Why the Magi?

 I'm pretty captivated by the Magi.

Teaching about their Old Testament roots and about their journey to Jesus was actually the subject of my first official speaking engagement.

Images of them are everywhere right now. The Magi flood Christmas cards and Christmas carols, manger scenes and garden flags, children's plays and storybooks. But as ubiquitous as they are in our celebrations of Christmas, Matthew doesn’t really tell us anything about them in his gospel. He doesn’t explain why this entourage "from the East" came to worship Israel’s yet-unknown, newborn king.

The Magi (1915) by H. Siddons Mowbray

Matthew probably didn’t explain because everyone already knew. First century Jews and Gentiles all knew that Magi were a tribe within the Medes from Persia. They had special status, kind of like the Levites within Israel. Magi were known to practice astrology, medicine and ancient science. And they served as royal advisors on both religious and political matters.

The Magi were people with position and power. You may remember that Daniel not only became part of the Magi, but was elevated as their leader.*

Almost six hundred years before the caravan of Magi chased the star to Bethlehem, their people - the Medes - experienced the same kind of turbulence as Israel. While Babylon was busy carrying God's people into exile, Persia conquered the Medes, folding them into their empire. Then, with Darius the Mede at the helm, Persia turned around and conquered mighty Babylon. 

The merging of these two empires created a melting pot of biblical cultures: Persians, Babylonians, Jews, & Medes - among others. So many monumental things took place during that time. Things like the drama of Esther, the fiery furnace, the lion’s den, and the messianic and apocalyptic visions of Daniel.

The Medes and their MAGI were there witnessed it all, and then passed everything they'd seen and heard and learned, down through their generations. This is why the first-century Magi set out for Bethlehem when that promised star rose to the sky. They'd heard all about the God of Israel from the Magi before them. They heard of His power, and His kindness, and His coming redemption. They'd heard that when the Israel's Anointed One finally did arrive, He would not be for the Jews alone, but for all nations and all people – including them. 

And so, our first-century, gift-bearing Magi set off on their famous journey filled with great expectation. They would not be disappointed. 

“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” Matthew 2:2 NKJV

God had taken those times of trial - for Israel and for the Medes - and had woven them into His global, eternal redemption plan. 

Today, as we draw close to Christmas, I invite you to think about the Magi on their journey toward Bethlehem. In invite you to think about how God used their difficult time of occupation, and Israel's painful season of exile, to draw the very first gentiles to the Savior.

This year, each of our own roads to this Christmas is unique. Since last year, we’ve all experienced different joys, and also our own disillusionments and heartaches. 

But no matter what this past year has held for us – because of what this past year has held for each of us – we, too, are invited to move ourselves toward Bethlehem. We, too, are invited to simply draw near to the glorious mystery of the Messiah’s incarnation, and to find our hope in what His Presence among us means for us, now and forever.

From "The Songs of Zion: A Collection
of Choice Songs," 1918.

By light of star

They travelled far,

To seek the lowly manger;

A humble bed,

Wherein was laid

The wondrous little Stranger:

Hosanna! 

*Daniel 2:48

The Bread of Affliction

I like to describe the Passover seder as a bible lesson around a dinner table. It's actually been that way since the very beginning, because that's how God designed it.

The entire purpose of this dinner-table worship is to teach the next generation about God's deliverance. 

“You shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and for your descendants...And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to the LORD, because He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt..." Exodus 12:24,26-27 JPS85

The incredible thing is that the Passover seder today is identical in structure to the seder in Jesus' time. The whole thing - both then and now - is done in the same order, in the same way, around every Passover table. Of course, many songs and stories have been added along the way since then, and there's no longer a sacrificial lamb because there's no longer a Jerusalem Temple with an altar. But the foundation and the structure and the prayers of the seder remain the same.

Something I've always loved about this intimate worship service is that - even since before Jesus - we're instructed to retell the Exodus around the table as if we were there. We take turns around the table reading from the Hagaddah, the worship guide, and we recount the whole thing in the first person: We put lambs' blood on our doorposts. I walked through the divided Red Sea. God rescued us. 

And, during the section just before the dinner break, we use three specific foods to retell the exodus story: unleavened bread, roasted lamb, and bitter herbs. This is based on God's specific command: "...they shall eat [the lamb] with unleavened bread and bitter herbs." Numbers 9:11. Not only did God rescue Israel out of Egypt, but He also curated the menu for the annual  commemoration!

Fifteen hundred years after that rescue, Jesus sat around His last Passover meal with His closest friends. And there in that upper room, they shared those very same three foods at their table to retell the exodus - just like everyone was doing across Jerusalem that night, the city bursting at its seams with Passover pilgrims. 

During the retelling, just before the dinner break, Jesus would have raised the unleavened bread, just like every other host at every other table across the city - just like my grandpas used to do. And there's something about the unleavened bread in Jesus' hands that always impacts me. If you're not from a Jewish background, or haven't been part of a Passover seder or teaching, you may not have seen it before. 

(This, by the way, is why I love to write and teach: to share the Jewish context of things the Messiah said and did, in order to deepen our understanding, and awe, and love of Him.) 

In any event, this unleavened bread, the matzah, is intended to represent the poverty and suffering endured by the Israelites. That's why God actually called it the Bread of Affliction.

"...for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste—so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt." Deuteronomy 16:3 NIV

At this moment in the worship, the seder host breaks the Bread of Affliction and distributes the pieces to each person at the table. But during the Last Supper, Jesus did more than only guide the twelve in their remembrance of the Exodus rescue. He also told them to remember something new, from that Passover on.

He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and gave to them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in memory of me." Luke 22:19 HNV

It had made perfect sense to the disciples that, after feeding the five thousand, Jesus had announced He was the Bread of Life. But now, this Bread of abundant Life was breaking the Bread of Affliction in His hands, saying that this Passover bread of suffering represented His own body. And that it would be broken to bring about the greater exodus redemption. 

Jesus said that every time we eat that broken bread, we should remember His broken body. That we should not only remember the broken lambs of the exodus rescue long ago, but to now remember the Lamb's broken body in the greater rescue: our rescue of all humanity from the brokenness of sin and death. 

And so I remember. I remember Jesus, broken and poured out, in the Passover way of remembering that I've always known. 

In Passovers past, I remembered redemption as girl who had labored under Pharaoh, sheltered under the blood, and scrambled through the waters. And I still do remember Passover that way. But now, I also remember as if I had been there in Jerusalem with Jesus during His last Passover on Earth. I remember as if I were a friend at the table and a woman in the multitude. I remember, beholding my redemption as if in real time. 

This week, as we raise and break and eat our matzah, that is what I will be remembering, and how I will be remembering it. 

And every time I take communion, that is what I remember and how try I remember it. 

And so, if you ever see me sitting there with my eyes closed, cradling the bread and wine in my hands for a long while in my seat, it's because I am trying to hear Jesus' voice at the table and to see His broken body on Golgotha. I'm trying to take and to eat and to never forget the love that led Him there.

Let us all remember, for He has remembered us.

"When You Shall Come to the Land..."

A pomegranate ripening
on the vine in Nazareth
on my last visit, 2018

Almost every winter growing up, I received a crisp white certificate in the mail, suitable for framing. Not a single thing on it changed from year to year except the date stamp. It featured the very same watercolor print: a springtime tree awash in all shades of green, surrounded by verdant hills and groves of trees. And, below the tree is this beautiful directive from God, printed in both Hebrew and English: 

"When you shall come to the land, you shall plant trees." Leviticus 19:23

If you come from a Jewish upbringing, you know this lovely piece of cardstock. You could see it in your head without me even describing it. This unmistakeable certificate graces homes and synagogues and classrooms even today. You may have a whole stack of them from your bubbe (grandma), each with the printed proclamation that a tree will be planted in your honor - or as a thank you, or in loving memory of a dear one - in Israel. Or maybe a ring of trees, or an entire orchard of trees.

But why now, in the dead of winter? It may seem strange to think about planting trees in January. It's blustery and the ground is frozen - at least it is where I live. But trees are on our collective Jewish minds today, because it is Tu B'Shevat - affectionately known as the Jewish New Year for Trees, or - more accurately - the birthday for trees. 

jnf.org

Tu B'Shevat is literally the "fifteenth of" the Hebrew month "Shevat." But the reason we call it the birthday for trees is that, on Shevat 15, God said to mark which trees were three years old, four years old, and older than five. Fruit from the baby trees was to be left alone. No eating it, no tithing it, literally derive no benefit from it. Fruit of the four-year-olds belonged to God. Then finally, after the trees' fifth birthday, the fruit not only counted toward the tithe, but could now also grace the tables. 

There's something unsaid in these instructions that encourages me to no end: God gave directions for how to handle growing bounty to people who were wandering around as nomads in the desert. In fact, the Israelites were just beginning their forty-year odyssey through the wilderness. 

For four decades - a full generation - God's people wouldn't be able to put down roots. No planting groves of olive trees or cultivating fields of grain. No designing orchards of fig and pomegranate, with walls draped with grape vines and sheltered by majestic palms.* And yet, here God was, giving them instructions for managing abundance in the Promised Land. 

He could have waited until the Israelites were entering the Land. Or He could have given them the instructions through Joshua, when the tribes readied to disperse and settle in their assigned regions of Canaan. He could have, but He didn't. 

And so I don't see a command in this passage as much as I see a promise: reaching the Promised Land was a forgone conclusion. It wasn't if you arrive, but "When you shall come into the land..." That promise must have sustained their hearts through the long journey just as tangibly as the manna from heaven and water from the rock sustained their bodies. God is so kind to us, even when the road is rough and seems interminably long.

In so many ways, the Israelites' long sojourn from Egypt to Canaan is a parallel to our own journey through life. They walked from the saving sacrifice of the lambs on Passover to finally crossing the Jordan into the abundance of the Promised Land. Today, our lives are a journey through "the already and the not yet," making our way from the saving sacrifice of the one Lamb toward the permanent abundance of eternity - namely, the abundance of God's glorious Light and the absence of death's excruciating thorns. 

On this exodus road, we are sustained by an even greater promise than the agricultural abundance of a physical land. We are sustained by the One we celebrated just a few short weeks ago. The Messiah's coming-alongsideness soothes us when we're scorched in the dry and desolate wilderness, and warms us when we shiver uncontrollably in the bleak and frozen winter. We may reach the edge of our journey singed and frostbit, but even so, we will have reached the greater Promised Land. The eternal Promised Land where a flourishing awaits that we even cannot begin to fathom. 

So today, on this birthday of trees, I will look out on the baby dogwood outside my study window, the one that bore only two blooms last year, and know that she is growing in ways I cannot see. That her roots are pushing down and branching out and receiving nourishment for the long haul, when her flourishing will create such a thick cloud of blossoms that I'll no longer see the road that stretches out behind her. 

In the meantime, I will celebrate the bounty God has given in so many ways, through all things great and small. I will celebrate His promise-keeping to my ancestors in the wilderness, and to me in this present journey to the greater Land. 

Praise the Lord for He is good, His goodness is eternal!

Psalm 106, 107, 118, 136; 2 Chronicles 20 

* These are the "seven species" of crops that God named when describing the bounty of Israel just before they crossed over the Jordan: "The Eternal your God is bringing you into a good land, a land ... of wheat and barley, of [grape] vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of oil-rich olive trees and date honey." Deuteronomy 8:7-8 The Voice

#messianic #tubishevat #tubshevat #trees #yeshua #jesus #beginningwithmoses #exodus #promisedland #alreadyandnotyet

A Jewish Girl in Palestine

 Many people have asked me - as a Jewish believer in Jesus - to share publicly how I feel and what I think about what is happening in Israel and Palestine. I’ve resisted. It’s too difficult on many different levels. Instead, I want to share with you a life-changing moment from my last trip to the Holy Land...  

I didn’t understand a single word Ibrahim* was saying. Even so, I listened to him share earnestly in his native Arabic with the Palestinian young adults who filled the room. With each of his words, my heart pounded harder. Because, while I may not have understood Ibrahim’s words, I knew what was coming. Finally, I heard him say my name, and then “Yahud.” At the Arabic word for Jew, all twenty-something heads turned as one, eyes locked on me. 

We’d all just spent a week together, ministering to Arab Christian youth and families side-by-side at a retreat center in the West Bank. We’d shared laughter and music and food and Jesus. But the gulf between Jews and Palestinians is deep and wide, as you well know. Which is why, in the month leading up to that week of camp in 2018, Ibrahim and Omar (ministry staff who we know and love) decided we should keep my heritage under wraps during camp. I’d been thinking the same thing. Everyone agreed it would be too distracting. After all, we were coming together to share the love of Jesus with families living in the West Bank, not to workshop a turbulent cultural divide. 

But now, camp was over. And Ibrahim had decided that the time was right to let them know. Right then and there in our post-camp leader meeting. Giving me about a thirty-second heads up. And so, there we were: a roomful of Palestinian Jesus followers, a handful of American Jesus followers, and me, the Jewish Jesus follower.

If you’re American, you might wonder what all the fuss is about. We all love Jesus, right? But in that sliver of terrain that is the Holy Land, people aren’t ever separated from their heritage. Really, in a very profound way, these Palestinian peers recognized me more clearly than either my American Jewish community or my American Christian community do – both of which often see my Jewishness as my background – as my past – not as my enduring identity. Yes, I love Jesus, but I am still a Jew – in my eyes and in theirs. (No different from Jesus’ disciples!)

And so I trembled in those frozen moments in the wake of Ibrahim’s words. Would they distrust all of their time with me? Would the leaders erase the memory of me toting children on my hip and braiding beautiful hair and holding little hands on the way to dinner? Would the women shut out the memory of our shared shrieks of laughter during field games? Would they all discard the fellowship of our songs and prayers? Would they hate me?  

No, they would not, did not. Instead, this group of people who’d been born and raised inside the confines of Palestine, under the watch of Israel, rose from their chairs and gathered around me. And laid their hands upon me to pray over this Jesus-following Jewish girl – in Arabic. And to pray for my whole family – while my husband and children and father-in-law bowed their heads, too.  

In real time and in real flesh, we were living out the reality of Ephesians 2:14.  

For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. 

The Gospel we’d been sharing all week with others was now on full, glorious display within us and among us.

The next morning over breakfast – our last meal together – I was asked to share my faith story. Bridges were being built in that place, in those days. And they have continued that work in the years since, even through troubled times like these. 

And so, in these fraught days of 2023, I don’t have a political or military solution to share with you. But this is something I do know. The world tells us that in order to love one, we must hate the other. That in order to honor one people’s suffering, we must minimize the suffering of the other. But that is not the way of Jesus. On the Cross, He bore the suffering of all, and destroyed the barriers of hostility between all. And that is the cross I want to carry, come what may. 

*Names have been changed for security and safety.

The Covenant...of Salt?

A batch of my za'atar challah, with
its giant flecks of salt!

Pretty much every Friday morning, I spend a few hours alone in my kitchen, baking golden braids of challah.* 

It all started three years ago, when I was missing my grandparents. I decided to do something tangible that would connect me to them and the foundation of faith they'd instilled in me. This Friday ritual quickly became an anchor in my psyche: a sanctuary to simply take time and to receive it. Shelter from life's noise and haste. A time and place where there is nothing for my mind to do but wonder and wander and pray.

I no longer use a written recipe; it's pretty much muscle memory now. But when I first got started, I used my grandma's instructions as a foundation and then started tweaking it each week. Tweaks based on others' suggestions and my personal preferences. 

Chief among my personal preferences is sweetness. Honey, to be exact. An entire half-cup of it. My grandma's recipe has just three tablespoons of sugar and absolutely zero honey. 

But I love honey. And I love what it does to the Sabbath bread as we celebrate the sweetness of holy rest. On occasion, we even drench the bread in honey for good measure. As I like to say (despite the eyerolls of those around me, like my kiddos): instead of a double-fudge brownie, it's double-honey challah!

Yet, for all the love of sweetness and honey, there's also an age-old tradition to dip challah in something that is decidedly not sweet. You may see people dip the bread in salt on Shabbat. "Tradition" isn't the right word, though, because this practice isn't built on tradition. It's built on covenant. 

A covenant, you say? A covenant of salt? Yes, exactly.

Don’t you know that the LORD, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel
to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?  2 Chronicles 13:5 NIV (emphasis mine)

What in the world is a covenant of salt? Well, the first time we hear this phrase is in Leviticus, everyone's favorite book of the whole entire Bible. 

You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant
with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.
Leviticus 2:13 ESV (emphasis mine)

And then...

Whatever is set aside from the holy offerings the Israelites present
to the LORD I give to you and your sons and daughters
as your perpetual share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt
before the LORD for both you and your offspring.” Numbers 18:19 NIV (emphasis mine)

What is it about salt that ties together King David's throne, Levitical sacrifices, and the priesthood's sustenance? In a way that is covenantal? 

It is, quite simply, that salt preserves. 

A covenant invoking salt is about permanence. The permanence of David's throne. The permanence of God's mercy through the altar. The permanence of the priesthood. Each of them bridging the gap between God and people in different ways. Because no matter who claimed power in Israel - whether Jerusalem or Babylon or Rome - God remained our true King. No matter how grievous the sin, the altar's blood maintained mercy from generation to generation. And no matter which descendant of Aaron held the high priestly office, he bore the names of all God's people on his shoulders and over his heart as he ministered in the sanctuary. A covenant of salt endures.

Indeed, what could possibly be more enduring than a covenant with the Eternal?

This lovely piece from
Yair Emanuel is one
example of challah boards
that feature a salt well.

And so, when we dip our sabbath bread in a little dish of salt on Friday evenings, we are remembering and celebrating the permanence of God's promises - and the permanence of God's presence - even as the sun quietly slips below the horizon.

And yet. A covenant that depends on fallible people keeping up their end of the bargain is prone to fracture. Prone to decay. Prone to impermanence. We know it about the Israelites and we certainly know it about ourselves.

Of course, God knew this, too. And so the covenant of salt continued to preserve His promises and His presence among us by giving way to a new age. A newer covenant. Where someone else holds up our end of the deal on our behalf, delivering us from our own impermanence, our own decay. That someone that God gave us was Himself, through the incarnation of the Messiah. The Anointed. Yeshua. Jesus.

The once-and-for-all sacrifice, made with eternal blood, covers us always.

The Priest in the order of Melchizedek intercedes without ceasing.

And the Lion of Judah reigns, on the everlasting heavenly throne.

God has kept his covenant of salt with us in ways we could not have imagined. Through such a profoundly magnificent - yet personal - rescue. 

And so the ancient covenant of salt endures without threat of fracture or decay. Upheld by the One greater than death, the One outside of time, the One entirely and perfectly - and eternally - good.

*Challah is pronounced either with a throaty "ch" or just the "h" (hallah); not a "ch" like in 'church' or a hard "k" as in 'choir.' Here's a great explanation/tutorial.