phrase of the day

Phrase of the Day...

This is also what husbands get when their wife utters those terrifying words: "I'd like to talk with you."

Selective Fatigue Syndrome

Fatigue which is used as an excuse when one does not want to perform undesirable tasks such as work.

My co-worker claimed her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome kept her from coming to work, but she had no problems making it to the nightclubs. What she really has is Selective Fatigue Syndrome.

(this comes from Urban Word of the Day: disclaimer - some of the entries can be crude or offensive... but some are really good)

John's Transfiguration account

Why didn't John include the Transfiguration story in his gospel?

I think John intended his whole gospel to manifest the glory of Jesus. This is his stated purpose in recording Jesus' "signs" - "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him." (John 2:11)

The first half of John's gospel is devoted to these signs (often called "The Book of Signs"), the second is focused on Jesus' passion ("The Book of the Passion"). It is John who refers to the crucifixion as the beginning of Jesus' glorification (eg. 12:23f; 13:31; 17:1).

I still don't know why John wouldn't include the story, except that he had one exaltation alone in mind, the one that begin with the "lifting up" on the cross and concluded with the resurrection. In this the Father is glorified (13:31; 17:1f); in this he displays the light and beauty and glory of God the Father.

"Shine, Jesus, shine, fill this land with the Father's glory..."

a summary of Transfiguration sharing

In addition to the connection with the Feast of Tabernacles and the strong Mosaic inferences, here are some summarizing thoughts of our looking at the Transfiguration according to Matthew -

(1) At the very beginning of his ministry Matthew quoted Isaiah re. Jesus

the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light,

and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,

on them a light has dawned.” (Matt. 4:16)

This is a literal culmination of this prophecy, a high point – but really only a fleeting moment (the old “mountain top experience”) -

“When Jesus, in circumstances strongly reminiscent of Ex. 24 and 34, goes up on a mountain and is transfigured into light, the reader is to infer that history has come full circle, that the eschatological expectations of Judaism have begun to find their fulfillment. The eschatological prophet, the one like Moses and Elijah, has appeared, and the light of the resurrection and parousia has already shone forth. Israel’s primal history is being recapitulated by her Messiah, God’s Son, the eschatological embodiment of true Israel.” (Davies, p. 705)

(2) emphasis on the Messiah who is “the Son” and the revelation from heaven. (Matthew 16:16-17; 17:5)

(3) one last interesting thought is a possible play against the crucifixion –

· three disciples are named as observing in both;

· there are two people with him in each account;

· in one his clothes shine, in the other they are stripped off;

· one is filled with light, one with darkness;

· one is private, one is public;

· Jesus confessed as Son of God in both;

· Elijah there or referenced in both;

· up on a mountain, up on a cross;

· glorification, humiliation;

· six days, six hours...

a New Moses?

Last week in looking at the Transfiguration in Matthew 17 we considered the allusions to Moses' experiences on Mount Sinai. Some of these may be a stretch, but taken all together I think it's convincing that there's a connection.

Matthew 17 compared with Exodus 24 & 34:

- Same setting: a high mountain (Ex 24:12, 15-18; 34:3; Mt 17:1)

- A cloud descends and overshadows the mountain (Ex 24:15-18; 34:5; Mt 17:5)

- A voice comes from the cloud (Ex 24:16; Mt 17:5)

- The central figures become radiant (Ex 34:29-30, 35; Mt 17:2)

- Those who see the radiance / hear the voice become afraid (Ex 34:30; Mt 17:6* (they hear); Mk 9:6)

- The event takes place after six days (Ex 24:16; Mt 17:1)

- A select group of 3 people is mentioned (Ex 24:1; Mt 17:1)

- Moses and Elijah are only OT figures of whom it is said that they spoke with God on Mount Sinai. (Elijah in 1 Kings 19 is on "Mount Horeb" - understood to be Sinai). Their appearance on a mountain should evoke the thought of Sinai.

And compared with Mark's account, if indeed Matthew was using Mark's account or its equivalent, it looks like Matthew made the following changes:

> Moses now comes before Elijah

> Matthew says Jesus’ “face shone like the sun” while Mark only mentions garments (cf. Ex. 34:29-35)

> Adds adjective “bright” to the cloud (a paradox) that overshadows. Shekinah?

“with whom I am well pleased” is same as in baptism (not in Mark or Luke), quotes the suffering servant of Isaiah 42:1.

In the group last Tuesday, one of our members brought up the idea that Peter and James and John may have been observing Moses talking with God on the mountain, and Elijah talking with God on the mountain (it was seconded by two others)... in a kind of time warp (aka "Lost" or some other sci fi fantasy) - or chronos (linear time) vs kairos (God's special specific time). What an amazingly interesting idea!

I'm open to this, but we still have to probe and ask why the Holy Spirit, and why Matthew, recorded this story here at this point in the gospel?

Sukkot / Tabernacles and Transfiguration, 5 and postscript

Okay, a few more thoughts to bring the relevance of "the Feast" to the time of Jesus.

In John 7, Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. It is there, on the last and great day of the feast, that Jesus declared the promise of living water - the Holy Spirit - to those who believe in him (vs. 37-39).

Two themes were strongly associated with the Feast during Jesus' day: (1) water, and (2) light. The priests ritually poured water on the altar as a kind of prayer to God for the rain to come in its season, and on the last day they would really douse it so that water would even start running out of the temple. And there were huge menorahs standing in the temple courts that were lit all through the Feast and lit up the whole area. John picks up on this light theme as well, in chapter 8 and 9, as Jesus twice says "I am the light of the world" and enlightens darkened eyes.

We see these themes in Zechariah and Isaiah as they point to the Day of the Lord and even to the Feast of Tabernacles in the age to come.


In the first post I quoted some from the Jewish Prayer Book for Sukkos. As I was looking for a closing prayer(s) to end this series of posts I saw again how many pages including various litanies of pleas that God would "please save, now." This is also a prayer that we Christians pray a lot, in short it's the prayer "Hosanna!" (Hoshana in Hebrew)

I'll close with this prayer called "Farewell to the Succah:"
"May it be Your will, LORD, our God and the God of our forefathers, that just as I have fulfilled [the mitzvah, or "commandment"] and dwelled in this succah, so may I merit in the coming year to dwell in the succah of the skin of Leviathan. Next year in Jerusalem."

[here's the commentary on this strange and interesting petition... "The Leviathan was a monstrous fish created on the fifth day of Creation. Its story is related at length in the Talmud (Bava Basra 74b), where it is told that the Leviathan will be slain and its flesh served as a feast to the righteous in Time to Come, and its skin used to cover the tent where the banquet will take place."]

Christians say it this way: "Maranatha." "Come quickly, Lord," and make all things right and all things new. By the grace of God in Messiah, may all God's people dwell with him in the new earth.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place (tabernacle) of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
(Revelation 21:1-4)

Sukkot / Tabernacles and Transfiguration, 4

Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, had some strong eschatological themes associated with it. These come principally from Zechariah 14.

Zechariah speaks of a great day of the LORD that is coming when all nations will be gathered against Jerusalem to fight against her, houses will be plundered and women raped (v.1-2).

Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. 4 On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives... (vs. 2-3)

The Mount of Olives will split and the people will flee, but
5 Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. 6 On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. 7 And there shall be a one day, which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light. 8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter. 9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.

The chapter continues with talk of panic and punishment, but includes this:

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. (v. 16)

Everyone who survives, of all the nations, shall go to Jerusalem every year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast.

Related to this picture of the the Lord renewing all things and reigning in his world, there are some texts in Isaiah that also inform us:
It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
3 and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go the law (or teaching),
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:2-4; also in Micah 4)

Then in Isaiah 4, we hear of a cloud that will cover Mount Zion and the assembly (recalling the Shekinah cloud that descended on the Tabernacle, which may have been expected to return at the consummation), and of a "booth" or tabernacle:
Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. 6 There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.

To try to summarize how Tabernacles may be related to the Transfiguration:
- the Lord will come and stand on a mountain and manifest his sovereignty in victory
- the true and final culmination of the Exodus is coming
- the Word / Torah / Law of the Lord will go forth from Jerusalem. Justice and righteousness, light and truth, for all the nations shall be brought about on that final day.
- the Lord himself will be our refuge and shelter, and dwell in our midst in all his glory
- we will rejoice with all the nations over God's provision and protection, and in the revelation of his Word, and his executing of justice

I think Peter had some or all of this (and surely more) in mind as he blurted out his offer to make three booths for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. This vision of Jesus had everything to do with the victory of God in Christ and consummating all things in his glorious kingdom.

Sukkot / Tabernacles and Transfiguration, 3

Here's the next installment trying to understand a possible Tabernacles undercurrent or influence on the Transfiguration of Jesus.

We read in Nehemiah 8 of a time after the people of Israel had returned from exile, had restored the temple and rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem, when the Torah was read to all the people gathered. They wept and grieved upon hearing it. This is when we hear that well known verse: Ezra encourages the people not to grieve, but that "the joy of the Lord is your strength." (v. 10)

The text continues to say that the leaders got together to study God's Word and found in it that God ordered them to dwell in booths during "the feast of the seventh month" (v. 14) and

"that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.” (v. 15)

And so they did, apparently there were booths everywhere... and the passage concludes

And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. 18 And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast seven days... (vs. 17-18)

So, again, associated with the Feast of Tabernacles is great rejoicing and the reading of whole Torah, all that God revealed to his people.

The great rejoicing has to do with God's provision and protection, even in the midst of a profound sense of vulnerability and how transitory and exposed our lives are. The book that is now associated with Sukkot is Ecclesiastes, which speaks of the vanity or "breathiness" of life, of enjoying the good things God provides, while remembering to fear God and obey his commandments. And yet it also points to another Tabernacle in their midst as they traveled through the wilderness; one that showed them that God was indeed in their midst, going before them and guarding them from behind. And pointing to a day when God would again, fully and finally in the consummation and renewal of all things, will tabernacle among his people and indeed be their tabernacle.

Sukkot/Tabernacles and Transfiguration, 2

The first place that God calls for Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths), to be observed is in Leviticus 23:33f.
39 “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. 40 And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. 41 You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, 43 that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

In the parallel passage in Deuteronomy 16, the people are commanded to "rejoice in your feast... so that you will be altogether joyful" (vs. 14-15). Here we also are told that this was one of three "pilgrim" feasts, that is, for which they were to go up to Jerusalem.

Lastly, listen to what God commands with regard to his Word and this Feast in Deuteronomy 31. This is one of the last things Moses shares with them before it is his time to depart:
9 Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel. 10 And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, 11 when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. 12 Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, 13 and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”

So we have themes of rejoicing in the goodness and provision of the Lord, of remembering the transitoriness of the wilderness wandering and our current journey, and of all God's people gathered in Jerusalem to hear all the words of Torah...

Sukkot & the Transfiguration

Tuesday night we read Matthew 17 and began a discussion of the Transfiguration. This week is the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths), called Sukkot (meaning tabernacles or booths) in Hebrew terminology. Because of the timing, we spent our time talking about "the Feast," in part because of the strange comment by Peter on that "high mountain" when he saw Jesus, in transfigured glory, and Moses and Elijah talking together.

"Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah." (v. 5)

That word, "tents," is the word used for tabernacle or booth in the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures. It's the same root for the word used in John 1:14 when it says that the word became flesh and dwelt or tabernacled among us; and the same word in that passage (2 Cor. 12:9) that Marva Dawn used as the key verse for her excellent book "Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God."

I think that the theme of the Feast of Tabernacles is an undercurrent in this passage; it may not be the main big point (which is probably that Jesus is the new and greater Moses, God's Deliverer and Revealer, to lead his whole creation in a New Exodus to freedom...), but as we look at the various themes associated with Sukkot, it seems that at least Peter had some eschatalogical, consummation of God's history and vindication of God's people, thoughts going on in his head when he blurted out his offer to make three booths...

I have to stop here for now, I'll add a couple more posts with the background, but I'll close with some Sukkot prayers from the Siddur (the Jewish Prayer Book). [Note: HASHEM means literally "The Name" which is a circumlocution for the Divine, in our Bibles usually written as LORD]

"Behold, I am prepared and ready to perform the commandment of succah as the Creator, Blessed is His Name, commanded me: In succos shall you dwell for seven days...
May the pleasantness of my Lord, our God, be upon us - may He establish our handiwork for us; our handiwork may He establish.

May it be Your will, HASHEM my God and the God of my forefathers, that You cause Your Presence to reside among us, that You spread over us the succah of Your peace - in the merit of the mitzvah of succah that we are fulfilling - to unify the Name of the Holy One, Blessed is He, and His Presence, in fear and love, to unify the name... and to surround us with the aura of Your honor, holy and pure, spread over our heads from above like an eagle arousing its brood, and from there cause an abundant outpouring of life for Your servant..."

May God bless all His people observing this Feast with the fulfillment of their prayers.

ezer kenegdo

After giving the man work to do and a warning with regard to navigating life in God's garden in a way that is Life and not a prideful partaking of what leads to death, God says,
"It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper fit for him" (Genesis 2:18).
I shared Sunday in a sermon based on this verse that God did not make the woman because the man was lonely, nor to make him happy, but to join him in the call to "bear the image, do the work, and live the Life;" and we saw that that phrase "a helper fit for him" can be understood as something like

"a power equal to him" or
"a strength corresponding to him."

What's very cool is that the overwhelming majority of times the word ezer ("help" / "helper") is used in the Hebrew Scriptures is in reference to God. There is absolutely no concept here of my little assistant or apprentice who just adds an additional pair of hands to get a job done... in fact part of the idea of the "fit for him" or "corresponding to him" or "equal to him" can even be something like "in his face" (that's not a joke!). I found the following article excellent.
ezer kenegdo

The Soloist

I shared about the movie, The Soloist, yesterday in a sermon on marriage. I commend the movie, not only for the beautiful story of the power of friendship (which is one way to describe the main point of my sermon), but also for its depiction of homelessness. May God give us grace to be able to befriend the poor and powerless, and to know how to "help"; this is precisely what we hear the prophets continually crying out about, what is God's very heart, and what we hear and see in the person of Jesus.

Restless Lip Syndrome

from "Urban Word of the Day"

October 1: Restless Lip Syndrome

When a person keeps interrupting a conversation and can't keep her or his mouth shut.

Chris has to come my house to drink because when we're at his house, Linda's Restless Lip Syndrome prevents us from carrying on a conversation.

Never knew that's what you call it, what I've had all these years that has discouraged my wife so...