God's Faithfulness

Jeremiah 1:4-10 Psalm 71:1-6 1 Corinthians 12:31b-13:13 Luke 4:21-30

God’s Faithfulness

Very few people appreciate the complexities and difficulties regarding biblical translation. Misunderstand or mistranslate or misinterpret one word and you can change the theology of a church.  Take the simple Greek word often translated as ‘faith’ for example. This word can also be rendered ‘faithfulness’…in fact, this is how it had always been translated (most notably in  William Tyndale’s English translation) until a German monk, in his attempt to oppose the abuses and hierarchical power systems entrenched in the medieval Roman Catholic Church, decided to change this one word from ‘faithfulness’ to ‘faith’. This small change in the translation of one word gave birth to the cornerstone of Reformation Theology. Justification by faith alone. 

Interestingly enough, the Reformers that followed in Luther’s wake all confessed that salvation was by grace alone, but by making the application of that grace contingent upon our ability to exercise faith in order to gain salvation, they contradicted their own theology. The result of this was what some call a lack of assurance of salvation or salvation angst, and for good reason. My ability to produce faith is, at best unstable. It more than often waxes and wanes with my circumstances, my emotions, or my mental health. Do I then lose my salvation when my doubts and fears overpower me?

Consider these two different translations of this word in a very well-known verse.

“For by grace you have been saved through (your) faith…”

OR

“For by grace you have been saved through (his) faithfulness…”

The difference may seem insignificant, but the result is profound. If the word is translated ‘faith’, then it is something you do in order to be graciously saved or delivered. In other words, it is a work, and salvation is gained by doing it or it is not gained by not doing it. If you have faith you are saved. If you don’t have faith, you are not saved. Your salvation depends on you.

 However, if it is translated as ‘faithfulness’ then it is something done by God which you undeservingly and freely receive by grace. You are saved because of his faithfulness. Your salvation depends on him.

If one looks at the word in context, then translating it as ‘faithfulness’ makes far better sense as the rest of the sentence makes it clear that this is not something done by you.

“For by grace you have been saved through his faithfulness, and this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of your works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, recreated in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

It is the faithfulness of Christ that freely and graciously saves us…he does it all. 

Now, contrary to some popular thought, the Scriptures (Old and New Testament) have never taught that salvation is something we can earn or work for or gain by merit. Scripture clearly teaches that God chooses us. We do not choose him. From the moment sin entered the world through the devastatingly destructive disobedience of Adam and Eve, it has been God who graciously initiates reconciliation. The emotionally charged question, “where are you?” echoes down through the centuries. It is always God who seeks us and it is always God who finds us and it is always God who provides for our deliverance. 

As Psalm 53:1-3 states bluntly: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” You see, we are spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins…the day you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God warned, you shall surely die…we are dead…completely and utterly incapable of generating life in and of ourselves. Only God, the source and giver of life, can breathe life back into us.

It is God who comes to Adam and Eve. It is God who saves Noah. It is God who approaches Abraham. It is God who delivers Israel and makes it quite clear in Deuteronomy 7 that he delivered them for no other reason than because he loved them and was faithful in keeping the promise he made to Abraham. God raised up the Judges. God called Samuel to anoint David King. God appointed Jeremiah a prophet to the nations even before he was born. God even raised up the pagan king Cyrus so that the exiles could return to the promised land.

And ultimately, because God loved the world so much, he sent his only begotten son into the world to give eternal life to all who receive it. All this is from God…he reconciled us to himself through Jesus. We were dead, he made us alive…he made us new creations…he saved us by grace through his faithfulness.

God promised, from the moment sin entered the world, that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. God promised that through Abraham’s seed, all the nations of the world would be blessed. God promised and he was faithful in the fulfilment of his word. 

We are saved through his faithfulness. We are delivered from the power of sin and our slavery to Satan because God has faithfully done what he promised to do.

Why is this such a big deal, you may ask. Why indeed. Think on this. If my salvation…or even my well-being, my healing, my success, my life depends on my ability to generate faith within myself then I am better than the one who cannot. I then have reason to boast. As such I disagree with the evaluation of Scripture concerning my condition. If I can be saved because of my faith, then there is something good in me after all. But what does Scripture say? No one seeks after God. No one understands. No one does good, not even one. All have sinned. All fall short of the glory of God. All are dead. 

So, what is faith? Well, faith is a gift given to us by God. Like every other gift we may have. It is God who made us who we are in our mother’s womb…it is God who remade us in Jesus to do what he created us to do. It is God who gave us abilities and talents and aptitudes. These are all gifts given to us by a gracious and benevolent and loving gift giver. To think that I can boast of a gift is ludicrous.

And yet this is what we do. Some of the most loveless deeds have been done by those who claim to follow the Lord of love. And we make it sound so spiritual. I speak with the tongues of mortals and angels. Is have prophetic powers. I understand all mysteries and possess all knowledge. I have faith to move mountains. I witness to the fact that I decided to believe in Jesus. I am better than others. Thank you, God, that I am not like other people. Thank you, God, that I am righteous.

But what are we without him? Jesus said we are nothing and can do nothing without him. He said he chose us; we did not choose him. We are his because he has been faithful to do what he promised. He was obedient – he was faithful – even to death on the cross. We are what we are because he is who he is. And he is love.

We love him because he first loved us. It is his love that breaks up the fallow ground of our hearts…it is his love that takes out our rock hard, cold heart…it is his love that gives us a new and clean heart…it is his love that breathes into our dead bodies the life-giving Holy Spirit. It is all him…he comes to me, he pursues me and woos me, he chooses me because he loves me, he rescues me because I am unable to rescue myself, he adopts me and makes me his own child.

That is the meaning of grace and that is why it is amazing grace. Grace is a free gift – there is nothing we can do to deserve it. What is lost cannot be unlost unless it is found. What is bound cannot be loosed unless it is unbound. Captives cannot be released unless someone sets them free. The blind cannot see unless someone gives them sight. The dead cannot live unless someone resurrect them. 

Because of his faithfulness, God has delivered you and has made you his very own child. Because of his faithfulness, God will always be with you even when life makes you doubt that he is.  Because of his faithfulness, he will never break his promise. Because of his faithfulness, his love never fails.

Let us pray.

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022

And so you entered Paradise

And so you entered Paradise

Georine (Thompson) Recholtz: 13 April 1962 – 12 January 2022

And so you entered Paradise

My dearest childhood friend

You’ve run your race

Our Saviour’s face

Is now yours to behold

And so you entered Paradise

And rest in Jesus’ arms

Your joyful heart

Remains in part

In those whose lives you touched

And so you entered Paradise

A jewel of faith and grace

A twinkling eye

A pink hair-dye

A kindness like no other

And so you entered Paradise

You lived and loved like Him

And there before 

Forevermore

Your voice is raised in worship

And so you entered Paradise

Your treasures are intact

No moth nor rust

Can steal the trust

You placed in him that day

And so you entered Paradise

The angels stand in awe

As they behold

The truth unfold

In those you led to Him

And so you entered Paradise

Rest softly, precious one

The sweet refrain

To die is gain

Is written on your crown

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022

Being signs for each other

Isaiah 62:1-5 Psalm 36:5-10 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 John 2:1-11

Being signs for each other

Gary Larson once created a wonderful cartoon of a child pushing a door that has a clear sign on it that says pull. What makes the cartoon even funnier is another sign in front of the building that reads: MIDVALE School for the Gifted. 

Perhaps one of the reasons we laugh at this cartoon is because we have done something similar at least once in our lives. Done the opposite of what a sign instructs us to do. But sometimes there are plausible reasons for getting confused.

In the archive section of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, I kept pushing a door that opened by pulling. The attendant kindly pointed out, with a not-so-well-hidden smirk, that there was a clear sign posted on the door, and this was true. However, this sign was only on the outside of the door, and, to my great delight, I saw others often struggling with the same door. The reason was that the signage was inconsistent.

Signs are meant to help us. The lack of signs can be disastrous. But signs can also be wrong or misleading…and, as such, they can be equally dangerous.

A long time ago, cartographers would often mark the end of their navigational knowledge with a sign: There be Dragons! The reason was simple…we all have a fear of the unknown. What would happen to us if we crossed over the edge of the known into the unknown? Would we return? And if we did return, what would we be like to others? Would they think us liars or lunatics…or would they believe us? Thankfully there were some who were courageous enough to push on past the old wrong signs and they were richly rewarded for their bravery. But those who followed in their wake were also rewarded because they now had new signs showing them the truth. Perhaps there is a lesson for us in this…maybe it is time for those of us who know the way, the truth, and the life to start leaving signs for others. 

In the deep Kalahari, where there are few landmarks to navigate by, the San people leave each other signs to point out places where food and water can be found. This is more than a simple act of kindness. Without such signs the survival of the San as a people hangs in the balance. Here again is a lesson for us as believers in Jesus. How can we leave signs for others of how we can become better humans together? Not only for ourselves, but for the well-being of all of creation?

Of course, signs in and of themselves can be misconstrued, misunderstood, or simply ignored. Think about the signs of the planets given to us by God as indicators of seasons, days, and years. Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens are signs of the glory of God and yet people have misread the signs and have worshipped the creation rather than the Creator. Paul tells us in Romans that ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been “seen” through the things he has made. But despite these clear indicators, people exchanged the glory of God for images. People worship the sign rather than the sign-maker.

John tells us in his Gospel, that the changing of water into wine was Jesus’ first sign. Like the first sign of Moses, water changed into something else…with Moses, water turned into blood…undrinkable…with Jesus, water turned into wine, not only drinkable, but very palatable according to the taster. But in both cases, these signs were given to point people in the right direction…to show them that their God was mighty to save and to deliver them from a power far greater than themselves. To worship the wine would be a mistake. 

Just as the sun, the moon, and the stars were designed to help us to tell times and seasons and months and years, so the changing of water into wine in stone jars used, not for drinking purposes, but for ritual cleansing purposes helps us understand that Jesus came to cleanse us…to purify us by means of some form of miraculous intervention. Just like the ten plagues in Egypt served to remind both Israel and Egypt that there is but one God and he is not to be trifled with or resisted, so the so-called seven signs of Jesus in the Gospel of John serve to reveal his power to provide what we cannot. 

It is no coincidence that Jesus used wine as a sign of his blood during the Passover feast. He stood on the brink of a far greater deliverance than the exodus from Egypt and he used a well-known sign to help his disciples make that connection…the Passover lamb and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins on the world. 

But notice that the biblical signs are multiple…one pointing to another. From the very first sacrifice in the garden of Eden to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve, to the final sacrifice on the cross to cover the sins of humanity, signs and symbols, feasts and festivals, Sabbaths and New Moons, idioms and parables, were all pointing forward to Jesus. Each and every one of these signs displayed the greatness and the power and the love of God for his creation…they were designed to, as Isaiah put it, cause the nations to see God’s glory through the vindication of His people. 

God’s people…our lives…everything that we are and everything that happens to us…everything is used by God as a sign for the nations. We are witnesses to God’s love for His world. Every gift He gives us is to be used for the common good. Each gift is given as a sign for others…a display of His goodness and kindness…and therefore each gift is to be used for that purpose. A variety of gifts are given to a variety of people as the Spirit, the giver of the gifts, chooses. Not everyone has the same gift as that would defeat the purpose of the gifts…they are meant to be used interdependently for the growth or edification of the church. To elevate the gift or even the recipient of the gift is to miss the point entirely. And to elevate one gift over another is equally misguided. The gift is a sign that the gift giver desires other-person-centred unity in the church…all of us working together for the good of everyone else…so that unbelievers may see the benefits of faith in the Almighty God of love. The Church is meant to be a sign for the nations. 

The same can be said of us today as witnesses. We may be very different one from the other, but to say that one is more important than the other is ludicrous. We are all witnesses, serving as signs to point people to the one true God. Just as Jesus did not intend for the disciples to worship the stone purification jars or for us to worship the bread and the wine, so he did not intend for us to exalt a human being or even a collection of human beings to an elevated position. True, we are to respect our leaders and we are to submit to the leadership, but Paul makes it quite clear that we are all to submit to one another. We may have different roles to play but ultimately, we all share the same function. We are signs for each other and we are signs for the world.

But just as signs can be misleading, so our lives can be deceptive or ambiguous or confusing. Like the doors in the Bodleian Library, the sign of the Lord’s presence in our lives may be hidden…or only on one side of our compartmentalised lives…the churchianity side. The day-to-day side lacks a sign or worse…bears a different sign altogether. 

So, here’s the question I would like to ask you today. When others look at your life…when they experience your life…when they see your actions or hear your words…what do they see? Do they see someone who with one hand points to Jesus and with the other points in a different direction? Is your life helping them or hindering them? Is your signage clear?

Yes, you may answer, my signage is clear…as clear as it can be with God’s help. And yet those who know me – even those who knew me before I was changed by Jesus – have not responded in a positive manner. Then may I remind you of Abraham’s response to the request of the rich man in the collective place of the dead. The rich man asked the Abraham send the beggar Lazarus to his family to warn them of the awful consequence for abandoning God. Abraham replied that if people did not believe the Word of God they would not believe even if confronted with a resurrected being. 

And that is exactly what happened. Remember? The other Lazarus, brother to Mary and Martha, was raised from the dead and the leaders did not believe. In fact, they were plotting to kill him because many people were believing in Jesus because of this sign! And also, remember that after Jesus was raised from the dead, these same unbelieving leaders chose to bribe the guards telling them to lie rather than tell the truth! Rather than humbling themselves and repenting and changing their wicked ways, they persisted in what they knew to be a lie! All the evidence of God’s power was there for them to see and yet they chose not to believe. The same may be true of you. It is possible that people will see the signs of God written all over your life and yet not respond positively at all.

This past week, my closest and dearest childhood friend past into glory. She is now with Jesus. Georine was an exceptional person…in so many ways she exhibited the qualities of Jesus in a very natural manner. Never once did she judge me, even when I was at my worst…and believe me she knew me when everyone else was trying to avoid me…and she stood with me…stuck with me, closer than a brother and a sister. I am not unique in this. Georine was like that with everyone, always seeing the best in others…believing the best of others. 

As such Georine stands even in death as a sign for everyone who knows her. She points, not to herself, but to the one she loved so dearly. Her life, even into eternity, directs us to love him too. 

Would you pray with me today and every day, that our Lord would graciously work in your heart and in my heart so that, like Georine, and perhaps someone you know, we can be signs for each other?

Let us pray.

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022

A Renewing Creation

Isaiah 43:1-7              Psalm 29                        Acts 8:14-17                       Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Other Readings: Gen. 1:1-13; 8:15-17; Ex. 14:29-31; Josh. 4:21-24; Rom. 6:1-4; 2 Cor. 5:17; Col. 2:11-12

A Renewing Creation

I think most people will agree with me when I say that water is essential to life. According to an article written by Molly Sargen and Daniel Utter for Harvard University, “Water makes up 60-75% of human body weight. A loss of just 4% of total body water leads to dehydration, and a loss of 15% can be fatal. Likewise, a person could survive a month without food but wouldn’t survive 3 days without water.” About 71 % of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The oceans hold about 96.5 percent of that 71 %, but water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and in aquifers and it is stored in dams and other man-made retainers and containers. Water is also used to wash and keep things clean, and the movement of water can be used to create electricity among other things. So, I think we can safely conclude that water is both useful and necessary. 

However, water can also be extremely destructive. Riptides can sweep even the strongest swimmers out to sea. Flash floods can roll boulders, tear out trees, destroy buildings and bridges, scour out new channels (even canyons!) and can also trigger catastrophic mud slides. Then think about the devastating effects of Tsunamis. Storms can create waves and currents at sea and in lakes that sink boats and ships. And finally, according to the World Health Organisation, “Drowning is the 3rd leading cause of unintentional injury death worldwide, accounting for 7% of all injury-related deaths. There are an estimated 236 000 annual drowning deaths worldwide.” 

Water. Both life-giving and life-taking. As such it is an image that is often used in Scripture to illustrate the awesome power of God. God is greater than the waters…the floods, the rivers, the seas and the waves…and He is also greater than the destruction caused by too much water. Out from the depths, God can bring forth life.

This imagery begins in the beginning. When we read Genesis 1 we are told that darkness was over the surface of the deep. The Holy Spirit of God was hovering over that primeval body of water when the first creative words of God were spoken. “Let there be light!” But it is not the light or the sky that I wish to focus on this morning. It is the gathering of the waters into seas, lakes, and rivers that I want to bring to your attention. What is important to notice here is that it is only once the water recedes that dry land appears…land that can now, for the first time, sustain life…vegetation, seed-bearing plants, fruit-bearing trees, animals, and humans. It is only once the dry land emerged from out of the waters that life on earth as we know it began. 

We see this again in the time of Noah. It is only once the flood waters receded that life could begin again. Once the dry land reappeared, Noah was given the same instructions as Adam and Eve. To be fruitful and multiply. Noah, his family and the animals with them on the Ark were at once both saved by water and saved from water. As such, this is a story of a new beginning, or, dare I say, a new creation.

Later, this idea of re-creation is illustrated quite dramatically once again at the Red Sea when God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt. Here too water served as both a tool of deliverance as well as a tool of destruction, but the important thing to note here is that when Israel emerged from the waters, they were, essentially, a new creation. Once not considered a people, now they were the people of Almighty God. God had triumphed over their enemy so that they might be constituted a nation before Him. There is a new creation here.

And then again, after the forty years of wandering in the wilderness were over, Israel once more went through the waters of a flooding Jordan River, to inherit the Promised Land where they were to be fruitful, to multiply and to exercise dominion over the land. Once wandering nomads, now landowners. A new creation.

The same can be said of when Israel returned from exile in Babylon, only this time they remained under the yoke of the successive dominant empires. By the time Jesus was born, the nation of Israel was still in bondage, this time under Rome.

Imagine then the excitement when a voice was heard, crying out in the same general vicinity of where Joshua crossed the river Jorden to conquer the land. “Prepare the way for the Lord!” It was a clarion call for the nation to consecrate themselves…just like at Mount Sinai with Moses…just like at the Jordan with Joshua. God was about to show up and they needed to be ready!

Of course, people flocked to be baptised by John…they had to be ready to meet their saviour! Some even thought John might be the Saviour! But the Baptiser kept alluding to another figure to come after him…a figure that would not baptise with water, but with the life-giving Spirit. You see, amid all this preaching and teaching and baptising, God had informed John that the Messiah was about to be revealed to Israel (that he was about to begin his earthly ministry) and that he would be able to recognise the Coming One, the Messiah, by the bodily descent of the Holy Spirit upon him as he emerged from the waters.

Now, let’s stop here for a minute. Does any of this sound familiar to you? The Spirit hovering over the waters? It should. I believe that the Gospel writers, especially John, wanted us to make the connection between creation and the baptism of Jesus. The coming of Jesus was the beginning of the new creation.

This is why I believe baptism into Jesus replaced circumcision as the sign of entry into the new covenant people of God. Circumcision was a promise that one day in the future sin (often represented in Scripture as the flesh) would be removed through the shedding of blood. But baptism is a sign of the present, indicating that the promise depicted in the sign of circumcision has been fulfilled. 

Paul spoke about us being baptised into the death of Jesus in Colossians where he clearly connected the two signs of entrance into the Covenant, the one being the fulfilment of the other. “In him,” Paul said, “you were also circumcised in the putting off (or cutting off) of the sinful nature (or the flesh), not with a circumcision done by the hands of men, but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.”

Baptism is the sign of a new creation. Just as life could only begin after the dry land came up out of the water…just as life could only resume after the dry land reappeared once the floodwaters receded…just as Israel could only be free after they had gone through the Red Sea…just as Israel could only inherit the Promised Land once they had gone through the Jordan river…so too we can only be raised to new life…we can only become new creations once we have been symbolically buried with Jesus and resurrected with Jesus. Baptism in the name of Jesus is the sign of entry into the new covenant through his blood. It is only once we have been buried and resurrected with Jesus that we receive the life-giving Spirit. And only then can life really begin. We were once dead in our trespasses and sins, but now we have been made alive in Jesus.

This is why baptism was so important in the Early Church as we see in the book of Acts. For them it represented the message of the Gospel. It was a symbol or a sign of the beginning of new life. The beginning of a new creation. It represented liberation from bondage. Once dead, now alive. Once not a people, now God’s people. Having been buried and resurrected with Jesus sacramentally in Baptism, we are now free to live as God intended us to live and to do what God has commanded us to do in the first place…to exercise dominion over the whole earth. That we might serve the world in his name…make disciples of all nations. 

For the Early Church, the message of the Gospel was not a pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die-by-and-by message. No, it was a message of rebirth…of re-creation – of a restoration of the whole of creation with God’s reborn and resurrected people ruling as his vice-regents, slowly but surely bringing about the renewal of the world. That is why Jesus chose the image of baptism to illustrate the reality that is ours as his new creatures…his new creations. The old things have passed away – have been washed away in the deluge of his death – the new has come in the resurrection – the re-emergence of Jesus and those in him from the depths – and new life can now begin once more. 

Water. Both life-giving and life-taking. A powerful image of both destruction and deliverance. Out of water, the earth was once born and once reborn. Out of water, Israel was once born and reborn. The Baptism of Jesus is firmly rooted in Old Testament creation and re-creation imagery. The Trinity are active participants in both creation and re-creation. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The sacrament of Baptism is therefore one of the most powerful images of God’s triumph over death and devastation. It is a testimony to his grace, his forgiveness, and his love.

But baptism is only the beginning of life…as at the time of creation and the time of Noah, there must be growth and regrowth. As with Israel there must be obedience and submission. And so, as we look forward to a new year that lies ahead, let us remember that we – we the baptised have a race to run, a battle to fight, and an earth to win. We are new creations…and because we are new creations, we have been given the message and the ministry of reconciliation. It is through us – God’s new creatures that creation itself is being renewed. 

Let us pray.

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022

Context Changes Everything

Jeremiah 31:7-14     Psalm 147:12-20     Ephesians 1:3-14     John 12:44-50

Context Changes Everything

Ever since childhood, I have struggled with claustrophobia. I have tried to overcome this several times in several different ways, but the sheer panic that runs through my body like an enormous electrical surge every time I even as much as think about a tight spot, has prevented me from defeating it completely. However, this has not stopped me from venturing into dark, tight spaces, like tunnels and caves. For me, the trick is knowing what lies ahead as well as knowing what lies at the end. I need to know what I am in for, and I need to know where I am going, and that knowing starts at the beginning. 

There are two tunnels that come to mind as I write this talk. The first is a tunnel in Ethiopia that links two monastic centres. The purpose of this tunnel, besides the obvious link between the two communities, is didactic. Like so many other things in Ethiopian Orthodoxy, people are not just taught with words but also with images. Ethiopian icons are a very good example. For oral learners, stories or pictures or drama (like acted out parables), are better conduits of knowledge than books. 

But back to the tunnel. We were told by our guide at the opening to the tunnel that, for these communities, the journey through the tunnel represents our journey through life. For them, our present life is dark and mysterious. Just like while walking through the subterranean blackness you cannot see where you are going, so in life no one really knows what lies ahead. The tunnel itself is uneven, so at times you either trip over a raised part of the floor or hit your head on a low part of the ceiling or bump into a narrower part of the sides. Our guide encouraged us not to use our flashlights so that we could experience the full effect of the lesson. You really could not see a single thing, that is until you began to approach the end of the tunnel. The community on the other side, the guide told us, represents heaven. Hell is if you lose your nerve in the tunnel and turn back. Well, I was certainly not going to go to hell, so I pressed on through to the other side!

But my point in telling this story is that knowing what lay at the end of my angst-filled adventure helped me to overcome my claustrophobia. There was, quite literally, light at the end of the tunnel, and once there we were jubilantly greeted by friendly fellow believers, just like at a homecoming or a victory celebration after a long trip, battle, or ordeal. Knowing what to expect and knowing that the experience was temporary, helped me to overcome my fear of dark confining spaces and I made it through.

The other tunnel is in Jerusalem. It is a long tunnel connecting a pool inside the city with a spring outside the city. Built by King Hezekiah in the late 8th and early 7th Century, its purpose was twofold. Firstly, to ensure an adequate supply of water for the inhabitants of the city in case of a siege by the menacing Assyrian forces, and, secondly, the tunnel was designed to keep the entire outflow of the spring inside the walled area so that they might deny access to water for those enemies outside the gates. The tunnel was carved out of rock by two teams from both ends with the diggers meeting in the middle. As such, it is an engineering marvel given the time and the implements used.

Here again, like with the tunnel in Ethiopia, knowing the background story, or in this case, the underground story, helped me press on to the end. I even stopped once or twice to observe the niches in the walls made for the oil lamps that served as the digger’s only light. (Yes, this time I cheated and used the flashlight on my phone.) But my point is this: in both cases, in Ethiopia and in Jerusalem, the context changed everything for me…at least I knew the purpose of the tunnels, the shape and structure of the tunnels, and I knew that there was an end to the tunnels. 

Now, you are probably wondering where this talk is going! Well, the same principle I used with the tunnels can be applied to the interpretation of Scripture. Knowing the context changes everything…and that context starts at the very beginning. 

Very few people will start a novel in the middle or at the end of the story. Of course, one can do this and still have an inkling as to what the plot is about, but you will not have the full picture. The same is true of the Scriptures. Too many believers start two thirds into the story…they start and hang out only or mostly in the New Testament…and while it will not damage their relationship with the Lord nor will it endanger their salvation, they will miss the plot and, sadly, at times even misunderstand or misinterpret or misrepresent the message. Just like a puzzle with missing pieces, an incomplete reading of the Bible can leave many gaps.

The best place to start in order to get that full picture is, of course, the beginning. I have always believed that if one does not grasp the theology of the first three chapters of Genesis, one will never truly understand the devastating effect of sin nor the greatness of grace. Adam and Eve’s fall from grace is all encompassing…their act of defiant treachery and their rejection of their Creator God produced a barrier between them and their source of life. From that point on, everything was in a state of death and decay. But in the very midst of their desperate brokenness God came to find them, even in their wretchedness, to give them a word of hope. One day, God promised, the Seed of the woman would conquer the serpent. 

The rest of Scripture builds upon this foundation. There is a reason why certain images and words are repeated throughout Scripture…in the prophets and psalms and in the Gospels and the New Testament Epistles. Images such as gardens and rivers and trees. There is a reason why Israel is often depicted as a garden or a vine or a tree…these are all illustrations of what once was and what is yet to come. The images compel us to view Scripture in context...the context of rebellion and redemption…of exclusion and of restoration. They help to sharpen our understanding with regard to the need for rescue, ransom, and reconciliation. 

Reading through the Old Testament is, in many ways, like walking through a deep, dark tunnel. Right at the entrance to the tunnel we are told what lies ahead and what we can expect at the end. Countless times, the authors of Scripture return to the images of the garden to help us grasp the need for divine intervention. Page after page after page we read of the failure of even the best to live up to the standard of our created reality. They stub their toes and bump their heads and sometimes even stumble and fall. As such, the Old Testament can seem like one long litany…a requiem for humanity. 

But even amid the sightless blackness, the promise of what lies ahead is raised every so often to provide hope for the future…to encourage those faltering forward to press onward and upward toward the light. 

The prophet Jeremiah has been called the weeping prophet for good reason. Regardless of what he said or did, no one listened…even when the disasters he predicted came to pass, the people still refused to heed his warnings. Jeremiah begged his people to repent and turn back to the God they no longer served. He warned them that their ongoing rebellion would lead to judgment. Their attempts to save themselves through political and military alliances and alignment with their pagan neighbours would ultimately fail and their refusal to abandon their idolatry and injustice and ethical misconduct would lead to their defeat and deportment. All to no effect. 

He ended up being abducted and taken to the very place he told them not to go…back to Egypt. Like the Ethiopian story of hell waiting for those who turn back, so the return to Egypt illustrated a reversal of their redemption as slaves…a reversal of their status as a free nation. But just as the guides provided hope for us before we plunged into the darkness, and just as the oil lamps helped the diggers plot their way forward, so the prophet Jeremiah provided his readers with hope. All who were scattered would be gathered in once more, he said. The Lord will come to bring them back to the land…he will restore them so that they will be like a well-watered garden…like Eden. He will lead them beside still waters on paths that are level where they will not stumble. Mourning will be turned into dancing and comfort will displace sorrow. In other words, in spite of everything, with God there is always hope for the future.

As such, Jeremiah points us to the fulfilment of God’s promise made in the garden. Through the advent of the Seed of the woman…through the coming of our Lord Jesus, the barrier between God and humanity has been removed, and now those who believe in Him are once more able to receive every spiritual blessing because we have been ransomed, redeemed, rescued, reconciled, and restored. We have been adopted as sons and daughters of God in Christ Jesus. We have life through his death. The resurrection of Jesus from a tomb in a garden is a picture of the reversal of the judgement in the Garden of Eden. The entrance once blocked and barred, has now been opened and we may freely enter into God’s presence once more.

And yet, there is a perfect Garden still to come. As Paul says in our reading from Ephesians, we have received a deposit…a guarantor of something we will inherit in the future. You see, we live in an in-between time…the now and the not yet…a place in the tunnel where we can see the light at the end, even though we have not fully arrived at our destination. The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John shows us that we are still to emerge from the shadows into the eternal bliss of another well-watered Garden where, like in the prophecy of Jeremiah, there will be no more sorrow as there will be no more curse…there will be no more death as the Tree of Life Himself bears fruit in abundance. 

But as with the tunnel in Ethiopia, the destination is only for those who do not turn back. Jesus speaks quite plainly in our Gospel lesson for today. “When someone believes in me, he believes not only in me but in him who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” In other words, those who do not accept the Son, do not accept the Father either. Jesus said he is the only way to the Father…the only one through whom we can re-enter the Garden. 

Clambering through a dark and dingy subterranean tunnel was no easy task…but we believed the word of our guides and we received the reward they had promised. Not that we earned the reward…it was there whether we emerged from the tunnel or not. It was freely ours if we only believed. All we had to do was plod on in hope.

When one places life in its greater biblical context, it really does change everything. It shows us in stark relief where we have come from, and it shows us in all the fulness of bliss where we are and where we are going. And as we plot our way forward in the light of this context, we can be rest assured that even in the deepest, darkest part of the tunnel, our Saviour is right there before us, behind us, beside us, and within us. 

Let us pray.

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2021