Before Jesus was born, before David was born, before there was a nation called Israel, there was a prophecy given to Jacob on his deathbed, a message to his sons: “Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies, your father’s sons will bow down to you. . . .The scepter will not depart from Judah nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.” (Genesis 49:9&19)

Judah was the fourth son of Jacob, and not the favorite one. By the time of Jacob’s death, Judah had displayed few clues that he would be the father of kings and a leader of the nation that would come from his family, much less a leader of “nations.” Hundreds of years later another prophesy was spoken about kingship in Israel, long before there was a king of Israel. It was spoken by a prophet named Balaam, who had no reason to lie: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. . . a ruler will come out of Jacob.” ( Numbers 24:17&10) Balaam’s prophesy was less detailed that Jacob’s, but it was equally a vision of the future of Israel as a unified nation securely placed in the mind and heart of God. It would be centuries before David was born and anointed king, and then more centuries before the one “to whom it belongs” would be born in Bethlehem. The angel told that one’s mother, “You will conceive and bear a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever: his kingdom will never end” (Luke 2:31-33)

Soon we will enter the season that the churches call “lent”. It is forty days of contemplation about all these things that concern the Christ from very ancient times until this mornings’ breakfast. The forty days are set aside in preparation for glorious Easter, the resurrection of Jesus, carrying the message that the prophesies continue to be fulfilled in our time. Neither Jacob nor David, nor Balaam lived on earth to experience what we experience in reading the scriptures and finding the history of salvation open in its pages. St. Augustine of the fourth and fifth centuries wrote, “The New Testament is in the Old, concealed. The Old is in the New, revealed. Today we live in the never ending kingdom of “the one to whom it belongs”; Jesus, the son of God. We are not all descendants of Jacob, but we are received into the kingdom over which Jesus reigns, as brothers and sisters of the one to whom it belongs.

Love in Him,

Prue

As the Israelites coalesced around Moses and began their journey toward the Promised Land, God gave them the ten commandments and other decrees and laws and began to fill them with a vision of His intention for them that came from an even more ancient time than theirs. He began to picture for them His deepest motive for their Exodus: If you pay attention to these laws. . . then the Lord your God will keep His covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. He will love you and bless you. . . He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land, the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. . . None of your men or women will be childless. . . The Lord will keep you free from any diseases. (Deuteronomy :7:12ff)

This partial inventory of blessings comes before a longer description of the curses awaiting God’s people if they fail to obey Him. The blessings also occur in the book of Leviticus, culminating in: I will walk among you, and be your God, and you will be my people. (Leviticus 26:11) In listing the many ways of blessing that God extends to His people, He reveals His sensitivity to the human heart: children, crops, freedom from disease, love, and the companionship of God Himself. We might think that God dangled these blessings in front of His people simply as bait to convince them to keep His covenant, but I believe that these lists of blessings come from deep inside our God, and share with us God’s very purpose for creation. Far from being a futile dream that cannot be realized, these blessings are behind God’s work in our lives, and His real intention for all His people.

God certainly knew that His first generations would not fulfill the vision that He put before them, but He doesn’t hesitate to reveal it anyway. His reasons are limitless, but in part,at least, He is planting a glimpse of what He really shares with humanity: the love, peace, joy, and fruitfulness of life.

Jesus spoke about fruitfulness: Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop, some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown. (Mark 4:20) God doesn’t dangle His blessings before us to get us to keep faith with Him, Instead, God reveals His personal desire for each of us. In sending His son, He put in motion the reality of goodness and salvation that would bridge the gap between Himself and His people. God’s vision for His people is still available in His book. It has never died.

Love in Him,

Prue

Martha hesitated when Jesus told her to move the stone from Lazarus’ grave. Jesus said to her: “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”(John 11:40-41)

This is a picture of Jesus ‘ ministry on earth, and an actual bridge between us and our God. It is also a model for us of ways of praying to God, as Jesus begins with a thanksgiving for the benefit of those standing nearby and listening. This prayer is like a lesson in prayer at an emotionally charged moment. Jesus is teaching bystanders as well as all of us, who he is, and how to pray by starting with thanksgiving. It’s a prayer that serves as a direct message to our hearts of how to pray, and ranks along with Jesus’ teaching the disciples the “Lord’s Prayer,” and his “Gethsemane” prayer. In these prayers we have a blueprint of the way to approach God. We are witnessing the model for prayers of petition, probably our most frequent type of prayers. We express our belief and trust in Him, and gratitude for the opportunity to come before Him.

All this the people witnessed, not even imagining that the words would be fulfilled with what happened next: Jesus called out in a loud voice, “ Lazarus come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped in strips of linen. . . (John 11:43-44)

Jesus meant to restore Lazarus to life, but he also meant to restore all of us to believe and to pray with thanksgiving. He thanked God even before God responded with the healing. It was, as Jesus said to Martha, “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” She could not have imagined the depth, the width, the strength and the reality of what would fill her heart when she saw her brother alive. Mary and Martha were both believers, and this was an indescribable confirmation of their faith. It was God’s glory in the center of their lives. It was life itself from death.

Jesus waited to arrive until after Lazarus’ death. His Father God knew that this moment would reverberate through all of history in the lives of many generations. Jesus did this for all those generations, including ours. He did this to show us who he is, and to teach us to pray as Jesus prays.

Love in Him,

Prue

“Very truly I tell you, the son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the son also does.” (John 5:19) “Because I live you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20)

The oneness that Jesus describes here is mysterious. It is a new relationship with God that Jesus has always had, into which the disciples are being introduced on the evening of Jesus’ arrest and separation from them. Jesus knew that they barely grasped a word of what he said, and he also knew that his words would stay with them for their whole lives and could reach thousands of years into the future to illuminate even the twenty-first century and beyond. Even before this Jesus had said, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. (John 12:44)

When we look into the face of an infant, we seek some comparison with the child’s parentage, and we usually find it, accurate or not. “ Who does he or she favor?” we wonder, but Jesus says he was sent so that we could know who we ourselves “favor”, to whom we really belong. In these scriptures Jesus was talking to eleven mostly unrelated men, who seemed to have little in common, but each one would find his calling in the one that they all followed. Jesus was telling them that the oneness he had with the Father would transfer to them when he was physically no longer with them. After his resurrection he would call them “brothers”, and they would bring more and more brothers and sisters to share this family relationship with God Himself.

Jesus’ ministry on earth was complete. He made provision and gave direction for everyone to find oneness with him and his Father: “If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. (John 14:15-16) Oneness will always be a mystery to us on earth; we can’t control or shape it ourselves, but there is enough of Jesus and understanding in the Bible for us to recognize him in our very fractured world; and when we do, we can know that we are one, not only with him, but also with his Father, for they are one.

Love in Him,

Prue

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you. . . it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame . . . I am afraid that if that cord of communion is snapped, then I’ve a nervous notion I would take to bleeding inwardly.”

These are the words given by Charlotte Bronte to a character in her novel Jane Eyre. Mr. Rochester is expressing his love for Jane just before he asks her to marry him. The novel follows the progress of Rochester’s attachment to Jane and hers to him.

The image of the string joining him to the person he loved more than any other, and the very life in him sustained by that string, seemed to me much like St. Paul’s relationship to Christ. Paul speaks of on inner connection that is inviolable: “I was given a thorn in the flesh. . . three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. . . That is why, for Christ’s sake I delight in weaknesses. . . for when I am weak, then I am strong.”(2Corinthians 12:12:9-12) The communion between God and Paul enabled Paul to become “the great apostle”: “I can do all things through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13).

King David of the Old Testament knew of such a relationship. In Psalm 51, David has experienced the snapping of the “string” that joins him to God. He pleads with God to restore it: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalms 51:10)

St. Paul experienced such intensity in his relationship to Christ. His words have informed the world that there is in truth such a relationship that can be had with the Lord Himself: For, now abides faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. (1Corinthians 13:13)

Bronte’s novel concerns human love, but is expressed in the terms that we can all recognize as a love that comes only from the source and Person of love itself, our God in Christ. May we all experience the “string” than binds us to Him.

Love in Him,

Prue

You Have Yosemite

Once when Jack and I were visiting with friends in Merida, on the Yucatan Peninsula,, we hired an Uber driver to take us to the zoo and later to return us to our friends’ haciendita. The driver spoke fluent English, and said that he had been caught in the U.S. For illegal entry and deported to his home in Merida. He wanted nothing more than to return to the U.S., but knew that it wasn’t safe for him. I asked him, “ Why do you want to be there so much? This is a beautiful city; the whole countryside is lovely, and you are apparently a successful Uber driver. What would the U.S. Have to offer?” “Yes,” he answered, but you have Yosemite!” I couldn’t answer , because I have lived my whole life in the U.S., and never visited Yosemite National Park in California; but I was puzzled because the driver insisted that Yosemite made the difference between Mexico and the U.S. , and the U.S. won, in his mind. I admit that it planted a desire in my mind to visit Yosemite, but I have yet to carry out the thought.

“Yosemite isn’t like any other place,” he said. It’s more than beautiful. There is no other place on earth like it. Why do you come to Mexico when you have Yosemite?” I had no answer. We had just toured a very lovely zoo in Merida, with natural habitats, a small lake, a flock of beautiful flamingos, and trees, shrubs, flowers, and benches situated to catch beautiful views. I had heard that Yosemite was a particularly spiritual place for some people, and perhaps it was for this man; I was embarrassed to admit that I had never been there. I had no answer for why I was in Mexico, when I could have been in Yosemite.

After the fire came a still small voice . When Elijah heard it. . . he went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:13) Elijah was trying either to escape death at the hands of Queen Jezebel, who had vowed to have him killed, or die peacefully away from her. The voice of God told him to return, as God had more work for him to do.

I was in Mexico at the invitation of some dear friends and I felt grateful for the visit, but the Uber driver’s question stayed with me and I thought that God has a plan for each of us and sometimes we need to hear the perspective of one who is in vastly different circumstances from ours. Merida is indeed a lovely city, but I didn’t let it give me a wanderlust. After all, I have Yosemite.

Love in Him,

Prue

God’s Bridge

“Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-25) St. Paul’s words in this passage have puzzled and inspired readers ever since he wrote them in a letter to the Corinthian church. Who can describe the “foolishness” of God ? To many, for God to allow His only son to die on the cross at the hands of human beings was unmitigated foolishness, but for Paul it is the whole answer to the hunger for the very meaning of life itself.

If God, the creator of the universe, had simply washed His hands of His creation and walked away, perhaps to create another world, we would all be lost. How, though, could He relate to His creation in such a way as to have a presence in their lives and an actual relationship rooted in His own character of love?

For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only son, that whosoever believed in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (Jesus’ words, John 3:16)

Jesus himself knew of the sacrifice he would make so that these words would be fulfilled. Jesus also said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3:14)

It was the Holy Spirit of God Himself that Jesus would give to believers after his resurrection. In this way Jesus became the bridge between God and human beings. Just as we trust a bridge in order to walk or drive across it, so we trust that Christ’s promises are true and tat God actually sent him to make a new and eternal life a possibility even for us. God desired it out of His character that prompted Him to seek fellowship with His own creation. This is the very great “foolishness” that gives us hope and joyful existence on the earth. It is perceivable in the Scriptures, and in the lives of believers who have experienced and then displayed the love of God for us.

The invisible God has provided a bridge for a seeing and believing people to know Him,and even sent messengers like Paul to inform us of His inexhaustible and eternal love.

Love in Him,

Prue

Of my four siblings, only my oldest sister had bright red hair. It was her “crowning glory”, and noticed by everyone. Nancy grew up to become an elementary school teacher; and one day when she was teaching second grade, the principal walked into her room accompanied by a red-haired boy and carrying the boy’s file folder. He told Nancy that Warren would be in her class, an handed her the folder. Nancy glanced inside it and noted that Warren had been moved from two different second grade classrooms because of “personality conflicts” with the teachers. Nancy’s was the only second grade class left that he had not attended. She pushed a student desk forward so that it was adjacent to her desk and told Warren that it would be his desk, and thus began his third try at second grade.

Nancy delighted in Warren. She kept him close to her in school activities and discovered that when he wasn’t bored he was bright and actually eager to excel. She called on him frequently to run errands, and openly favored him. She laughingly told me that she was quite sure that at least some of the other students believed that Warren was her own son.

When Warren’s mother came for her first parent conference a month later, Nancy showed her his work, which was well done. “Yes,” said his mother, “but how is he really doing in class?” Nancy paused, then looking at this mother, she boldly answered, “How do you think a red haired boy would do in my class?” There were tears in the mother’s eyes when she left her son’s classroom. For no reason of his own, Warren had received favor. Nancy later told me that Warren liked being favored, and he never gave her any trouble at all.

The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you. . .( Deuteronomy 7:7-8) St. Peter wrote to Christians: You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession . . . Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2: 9-10)

Nancy eventually mothered four boys, including twins. None of them had red hair. Warren had a very good second grade year, and was successful in third grade, even with- out a red haired teacher.

You and I can wake up every morning knowing that the favor lasts, and the love is real.

Love in Him,

Prue

Sometime between 486 and 465 BC a young Jewish woman named Esther, or “Hadassah”, her Hebrew name, took her life in her hands and stood silently waiting to see if her husband, King Xerxes of Persia, would acknowledge her, thereby saving her life, or if he would ignore her and so condemn her to death. (Esther 5:1)

The story of Esther that appears in the Bible is the story of a young woman savior, who finds herself in circumstances not at all of her own making, as a pawn in the life of King Xerxes and the Persian court. In spite of having no independence at all, having been chosen from a large number of girls by the king, Esther emerged as the savior of the nation of her people who were living in exile from Israel in Persia.

While it’s hard for us to imagine a life dictated by others, leaving little or no room for freedom of action or even of speech, this was the life of the queen of Persia, young Esther. When she first learned of the decree that had gone out to destroy the entire Jewish population, Esther thought that there was absolutely nothing that she could do to reverse the edict put in motion by Haman, the highest officer next to the king.

Esther’s uncle Mordecai, succeeded in getting a message to her of the imminent disaster waiting for their people, but at first Esther couldn’t see any path for herself to avert the slaughter. Mordecai wrote his famous words: “Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

It was the law of Persia that no one was to appear before the king in the throne room without being invited. It was punishable by death. Esther didn’t know for sure the depth of Xerxes’ attachment to herself: she had not been invited into his presence in a month.

Xerxes extended his scepter, and Esther lived to plead the case of the Jews.

The book of Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not make reference to God or Lord. It is a story that takes place in a land of exile. The presence of God in the events of the book is evident in the simple, profound, action of Esther herself. She first called for fasting from Mordecai and the Jewish community as well as herself, and then she stood by the pillar in the throne room waiting to know if she would live or die.

Esther is a pre-figure of Christ himself, as she offered her life for the rescue of the whole Jewish population in Persia. Her action resulted in the defeat of Haman, and the elevation of Mordecai to Prime Minister, freeing up the Jewish people in Persia and bringing them favor in the eyes of the rest of the people, as well as of the court. To this day Purim is celebrated in the Jewish community in remembrance of Esther’s sacrifice.

A young woman with almost no options for her life, and without mentioning His name, displayed the Holy Spirit in her courage and desire to preserve God’s people. We are blessed to know her story.

Love in Him,

Prue

Sitting on the gymnasium floor in junior high school after our class had finished a workout for almost 45 minutes, I began to imagine an ice cold 7UP, and how incredibly delicious that would taste at that moment. It was an image that I couldn’t shake, and I stopped listening to our gym teacher as I wallowed in the thought. I had never experienced such compelling thirst before.

In the Bible there are two occasions of intense thirst on the part of the Hebrew people that occur near the beginning, and again near the end of their forty year trek through the wilderness. They are moments that determined the very fate of Moses and his brother Aaron.

Soon after escaping Egypt’s Pharaoh through the red sea,the people found themselves without water and complained to Moses, who prayed to God for direction. The Lord told Moses to use his staff to strike the “rock of Horeb”, and that water would rush out of the rock. Moses followed God’s instructions in detail, striking the rock with the staff he had earlier used during the plagues in Egypt. Fresh water gushed out of the rock. (Exodus 17:5-6)

Almost forty years later, close to the Promised Land, again there was a water shortage, and a rock. Again the people complained to Moses. This time, though, God’s instructions were slightly different. He told Moses to carry his staff, and to “Speak to the rock.” Numbers 20:7)

Moses, instead of speaking to the rock, spoke to the people, then struck the rock as he had done all those years before: “Must we bring you water out of this rock?” he said to the people; and God told Moses that he and Aaron would not enter the Promised Land. It seems unimportant, a small variation on the Lord’s instructions, but Moses’ small change showed God a changed heart.

Many years later, the apostle John wrote God’s message to the church in Ephesus: “You have persevered and endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you. You have forsaken the love you had at the first. (Revelation 2:4)

All I did in that long ago gymnasium, was imagine a cold glass of 7UP, but it distracted me so much that I didn’t hear a word our instructor was saying at the end of the work-out. All Moses did was change the words and follow the former solution to a problem, and ignore the words God spoke to him. God finds our souls immeasurably precious to Him. Where we stand toward Him is more important than any other part of our lives. David, Moses’ spiritual descendant , would one day write, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” (Psalm 51:10) That was Moses’ real and only hope, and ours, too.

Love in Him,

Prue