.  Which means that Jesus was raised on the Jewish Feast of Firstfruits.  Jesus was the fulfillment of this holiday.  He was raised from the dead as God’s faith promise to us that one day we too would be resurrected.

Paul says it this way in First Corinthians 15:20-23:

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.

So as we celebrate the resurrected Christ today, let us remember that His resurrection is the fulfillment of the ancient feast God gave his people and a promise of the harvest to come.

Happy Easter/FirstFruits

He Is Risen!

While I know it may seem odd at first and even a bit sacrilegious to some, this clip made me stop and think.  What does it look like to bring life to our world?  After all, isn’t this what we have been called to do?  Our creative God, created us in His image and called us to partner with him in the ongoing creation of the world.  He has called us to be the ones that bring life to the world.  Both physical and spiritual life.  Maybe the folks at Guiness are on to something.

To learn more about the Guiness company and the way that they have been involved in bringing life I would recommend the book The Search for God and Guiness.  You can read a short review here.

As I sit in the stillness of this early Thanksgiving morning, I have been reflecting on  all of the the things I am thankful for.

I am thankful for big things like God’s grace and mercy.  For His patience and goodness.  For His holiness and desire to make me holy.  Did I mention His patience.  I am thankful that He loved us enough to join us, to live among us and die for us.

I am thankful for my wife and kids.  For their smiles and laughs, for their love, for knowing that we are in this for the long haul and that we are always there for each other.

I am thankful  for extended family and for friends that are like family.

I am thankful for heath, for jobs that more than provide for our needs and allow us to use our giftings and strengths.

I am thankful for our home.  For our kids to have a place to grow up, and for us to have a place to share life with others.

I am thankful that we live in Colorado.  For sunrises and sunsets, blue skies and powder snow. For mountains and elk.  For the breath taking beauty that God surrounds us with each day and that I shamefully take for granted all too often.

I am thankful for little things – french pressed coffee, smartwool socks and fleece pullovers.  For my iPhone and my Mac.  For bacon & eggs and biscuits & gravy.  For good music and for great podcasts, for high speed internet and all the information available at the click of a button.

And I am thankful you stopped by to read this.

What are you thankful for?

As God put together just the right plan to bring about the birth of His Son, so too has God brought about your entrance into the world and the events that shape and make you who you are.  Take a moment to ponder the God who creates and orders and brings His plan to fulfillment this morning.

This is a video of Andrew Peterson singing through Matthew’s words.  May this song get stuck in your head and cause you to reflect on God’s greatness today.

After all, Jesus did not try to train thousands at a time, but picked 12 to walk with daily.  His  investment in the few eventually had a real impact on millions, but he didn’t try to do reach tens of thousands at a time.  Discipleship cannot work the way we are trying to do it, and we see the evidence in the stats about the church today.  Perhaps it  is time to look to the past to find the model for the future.

Unfortunately, over time the practical result has been a separation of “faith” and “works” and the idea that obedience is not a necessary part of salvation.  After all, Ephesians 2:8-9 says:

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

But in Chapter 2, James says:

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?  Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?  You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.  And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.  You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?  As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

So is it faith alone, or is it faith plus works?  Perhaps it is a misunderstanding of the nature of faith that even leads us to ask that question.  In the Biblical world faith looked very different than it does today for much of Protestant Christianity.  We tend to understand faith as an intellectual assent to information.  Thus faith is an agreement with a statement about who Jesus is.  In the Biblical word the concept of faith included this intellectual assent, but it was more.  Faith was a belief that required action.

Let’s say you are sitting in your house and something in the kitchen catches on fire.  You could simply sit there and say “there is a fire in my kitchen” and you would be correct.  But I would question whether you truly had faith, whether you truly believed that there was a fire.  However, if you were to say “there is a fire in my kitchen” and than got up and tried to put it out, or called 911, or evacuated the house,  than I would think you truly believed that there was a fire.  Your actions would indicate that you truly believed what you said you believed.

The James passage references both Abraham and Rahab who are also mentioned in a passage we often refer to as the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11.  This chapter talks about many of the heroes of the faith, but does so in a way that I think illustrates the Biblical understanding of faith.  Below are some examples of the people mentioned in Chapter 11 and how it talks about their faith:

By faith Abel offered . . .

By faith Noah . . . built an ark to save his family

By faith Abraham, when called . . . obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going.  By faith he made his home . . .    By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau.

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons and worshiped . . .

By faith Joseph spoke . . .

By faith Moses parents hid him . . .

By faith Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharoah’s daughter.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea.

By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.

By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she had welcomed the spies, was not killed.

As I read that passage I see that faith is connected with a lot of action verbs.  I don’t think the Protestant Church’s theological doctrine of “Sola Fide” is wrong.  I think Scripture is clear that we are saved by grace through faith.  However, I think that in emphasizing “Sola Fide” the church has lost the connection between faith and action.  We have become content with calling ourselves “Christian” and “disciples” and “followers of Jesus” because we have intellectually agreed with a creed, or a statement of faith and prayed a prayer asking Jesus to save us.  And in the process we have often ignored the command of Jesus to obedience through good works.

If your name were added to Hebrews Chapter 11, what else would it say?

By faith ___________ . . .

This clip from the movie Luther is of Martin answering the accusations being brought against him and is one of my favorite movie scenes.

Who are some modern day Martin Luthers in the church that are bringing about a new reformation?  What is it that needs reformed?

In my work with Christian college students, I often find myself living up in the mountains.  It is so easy to get caught up in the training of young leaders , that I forget to come down into the Shephelah and engage the world.  Sure, I jump on the Via Marris of today, social media sites, and engage the world in that way.  But that is not quite the same as leaving the comfort and security of my mountain and meeting people on their ground.

This week, I am headed out to my Shephelah.  We are taking our students out of their comfort zone or the Christian bubble and putting them right in the middle of one of the biggest sources of conflict in our society today.  We are headed to the University of New Mexico campus to engage those passing by in dialogue about the issue of life.  There will be graphic displays and protestors, pro-life and pro-choice students, and a lot of hurting people who need to hear the Good News of grace and peace.  Our desire is to engage these students where they are, to be the salt and light that God calls us to be , and to share the truth about His love.

As we take our students to this Shephelah, I ask that you join us in praying that we are effective ambassadors for Christ and that as we interact with the campus community they will see and experience the grace and love he is offering to them.

The past 15 years have been the best of my life and I am so excited about what the future holds for us.  Thank you Julie for your love, your friendship and for walking this road with me.

For me as I have reflected on the implications of turning 40, my mind keeps going back to the use of the number 40 in the Scriptures.  It seems that 40 is commonly found as a measurement of a substantial amount of time, and often a period of preparation.  Noah was in the ark for 40 days and nights (Gen 7:4,12). Moses was believed to be 40 when he killed the Egyptian and fled (Ex 2:12).  After 40 more years of preparation as a shepherd he saw the Burning Bush (Ex 3:2) and went back to Pharaoh and shepherded the people out of Egypt.  Then he spent 40 more years leading them in the wilderness as God prepared them to enter the Promised Land before he died at the age of 120 (Deut 34:7).  Moses remained on Mt. Sinai for 40 days twice while receiving the ten commandments (Ex 24:18, Deut 10:10).

We also see King David who ruled for 40 years (2 Sam 5:4), as did his son Solomon (1 Kings 11:42). Elijah fasted in the wilderness for 40 days(1Kings 19:8) as did Jesus (Matt 4:2). Jonah’s prophecy was that in 40 days Nineveh would be destroyed, thus giving them time to prepare and repent (Jonah 3:4).

In Jewish tradition, the Rabbis considered 40 years a notable length of time to study Torah.  Rabbi Akiva spent 40 years as a shepherd, studied for 40 years, and taught for 40 years. The Mishna states that at age 40, one achieves understanding (Avot 5:21)  and “A man does not comprehend his teacher’s full intention until he is 40″ says Rabbah(Av. Zar. 5b).

So in light of this theme of 40 being a significant time of preparation, I am excited about what lies ahead in this next season of life. Excited that He has given me 40 years of training and preparation for what He is calling me to do.  May I be faithful to obey His call and to use what He has given wisely.

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