I was a fledgling prosecutor when a colleague, Brandy Bailey, handed me a tattered book titled Terrify No More. The cover showed the unsettling image of a frightened little girl being carried in a man’s arms. The book was written by the founder of International Justice Mission, a global anti-slavery, anti-trafficking organizationwith whom Brandy had spent the past year kicking down doors and rescuing the victimized.
I never made it past the cover; after a few days, I returned the book unread. It felt too dark and too big an evil for me. But nevertheless with that exchange, God began a work in my heart. Months later, when Brandy asked me to take a child abuse case to trial with her, I said yes, and my career as a child abuse prosecutor began.
In those days, I heard a story:
One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!” After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said, “I made a difference for that one.”
I’ve been the old man and I’ve been the boy. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the extent of suffering, to choose not to act on a problem we can’t solve. But wonderfully, our God doesn’t ask us to fix the whole world. In fact, He reassures us time and time again that He’s got it all—heaven and earth and everything in them, the darkness and even the grave—conquered and accounted for. What He does ask of us is to love. To love others with a radical, selfless, moved-to-action kind of love.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18).
As we face this global crisis it is tempting to focus only on our own needs, or to let the enormity of the problem immobilize us. But Jesus says that when we act, when we serve, and when we love, we do it for Him—even when it’s only for the least among us, even when it’s only for one.
Please find below my writing for this week’s women’s ministry newsletter at Riverbend Church, dated Monday April 13.
This past week we learned that Austin’s shelter-in-place order was extended by another month, and I felt like my lifeboat sprung a new leak. My thoughts scrambled—scooping water, passing buckets—trying to figure out how to keep this thing afloat.
I was reminded of a military endurance test my dad once described, in which instructors took trainees out for a one-mile run. Near the end of that first mile the leaders would demand “one more mile.” Toward the end of that second mile, they would call for one more. On and on this would go for ten miles, twelve miles, the recruits believing each was their last. Not knowing the total distance at the start, even the long-distance runners in the group would quit early on, unable to handle the mental strain of this moving target.
Then there was Florence Chadwick, a woman who in 1952 attempted to swim the twenty-six mile channel between San Diego and Catalina Island. Fifteen hours in, a thick fog fell over the bay. Unable to see the shore and with doubt creeping into her mind, she swam one more hour before finally giving up and climbing into her rescue boat. It was only then she learned she’d quit just one mile short of the shoreline.
Perspective is everything. Proverbs 13:12 says “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” It’s hard to love manna if our minds are set on the flavors of Egypt, and it’s hard to feel courageous when we’re more focused on the size of our enemies than on the size of our God. But the Bible encourages us:
“Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross.” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
And again: “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us…” (Romans 5:2-5).
The next time the military instructors announced a “one mile run,” the troops settled in for a marathon. And on her second attempt, even when the same dense fog set in, Florence Chadwick succeeded, reporting that she kept a vision of the shoreline in her mind the whole way. As for us, Jesus provides the only true perspective, the Hope that doesn’t disappoint, reminding us that it really isn’t about changing our circumstances, but about changing our hearts—be it one day, or one month, at a time.
Please find below my writing for this week’swomen’s ministrynewsletter at Riverbend Church, dated Monday April 6.
Growing up, my family had what we called “God’s box,” an ordinary shoebox with a slot cut into the lid. We would write down our prayer lists, pray over them, and drop them through the slot and into God’s hands.
The practice began before I was born. One of my favorite notes is my Dad’s prayer for “new baby,” written in his characteristic chicken scratch and dated eight months before I showed up. And it continues to this day, sitting on the upper shelf of my Dad’s closet next to many bags full of past prayers. It is a testimony: a living family record of our relationship with God, and of His faithfulness.
I loved our God’s box. As a little girl, it showed me my parents’ commitment to prayer, and taught me how to pray. Our family bonded over it, my brother and I taking a literal lesson in how to identify and share our burdens. But it also grew my faith. Whenever I would open the box and rifle through its contents, I found old worries on the scraps of paper—all pressing, all seemingly insurmountable when written—that I had simply forgotten once God took over. They spoke to me of how big God was, and how swift and real His answers.
But the biggest lesson of God’s box was how to let go. My Dad always said, “When you put a thing into God’s box, you give it to God. So if you want to worry about it again, you have to take it back out, out of His hands.” Although sometimes I considered it, I never did get the courage to fish any of my prayers back out. I just wasn’t willing to tell God that He should stop working on it, or that I could do a better job by worrying.
The Bible says, “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:5-7).
I realized this past week that I needed a God’s box now; I needed to practice all over again how to leave my worries with Him. So yesterday as we sheltered in place, my family crafted our own. Embellished by the exuberant decorating of my 7- and 11-year olds, ours looks a little different than my Dad’s no-nonsense box, but the spirit remains the same.
I know we will drop into it requests that feel urgent and overwhelming. But I also know that God is bigger than anything we could write down. He will listen attentively and will begin working at once, taking our scribbled out notes into His loving hands. And He will work all things out for our good, even as I continue to learn, alongside my children, what it means to surrender, and to trust.
Please find below my writing for this week’swomen’s ministrynewsletter at Riverbend Church, from Monday March 30.
This past week, houses in our community brightened daily quarantine walks by placing stuffed bears in their windows so that families could “go on a bear hunt.” The idea began elsewhere but was quickly circulated on social media and eagerly adopted in my neighborhood.
It’s easy to see why. Like so many other parents sheltering in place, I am tasked with infusing my children’s days with structure and purpose, and giving them outlets to create, exercise, and “socialize.” I am suddenly the all-day tutor, counselor, and Sunday School leader—mom, in the truest sense—while simultaneously feeling like a little girl who desperately wants her own mom nearby to reassure her during this time of uncertainty. I’ve quickly discovered that the thirty-minute daily task labeled “walk the dog, aka go on a bear hunt” does as much for my own soul as it does for that of my kids.
On Monday’s walk, my family spied one large bear propped behind a window along our route, and we considered our “bear hunt” a total success. But by the end of the week, the count on our loop was up to ten bears: each one a different size or shape, nestled into windows here and there, uniting one house to another in this whimsical activity for kids. And every day for at least part of our journey, my fierce tribe of five couldn’t help but sing out the familiar lines from Michael Rosen’s beloved We’re Going On A Bear Hunt: “We’re going on a bear hunt, we’re gonna catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We’re not scared…”
I’ve been struck by how much this simple little tale speaks to the world right now. In the book, the family sets out on their adventure only to encounter a series of obstacles: tall grass, a cold river, mud, forest, snowstorm, and cave. Each time, they declare: “We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!” In the same way, we cannot “go over” or “go under” sheltering-in-place; we simply have to go through it. By its very nature, it will take time and be uncomfortable.
In life we are guaranteed unavoidable trials, but Jesus promises:
“I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world” (John 16:33).
In other words, the toughest Dad of them all—Savior, Creator, and Friend—is going with us through whatever challenge we face along the way.
All week as my kids spotted bears in windows, I was counting the astonishing number of people—my neighbors—whose big hearts led them to add a little light as my family made our way through these dark times. In each participating window, I spied Jesus conquering the world.
I teach and write for the women’s ministry at Riverbend Church in Austin, Texas. Ordinarily I write a small piece for the newsletter every six weeks, but inthis uncertain time of Coronavirus I’ve been asked to write weekly. I have decided to share that here with you. Please find below my writing for this week’snewsletter, from Monday March 23.
Ten days ago the first whispers of “social distancing” reached my family. With three kids just released for spring break, I imagined an extended vacation of pajamas, cartoons and board games. My husband did our grocery shopping, and we laughed when he returned with pop tarts and potato chips instead of rice or beans. We had no sense of what we were truly facing.
It took only 24 hours for any humor to give way to worry. As grocery shelves emptied, hoarding lines formed, and medical supplies ran low, it felt as though the curtain had been pulled back to reveal a fragile society and an unstable future. I felt a great weight settle heavily on my heart for the health care workers, the unemployed and the small businesses, for the elderly and the sick, for the grocery store employees and truck drivers, for the immunocompromised—all those inevitably more affected by this new reality.
In ordinary times, I am blessed to find relief in fellowship with you. Our community at Riverbend is warm and inviting, and your smiles and hugs always make me feel better. But what about when worry hits in this time of isolation and quarantine, and I can’t run to my church to unburden?
King David seemed to wonder the same thing—and to find his answer—when he wrote this psalm of encouragement:
“I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you — the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forever.” Psalm 121.
I took my kids for a walk yesterday and my 7-year-old daughter explained “social distancing” to my 3-year-old son this way: “We have to stay six feet apart from all other people. Which is how tall Daddy is. So, we have to stay one Daddy away.”
Never before have I heard “Daddy” used as a unit of measurement, but how fitting. We are always one Daddy, one Heavenly Father away. We are one Daddy away from hope, from provision, from healing, from peace, and from each other. We are connected in spirit to one another and to Him, our good, good Father.
Romans 8:15-18 says:
“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—seeing that we suffer with Him so that we may also be gloried with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”
I’m praying for each one of us that we remember to look to our Father for our help and our belonging. Until next week, I’m only one Daddy away.
Cementerio de la Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Bible tells us a story about two very different twin brothers. The firstborn Esau came out of the womb with the younger Jacob grasping at his heels. Esau became an expert hunter and outdoorsman, while Jacob liked to stay home. One day, Esau returned famished from a hunt and asked his brother for some food. Jacob replied that he would feed Esau if Esau gave him his birthright in exchange. And just like that, for some bread and a bowl of lentil soup, Esau gave up his inheritance.
My whole life, I’ve scratched my head at this. Why would anyone sell their birthright for a bowl of soup?
It was Jacob whom God renamed Israel and whose twelve sons became the tribes of the promise. And it was his descendants, some five hundred years later, whom God led to the promised land, commanding that they drive out all its inhabitants, and that they destroy all the local idols and high places.
The high places were pagan centers of worship. Widespread throughout Canaan, these idolatrous shrines housed graven images, altars, incense stands, and sacred pillars, and often, too, their own priests and abominable rites like prostitution and child sacrifice. Desiring a people set apart and wholly His, God warned the Israelites that any high place they allowed to remain would become a thorn in their side and would turn their hearts away from Him. Nevertheless, Israel did not completely destroy Canaan’s high places.
It did not start out as outright rebellion, but as an oversight. Israel looked the other way because they were tired and comfortable. The high places were convenient. Before the temple was built, the high places served perfectly well as a place to worship the Lord their God. But over time, their failure to follow through— to fully obey— opened them up to casual sin, and ultimately to total corruption.
The Bible records how each of Israel’s and Judah’s kings dealt with the high places in their time. For forty monarchs spanning three hundred years, God kept a detailed account. While the history is nuanced, an overarching degradation is plain:
At first, God was still loyally worshipped, though the high places remained.
Then God was worshipped at the high places.
Then God, plus other gods, were worshipped at the high places.
And finally, only other gods were worshipped at the high places.
It was because of the sin of the high places that God ripped Israel away from Judah, splitting the kingdom in two. And it was because of the sin of the high places that both kingdoms were ultimately captured and exiled. God warned from the outset what it would cost them, but the Israelites didn’t listen. The Bible says, “They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” 2 Kings 17:15.
Do we have high places in our lives today, sin centers so culturally engrained that we turn a blind eye to them?
The truth is, it is easy to be casual about some sin. Especially when those choices are sanctioned by the world. We’re allowed to struggle with forgiveness; it’s natural to carry an offense around for at least a little while. We’re expected to lust after attractive people; after all, it isn’t adultery, and it’s youthful to have a healthy appetite. We’re expected to throw time away on our phones, to strive with irritable coworkers, and to complain about our boss. We’re expected to be more tuned in for a football game than for worship, and to survive parenthood by anesthetizing it with wine. We’re expected to share in gossip; silence would seem judgmental. And so, slowly but surely, sin about which God has been perfectly clear, gets from us a hall pass. One day at a time, we make easy choices to pursue the comfortable and the convenient, not realizing that these are the small altars on which we’ve offered up our lives.
To this, God prophesies: “I will give up your wealth and all your treasures as plunder because of the sin of your high places in all your borders. You will, on your own, relinquish your inheritance that I gave you.” (Jer 17:3-4)
You will, on your own, relinquish your inheritance.
Are we all that different from Esau? We have a birthright in Jesus that is ours to claim as sons and daughters of the King. But when our lives are over and we kneel before Him, will we find that we’d somehow left our inheritance beside the road in pursuit of that which feels, in hindsight, like not much more than a bowl of soup?
“For the turning away of the naive will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.” Proverbs 1:32
If the heritage of Esau is to be complacent– smug and self-satisfied– then what is the heritage of Jacob?
Jacob was a hustler, and his was a legacy God repeatedly rewarded. Rebekah, the chosen bride for the one true heir, earned her place by offering to give water not only to the servant of the Lord, but to his ten camels, too. Achsah, Caleb’s daughter, asked her father for not only land in the Negev as her wedding present, but the springs of water also. Ruth, a foreigner, clawed her way into the family of God by refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer. Elisha, despite being told to turn back three different times, refused to leave his mentor and so received Elijah’s mantle and a double portion of his spirit. And Jacob, having obtained the birthright, stolen his father’s blessing, and received God’s promise, still wrestled all night with God and refused to let Him go until he had received even more.
“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,” said God.
Both brothers were sinners. It wasn’t that. It was their heart.
The firstborn, Abraham’s grandson and heir of the promise, stood to receive everything God had to offer man. But he did not treasure what he had, and therefore grew to despise it. Having valued worthless things, he became worthless himself. But the younger, born minutes outside the family’s fortune, knew exactly its value. Unwilling to do without, he fought his way in and refused to let go, clinging to the promise in which his and his family’s future rested. And having tasted of a covenant that gave rain in its season and grain in its time, saw there a reminder to stay humble, and hungry.
Solitude, Thomas Alexander Harrison, 1893, oil on canvas
2019 was the year I studied Sabbath.
It began in January with Jen Wilkin’s Better, an in-depth dissection of Hebrews. Her book held me upside down and shook me like a snow globe, so that all my inner parts swirled and whirled about and still haven’t quite settled.
That led me to Priscilla Shirer’s power-packed study, Breathe: Making Room for Sabbath, and to Shauna Niequist’s Present Over Perfect. These, and others, fed me this past year like the ravens fed Elijah in the wilderness. They reached out through the pages and kept me company, offered their “grace and nourishment” (Shauna’s words), and taught me.
Sabbath, I learned, is so much more than a day off from work. It is a rhythm for life as old as creation, practiced by God Himself. It was God’s commandment for His people, an act of obedience, a prerequisite to blessing. He called it a gift and a celebration; and with it He delivered them from slavery to freedom. It is an Old Testament ritual embodied and fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
Sabbath is also worship. It is a love note to the Lord: a symbol of commitment, a renewal of vows. It is a preventative against idolatry and excess, against focusing too much on works. It is a boundary line we erect around the praise-worthy and the sacred, one that keeps the good in and the bad out. It is a confession, both outwardly and inwardly, that God is All.
It gathers to the altar all the wayward parts of ourselves, binds them there and sets a fire. It requires discipline and intentionality, humility and faith. It is all at once release, return, and rest. As Jen Pollock Michel wrote in “A Story Called Rest”:
“…the world’s beginning introduces the scandalous idea of divine work for the purpose of human flourishing– a world in which true rest is possible because Someone Else is awake.”
True rest, because God is faithfully awake.
After a year’s study, I’ve distilled it down to this: Sabbath is God’s invitation to us to be kids again. To play, to ask for help, to trust. To feel fully cared for and carefree. To enjoy a soul-deep break from our burdens, letting our Father have all our weight so we can both finish the race and notice the beauty all around us as we go.
We won’t get very far with Sabbath if we don’t begin with the belief that He is a very good, trustworthy Father. We also won’t get very far with Sabbath if we think that what we do has any affect on His love for us. We don’t win over His affection with our accomplishments. And yet, as Shauna Niequist put it: we tend to do for Jesus, instead of being with Jesus.
To truly be with Jesus requires a slower pace. It is seeing and being fully seen. It is intimacy. It is hard.
As with every year’s end, I find myself looking back. I remember those people who hurt me, and those whom I’ve hurt. Each unmet expectation alongside the answered prayers. All the stuff I want to explain to Him, or have Him explain to me. But Sabbath is also the recognition that God is big enough for all the ships that won’t come in. All the closure, answers, and apologies, that lie scattered and lost at the bottom of the deep. He’s big enough to handle regret over our past and anxiety over our future so that we can be here– in this present moment right now– walking through the questions of our unfinished stories, with Jesus.
Putting Sabbath into practice is hard for me, but I’m learning. I’m trying to take time to just sit quietly at His feet without getting up to accomplish something. I’m trying to give my family all of me, not the me that’s also straightening up around the living room with one thought somewhere else. And I’m trying to take all the uncomfortable stuff that’s hard– the wrongs I want to right by forcing others to listen or change or understand– and to let Him have that, too. In all its mess. To tell Him where it hurts and why it sucks, and to let Him be the Dad so I can get back to being the kid. So I can have a life of outrageous dreams, wild laughter, honest relationships, and deep, restorative sleep.
I have a playlist of my favorite holiday music and one of my most loved songs is Casting Crowns’ I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. It says: “Then rang the bells more loud and deep, God is not dead nor does He sleep. The wrong shall fail the right prevail, with peace on earth, goodwill to men.”
Peace on earth. Goodwill to men. THAT is the heart of God. That is the essence of Sabbath. I pray it’s not just my 2019, but my 2020, too. And not just mine, but yours.
“On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain He will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; He will remove the disgrace of His people from all the earth.” Isaiah 25:6-8
Right now my dining table is transformed— with the help of three fold-out tables, dozens of blankets, and all of our pillows— into an epic, two-story fort. My kids and I just returned from the grocery store with candy bars, cookies, and popcorn. And while the district kept them home from school this Monday in honor of Columbus, it’s the Festival of Booths that we’re celebrating. This evening we will crawl into our booth with all our indulgent provisions, and enjoy the next installment of our at-home study of the Jewish feasts: Sukkot.
There is a kind of irony in using a dining table to create a booth, or tabernacle. The story of God dwelling with us throughout the centuries— in a tent, then in a temple, then in the person of Jesus, and then in our hearts— is also the story of a great banquet.It is the story of Him securing our presence, the invited guests, at the celebration of a lifetime. It’s one of restoration and reconciliation, of provision and fellowship and freedom, and He intends to give it a happy ending. This is the theme of Sukkot.
Also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot wraps up the month-long celebration of harvest. This feast follows closely on the heels of Trumpets and Day of Atonement, and is the grand finale of thanksgiving over all the grain and grapes gathered in from the threshing floor and the winepress.
When the ancient Israelites first received this feast day from the Lord, they were living in the wilderness. At that time, God ordered that on the first day of the festival, the Israelites were to take majestic tree leaves— palm fronds, leafy boughs, and brook willows— and rejoice before the Lord. This was to last for seven days, each day with its own specific offerings. God also commanded that for those seven days, the Israelites were to live in booths— temporary shelters erected out of branches. This was to remind them of how God made them to live in booths when He delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Sukkot was one of God’s three pilgrimage feasts, a time when all Israelite males were required to come to the Lord and present themselves.
But over time God’s people forgot this holiday.
After their exile, a Jewish remnant returned to Jerusalem to rebuild their holy city, and they gathered together and read their law aloud. In so doing, they rediscovered the Festival of Booths. They went out to gather branches and to make booths for themselveson their rooftops and in their courtyards, and in the public square. They rejoiced with tremendous joy, and celebrated as they had not done since the days of Joshua. For that generation, the Festival of Tabernacles was not just about God’s provision for their ancestors following the exodus, but also about His provision for them following the exile. It was about returning to their holy city, and to their God. It was about being back with the Lord where they belonged.
By the time of Jesus, Sukkot was widely celebrated. Jewish families travelled from afar to Jerusalem. They built booths for their families, decorated with fall foliage and harvest produce, and they lived and ate inside them. They gathered in the thousands at the temple courtyard for public readings and celebrations.
But by that time, the holiday had gained another meaning. The prophets had foreseen a day when the whole world would come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Booths, and the coming Messiah’s kingdom— a final, great harvest. Sukkot was not just about God’s freedom from and provision after slavery at the exodus, or their restoration after the exile, but also about a coming messiah and his glorious reign. It was about a time when everything that was wrong would be made right.
Priests lit lampstands in the courtyard and marched torches around the temple, setting them around its walls. This symbolized the prophet Isaiah’s words that the Messiah would be a light to the nations. A priest would carry water from the pool of Siloam up to the temple to symbolize how the Messiah’s arrival would bring the knowledge of God to the whole earth, as the waters cover the sea.
We know from the book of John that it was here, during this festival and these ceremonies, that Jesus in the crowded temple complex confidently declared that He could satisfy every thirst. And it was the following morning at dawn, while the torches from the festival began to fade all about the temple, that Jesus boldly declared, “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12).
Everything commemorated in the Festival of Booths was manifested in the person of Jesus. In Him we walk in freedom. Restored. God dwelling within us, every day.
But there’s more. We also anticipate a future day. God’s story isn’t over. In His great calendar of redemption, the time for the seventh feast is yet to come: the wedding banquet where peace and joy are plated up under a banner of love. On that day there will be an even greater dwelling of God among men than our world history has ever known, the one in which God tabernacles with us forever in a new heaven and a new earth:
“I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: ‘Look! God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away.” (Rev 21:2-4).
The previous things, the shadowlands where we make our homes, will pass away. We’re simply this side of the final harvest and not yet to the end of the book. But on this the Festival of Booths, let us remember that He is a trustworthy Author, that all His words are good, and that His will be an ending worth the wait.
In the Jewish tradition it is the last of the high holy days, or the “Ten Days of Return,” that began with Trumpets. It is the second of the three fall feasts, and on God’s calendar, it is the sixth of His seven appointed times.
The Hebrew word for “atonement,” kippur, shares an origin with kaphar, “to cover over, pacify, or make propitiation,” and with kopher, “the price of a life.”
The price of a life. Or, the cost required to buy it and to keep it free from slavery. To cover it.
So what is the price of a life, the cost of freedom?
The Day of Atonement was the only feast day for which God commanded self-denial, or fasting. Anyone who did not deny themselves on this day was to be cut off from his people. The nation gathered and fasted, and waited for the high priest to go before God on their behalf.
As the sacrificial goats and rams bleated, they waited. As the young bull lowed, they waited. As the altar fire burned in the outer court, they waited. For minutes that felt like hours, they waited. Until at last, the high priest emerged alive, and it was finished. Another year bought and paid for, a year’s worth of sins completely removed and forgotten.
On this sobering day, the high priest held a fearful job. First, he bathed. Then, he dressed in holy linen garments. He slaughtered and sacrificed a young bull to atone for himself and for his household. As that fire burned down, he filled a firepan with the altar’s fiery coals and took it, along with two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense, into the tent of meeting. Inside, as his eyes adjusted, various golden objects glimmered in the dim light. But this time, none of them were his focus. Cautiously, he made his way across the room. Through the holy place where the priests usually ministered to the Lord. Past the golden lampstand and the table of showbread. Onward, to the back of the room, to that heavy veil that rose, floor-to-ceiling, before him. As he neared it, his legs grew weak. Only he, the high priest, would ever enter. And only on this day, one day a year, the Day of Atonement.
On the other side of its thick, purple weave was God. Appearing as a cloud above the mercy seat, God enveloped the space between the cherubim atop the golden ark of the covenant.
Beyond the veil, with hands shaking, the high priest would take the incense and add it to the holy fire, so that its smoke would rise up and cover the mercy seat. Only then, as the cloud of God’s presence was enrobed by the cloud of His people’s prayers, might the high priest breath a little easier; failure to complete this step would have meant certain death. Standing there, the high priest would have smelled that pleasing aroma, the unique and holy blend of incense ordered by God and disallowed anywhere else– a terrifyingly special moment. Then, the high priest would dip his fingers into the bull’s blood and sprinkle it on the east side of the mercy seat, and on the front seven times.
Returning to the entrance of the tent, the high priest would then cast lots for the two male goats: one for the Lord, and the other for the scapegoat. The one chosen as a sacrifice to the Lord would be slaughtered for the sins of the people, its blood brought inside the veil as was the bull. But the one chosen as a scapegoat would not be slaughtered. Rather, on its head the high priest would lay both his hands— hands that had been washed, then filled with incense, and then dipped in blood— and confess all of Israel’s wrongdoings and rebellion, all of their sin. The scapegoat was then released into a desolate land, to take with it the sin of the people, never to return.
Did the Israelites watch the scapegoat diminish into the wilderness, and wonder whether it was enough? Whether the blood of a ram and the exile of a scapegoat really made up for a year’s worth of rebellion for an entire nation?
It didn’t matter what they thought. It only mattered what God thought, and He accepted it.
For Christians under the new covenant, the New Testament sheds light on this traditional festival to the Lord. We know from the book of Hebrews, that the blood of bulls and goats was not enough. It could not take away sins. All it could do was remind people of their sins. Remind them of their need for a savior. Remind them of the price of a life.
Something Adam and Eve knew all too well. And Cain. And Abraham, and his son Isaac. And every other one God allowed to taste the deep need that is left by sin, and the longing in our soul for the One who can fill it. The One whose death tore the temple veil in two. The One who was both the blood sacrifice, and the High Priest who entered the holy of holies to offer it:
“He entered the most holy place once and for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption…For the Messiah did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model of the true one), but into heaven itself, so that He might now appear in the presence of God for us. He did not do this to offer Himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another… But now He has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of Himself…” (Hebrews 9:7-8, 11-12,24-26)
Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way He has opened for us through the curtain (that is, His flesh), and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:1-4, 10-12, 19-23).
It’s not about inheritance. Or our good works. Or keeping the law. Or out-giving or out-running our sin. It’s not about doing more to get farther, or about being extra good so that our names are guaranteed in the book of life. Rather it’s about fully embracing– with our minds and with our hearts– that we have needs we can’t meet, holes we can’t fill, and sin we can’t fix. That we can’t slaughter enough to ever be worthy.
It was never about what we could do. Or who we were. Or what we offered. It was always about what He could do. Who He was. And what He offered.
“All you people of the world, you who live on the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it, and when a trumpet sounds, you will hear it.” Isaiah 18:3
Tomorrow, Sunday, will likely be hot and wet here in Austin, Texas. Temperatures are expected to reach a high of 97 degrees, and our skies are 40-75% likely to rain. For me, it will be a day of church and football, naps and laundry, and bringing out my fall decorations so that when October rolls in this week, I feel ready.
But also on Sunday, at 10:27 A.M. my time, the sun on the other side of the world will slip below the horizon. As it sets and evening falls over the ancient city of Jerusalem, God in heaven will mark the start of one of His special days— Yom Teruah, or the Feast of Trumpets.
When God carved Israel out to be His very own people, He gave them seven annual feasts or festivals. He called them “My appointed times, the times of the Lord.” Each one was to be a sacred assembly, a gathering of the people to rest, to remember, and to sacrifice.
For the ancient Israelites, the Feast of Trumpets was a memorial marked by joyful shouts and trumpet blasts. Held on the first day of the seventh month, it was the first of three fall feasts. It signaled the end of the grain cycle, and the not-far-off arrival of the soft rains desperately needed to break up the dry, parched earth for plowing to begin again. It was the time of the harvest, a time to gather and rejoice over all that God had provided, and to petition Him about what was to come. It was the first day of the “Ten Days of Return,” filled with awe and repentance, set apart to contemplate one’s position before God.
While God called the Feast of Trumpets a “commemoration,” the Bible does not specify what it was that Israel was meant to remember. Presumably, when God prescribed trumpet blasts, He expected the sound of the ram’s horn to remind His people of the only other time in their history the trumpet was featured— Mt. Sinai. Sinai was the mountain where Israel camped shortly after their exodus from Egypt, and where they met God. By divine appointment heralded by a heavenly trumpet, the people went up, and God came down:
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘…the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people….When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast, they may go up the mountain’… On the third day, when morning came, there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain, and a loud trumpet sound, so that all the people in the camp shuddered. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was completely enveloped in smoke because the Lord came down on it in fire. Its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him in the thunder.” (Exodus 19:13, 16-19)
The trumpet sound would remind the Israelites of their fear of the Lord, the memory of His appearance at Sinai, and of the covenant relationship they shared.
But then, maybe it was for God to remember, as well. In Numbers 10, God lists how and when Israel should use trumpets: to gather the people to meet the Lord, to gather the leadership, to signal when to pack up and move out, and to accompany their sacrifices, offerings, and joyous occasions. Throughout Israelite history, trumpets were used to rally the people, to make an oath, to consecrate the temple, to declare transgressions, and to sound an alarm. Most often they were used to announced a king, and as a battle cry to declare war. But God also says:
“When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the Lord your God and rescued from your enemies.” (Numbers 10:9).
So God also hears the trumpet sound, and He remembers, too. (Num 10:9; 2 Chron 13:12).
At some point in the 1st and 2nd centuries, after the Jewish diaspora and the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., the Feast of Trumpets came to be known as a new year holiday called Rosh Hashanah. Tomorrow, Jews around the world will eat sweet, delicious treats, like apples with honey, or honey cakes, to symbolize a prosperous and joyful year ahead. Many will exchange greetings that mean: “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year,” or “A good inscription and sealing in the Book of Life.” Others will find a nearby body of water and ceremonially cast into it their sins. At temple services, prayers will likely be added to include the themes of God as King and Judge, and the desire that He remember His people. And the shofar, or ram’s horn, will be blown repeatedly.
But what are these feasts to us? Is God still mindful of His appointed times?
Paul, an avid student of Judaism before his conversion to Christianity, wrote that the festivals were “a shadow of things to come,” the substance of which was the Messiah. (Col 2:16) Those of us who follow Jesus see Him, our Savior, reflected in the spring feasts. His crucifixion during the Feast of Passover was to us, no accident. He was our sacrificial Lamb, the blood covering under which we are saved. His burial was the messianic manifestation of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and His resurrection that of the Feast of Firstfruits (1 Cor 15:20-23). Fifty days later, He sent the Holy Spirit to His disciples in the upper room during the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost.
For Christians, the holidays God prescribed thousands of years ago are more than ancient agricultural dates; they are God’s very own calendar of redemption, a prophetic blueprint that spoke of Jesus and foretold the Father’s plan for getting us home.
So what about the Feast of Trumpets?
We know from the Bible that the sound of the trumpet is a heavenly sound, the sound to which God ascends (Ps 47:5), and by which He will send His angels out to gather His elect (Matt 24:31). Repeatedly the Old Testament prophets declared that the sound of the trumpet would precede God’s judgment (Isa 18:3; Isa 27:13; Der 4:5; Jer 6:1; Jer 49:2; Eze 7:14; Hos 5:7-10; Joel 2; Zech 9:14). And those of us who await Jesus’ return understand from Scripture that His Second Coming will be accompanied by a trumpet:
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” (1 Thess 4:16)
“We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.” (1 Col 15:51-52).
The last trumpet. To mark a time of awe and repentance. A time for us to go up, and Him to come down. A time to meet with God by divine appointment. A time for a great final harvest. A time to announce a king, and to declare war.
Certainly, no one knows the day or the hour of God’s timing, not even the Son. His ways are mysterious, and His thoughts beyond ours. Who can contemplate it?
But in my mind’s eye, I can almost imagine it now: an ordinary day in September or October, quite possibly the 1st of Tishrei on a Jewish calendar, a day just like any other, filled with football and laundry, naps and decorating, when just as suddenly and unexpectedly as a thief in the night, the sky rolls back, a great cloud descends, and a mighty, terrifying trumpet blast fills the whole world with its noise.
“You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them… But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a New Covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks…Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’” (Heb 12:19)
