The Excluded Prophet [Matthew 3.13-17] (22 January 2012)

If ever there were a passage that requires an understanding not only of history, but also of geography, it is this one. But before we get to that, let us ask a simple question: What images play out in our minds when we read the accounts of Jesus’ baptism? 

Many movie directors have attempted to visualize this scene for us. Here are a couple of such visualizations. 

1. Baptism of Jesus
2. From Jesus of Nazareth
3. From Jesus

If we compare these visualizations with current Christian practice we would find a lot of overlap. And one would come away with the impression that the baptism administered by John was a ritual that looked very much like Christian baptism. 

But is this necessarily so? More to the point, is there evidence that this was so? 

Just to make a stark contrast, would you imagine that the prayers of a devout Hindu or Muslim were similar to your prayers? The word for prayer exists in every language, but we know that Christian prayer is quite different from Hindu and Muslim prayer. Indeed, even different from Jewish prayer. 

Further, a Christian fast differs from a Hindu or Muslim or Jewish fast. Just on Friday, Alice and I went to a place in Jayanagar that dishes out Maharashtrian food. And prominent on the menu were items to be eaten when one is fasting, something quite out of place within the Christian context. 

My point is simply this: The context within which a word appears determines its meaning. And this is true also of the words ‘baptism’ and ‘baptize’. We cannot assume that the mode of John’s baptism was the same as that practiced by Christians. And we will see that the mode of John’s baptism is critical to understand the puzzling fact that, though John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, Jesus, whom we believe was sinless, nevertheless submitted to this baptism. 

The noun form ‘baptism’ is found only in Christian writings, so it is difficult to understand from it what John was doing. However, the verb ‘to baptize’ is common in Jewish writings by the time of Jesus. In the Septuagint, it appears only once, in 2 Kings 5 to describe Namaan’s act of immersing himself in the Jordan. 

This single occurrence, however, gave rise to a common Jewish use and the verb ‘to baptize’ appears in numerous Jewish writings. The main idea in these writings is that of a cleansing ritual. Like all the Jewish rituals, these were supposed to be done repeatedly, whenever one had done something that rendered a person unclean. 

Moreover, as in the Namaan passage, all occurrences are in the reflexive form. One performed this baptizing on oneself. 

These two aspects – repetition and self-administration – set the Jewish usage of the word apart from both John’s baptism and Christian baptism. Christian baptism and John’s baptism differed from Jewish baptism in that they were both administered only once and by someone else. 

However, the New Testament writings link baptism with cleansing, something that John does not do. In other words, we are talking of three different meanings for the verb ‘to baptize’ – the then common Jewish one, the one that would develop within the church, and the one meant by John. The first two – Jewish and Christian – differed from John’s in that they linked baptism with cleansing, while John linked it to the act of repentance. 

Further, Jewish and Christian baptism could be performed anywhere, but John seemed to have insisted on performing his baptism near the Jordan. The Gospel of John indicates that John administered his baptism while on the Eastern bank of the Jordan. So what did this area look like?

Click here for pictures

From these pictures, one thing is clear. The Jordan was quite a dirty river in the region around Jericho and Bethany. In other words, if John intended his baptism to be a cleansing ritual, he couldn’t have chosen a worse place! No one would have gone to the Jordan to become clean. That was precisely what Namaan objected to! 

So what in the world was John the Baptist doing? The key to this lies in the location he had chosen. He did not choose just any part of the Jordan, but the region right across from Jericho as we saw in the aerial view of the Jordan valley. 

This was an evocative location, filled with history and remembrance for the Jews and we dare not forget that John, his disciples, Jesus and his disciples were all Jews. What would these Jews have brought to mind? 

What else but their ancestors standing at the threshold of the promised land a millennium and a half earlier!? Something was happening here under the eye of John that was intended to bring to mind the end of the desert wanderings and the entry into the Promised Land. 

In a nutshell, the Exodus story was this: Israel was enslaved in a land of captivity. Under the guidance of Moses they were led out of Egypt and into the wilderness where they were tested for 40 years. At the end of the 40 years they find themselves at the Eastern bank of the Jordan, across from Jericho, waiting to enter the land God had promised Abraham. 

Now let us turn our focus back on John. The Gospel accounts of his ministry place him clearly in the wilderness region. And here he is at the Eastern bank of the Jordan. He has called Israel to come out of the land of enslavement to sin and to join him on the Eastern bank of the Jordan to prepare for the Kingdom of God, the ultimate Promised Land. 

This view of John’s baptism accounts for a number of things that are otherwise inexplicable. 

First, it accounts for why John’s ministry is a desert ministry. There is nothing really great about being in a desert unless it were pointing to a larger truth, in this case the Exodus and desert wanderings. 

Second, it account for why John located himself across from Jericho. At that time, Jericho was a village of insignificance in the first century. John could very well have located himself further North, nearer Galilee where Jesus would begin his own ministry. The only reason for choosing Jericho was once again to evoke the entrance in the Promised Land. 

Third, it accounts for why the dirtiness of the Jordan did not faze John. His was not a baptism of cleansing, which would require clean water. The idea here was not that of having water poured on you or of your being immersed in the water. Rather the idea was that you cross a body of water, like the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. And then you enter the desert. 

Fourth, it explains why the Gospel accounts indicate that when Jesus came through the water, he was led to the desert to be tempted for 40 days. If John’s baptism were simply like Christian baptism, this would be a mysterious thing. 

However, if John were re-enacting the Exodus and desert wanderings, this makes sense. Coming out of a land of enslavement and then being in the desert for a symbolic 40 days is as close to a re-enactment as one could get. In other words, we should treat the account of Jesus’ temptation as another aspect of his baptism by John rather than a separate occasion. 

Fifth, it explains why, contrary to Jewish baptism and the water rituals of every other religion, John’s baptism was not self-administered. The Israelites in Egypt needed a deliverer to take them out of Egypt and to herd them through the desert. They couldn’t do it themselves and so also John’s baptism required the hand of John. 

Sixth, it explains why, contrary to Jewish baptism and the water rituals of every other religion, John’s baptism was done only once on a person. If it were cleansing, it would have to be repeated again and again, like the Christian counterpart of confessing of sins. But if it were an enactment of the Exodus and desert wanderings then it needed to be done only once. In fact, it could not be done more than once. Entrance into the Promised Land is not a repeatable event. 

Seventh, it explains what is embarrassing if we pause to think of it. Which religious movement would begin with an account that its Guru was actually sanctioned by someone lesser than he? Krishna, in the Mahabharata, needs no human sanctioning. He arrives at the scene and is self-attested. The same is true of Ram in the Ramayana. And Mohammed too has no pre-cursor. But here we have Jesus coming to John right after John has declared openly that he is unworthy even to do a slaves work for Jesus. 

We are now in a position to understand what John was saying and therefore what was happening when Jesus was baptized. John calls the attention of his hearers to the fact that there are two non-repeatable baptisms. On the one hand, there is his baptism of repentance in water for the forgiveness of sins. On the other hand, there is the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire, the baptism that Jesus administers. And this is why the Gospel of John clarifies that Jesus did not baptize people with water as the medium. 

Now we can understand the strange exchange between John and Jesus. This is what our passage says: 

John has made a distinction between the baptism he administers and the baptism Jesus administers. And he has already said that Jesus’ baptism is the superior one. When he says, “I need to be baptized by you” he does not mean that Jesus should immerse him in water or pour water over his head. Rather, he is saying that he wants to experience that wonderful Spirit baptism that Jesus administers. 

And when Jesus says, “It is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness” what does he mean? The conventional view of John’s baptism that makes it like Christian baptism cannot account for this and we then have to speak of Jesus identifying with sinners. But if he was sinless, this baptism at John’s hand would have been a farce. 

But if John was like Moses leading the former slaves to the border of the Promised Land, then it makes sense. For Moses did not enter the Promised Land. Rather, the one who took the Israelites into the Promised Land was the one after whom Jesus himself was named – Joshua. 

What Jesus is saying is this, “You have begun a re-enactment of the Exodus and desert wanderings. You have taken on the role of Moses. But you know that you cannot enter the Promised Land. You must now hand over the mantle to the one who will complete this enactment – me. This is how you and I are related in God’s plan. You are like Moses. I am like Joshua. And while both you and I would love it if you could experience this wonderful Spirit baptism, you, like Moses, cannot experience it.” 

This is why later in his ministry, Jesus would say, “The law and the prophets were until John. Since then the good news of the Kingdom of God is being preached.” What else would we expect from the one who is to complete what John began and bring his people to that Promised Land which is the life in the Spirit?

An End to the Slickest Trick Up Satan's Sleeve [Matthew 12.22-32] (15 January 2012)

Those who follow electoral processes the world over know of the phenomenon of anti-incumbency. The bane of corruption in our country has made many raise the cry for an anti-incumbent vote when the next general elections come about. But the question no one seems to want to ask is, “Will the new people prove to be any better?”

Believe it or not, Jesus addresses just such a question in our passage. In our passage, Jesus has just healed a person who was demon possessed, blind and mute. Our passage does not allow us to draw any causal links between the three. The people are amazed at this healing. And this prompts an accusation on the part of the Pharisees.

They say that Jesus can do such things because he is hand in glove with the prince of demons, Beelzebul. To them, Jesus is like the apprentice to the master conjurer Beelzebul and that together they had pulled off this hoax. 

The idea is that Beelzebul has ordered his demons to leave whenever Jesus asked them to leave. In other words, Jesus is successful with his exorcisms because he has made a pact with Beelzebul.

If I were in his place, I would have retaliated, gotten angry, and lost my cool. But Jesus does nothing stupid. Rather, he asks for reasons for their hypothesis.

The Jews had many official exorcists. These were professionals who were called upon to cast out demons from people who were possessed. Jesus asks the Pharisees, how they are able to distinguish between his so-called ‘exorcism’ and the supposedly genuine exorcisms of the Jewish exorcists. What criteria do you use to separate truth from falsehood?

You see from the immediate effects on a person, a true exorcism and a fake one cannot be told apart. This is because, for a fake to masquerade effectively as the real thing, there must be some positive effect for some time at least. If right away the person goes back to being tormented, then everyone would know it was a fake. So the immediate effects are inconclusive.

But more than this, Jesus points his finger at the Jewish exorcists. Let me ask you, why are there so many doctors? Because people repeatedly fall ill. Why are there so many engineers? Because we constantly want new things designed. Why do we have so many teachers? Because there are so many children in need of being taught. But the demand for something does not imply that what is supplied will have any worthwhile quality. There are quacks in every line of work – bad doctors, unqualified engineers and uninspiring teachers. The demand for something only ensures that something will be supplied. Quantity can be assured, but not quality.

So why was there a flourishing group of exorcists in Jesus’ day? With population being pretty stagnant, one could not hope for more clients. The only plausible reason was that they could hope for return business. Like a person going to the barber every few weeks for a trim, people used to visit exorcists regularly. 

Jesus hints at this a little later in Matthew 12 in the saying about the return of the unclean spirit. After a cooling off period, during which the delivered person experiences a semblance of freedom from oppression, the demon returns with others of its ilk.

So Jesus is asking the Pharisees a simple question, “Do you think God does such a patchwork job?” In other words, if God were behind the casting out of any demon, this should be a permanent state. There should not be a need to return for the same process to be repeated.

So Jesus actually turns the tables on the Pharisees. In effect he says that the repetitious nature of the work of the Jewish exorcists meant that theirs was not a permanent solution, only a temporary one.

But Jesus goes even further. He says that this temporary solution actually is Satanic in nature. Unbeknownst to themselves, the Pharisees have actually stumbled upon the driving force behind repeated exorcisms. In repeated exorcisms, Satan relinquishes one manifestation and assumes another.

If a person is too troubled with symptom A, Satan will give up symptom A and in a little time show up again with symptom B. When the person gets too troubled with symptom B, Satan will give that up too and resurface with symptom C.

This is the anti-incumbency I mentioned earlier. The person just does not want the current demonic occupant. But not having an occupant just does not seem to be a possibility. Moreover, at times, the new occupant proves to be worse than the previous one. And so the cycle perpetuates itself, lengthy periods of oppression alternated with brief periods of relative freedom. But never a full freedom that God alone could and would give.

Jesus is the one who gives full freedom. And he describes this in terms of plundering a strong man’s house. Jesus is clearly indicating that he is the one doing the plundering. However, this does not mean he is a thief! Rather, if a thief had stolen something that was mine and I went to his house, tied him up and recovered what was rightfully mine, I might be considered a vigilante but not a thief. So also with Jesus. If the law cannot do it, it must be done outside the law!

What rightfully belongs to Jesus is all of creation. Jesus depicts his exorcisms as a sign that he is reclaiming what is his. He is plundering Satan’s loot. He is releasing the captives. 

But this must mean that the strong man – Satan – is bound already, for Jesus is clear that unless the strong man is bound his house cannot be plundered.

Binding the strong man is in effect incapacitating him, defanging the serpent, rendering him unable to perform his quintessential trick. And Satan’s biggest and slickest and most effective trick is to make us believe we are free while we are still enslaved. Satan expelling himself only to resurface later is his slickest act.

And each time, as Jesus indicates later in Matthew 12, the resurfacing is worse. One addiction gives way to another that is more potent and more insidious. One habit yields to another that is more despicable and more demeaning. 

It is like flying a kite. In order to get the kite higher you must allow the string to have some slack. If you only pull and keep the string taut, the kite cannot rise. But if you give some slack the kite will rise. However, though the kite rises, it is not free like a bird. It is still tethered to the string.

Having heard the accusations of the Pharisees, Jesus provides them with a very scientific way of proceeding. He gives them a testable hypothesis. He says that there are two kinds of exorcisms. One needs to be repeated every so often. The other is permanent. Moreover, there are two forces behind exorcisms. One is done by the Holy Spirit. The other is done by Satan. 

He asks them to match the type of exorcism to the force behind it. Is it more likely that the permanent one is Satanic or that the permanent one is powered by the Holy Spirit? Does God truly free people or does God keep them tethered? 

The obvious conclusion is that the permanent one is powered by the Holy Spirit and the temporary one is Satanic.

Jesus is telling them, “If my exorcisms prove to be permanent, then they are done by the power of the Holy Spirit and you have missed the arrival of the kingdom of God. But if my exorcisms prove to be temporary, then I too am like your exorcists.”

It is important to note here that it is possible to have the best intentions and still perpetuate something that is Satanic. The Jewish exorcists certainly believed that they were doing things for the good of people. They, like many today, saw possession as a very common, one might even say natural, state in which humans may find themselves. You drove one demon out today. But a week from today or maybe a month, you would have to drive out another.

Jesus tells us that this kind of a cycle is Satanic in nature. For God does not initiate half-baked temporary measures, but permanent ones. God does not deliver a person one day only to enslave on another day.

Jesus is telling us that the days of repeated exorcisms are gone. The days of Satanic self-expulsion are in the past. We now live in an unprecedented era of the Holy Spirit in which we can taste lasting permanent freedom from the oppressive forces of darkness that aim to bind us. “If I, by the Spirit of God, cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has overtaken you.”

The Consolation of Israel [Luke 2.21-40] (1 January 2012)

Most years we do not get the opportunity that we have today. Christians worship on Sundays for the most part and on one Friday of the year. Many churches do not even have a service on Christmas, unless Christmas happens to fall on a Sunday, as it did last year. Strange, isn’t it, to say ‘last year’ when it was only last week!? And it is only when Christmas falls on a Sunday that the following Sunday happens to coincide with the events narrated in today’s text. And Christians, being Gentiles for the most part, being non-Jewish, really have no point of reference for these events. Circumcision, purification, temple, the sacrificial system, all are foreign to us and we choose to avoid passages in the bible that deal with such aspects of Old Testament faith.

However, the reality is this: Jesus was born into a devout Jewish family and he died a devout Jew. And so, if we wish to understand who Jesus was and what he did – or at least what he was perceived to be doing – we cannot avoid passages that deal with aspects of Old Testament faith.

And so we have in today’s passage a event that happened on the eighth day of Jesus’ life. In other words, today is the anniversary of Jesus’ circumcision. And so today’s message is not a New Year’s message. I consider that Pastor Arun Andrews, who gave us a beautiful message yesterday, has already given us a New Year’s challenge, freeing today for a look at the events recorded by Luke.

Today’s passage is humongous, however, and there is no way we can cover all of it. But we can zero in on one character. And so let us focus on the person who makes a prophecy – Simeon.

Simeon is the third person – after John the Baptist and Elizabeth – whom Luke tells us is associated with the Holy Spirit. But Luke makes the association extremely strong by linking Simeon and the Holy Spirit not once but three times in the span of three verses. Luke tells us that he was righteous and devout and that he awaited the restoration of Israel and that the Holy Spirit was upon him – presumably a constant state of affairs. He was constantly under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, the Holy Spirit had told him that he would live long enough to see the Messiah. What image did Simeon have of this Messiah? In all probability, his image of the Messiah initially coincided with the predominant views of the Jews. 

There were three primary kinds of Messiahs that the Jews expected. We most often hear about the military Messiah, a commander who was expected to drive out the enemies of Israel and restore the kingdom of David. But there were other Jews who expected a prophet Messiah, one like Moses who would give them the new law that Ezekiel spoke of. And still others hoped for a priest Messiah, one like Aaron who would restore the temple and the role of the priests a spoken of by Malachi.

Each of these views was existent at the time Jesus was born, though of course the view with the noisiest followers was the military Messiah. Strangely enough even among Christians, this is the view that is most often propounded. Maybe that’s something we Christians need to introspect over.

Whatever Simeon’s initial leanings, it appears that, under the constant guidance of the Holy Spirit, he developed a view that would have been rejected by almost all the first century Jews. Seven centuries of exile, deportation, slavery and occupation had made the Jews a very exclusivist people. For them, salvation was first for the Jew and only for the Jew. The Gentiles could, very literally, go to hell. The very notion of being a light to the Gentiles was pretty foreign at that time. The Gentiles were scum who had tormented the Jews and who deserved to be punished.

But look at what Simeon says. “For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

Under the influence of the Holy Spirit Simeon had come to a view that refused to make Yahweh a local, tribal god fighting it out among other local tribal gods. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit Simeon recovered an understanding of the reality that Yahweh was the only god, the god who had chosen Israel so that through Israel he would bless the Jews and the Gentiles. Yahweh is the god who wept when Israel went astray and when Egyptians died during the events recorded in Exodus. And Yahweh is the god who rejoiced when Israel was faithful and when the Syrian Namaan obeyed the directions of Elisha. Yahweh, in other words, was not just concerned with one nation in one corner of the world, but with all nations and peoples around the entire world. This was a revolutionary view in those days and it could have come to Simeon only under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit leads Simeon to more. In fact, he is the only person in the Gospels who seems to actually know what is going to happen to Jesus a few decades later. He tells Mary and Joseph, “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

What? Everyone there would have known that Simeon was awaiting the revelation of the Messiah. But what was he saying? This child will cause the falling and rising of Israelites? Was the Messiah not supposed to deliver Israel from her enemies? What Simeon was saying opened the door to the possibility that some in Israel might be excluded from the work of the Messiah. That was contrary to what the Jews expected. They expected every Jew to be included in the work of the Messiah.

And this child would be a sign that will be spoken against? Actually the word is much stronger. A sign that would be rejected. Who would be foolish enough to reject God’s Messiah? A person would reject something only if that something would disappoint him. How could the work of the Messiah be disappointing to anyone? How could the work of the Messiah not be up to standard?

And what was this about revealing the thoughts of hearts? The Messiah was someone who would restore Israel to her former glory – either the kingdom, the office of the prophet or the priesthood. But he was not supposed to be some mind reader! Why was Simeon not mentioning the three offices – king, prophet and priest – that actually involved the ritual of anointing? Who wanted a Messiah who would read minds when all of Israel was under Roman occupation? That just seems to miss the obvious need and provide the unnecessary.

And what was this about a sword piercing Mary’s heart? Becoming the mother of the Messiah was a secret, quiet hope of most Jewish girls in those days. In a highly patriarchal culture, the glory of a woman was in her children. And what could transcend the glory of being the mother of the Messiah? That was supposed to be a glorious, joyous role, not one that causes pain. In context, Simeon was saying that the rejection of Jesus would be so severe that it would go much beyond disappointment for Mary. She would not simply experience shame. She would experience a sword thrust into her heart.

Simeon, in true spirit of the Old Testament prophets, could be understood as being a party pooper. The circumcision of a male child was a huge occasion of tremendous joy among Jews and more so if that child was also the first child. Mary and Joseph would have entered the temple with hearts dancing with joy. And before they could proceed with the rite of circumcision, Simeon comes and upsets the applecart.

Why would he do such a thing? Luke clearly tells us that he came that day to the temple under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. There was no coincidence involved. Moreover, it seems even the timing was not coincidental. And while others would have endorsed a fully grown Messiah, Simeon goes to these new parents and carries their baby. Don’t you think that strange? Perhaps we who already accept Jesus as the Messiah fail to comprehend how astounding that act would have seemed.

The differences between a grown man and a baby are easy to observe. Apart from the obvious size difference, we can see that a grown man can fend for himself; a baby is helpless. A grown man can be independent; a baby is utterly dependent on care givers. A grown man can make decisions for himself; a baby has decisions made for him.

And so Simeon sees the baby Jesus and sees what the Holy Spirit had trained him to see. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Now you will remember that the Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. The word that the NIV translates as ‘consolation’ is the same as the Septuagint uses in Isaiah 40.1: “Comfort, comfort my people.” Now it would not be okay to depend solely on one word. 

However, if you do a study of the word נָחַם in the Old Testament you will find that it occurs so frequently in Isaiah 40-66 that the Jews called that portion of Isaiah ‘The Book of Comfort’. And it is in these chapters that we find what that comforting would look like. All the Songs of Yahweh’s suffering Servant are to be found in these chapters. Apart from the book of Psalms, Christian worship books use passages from these chapters more often than any others. Why? Because we in hindsight now see what Simeon under the influence of the Holy Spirit saw with foresight.

Simeon saw that the power of Yahweh, the strong arm of the Lord, the mighty hand of God is revealed not in his blasting everyone who comes in his way like the local, tribal gods claimed to do. Rather, Yahweh’s strength is revealed in the fact that he is secure enough to be vulnerable with sinful humans. In the baby Jesus, Yahweh reveals that even by becoming so helpless, so dependent, so much at risk, he will accomplish his purposes for all of creation.

And so under the influence of the Holy Spirit Simeon celebrates the vulnerability of Yahweh made real in the baby Jesus. This baby would grow up and become a man. And in that man the vulnerability would continue until he was nailed to a tree. “My eyes have seen your salvation.”

The Obsolescence of Uncleanness [Luke 8.40-56] (20 November 2011)

How often have we planned something for the day, something very important, only to see other things come up and force themselves on us? It has happened often to me and I am sure to you as well. Perhaps this is the origin of the saying, “Man proposes, but God disposes.” God has a way of interrupting our lives in ways we cannot see, often in ways we would rather he didn’t! 

Quite often our passage for today is interpreted in much the same way – as God getting to experience what this interruption might feel like. Jesus intended to heal Jairus’ daughter. But he was stalled and interrupted by the woman. He had to direct his focus on her.

Those who interpret it this way, as though Jesus’ focusing his attention on the woman was ancillary to his purposes, have a problem. Did Jesus really have to spend time identifying who the thief of his powers was? Did it really matter? If it were just a matter of her stealing a healing then Jesus could have just let things be. 

We hear in Acts of people touching the apostles’ robes and being healed. I am inclined to believe that this woman even tried touching Jesus’ robes because she had heard that others had been healed in that way. 

In other words, I am sure there were other people who were healed because they touched Jesus’ robes. Our Gospels just do not report them, probably because in those cases Jesus did not make a big deal of it. But here he did. 

And we have to ask ourselves, “What is it about this woman’s healing that made Jesus stop and ask for the identity of the thief?” And we must also ask ourselves, “In what way does this woman’s healing affect the healing of Jairus’ daughter?”

This second question can be partially answered. Just from a literary standpoint and obviously from Jairus’ standpoint, Jesus’ getting diverted introduces tension in the story. He is wasting time and with each passing moment Jairus’ daughter gets closer to death. And indeed in the middle of the story we realize that Jesus has wasted so much time with the woman that Jairus’ daughter has actually died.

Is it just an issue of what priorities Jesus should have had? It was a choice between healing the girl and identifying the woman. Surely identifying the woman was not all that important! If that is how we think, we need to rethink.

Jesus allowed himself to be diverted for three reasons. First, he had to restore the woman to her place in society. We modern individuals can scarcely understand this. But in order to do so, let us look at the condition of the woman. 

The word ‘bleeding’ in the NIV or the words ‘constant bleeding’ in the NLT do not do justice to the Greek text. These might lead us to believe that she had a problem with the clotting mechanism of her blood.

But that is not what Luke says. To understand Luke, we must go back to the book of Leviticus, from where Luke – and also Matthew and Mark – picks up a technical phrase. Leviticus is one book of the bible that we have no idea what to do with. Oh we may know that the book describes a lot of sacrifices and offerings. And that there is something called a Day of Atonement, the rituals associated with which are in chapter 16. But do we know about skin conditions in chapter 14?

And what about chapter 15? How many of us have even read it? And how many of us who have read it have wondered about the various instructions it contains? For it is from this chapter that our Synoptic Gospels draw when they speak about the woman. Their technical phrase indicates that what the woman was suffering from was not some wound that just would not heal, but a menstrual cycle gone haywire.

And Leviticus 15 tells us that, therefore, she was rendered unclean and untouchable. For twelve years! Can you believe it? No one willing to touch anything you touched lest they became unclean as well. Having to wash your clothes separately from other clothes lest you rendered the other clothes unclean. Having to eat from separate dishes, having to cook your food in separate utensils. In other words, she was alone while still being among people.

What would have happened if Jesus had not interrogated her? She was healed. But she could never have been able to explain how she was healed. 

People would begin to suspect that she had engaged in some black magic or witchcraft or sorcery. And that would have ended with her being stoned. She wanted to remain inconspicuous, anonymous. But after twelve years, everyone would have known of her condition. 

Her condition, in other words, even though so private and personal, was public knowledge. And Jesus knew that, for her to be fully restored, for her healing to reach not just the physical, but also the societal, level, her healing itself must be public. And so Luke tells us, “The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed.” Now she had scores of witnesses. All she needed to do was wait a week, go to the priest, make her sacrifice as prescribed in Leviticus 15 and be declared clean. 

So the first reason why Jesus allowed himself to be diverted is that he wanted the woman to be publicly seen as having been legitimately healed.

The second reason is in v. 50 where Jesus says, “Do not be afraid. Only believe and she will be saved.” In other words, “Do not fear that you will see her dead. Trust me and you will see her alive.” 

It is very likely that Jesus permitted himself to be diverted precisely so that the girl would die and the messenger would come with news of her death. By now the people had seen Jesus perform many miracles. Healing was one thing that people would have expected from him. That is revealed by the fact that both Jairus and the woman had approached him. They both were fully confident that Jesus would be able to heal illnesses.

But death? Could Jesus reverse this greatest of illnesses? Now mind you that he has already raised a widow’s son at Nain. Would they believe that he could do the same again? Would they believe that Jairus’ daughter could be restored to healthy life? Raising of the widow’s son at Nain was something new, something that set Jesus apart as a prophet along the lines of Elisha, as we saw a few Sundays back. But this set a precedent. Would they rely on this precedent and believe that Jesus could raise the little girl?

If we read Luke’s account it seems that most people remained unbelieving. Healing a physical ailment was one thing. They could believe that was possible. But the reversal of death was another thing. Even if you have seen it reversed before, believing it can be done takes a stretch of faith. And so Jesus delays with the woman so that he could have the opportunity to restore the dead girl. 

But why was this important? Like children, we learn by repetition. We accept something as part of our worldview only if we see it happening often enough. Unlike some, I firmly believe that we are scientists through and through. Repeatability is something we expect and learn from. 

Jesus knew that his disciples needed to reach a point where the reversal of death was not something off the wall. If it were off the wall when he was raised from the dead, they would have found it most difficult to believe. This is indeed the reason why we have so many today who say that the Easter accounts are hogwash. We just do not have enough exposure to people rising from the dead. And so what is outside our experience becomes difficult to accept.

Jesus needed to have as many occasions as possible to show his disciples that death does not have the final say, that God has the final say. And so he delayed with the woman so he could be faced with a dead girl whom he would then restore to life. This is the second reason he permitted himself to be diverted.

But there is a third reason. Now let us follow Jesus’ actions. According to Leviticus 15, the woman was unclean because of the flow of blood. She touched Jesus’ clothes and the clothes of many others who were around Jesus. Indeed, she probably touched many clothes before being healed as she made her way toward Jesus. According to Leviticus, all those clothes became unclean. Now a person wearing clothes naturally is touching those clothes. So again, according to Leviticus, all those people, including Jesus, were rendered unclean.

So now Jesus speaks to her. The messenger comes from Jairus’ house and Jesus continues to Jairus’ house. Now Jairus is a leader of the synagogue. And Jesus has just been rendered unclean by the woman. After all, according to Leviticus, the woman remained unclean for seven days.

So here is an unclean Jesus – at least unclean according to Leviticus – entering the room in which the corpse of Jairus’ daughter lies. Jairus probably thought that Jesus would just speak just as he had done at Nain.

If we look at the raising of the widow’s son at Nain we will see that Jesus does not touch the corpse. He only touches the coffin. This was permitted. Touching the coffin did not make a person unclean. But touching a corpse did. 

And horror of horrors, Jesus reaches out and touches the girl’s corpse. He is already unclean from touching the woman. Now he compounds that by touching the corpse.

And so a doubly unclean Jesus speaks to the corpse. In these two ways, Jesus encounters the ascendency of death over life. The woman, due to her haywire menstrual cycle could never hope to have children. The bleeding was a continuous victory of death over life, her womb in a perpetual state of dying. The girl was dead, her corpse testifying to the fact that death had snuffed out her life, that, in her, life had lost the battle. 

And so Jesus, having allowed himself to be defiled, having made the woman announce that she had defiled him, having touched the corpse that would defile him, speaks to the corpse.

And he shows all the witnesses that in him the ceremonial laws dictating what and who is unclean when and where are redundant, obsolete, ineffectual. In him we have a new law at work, the law of life triumphing over death, the law of a purity cannot become impure and contaminated.

The ceremonial laws put forth an tenuous purity, a purity that was easily destroyed by the mere presence of anything ceremonially unclean. But Jesus ushers in a new era in which light triumphs over darkness, truth over falsehood and purity over impurity. In the clash between the purity borne by Jesus and the impure forces of death, the latter prove powerless to contaminate him. Rather than being rendered unclean by them, he forces them to release their captives.

Where, oh death, is your victory? Where, oh death is your sting?

Not Categorically Unclean, but Holy [Matthew 1.18-25] (27 November 2011)

The countdown to Christmas begins today, the first Sunday of Advent 2011. Four Sundays of Advent and then comes Christmas, the day on which we celebrate the birth of God with us – Jesus. During the next few Sundays, till the middle of January we will be dealing with traditional Advent passages, meeting along the way some of the major characters leading upto, during and following the birth of Jesus.

Today our focus is on Joseph, the enigmatic parent of Jesus. Really, I wish we had more information about this man. But we have to deal with the fact that, for some reason or the other, our Gospels tell us next to nothing about him.

But Matthew tells us that Joseph was a ‘just’ or ‘righteous’ man. And we have to go with that. Matthew tells us this fact right after Joseph find out that Mary was pregnant and in the context of his decision to divorce her.

Now Mary was found to be pregnant. And Joseph knew that he had not slept with her. Last week I spoke about how we are scientists at heart. We want evidence before we believe things. Spontaneous pregnancy is not part of our experience today. And neither was it in Joseph’s day. The only conclusion he could come to was that another man was involved.

So what was Joseph to do? Remember, we have been told that he was a ‘righteous’ man. This means that he would have done as the Law of Moses would have prescribed. We cannot forget that Joseph was a Jew, not a Christian!

So what does the Law of Moses prescribe? We find the prescriptions that might apply to Mary’s situation in Deuteronomy 22. Here we find three situations that might have applied to Mary. 

First, she might have willingly slept with another man. If this were the case, the Law of Moses prescribed that she should be stoned along with the man whom she had slept with. If Joseph were a ‘righteous’ man according to the Law of Moses, he would have had to haul her before the elders and have her stoned. But he did not. Which means, he believed that Mary was not the kind to willingly sleep with another man. He trusted the character of the woman he had earlier decided to marry.

The second option in Deuteronomy 22 is that of a woman who is raped within the city limits. Here the idea is that, if you are in city limits, your cries would be heard by someone who would then come to your aid. Hard to believe these days, when people just watch others get murdered without batting an eyelid. But those were more honorable times I guess. So if Mary was raped within city limits, she would have cried out and would have been saved. If she did not cry out then she was guilty and had to be stoned.

So if Joseph believed she had been raped within city limits, then he would have had to haul her before the elders to be stoned because she did not cry out. The fact that he did not indicates that he did not believe this was what happened.

The third option in Deuteronomy 22 is that of a woman who is raped outside city limits. Here the idea is that, if you are out of the city, your cries would not be heard by anyone. So the woman is not held guilty if she were raped outside the city limits. 

Now, Deuteronomy does not tell us how such a woman must be treated. But divorce was an easy procedure for the husband in those days. Men would divorce their wives if they cooked something incorrectly. Surely the very idea that she had been raped would give them reason enough to put her away. So the Rabbis deliberated about this and concluded that a woman who was raped outside the city could not be divorced. This was to protect the woman. And so this option was not even available to Joseph. For if Mary had been raped outside the city, she would have proclaimed that and Joseph would have had to marry her. That he was even able to think about quietly divorcing her meant that she had said nothing about rape.

So here we have righteous Joseph, without options. The three possible applications of the Law of Moses had all drawn blanks. He knew that Mary had neither willingly nor unwillingly had sexual relations with another man. 

This is an important point. We often believe that the angel is the one who led him to this truth. But simple logical inferences and a healthy amount of trust would lead us to conclude that we were faced with something out of the ordinary. It is only a refusal to place ourselves in the shoes of a person who is devoted to the Law of Moses and who does not want to take the selfish and easy way out by accusing the woman that allows us to draw any other conclusions.

Joseph would have like the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I think and the style of Sherlock Holmes. On many occasions Holmes tells Watson, “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

And so here Joseph, facing the impossibility of thinking poorly of Mary’s character, concludes that something weird and strange and out of the ordinary had happened.

Now weird and strange and out of the ordinary are just what defined things that are ceremonially unclean. Ceremonial uncleanness has nothing to do with dirt on your body. It has to do with the right things being in the right places at the right time and in the right way. Uncleanness was a simple matter of the thing not living up to some expected norm. Uncleanness, in other words, had to do with things that were different, things that were bizarre, things that were abnormal.

For example, eating pork was forbidden not because the pig wallows in mud but because it did not chew cud. Eating crustaceans was forbidden not because they were filthy but because they did not have fins and scales.

Making blended fabrics was forbidden not because mixing them would make the cloth more difficult to clean while washing but because the yarns were obtained from different sources.

Things that were out of place, that were out of the ordinary, were considered unclean. They did not fit. They did not belong. In other words, anything for which one could not find an appropriate category was considered unclean.

And what was happening to Mary had no appropriate category. The three possibilities had been discarded by Joseph and he was left with a situation that he could not define, that he, being a righteous Jew, had to conclude was unclean.

And so he thought of divorcing Mary secretly. That makes no sense. You cannot divorce someone secretly. Divorce is something done in front of others, just as is a wedding. Divorce has to be sanctioned by society. Like a wedding, a divorce is a public event for society must know that the two who were husband and wife, are now no longer that to each other.

What could it mean then that he intended to do this secretly? Simply that Joseph planned to divorce her keeping the knowledge that what was happening to her was unclean to himself. No one would question either of them since Jewish law permitted him to divorce her even for trivial reasons. He would simply divorce her on some trivial grounds and both could part ways. To society, her pregnancy would not raise any eyebrows since the grounds for divorce were not infidelity.

But both of them would know that something abnormal was happening in her. Only they would know that they could not classify what was happening to her, that what was happening to her was, therefore, unclean.

Is there any evidence for this? When someone breaks from a norm, it is a sign to pay attention. In our case, when Matthew breaks from his norms, we must be sharp to see what he might be telling us. This is the only place in which he separates the words for spirit and holy. The result is that v. 20 could have two readings. 

On the one hand is the translation as in all the versions: “What is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” On the other hand is a tantalizing second possibility: “What is conceived in her by the Spirit is holy.” The word order indicates the second reading. But the conjugations indicate the first. And hence there is an ambiguity to the way in which we should read the end of v. 20.

Why would Matthew confuse us when he is perfectly capable, in every other reference to the Holy Spirit, of being unambiguous? Perhaps he wants us to hold both readings together, both applicable: This baby is holy because the Spirit is Holy.

And so now Joseph has a category in which to place what was happening to Mary. He knew the initiator of her situation. He knew that this was not a result of sorcery, witchcraft, black magic or a curse. This was not unclean, this was not profane. 

But his understanding went even further. He realized that what was happening to Mary was not even just clean and ceremonially acceptable. This was different, unique, separate, the invasion of the mundane sin entangled human existence by the creative mercy of the living God. This was holy.

The Genuine Article [Luke 8.22-25] (6 November 2011)

I teach Mathematics to students aspiring to succeed at the Joint Entrance Examination conducted each year for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology. The examination is easily one of the toughest at the pre-university level in the entire world and students begin preparing as early as the 9th Standard. The questions are much more difficult than those encountered elsewhere. And I have found a very disturbing trend, even among very bright students. When they see a question, they immediately plunge into attempting to solve it. And when they do, sooner or later, if they have not thought things through, they find themselves at a dead end, unable to finish what they had started.

Jesus speaks of a similar thing in Luke 14.28-30. [Read here] Or in the case of our stuck student, “This student began to solve the problem but was not able to finish.”

I do not wish to re-narrate the episode or to give a blow by blow account of what happened. That could be done in another message. But not today. 

Neither do I wish to focus on the parallels between this episode and the episode where Jonah was asleep in a ship while a storm raged all around. There are some remarkable parallels that could be dealt with in a bible study perhaps.

And I certainly do not wish to debate whether miracles are possible or not. As Jesus said elsewhere, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” In other words, we all cling to what we believe even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Events can be explained away as miracles or as coincidences depending on your point of view.

What I would like to do is focus on what we learn about Jesus in this passage and what he is teaching us though it. So we will focus on the words spoken by Jesus. In the short passage that is the scripture text for today’s message, Jesus speaks twice. Before we deal with the first occasion, let us consider the second. 

Jesus asks his disciples, “Where is your faith?” A simple question, with absolutely no difficult grammatical issues. But we must ask ourselves, “What does this word ‘faith’ refer to here?”

Is Jesus asking them to have faith that they too could have commanded the wind and the water and brought the calm they desired? At another point in his ministry, Jesus tells his disciples that they would do greater works than the ones he had done. Surely this interpretation does not violate Jesus words! Moreover, later in Jesus’ ministry and in the Acts of the Apostles we see the apostles perform all sorts of wondrous deeds – healing sick people, raising people from the dead, etc. Indeed in Acts, we do not have a single instance of a follower of Jesus failing in a miracle he intended to perform.

From these episodes in the Gospels and Acts, a whole school of thought within Christian circles has developed that upholds the notion of ‘name it and claim it’. The idea is that if we only had faith – or enough faith as the case may be – we would simply be able to make things happen by saying them out. 

After all, did Jesus not say, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son”? So is Jesus asking, “Why do you not simply believe that you have authority over the elements?”

Or is Jesus telling the disciples that they should have faith that he would protect them? The first three Gospels, also known as the Synoptic Gospels, record this incident. But each tells it in a wonderfully different way. In fact, a whole series of studies could be done simply on the different foci these three authors have when narrating this one episode. Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of that much time.

So let us focus on a single word. When the disciples address Jesus, Matthew places the word κύριος, meaning lord, on their lips. In Mark, the word is διδάσκαλος, meaning teacher. 

Luke uses a very interesting and rare word here, used only by him in the New Testament and in less than five percent of the places where he could have used it. In Luke the word is ἐπιστάτης meaning protector. And only Luke has the word repeated. If they believed that Jesus was their protector, surely Jesus could not have meant that they lacked faith that he would protect them! 

Moreover, if we actually read the Gospels carefully, we would be hard pressed to find Jesus stating anywhere that he protects us. When we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the Good Shepherd will be there with us. But there is no guarantee that we will emerge from that valley alive. The idea that Jesus is someone who protects us from harm is a sentimental view not really found in the scriptures. Rather, the guarantee he gives us is this: In this world you will have tribulation.

So we can conclude that the fact that Jesus asks them, “Where is your faith?” indicates that whatever faith they had in calling him ‘protector’ was not the faith that Jesus was referring to.

While it is perhaps quite evident, I think we should eliminate the idea that Jesus was referring to faith that he is the Son of God or the Messiah or the Second Person of the Trinity. Those questions arose only much later and were not something that the disciples were even thinking of. Neither had Jesus yet mentioned that he would be dying on the cross and would be raised from the dead. So even belief about what happened on Good Friday and Easter would not be what Jesus is talking about.

So what is Jesus referring to? And now we get to the first time Jesus speaks in this passage. In v. 22 he tells his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” Once again, a very simple sentence, with no difficult grammatical issues. And because it is simple in almost every language, the tendency is to just skip over it as though it were just an empty statement. 

But the sentence is far from empty! It contains the interpretive clue to the question, “Where is your faith?” What could this interpretive clue be? Hold on to your horses! Before we are ready to have that unveiled, we must ask ourselves why we do not see something that stares us in the face.

If you go to any bank or any ATM, you will notice posters placed there that remind us of the various security measures that are involved in the printing of the Indian currency. With counterfeiting becoming a precise science, all countries follow suit. The United States has a whole section of their Secret Services website devoted to training the public to detect counterfeits.

But all these measures have one thing in common. They tell the reader what the genuine article looks like. They focus on visual cues such as holograms and aspects of various marking. They focus on the texture of the currency such as the kind of paper or embossed regions. They focus on various elements like magnetic inks or inserted threads. 

The simple reason is this: There are many ways of doing something wrong, as the majority of Math students realize, but only one way of doing it right!

But if you deal with only ways of getting things wrong, you will never be able to appreciate the genuine item. A person who always buys fake designer wear will not have the skill to distinguish the real item.

And this is what has happened to us. We have gotten so used to the fakes, that we do not appreciate what is genuine. We have been told time and again that inflation will be brought down. But it keeps going up. We have heard many election promises, only to realize that none of these elected persons actually intend to fulfil their promises. We were told that security to the country has been tightened only to have our cities terrorized time and again. We have been told that we will not negotiate with terrorists only to hear later of underhanded dealings. 

We have been told and we have been told. But we have allowed ourselves to be duped into not realizing that we have not been told, but have been told off! We have been shown so many varieties of fakes that we do not recognize the genuine article.

But here in our passage is the genuine article. Jesus says, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” It is a clear declaration of intent and promise. Jesus is telling his disciples, “Now we will get into a boat and we will get to the other side of the lake.”

But in the face of the storm, the disciples say, “We are perishing” or “we are dying” or “we are going to drown”. I don’t know about you, but if one of them drowned, that person could not have reached across the lake. Perhaps his body would have reached across, but he would not have. In other words, the disciples are saying, “We are not going to reach the other side of the lake.”

And that is when Jesus asks them, “Where is your trust?” You see, the Greek word πίστις could mean ‘faith’, ‘faithfulness’ or ‘trust’. Given what we have seen today, it is most likely Jesus is asking them, “I told you we would cross the lake. How is it that you do not trust my word?”

But like us, the disciples immediately lost what Jesus was saying. They focused on the miraculous aspects of what had happened. “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” If there had been no storm, as perhaps had happened many times given that Jesus ministered in the entire region of Galilee, they would not have remembered it! They remembered this even because of the miracle, while Jesus was trying to tell them that the event was memorable because unlike all the fakes we encounter on a daily basis, he is the genuine article, who lives up to his word.

Bridging the Gap [Luke 7.11-17] (18 September 2011)

We humans have the tendency of painting things either black or white without seeing any nuances, any greys. Recently, the popularity of Anna Hazare led to the views among many of his supporters that, if you are not on their bandwagon, you are implicitly supporting corruption. It takes only a little thought to realize that this is not a logical conclusion.

In a similar manner, we who have multiple copies of the bible – probably in different languages and versions – perhaps shudder when we think of those dark days before Johannes Gutenberg introduced the idea of movable type and printed the Gutenberg bible. Those were the days when scripture was not readily accessible by people – by even literate people. “How could a person of faith survive?” we might ask ourselves. What would happen to our daily devotions? And because of this, we perhaps think that the invention of movable type was and is the best invention ever. Many people have indeed made just this claim.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not wish to return to the days when books were not readily available. I am glad to have bibles in a number of languages and versions. But there is a downside to this. As printing became easier, printers took it upon themselves to do something that the last book of the bible warns us not to do. They added to scripture.

They added cross references to make bible study easier, when the study of scripture is nowhere said to be something that should be easy! They added red lettering to tell us which words were spoken by Jesus, as though the words not spoken by him were less authoritative. And worst of all, they added breaks by dividing scripture into subsections and gave us nice neat headings so we don’t really need to pay much attention to what we’re reading. “Jesus raises a widows son” Ah! Easy-peasy lemon squeezy! I know what this is about. What’s next? Jesus and John the Baptizer? Too confusing! I’ll just skip that.

And so today I find myself becoming a victim of this division. Does this incident have nothing to do with what came before it – the healing of the centurion’s slave? Does it not relate to what comes after it – the discussion about John the Baptizer? Is it even possible to make sense of these seven verses without the entire Gospel according to Luke? And even then perhaps we are restricting ourselves.

Repeated subjugation by powerful empires such as Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Macedonian and the Roman resulted in the situation where most Jews did not understand Hebrew, the language of their scriptures. So powerful was the thrust of Alexander the Great to make everyone speak Greek that even under the Roman rule, the language most commonly spoken in the Roman empire was Greek.

To address this situation, the Jews decided to translate their scriptures. And between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD they completed what is known as the Septuagint – a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, into Greek.

As you all know the New Testament was written in Greek. And so linguistic comparison between the Old and New Testaments is best done with the Septuagint at the ready because that lets us know how the Jewish translators around the time of the New Testament understood their scriptures. But why even bother? Why with this seemingly easy passage should we bother about all this boring language based nitty-gritty?

Well, for the simple reason that in next week’s text we have John the Baptizer, the one who formally announced Jesus to the world, wondering if he had made a mistake. And then in the text for October 2nd, Jesus quotes from Malachi 3:1 to explain the ministry of John the Baptizer, and through that his own ministry.

What was it that Jesus was doing that made John uncertain? Last week we saw that Jesus healed the slave of a centurion. He had extended his ministry to the Gentiles – indeed to the Roman oppressors! To John the Baptizer, this was confusing. Why would Israel’s Messiah deal kindly with the oppressors of Israel? It just did not make sense. More to the point, as we will see, Jesus is doing something that points in a direction different and unsettling from what John the Baptizer had expected.

And so now, after Jesus has helped a Gentile, we find him at the gate of Nain. I do not wish to focus on the healing. We have read the text. Jesus restores to life the only son of a woman.

There are two occasions in the Old Testament where an only son, who had died, is restored to life. The first is in 1 Kings 17, where Elijah does this at Zarephath in Phoenicia, in Gentile territory. The second is in 2 Kings 4, where Elisha does this at Shulem which was south and slightly east of Nazareth, well within the kingdom of Israel. And here we encounter a problem.

Elijah ministered to a poor widow, while Elisha ministered to a rich barren woman. Elijah ministered to a Gentile, while Elisha ministered to an Israelite. Elijah ministered outside the territory of Israel, while Elisha ministered inside Israel. Different situations for both of them. 

When we consider Jesus at Nain, we get contradictory cues. Jesus ministered to a poor widow. But she was Jewish and lived barely two kilometres from Shulem. Most of the parallels seem to indicate that Jesus was functioning like a new Elisha. And that would be in accord with John himself being the new Elijah.

But Jesus had ministered to a Gentile before this. Did that mean Jesus was the new Elijah? And that there was someone else after him? You see? John’s confusion stems from the strange fluidity of Jesus’ ministry. 

But more than the Elijah-Elisha confusion is the fact that once we settle that confusion, we realize, as John did, that Jesus’ ministry was progressing in a direction hitherto unexpected, certainly unforeseen, and perhaps even sacrilegious to Jewish minds.

Luke helps us with the Elijah-Elisha confusion. What John found confusing, we need not find confusing because Luke tells us how to interpret Jesus. And this is where the Septuagint is immensely helpful. Given three stories, two in the Septuagint and one in Luke, with very similar plots, we would still expect the wording of the stories to differ considerably – especially when you reach the resolution of the story. You would like the resolution to be different, right? Who would remember your story otherwise?

But here Luke does something out of the ordinary. At the point of resolution, after the boy has been raised, Luke tells us, “And he gave him back to his mother.” Six words in Greek. And the identical six words from one of the accounts in the Septuagint. 

This striking parallelism at the moment of resolution tells us which one – Elijah or Elisha – is the one, in light of which we should view the incident at Nain.

Luke resolves his account in exactly the same manner as the account about Elijah. So what Luke is telling us is that this is not just restoring a young man to life. Nor is it just that a woman who had lost her only son has been comforted because he has been brought back to life. No! 

So how are we to view this event? Here the Greek language itself helps us. The word for ‘widow’ is derived from the word for ‘chasm’. In those days, to be a ‘widow’ was to have a big, yawning chasm in one’s life. It was a state that left a woman utterly devoid of the protection she would otherwise have received from her husband. It left her open to all sorts of abuse at the hands of individuals and society. It was a state of total powerlessness, where one knew that the reality one was experiencing was not the reality one had experienced. 

Something had been lost. There was a big gap in one’s life – a gaping hole, a chasm, a grand canyon.

And so, when Luke tells us, “And he gave him back to him mother” we are to view this as Jesus’ giving this widow back the means by which she could bridge the chasm in her life, as though in some highly symbolic way, the revived son was now stretched across the chasm in his mother’s life so that she would be able to enjoy the life she was supposed to enjoy.

But by interpreting Jesus as taking on one of Elijah’s acts, Luke is telling us that we should view this event not as just another miracle. When Jesus draws from an act of Elijah – the person whom John the Baptizer was most associated with – it is something out of the ordinary. He is making an exception. And so this act of Jesus should be seen as a prophetic sign act, something quite different, like Ezekiel lying on his side or Jeremiah breaking the clay jar or Isaiah walking around naked. 

In other words, this event at Nain is not just a miracle for Luke. It is filled with soteriological meaning, that is, meaning related to the method of salvation. But we must be careful not to view a prophetic sign act as an analogy. In an analogy there is a one-to-one correspondence between elements in reality and elements in the sign act. But in a prophetic sign act, the elements of reality are there, but we have to put them in order correctly so that they make sense.

In this incident, as in our lives, there are three critical elements. A parent who had lost a child to death; a person facing a huge gap between reality and destiny; and a person who bridges that gap.

Jesus, in line with the Old Testament prophets, was doing something that pointed to something greater. And here it is the fact that the Father had lost each one of us to death on account of our sin. Also, each one of us faced a huge wide chasm between the life we experience and the life we were supposed to enjoy. 

Like the unnamed widow, we were destitute, powerless, consigned to being preyed upon by the forces of evil. And we needed someone to come and step in and bridge that gap so that we might enjoy the life we were created to enjoy. And Luke is telling us here, “Someone did. Read on!” 

Today, as we participate in Holy Communion, we do so because Jesus did step into the gap. And so as we prepare for it, let us spend a moment in silence, considering what our state would have been had Jesus not stepped into the gap.

Heavenly Father, through my sinfulness I had reached a state in which there was a chasm fixed between you and me. This separation from you made me easy prey to the forces of evil. And through sins of both omission and commission, I made it all the more impossible to experience your love – the love I your created me to experience. Yet you, through in your wisdom and mercy sent your only Son, my Lord Jesus, to die for my sins. Lord Jesus, you placed yourself as the bridge between me and the Father. As a result I can now experience that love I was created to experience. Yet I still stumble and sin. But by your mercy I do not fall. Forgive all my sins since the last time I asked for forgiveness. And as I approach your table, enable me to know how wonderful your forgiveness and love are. Let my participation at your table be a reminder always to me that you did what I could never do – you stepped in the gap. In your name I pray. Amen.