A poster from the 1940s depicting
the firstfruits pilgrimage. 

Growing up, there was never a question in my mind that every aspect of my Jewish faith was interconnected. 

People and places and feasts and songs are woven together in one magnificent tapestry, pulling all of Jewish Scripture and history together. It blankets us all with its warmth and promises. This tapestry is well-worn and familiar in the best of ways. 

In Judaism, we we read and study the Torah from beginning to end every single year.  All around the world, congregations all read the same scriptures - Torah portions - each week. It's a beautiful thing to study the same promises, the same sadnesses, and the same rescues year after year like a much-traveled footpath: every switchback and vista comfortingly familiar yet new in its own way.

Of course, this also means that bible "stories" aren't taught out of order, but as part of the single grand narrative from beginning to end. Each life and moment in scripture is connected in deeply meaningful ways.

Shavuot (a/k/a Pentecost) is a perfect example of this connectedness.

When I teach, Christians are often surprised to learn that Pentecost is a Jewish thing. They  don’t realize that the Pentecost in Acts 2 - when the Holy Spirit descended - was actually an annual Jewish feast. One of the three pilgrimage feasts, in fact. Which means that Pentecost was a big deal on the Jewish calendar.

And - from the very beginning - it was tethered to Passover. 

In Leviticus and Numbers, God told His people to start counting off forty-nine days, starting with the Passover Sabbath. Then, the fiftieth day, would be Pentecost. That’s actually why it’s called Pentecost in Greek: Pentecost means fiftieth. Shavuot - the feast's Hebrew name - means weeks, for the seven-week (forty-nine days) countdown.

There's so much that I love about this connection (which you can read all about in Jerusalem Calls, coming next year!). And every bit of it reveals God's incredible intentionality. 

Jesus' sacrifice took place during Passover, and we know from the gospel writers that the city was filled to overflowing with pilgrims. Which means that fifty days later, the city was filled with pilgrims who had witnessed the crucifixion and resurrection.

They'd witnessed it with their own eyes and ears, but then journeyed back home to their everyday lives. Can you imagine what those conversations were like on their journeys back home from Passover? Or what the dinner table discussions were like during those seven weeks before returning to Jerusalem for Pentecost? 

And, when they finally came back with their firstfruits for Pentecost, the pilgrims arrived to even more incredible news: Jesus had just ascended, through the clouds, into heaven, in front of everyone. 

But we know that more incredible things were coming. Because after all these God followers from different communities and countries caught up on the news of Jesus' ascension, they went about doing what they'd gathered in Jerusalem to do: offer the firstfruits of their harvest.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Acts 2:1-2

The whole reason there were countless foreign-speakers in Jerusalem at that moment is because Pentecost was a pilgrimage feast. And when the Holy Spirit came down, it was like a total reversal of Babel.  Different languages uniting people instead of scattering them. Uniting them with the gospel that they could then take back home. And share it with their neighbors in all their different nations.

God is so intentional. When He gave those pilgrimage commands way back in the desert, He knew exactly what would happen on this one, particular Passover and Pentecost.

God knew that if His people obeyed the pilgrimage command, they would come to Jerusalem one year and witness the Messiah’s death and His defeat of it. And, if the people obeyed the pilgrimage command again seven weeks later, they’d receive the Holy Spirit in most dramatic fashion - and then take the complete story of the Gospel  back home with them, where they would share their eyewitness accounts with their neighbors.

God's plan is so much bigger than we can possibly comprehend. 

I don’t know about you, but when I see how these feasts were woven so intentionally together, 1500 years after God commanded them, it reassures me that our God has a plan - a good, beautiful, powerful plan. Even if I can't see it in the moment.

It reassures me that He can be trusted to fulfill His promises in just the right way, at just the right time, as we continue to seek and follow Him and His ways. 

So, no matter where you are on your pilgrimage with God, I pray that you would find rest, and encouragement, in Him.

Covering the Bread of Life

Vintage challah cover on eBay

Almost every single Friday, I begin the day by baking four braids of challah - the bread of the Jewish sabbath. I keep one and give the other three away, which has been a delight.

I began this weekly ritual five years ago, in an effort to connect - in a very tangible way - with my history and my memories. Wearing Grandma Marion's apron and using her mom's flour scoop makes me happy.

After the four-hour process of mixing and waiting and braiding and waiting, the aroma of those warm, pillowy braids turning golden in the oven fills me with a sense of peace and grounding.

Once it's cooled a bit, I cover my challah with a rough-edged, white linen cloth. My grandparents' covers, on the other hand, were absolutely exquisite: blue velvet or cream silk, embroidered with rich colors that sang with the joy of Shabbat. 

I always assumed that covering the challah was to keep it warm and fresh until it was time to light the candles and pour the wine. But actually, the reason comes straight from the Torah, back in the Israelites’ time in the wilderness after the Egypt rescue. 

And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying, 

I have heard the murmurings of the children of Yisra᾽el: speak to them, saying...in the morning you shall be filled with bread; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God. 

And it came to pass, that...in the morning the dew lay round about the camp. 

And when the layer of dew was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a fine flaky substance, as fine as the hoar frost on the ground. 

And when the children of Yisra᾽el saw it, they said one to another, Man-hu (what is it?): for they knew not what it was. And Moshe said to them, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. 

And [Moses] said to them, This is that which the Lord has said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy sabbath to the Lord: bake that which you will bake today, and what you will boil, boil today; and that which remains over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.

Exodus 16:12-15 Koren Jerusalem Bible

Rabbis explain that the reason we cover the challah on Shabbat, the Sabbath, is to remind us of the dew that covered the manna each and every morning of the Israelites' forty-year sojourn. It is a reminder of God’s provision, His faithfulness, and His grace to sustain them – and us – every day.

On Shabbat, the challah cover especially reminds us of the dew that covered the double portion of manna on the sixth day - that extra provision of God - so that His people would have enough to both eat and to rest on the Sabbath.

I love this. I love how a lot of the old traditions of my Jewish upbringing are actually rooted in Scripture, without me even realizing it.

When I stumbled upon the spiritual reason for covering the Sabbath challah, my thoughts eventually turned to something that Yeshua, Jesus, had said.

“I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me hasreal life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread—living Bread!—who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.”   John 6:47-51 The Message

In the wilderness, God had rained down manna from heaven, covering it with dew each morning. 

Then finally, when the time was full, God sent Jesus down from heaven. Deity covered with human flesh. 

He was ultimately covered – like my Sabbath bread – with a linen cloth. Shrouded for death. 

But, as John and Peter discovered on Resurrection morning, that burial cloth was a covering that Jesus left - neatly folded - behind Him. The Bread of Life rising from death.

And so we - who are nourished by the resurrected Bread of Life - and covered by His sacrifice, will one day leave our grave cloths behind, too. 

And rise to new life.

 

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