What defines your life?

• The power of starting with the end in mind

“Well, it’s glorious but it’s also tough because all the pressure is on you. You’ve got all those people out there that call you a legend and an icon and all that stuff. You kinda gotta prove it.” So said Merle Haggard after recently playing two sold-out nights at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. At 77, Haggard — who helped create the twangy electrified Bakersfield [California] Sound in country music — tours the country about two weeks each month.

Haggard had lung surgery after a cancer diagnosis in November 2008, and he said an early, but incorrect, diagnosis had him thinking he had only a short time to live. "And then they told me, ‘No, we’re wrong. It’s only just a little benign condition that we can get rid of,’" Haggard said. "It was sort of a disappointment. I was ready to go." [1]

A terminal illness can cause a person to focus on what’s really important in life, enabling him or her to get “ready to go.” But actually, there’s a principle at work here, important for any age or circumstance of life: start with the end in mind. The Gospel presents this life principle in Luke chapter 12. Let’s, you and I, explore it together.

In Luke 12, a crushing crowd of thousands had gathered to hear Jesus teach. There were so many that some were practically bumping into one another. Suddenly a man came forward and demanded, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” It was not uncommon for Jews of the time to take their unsettled disputes to respected rabbis. But Jesus replied, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”

This became a teachable moment and the Lord turned to the huge crowd and said, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” We don’t use the word “covetousness” in our contemporary vocabulary. But we do say the related word “greed.” Covetousness is strong desire to have that which belongs to another. It is forbidden in number 10 of the Ten Commandments. The 10^th Commandment is culturally couched for the time of Moses and tells us: you shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor, including his house, his wife, his servants, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to him (Exodus 20:17).

In modern society it cuts two ways. Greed can be praised. On May 18, 1986, for example, Wall Street trader Ivan Boesky advised the graduating students of UC Berkeley’s School of Business Administration: “Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.” [2] Also in modern society, documentaries depict greed as driving people into carefully constructed, smooth sounding fraudulent schemes that leave behind broken dreams and empty bank accounts for victims, and prison and humiliation for the perpetrators.

At the moment it’s important to see that Jesus is getting at (1) moral principle and (2) one’s worldview that underpins moral principle. Greed and covetousness, he maintains, are grievous violations of the law of God – the moral law inherent in the universe. And, why?, Jesus asks. The reason is the worldview from which this moral principle is derived. Says Jesus: “Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.” (Luke 12:17 MSG). Or, translated into English a little differently, “Your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be.” (Luke 12:17 GNT). Jesus is contrasting his teaching to materialism, which is a fixation on material things. In our day, materialism is also the philosophy which says that matter is the fundamental substance in nature and that everything that happens (including mental activities) is the result of material interactions. “All that matters is what I have” is materialism at the practical level. “Matter and energy are all that exist” is materialism at the philosophical level.

To make his meaning clear, the Lord tells a simple parable:

The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?” And he said, “I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21 ESV)

Jesus here makes two crucial observations centered on what the man said and what God said.

• The supreme allegiance of the covetous person is on self.

The man of the parable focuses on “me” and “my”: what shall I do? I have nowhere to store my crops. I will do this. I will tear down my barns. I will build larger ones. I will store all my grain and my goods. I will say to my soul (the self), “Relax, eat, drink, be merry.” It’s all about me and mine.

In her 1938 novella, Anthem, Ayn Rand, advocates this point of view as a philosophy of life for individuals and society. In Part Eleven her hero has broken free from a collectivist, totalitarian society and proclaims [3]:

My hands . . . My spirit . . . My sky . . . My forest . . . This earth of mine. . . . What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer.

I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect. . . .

Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me. . . .

     

I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet....

What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?

But I am done with this creed of corruption.

I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.

     

This god, this one word:

"I."

Ayn Rand has escaped the collectivist, totalitarian mindset of societies like the old Soviet Union. She has searched for ultimate truth and meaning and believes she has found it. It is “me,” the self. The selfish gene has triumphantly found its maker: itself. And now, what is there to do? To quote the parable, “Then I will say to myself, ‘Lucky man! You have all the good things you need for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!’ ” (Lk 12:19 Good News Translation)

In the parable, Jesus makes a second crucial point.

• The supreme focus of the covetous person is on this world.

The man rich in worldly wealth focuses on his land, his crops, his barns, his grain, his worldly goods and possessions. Ayn Rand’s hero focuses on my hands, my spirit, my sky, my forest, this earth of mine, my body and spirit, my eyes, my mind, my will, my treasures. In the parable, the forgotten Being speaks. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night you will have to give up your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?’” (Lk 12:20 Good News Translation)

Jesus is presenting a life principle here that is applicable in many circumstances: start with the end in mind. I remember so well the 1984 book Managing and some of its pearls of wisdom. Its author, the retired president and much respected manager of a public company, said, “You read a book from beginning to end. You run a business the opposite way. You start with the end and then you do everything you must to reach it.” Jesus wants us to think ahead to our final day on earth (we know not when) and to ask ourselves: what do I consider most important in life? What is of everlasting significance?

At one time in his life, Edward S. Little II was captivated by Ayn Rand’s philosophy:

In the spring of 1962, an awkward and philosophically oriented 15-year-old raised in an utterly secular home, I read The Fountainhead and then Atlas Shrugged. Those books triggered a philosophical (and, unknowingly, spiritual) revolution…. For three years I followed Rand, read every word she published, studied Objectivism and its moral, political, and economic implications . . . Because my family lived in New York City, I was able to enroll in a 20-session “Basics of Objectivism” course at the Nathaniel Branden Institute…. When Branden finished his lecture, Rand herself would often answer questions. Among the memorabilia from that period of my life is a scrap of paper with Rand’s autograph, the letters sharp and angular. I also enrolled in “Objectivist Economics,” taught by a very young Alan Greenspan. [4]

In college, two figures broke Edward Little’s chains to Ayn Rand’s mixture of atheism, materialism, Reason, and the self as the supreme being. In his philosophy class, Little encountered the first figure:

In Rand’s teaching, Aristotle served as a kind of philosophical hero. Plato, with his tendency toward mysticism, represented philosophical depravity for Rand. So I entered college predisposed to reject Plato, and came armed with Objectivist and Aristotelian weapons for the battle. Then I actually read Plato in a philosophy class. I was shocked to find much to commend his vision of a Reality that is more than the reality we can see….

The Phaedo was particularly disturbing, as Plato’s Socrates prepares to die and in the process comforts his friends with an admittedly non-Christian notion of the afterlife. What troubled me most was that it made sense, that the one-dimensional universe of Objectivism did not do justice to the facts. Could Rand be wrong? My certainty began to crumble. [5]

Then, after his mind was opened to the possibility of a Reality beyond what we can see, Little encountered a second figure: Jesus. In his sophomore year, he enrolled in a two-semester “Bible as Literature” course. He was majoring in ancient history, and biblical history figured into the wider picture. The course was taught by a former pastor turned agnostic, who delighted to shake the faith of students using historical-critical methods. But Someone had something else in mind. Little tells us:

Reading the Bible for the first time, encountering the text and laying aside the professor’s debunking attitude, I met a God who laid claim to my life, a Savior who invited (or, more precisely, demanded) my allegiance. Over the course of two semesters, something happened. I can’t precisely date it. But friends tell me that they noticed a change. By the time I was halfway through the New Testament course, I was referring to Jesus in the present rather than the past tense…. Paul describes the experience of his Corinthian converts, and my own experience, with overwhelming and almost inarticulate joy: “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11, RSV). [6]

Jesus confronts us with a choice. Where is your allegiance and my allegiance? Is it to self as supreme? This is covetousness, a very grievous sin. Where is your focus and my focus? Is it to this world as supreme? This is a very grievous philosophical error. After the parable Jesus concluded, “But God said to him, ‘Fool!’ . . . This is how it is with those who pile up riches for themselves but are not rich in God's sight” (Lk 12:21 GNT). Do you close your mind and perceive only part of reality or do you open your mind and acknowledge all of reality?

• For those who are rich toward God, their supreme allegiance is God through Jesus Christ and their supreme focus is God’s kingdom – which is, his rulership, authority, and fatherly care.

A question logically arises. Suppose I want to become rich in God’s sight? How would I do that? Jesus immediately points us in the right direction (Lk 12:22-34).

• “And he said to his disciples . . .” (v 22a). There is only one place to start: discipleship with Jesus. Turn away from self as the rudder steering your life and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. With him you will find forgiveness of sins and power for living. Join his people, the Church, as his disciple. You can as an individual and join a spiritual family.

• “Do not be anxious about your life” (v 22b). Most people aren’t stockpiled with money and don’t have their storehouses bursting from the abundance of material possessions like the rich man of the parable. Some have legitimate concern for enough food, adequate clothing, sufficient shelter, and even physical life, health, and safety. They can feel besieged by worry, nervousness, and anxiety. But, Jesus tells his disciples, if God takes care of little creatures like ravens and lilies, won’t he take much more care of you? So cultivate an attitude of confidence and trust in God in place of worry and anxiety.

• “Seek God’s kingdom” (v 31). The “kingdom” of God is God’s rule through his
Messiah, Jesus. It is his kingly power, authority, sovereignty, glory, and fatherly care. It is both a present reality to accept (Lk 17:20-21) and a future event to anticipant (Lk 19:11-27). Treat the living God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – as the one whom you supremely love. Accept his authority, take note of his presence, believe his teachings, and follow his ethics.

• “Fear not” (v 32). Amid alarming circumstances, continue to cultivate an attitude of quiet confidence and firmly relying trust in the living God.

• “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy” (v 33). Jesus didn’t say, “Sell all your possessions” but “sell your possessions and give to the needy” – that is to say, be generous.

• Have balance. Later, Jesus will give some instruction that is best included here. Because of the contrast in Luke chapter 12 between treasures on earth and treasures in heaven, it might lead to a wrong conclusion if taken in isolation. In Luke 16:8-11 (Good News Translation) the Lord Jesus corrects our misconceptions:

. . . the people of this world are much more shrewd in handling their affairs than the people who belong to the light. . . . make friends for yourselves with worldly wealth, so that when it gives out, you will be welcomed in the eternal home. Whoever is faithful in small matters will be faithful in large ones; whoever is dishonest in small matters will be dishonest in large ones. If, then, you have not been faithful in handling worldly wealth, how can you be trusted with true wealth?

Use commonsense principles of handling money and creating worldly wealth. Be prudent and think long-term, If you’re not honest and dependable in handling worldly wealth, how can you be trusted with treasures laid up in heaven?

What defines your life? Are you rich toward God?

[1] Kristin M. Hall, “Country singer Merle Haggard: still on the road,” Associated Press, September 11, 2014. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/country-singer-merle-haggard-still-road

[2] Lynn Stuart Parramore, “Seven Most Loathsome Commencement Speeches, Salon.com, May 31, 2013.

[3] Ayn Rand, Anthem, 1938 Part Eleven, http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Ayn_Rand/Anthem/Part_Eleven_p1.html and

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Ayn_Rand/Anthem/Part_Eleven_p2.html

[4] Edward S. Little II, “Any Rand Led me to Christ,” Christianity Today, June 2011, Vol. 55, No. 6, Pg 50. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/june/aynrandled.html

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

How should we then live?

• A basin of water and a towel tell the story.

Have you ever asked, “How should I live my life?”

Tonight at a Chinese restaurant, my daughter opened a fortune cookie that had this message: “We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.” Actually, as well, we will never know the spiritual significance of water until we consider certain key teachings of the Gospel.

      1. Water shows: What is God like?

      2. Water shows: Who is Jesus Christ?

      3. Water shows: What must I do now?

      4. Water shows: How should I live my life?

This time we explore the last essential of water from the Gospel According to John.

In John chapter 13, Jesus the Messiah has reached the point of mission critical. He, the sacrificial Passover Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29), has now come to the festival of the Passover in Jerusalem to be offered up for sin. He whose hour had not yet come at the wedding in Cana of Galilee (Jn 2:4) – for him the hour has now come. For him whose body is the temple (visible presence) of God, that “temple” will now be destroyed, but he will raise it up in three days (Jn 2:19). As Moses lifted up the bronze serpent on a pole in the wilderness, so must now Jesus – the Son of Man who descended from heaven – be lifted up upon a cross, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life (Jn 3:13-17).

With a double entendre on his last three words, John the Beloved Disciple, says in verse one: “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end [or “utmost”].” He loved them “to the end” – his death on the cross. And yet, because of the resurrection, there was no end to his love. There is a circle of never ending love. He loves his own to the utmost, everlastingly.

In 1923 Frederick Martin Lehman contemplated this amazing love of God the Son, and then penned a hymn, “The Love of God.” In stanza three he simply stands there in awe:

     

      Could we with ink the ocean fill,

      And were the skies of parchment made;

      Were every stalk on earth a quill,

      And every man a scribe by trade;

      To write the love of God above

      Would drain the ocean dry;

      Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

      Though stretched from sky to sky.

As a literary unit, John 13 is structured like three steps down and three steps up (called a chiasm) [1]:

      Prologue (13:1-5)

      A – Dialogue with Peter (13:6-11)                   A1 – Dialogue with Peter (13:36-28)

         B – “I give you an example” 13:12-15)     B1 – “I give you a new commandment” (13:31-35)

            C – The betrayer (13:16-20)            C1 – The betrayer (13:21-30)

     

This three-fold structure conveys three critical ideas to us.

• Water reveals the most important bath ever (John 13:10).

The story that is about to unfold blends together two uses of water: the religious and the practical. “Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves” (Jn 11:55). The temple courts provided many pools of water for ritual cleansing. But also, in this culture where you walked in sandals on dusty roads, foot washing was performed in domestic settings for personal hygiene and comfort (2 Sam 11:8; Song 5:3) and in domestic settings devoted to hospitality (Gen 18:4: Luke 7:44).

Jesus and the disciples were seated at the table for a meal together before the Passover – the last supper before Jesus was arrested, scourged, and crucified. Jesus, Lord and teacher, stood up from the table, laid aside his outer garments, took a towel and tied it around his waist. To the surprise and shock of the disciples, he poured water into a basin, began to wash the disciples’ feet and wipe them with the towel wrapped around him. Washing people’s feet was a task reserved for people of low estate or for Gentile slaves. So when Jesus got to Peter, an interesting dialogue ensued between Peter (P) and Jesus (J), verses 6-11.

P:   “Lord, do you wash my feet?”

J:    “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”

P:   “You shall never wash my feet.”

J:    “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

P:   “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

J:    “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you (plural) are clean, but not every one of you.”

Apostle John: For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

Finally, Jesus put on (literally “took up”) his outer clothes (v 12). To see the symbolism, it is important to remember that this is now Jesus’ “hour” (v 1). As Jesus had told his disciples, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:23-24). The foot washing deliberately and solemnly recalls the teaching about Jesus being the Good Shepherd [2]. As Jesus “lays aside” his outer clothes for foot washing (Jn 13:4), so Jesus the Good Shepherd “lays aside” his life for his sheep (Jn 10:11,15,17,18). As Jesus “takes up” his outer garments again after foot washing (Jn 13:12), so Jesus the Good Shepherd “takes up” his life again (Jn 10:17). His self-giving love causes him to die as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. His self-giving love causes him to resurrect himself as the living Savior of the world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

Jesus has just solemnly proclaimed, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (v 8). The “water” is his death for sin and his rising to newness of life. He must die and rise again, not the people. He must apply this water by washing people. They cannot do it themselves. To receive this gift of being washed, the disciple must trust in this Good Shepherd, join the fold of God, and follow the Shepherd. This bath of washing which Jesus gives takes place once for all in an individual’s life. The washing of the feet takes place frequently.

Have you been washed in the bath water that Jesus Christ provides? Do you have a part in eternal life? Or, by your neglect or outright refusal, are you in the other group? “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (Jn 3:36).

• Water reveals the greatest danger ever (John 13:8).

To Peter, the Lord Jesus had said, “And you (plural) are clean, but not every one of you” (v 10). Judas Iscariot, the unclean one, had presumably been baptized as a disciple of Christ (Jn 3:22; 4:2). He had shared the common life with Jesus and the other key disciples. At the last supper, he had shared a morsel (Jn 13:26), which later Christians would have seen as a parallel to participating in the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion. And yet he had an evil heart of unbelief to which Satan could enter (Jn 13:27). And Judas betrayed Jesus to the authorities, fulfilling the Old Testament Scripture which said, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me” (Jn 13:18).

When Jesus and his other disciples left the upper room where they had the supper, they went to the Garden of Gethsemane across from the brook Kidron. There Judas (who had left early), having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees (who were carrying lanterns and torches and weapons), found Jesus and arrested him. Judas rejected any participation in the bath of Christ’s death for sins and resurrection unto life. He was washed with physical water but never with spiritual water. Here is the greatest of dangers: knowing that Jesus is the way to eternal life and either neglecting him or rejecting him, and thereby perishing in darkness away from God – who is life – forevermore.

There is a second danger. Those like Peter who have had the spiritual bath can fail miserably and need restoration. Jesus had instructed him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet” (Jn 13:10). Peter needed the washing of the feet – that cleansing from sin and that spiritual empowerment which Jesus supplies daily after the one-time bath. A little later in that same evening, Jesus taught this same principle using a different metaphor (Jn 15:1-11):

I am the true vine . . . Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. . . . By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

After the bath we must pay attention to the Word of Christ – the message of the Old Testament Scriptures centered on Christ and the message of the writings of the apostles (the New Testament). We must depend on Christ. We must pray. We must obey the commandments of Christ, especially the command to love one another as he has loved us. If we cease this daily washing and spiritual empowerment, we can become like Peter. That night after the last supper, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times before a rooster crowed alerting people to the morning. After the resurrection, on the shore of Lake Tiberias, the Lord Jesus restored Peter to active service in the kingdom of God.

Have you undergone the bath from the Lord Jesus but are tempted to live life on your own sometimes? Remember, Christ is the vine and we are the branches. Only by that daily washing of the feet and that daily abiding of the branch in union with the vine – only then can we stay useful and joyful in our earthly pilgrimage.

• Water reveals the most important example ever (John 13:15).

If we have been washed in the once-for-all bath that Jesus gives, how should we live thereafter? Jesus tells us, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you (Jn 13:14-15). As we read this literary unit of the Gospel, we are walking down the literary steps, so to speak. As we walk back up the literary steps, Jesus says it again in a broader way, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. . . . A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:31,34,35).

How does humble, welcoming service (“foot washing”) and the new commandment of love (“love as I have loved”) work out in real life? Let me give an extended example based on a research article [3]. No follower of Christ is flawless, but we are candles in the darkness and this is how one man shines his light.

Adriaan J. Vlok (born December 11, 1937), grew up in a rural region of South Africa. Unable to afford college, he got a job as a filing clerk in the Department of Justice for the Afrikaner National Party government, which was beginning to standardize South Africa’s systems of formal and informal racial segregation into the strict legal framework called apartheid. Rising through the ranks, he became the Minister of Law and Order in South Africa from 1986 to 1991 in the final years of the apartheid era, which ended in 1994.

To appear humane and yet crush black opponents, Adriaan Vlok had his department engage in clandestine tactics of horrible violence. For example, the department formed a secret “counterinsurgency unit” at a farm called Vlakplaas. This unit with the good-sounding name kidnapped, drugged, and murdered anti-apartheid fighters, and then burned their bodies on a barbecue pit. On one occasion this unit caused the disappearance of a whole group of youth activists by packing them into a bus laden with explosives and pushing it off a cliff.

They developed a plan to assassinate Reverend Frank Chikane, a preacher and the peaceful head of an interdenominational Christian group. Why did the unit plot against this peaceful man? The apartheid government believed that his group was harboring armed anti-apartheid militants in its Johannesburg headquarters. What are you going to do to the leader of an outfit like that except to neutralize him?

So in 1989, a pair of Vlok’s policemen broke into Chikane’s suitcase at the Johannesburg airport, where he’d checked it for a trip to Namibia, and laced his underpants with paraoxon, a potent insecticide. As a result, Chikane got so sick that he had to be flown to the United States for advanced medical treatment. Fortunately, he didn’t die. And after South Africa’s transition to a multiracial democracy in 1994, he went on to serve South Africa’s second black president.

As part of the transition to democratic rule in 1994, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed. People – black and white – who had committed crimes against human rights under apartheid were invited to testify. The TRC granted amnesty to most perpetrators such as Vlok, except for a few notorious killers like Eugene de Kock, the primary Vlakplaas assassin. Vlok visited this assassin in prison. Intending to seek his forgiveness, Vlok instead gave into a different urge: the urge to defend himself. “Eugene!” he cried out. “Did I ever tell you to kill somebody?” “No,” de Kock replied. “But you gave me a medal when I killed them.”

Thus, there has been a battle within Adriaan Vlok’s soul: between making excuses and following the path of redemption, truth, forgiveness and reconciliation. It has been a long way, but he is on the right path. The first steps began with a government-sponsored tour of Taiwan in the 1980’s. The Taiwanese took his delegation to a museum that showcased 5,000 years of Han Chinese political, intellectual, and artistic achievements. Yet, back home in South Africa, Chinese immigrants were classified as “colored,” making them second-class citizens, compared to whites. Standing before display cases of delicate Chinese pottery, the folly of apartheid struck him. “I saw then, ‘There must be something wrong. Not with them, but with us.’”

His wife, plagued with depression, became much worse after he retired from public life in 1994. She finally took a pistol and ended her life. Vlok felt devastated. A couple of weeks later a man delivered a card to his home. It said, “In remembrance of Corrie, we have placed a thousand books of New Testaments and psalms.” The man was from the Gideons International, the group which distributes millions of Bibles a year to public spaces.

Incredibly moved by the gesture, he accepted their invitation to a dinner meeting. They asked, “Do you want to join us?” South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission had just informed him it would call him up to testify about his time as police chief. So he declined the invitation to join the Gideons. In Vlok’s words: “I said, ‘I have got a bad history. Horrible stories will come out!’ And they said, ‘Look at the Bible. Moses killed a person, and the Lord used him. David committed adultery, and he killed people, and the Lord used him. Do you still say no?’ So I joined them.”

Adopting the Gideons’ regiment of reading the Bible twice daily (the Old Testament in the morning and the New Testament in the evening), he came to have a deep, living faith in Christ as his Lord and Savior, Christ who died for our sins and rose victoriously from the grave. One particular passage from the Gospel of Matthew gripped him and wouldn’t let him go: “If you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Only then come and offer your sacrifice to God.”

“I realized,” Vlok said, “I had to start making peace with my brother whom I had hurt.” He adopted an unusual method: taking the role of a servant, washing the feet of black people whom he had harmed, and saying, “I have sinned against the Lord and against you. Will you forgive me?” The author of the article which I referenced earlier interviewed Adriaan Vlok in his house. He had opened to the passage from Matthew and read it. She said:

My eyes drifted just above the text. I saw there was another line to the passage, one Vlok hadn’t quoted me. “You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.” I asked him if he was afraid of judgment. “After I die, yes, yes, the Lord will sit in judgment,” he muttered. “But Jesus will be there next to me. If anyone accuses me, He will say: ‘But I already paid the price.’ ”

How shall we live after receiving our bath from Christ? By being like him – living a life of humble, welcoming service (symbolically represented by the foot washing in the upper room at the Last Supper), by paying attention to the Word of Christ (the message of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments), and by loving one another as Christ has loved us.

[1] Mary L. Coloe, “Welcome into the Household of God: The Foot Washing in John 13,” CBQ 66, 2004, pp 400-415.

[2] Ibid. p 407.

[3] Eve Fairbanks, “I Have Sinned Against the Lord and Against You! Will You Forgive Me?”

New Republic, June 18, 2014. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118135/adriaan-vlok-ex-apartheid-leader-washes-feet-and-seeks-redemption

Our Eternal Thirst

• Come and drink the water of life.

What are your greatest longings and deepest yearnings?

In early August, when 400,000 residents in greater Toledo, Ohio’s fourth largest city, were ordered not to drink their water due to contamination, the governor of Ohio told the public, “What’s more important than water? Water’s about life. We know it’s difficult. We know it’s frustrating.” Actually, water is even more crucial to key teachings of the Gospel and spiritual life itself:

      1. Water shows: What is God like?

      2. Water shows: Who is Jesus Christ?

      3. Water shows: What must I do now?

      4. Water shows: How should I live my life?

Today we explore this third essential.

• Water reveals the way to quench our eternal thirst (John 7:37-39).

As John the Apostle unfolds his Gospel about the Word become flesh, he recalls events, conversations, and speeches from the life of Jesus which reveal the fact that spiritual thirst is part and parcel of human nature. Do you have longings? Do you have yearnings? Do you have hungers? Do you have desires pining away in the very depths of your being? You are not alone.

Encountering real-life examples of spiritual thirst

Thirst for ultimate truth and a spiritual center. In John chapter 1, the calling of the first disciples shows the deep human thirst to find the truth around which we can wrap our lives. Andrew, one of the two first disciples, hung around Jesus, came to a determination, then looked up his brother, Simon Peter, and announced his conclusion, “ ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which means Christ)” (1:41). Philip, the next disciple did an assessment and then eagerly told his brother Nathanael, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (1:45). Skeptical, Nathanael investigated and announced his own conclusion personally to Jesus, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (1:49). Through empirical evidence gathered by seeing, hearing, and touch; and through thinking, reasoning, and emotional intelligence, — these first disciples discovered a unique individual: someone who is both fully human and fully God.

If we use the inner self or else something deep within ourselves (god, a life force, a spark of divinity, an impulse of evolution) as the center for our lives, we will ultimately not find a center. We will continue to be thirsty and unsatisfied. Our lives will be erratic and perhaps even eccentric. For many years A. N. Wilson was a leading European atheist. He wrote not only history and novels but also regular attacks on Christianity. But then, in his 50s, he began to realize that all the things that mattered to him most — art, music, culture, meaning and morality, truth and justice — were all groundless, foundation-less, on his atheism. In a brave move, he began a search, followed it wherever it would lead, and became a Christian. In a British weekly he wrote:

[When I had dinner in Washington, DC with Christopher Hitchens,] Hitchens was excited to greet a new convert to his non-creed and put me through a catechism before uncorking some stupendous claret. “So – absolutely no God?” “Nope,” I was able to say with Moonie-zeal. “No future life, nothing ‘out there’?” “No,” I obediently replied. At last! I could join in the creed shared by so many (most?) of my intelligent contemporaries in the western world – that men and women are purely material beings (whatever that is supposed to mean), that “this is all there is” (ditto), that God, Jesus and religion are a load of baloney . . . [1]

But then he began to see things differently.

How could it have come about that groups of anthropoid apes developed the amazing morphological complexity of a single sentence, let alone the whole grammatical mystery which has engaged Chomsky and others in our lifetime and linguists for time out of mind? No, the existence of language is one of the many phenomena – of which love and music are the two strongest – which suggest that human beings are very much more than collections of meat. They convince me that we are spiritual beings, and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true. As a working blueprint for life, as a template against which to measure experience, it fits. [2]

Thirst for meaning and purpose. In John chapter 2, the wedding at Cana in Galilee shows – in an off-handed way – the deep human thirst to find meaning in life. Ordinary people were enjoying some of the simple pleasures that make ordinary, mundane life worthwhile: conjugal love and celebrating with others. Jesus, his mother and his disciples had been invited. A problem was about to create an abrupt, unhappy ending to the festivities. His mother ran to Jesus and said, “The wine’s run out. Quick, do something.” Immediately she turned to the servants and said, “Whatever he says, do it.”

Jesus quietly ordered that the six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification (each with a capacity of twenty or thirty gallons) be filled with water. Then he said to the servants, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” In this first miraculous sign which Jesus performed to meet human need and to display his deity and Messiahship, the water had changed to wine – and it was of the highest quality, “the good stuff.” In life we have a longing for meaning and purpose: simple pleasures, personal relationships, and moments of happiness. Can we live by Richard Dawkins’ atheistic worldview of “no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference”[3]? In the same article A.N. Wilson also wrote:

When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love. It is not that (as they believe) they have rumbled the tremendous fraud of religion – prophets do that in every generation. Rather, these unbelievers are simply missing out on something that is not difficult to grasp. Perhaps it is too obvious to understand; obvious, as lovers feel it was obvious that they should have come together, or obvious as the final resolution of a fugue. [4]

Thirst for an ethical life and a worthwhile destiny. In John chapter 3, the night visit of Nicodemus shows the deep human thirst to find an intellectually and emotionally satisfying answer to the quest for an ethical life and a worthwhile destiny. To understand the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, there are several things to keep in mind about Nicodemus. (1) Nicodemus was a teacher of the Old Testament [the Hebrew Scriptures] and well-versed in it (John 3:10). A religious discussion would recall to his mind passages of Scripture. (2) He was a member of the ruling national Council (the Sanhedrin), which handled judicial, religious, and administrative matters for the Jews. He was someone who thought through issues. (3) He was a fair-minded man. Later on, when the chief priests and Pharisees (i.e., the Council) desired to Jesus arrested and wanted to condemn him without first-hand knowledge, Nicodemus spoke up, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” The majority silenced him with a put-down, “Are you from Galilee too?” (John 7:51-52).

(4) He was a Pharisee. The Pharisees believed in a future resurrection of all peoples and in the existence of angels and spirits (Acts 23:8). They were religiously zealous and worked to be numbered among the righteous at the resurrection of the dead (Phil 3:5-6). They had a great interest in ceremonial cleansing and washing with water (Mark 7:3-4). They held positions of religious authority, were very concerned about their own public recognition and personal honor, and were very scrupulous about keeping both the Law of Moses and the tradition of the elders [later called the oral law] (Matt 23). They refused to participate in John the Baptist’s baptism of repentance from sin in preparation for the coming of the Lord (Luke 7:29-30). Although, in any group, people can act as individuals, this is Jesus’ description of a typical Pharisee (Luke 18:10-12):

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”

Now let’s listen in on the conversation in John chapter 3. Nicodemus has chosen to have a quiet, personal meeting with Jesus at night and begins, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs [miracles] that you do unless God is with him.” The ensuing discussion has a point of agreement between Nicodemus the Pharisee and Jesus: the kingdom of God. Although God rules now, there is a coming resurrection and judgment in which the righteous will enter the kingdom (ruler-ship) of God, which will be like a great banquet – life at its fullness in the presence of God. A wonderful future destiny for me and my fellow humans is one of the great thirsts of life. Nicodemus had such a thirst.

But how shall we obtain such a wonderful future called “the kingdom of God”? As a Pharisee, Nicodemus thought he had the answer: accept the God of Israel and circumcision. And live your life zealously according to the rules of the Law of Moses as well as by all the traditions handed down from the elders, including ceremonial washing with water. The crowds might be way off the mark. Certain occupations like tax collecting may lead one to a lifestyle that dishonors God. But, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or like Jewish tax collectors working for the Romans. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”

Nicodemus had a rude awakening. Jesus announced, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” By the idea that “you must be born again,” Jesus sweeps away all of Nicodemus’ scrupulous striving for the perfect keeping of law and ceremony and, instead, Jesus demands that Nicodemus first be re-made by the power of God. He who was too good to take part in John’s baptism of repentance from sin now finds himself against an impenetrable barrier. You can never make yourself good enough. God must re-make you.

Nicodemus countered, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus explained, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

As a long-time teacher of Scripture, Nicodemus knew well the Old Testament passages about water and the Spirit:

For I will pour water on the thirsty land,

and streams on the dry ground;

I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,

and my blessing on your descendants. (Isa 44:3)

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezek 36:25-28)

“Born again” – re-made by the power of God – means being “born of water and the Spirit.” Being “born of water and the Spirit,” according to Ezekiel 36, keeps the goal of having an ethical life – walking in the ways and laws of the Lord.  But this worthy goal requires following the divinely prescribed order. God must act first. God must cleanse us with spiritual water. God must renew us by giving us his Spirit. Then and only then will we be his people and he will be our God.

How can one participate in this water and the Spirit? After other give and take in this conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus concludes, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). It is clear from John 12:23, 32, that the lifting up of Jesus Christ means his lifting up onto the cross, his crucifixion, his death as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Again, this crucifixion as the Lamb of God for sin is something that Nicodemus cannot do. Only Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God, can do it. Likewise, you and I cannot do it either. Only Jesus can do it.

What can Nicodemus do? What can we do? It is left for us to believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And, after being cleansed with spiritual water from God and being given the Spirit of the living God to live in us, the we can and then we will (by God’s kindness and mercy) live that ethical life for him and through him. The cleansing is from God through Christ. The Holy Spirit is from God through Christ. The power of an ethical life is from God through Christ.

Do you have a thirst for ethical living and an eternal destiny that could be described as a great banquet? Here is A.N. Wilson again:

I haven’t mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler’s neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to. [5]

Thirst for inner freedom and change. In John chapter 4, the encounter with the woman at the well shows the deep human thirst to be able to face our past misdeeds and to change for the better.

The sun was beating down at high noon as Jesus, weary from his trip from Jerusalem (province of Judea), sat down at Jacob’s well in the town of Sychar (province of Samaria). Soon, back in Jerusalem, he – a Jew – would be lambasted by being called a Samaritan and demon-possessed (John 8:48). That’s because the typical Jew regarded Samaritans as mixed blood compromisers of Jewish monotheism, who had changed the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) to say that true worshippers should worship the true God on Mount Gerizim, located in Samaria, rather than in Jerusalem.

It was a common Jewish belief that Samaritans were ritually unclean and that using common eating and drinking implements would transfer the ritual uncleanness to somebody who is clean and thereby render him unclean. The disciples, having learned from Jesus that impurity is moral impurity and arises from the human heart – the personality center with its mind, emotions, will and conscience – went to buy food from the Samaritan town of Sychar, leaving Jesus alone at the well.

A woman, all alone with a water jar, approached the well. An interesting conversation ensued between the woman (W) and Jesus (J). Every statement below is a direct quote from John 4.

J:    “Give me a drink.”

W:             “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”

J:    “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

W:             “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

J:    “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

W:             “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

J:    “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

W:             “I have no husband.”

J:    “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

W:             “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

J:    “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

W: “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”

J:    “I who speak to you am he.”

Just then the disciples came back with food and the conversation abruptly ended. In her excitement over discovering that the promised Messiah had come, the woman left her water jar and dashed off to town. She told the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” People starting coming out to meet Jesus and he stayed in town for two days. Afterwards they told the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

The Samaritans were a religious people and believed the promise of Holy Scripture that God would raise up another prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15) and that this prophet is the Chosen One, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. The woman – burdened with having gone in and out of so many marriages and now living with a man with whom she was not married – was confronted at Jacob’s well by a person who forced her to face her burdensome past. Perhaps she had shame and guilt, and that was why she picked the time of day to go and get water when hardly anyone else would be there. We don’t know. But we know that somehow she realized that this man also had the solution to meet her need for inner freedom and change. He had spiritual water that would quench her spiritual thirst, give her eternal life, and enable her to worship God in spirit and in truth, not only in Jerusalem and in Mt. Gerizim but everywhere followers of Jesus Christ gather.

In late December 2008 column for The Times of London, Matthew Parris visited Malawi, came back to London, and wrote a column, “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God”:

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi . . .

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good….

Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing….

[As a child living in rural African villages and cities, I saw Africans before and after conversion to Christ.] The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall….

[The Christians had] honesty, diligence and optimism in their work. . . . Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man’s place in the Universe that Christianity had taught. [6]

Finding the living water that will quench spiritual thirst

In John chapter 9, Jesus went to Jerusalem to attend the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths, Hebrew sukkot), one of three festivals which Jewish men were commanded by the Torah to travel to Jerusalem and keep. In Jerusalem the last day of the feast was the seventh day. In the Jewish Diaspora the last day was the eighth day. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 gives traditional background about this festival:

The libation of water (Suk. iv. 1, 42b) was a ceremony to which grave importance was attached…. God is made to say (R. H. 16a), “Pour out water before Me on the festival in order that your rains for the year may be blest.” A prayer for rain is recited on the eighth day (Ta'an. i. 1, 2; Ber. v. 2). The practise is assigned an ancient origin in the Talmud (see Yer. Suk. iv., beginning; Suk. 34a, 54b); it is said to be referred to in Isa. xii. 3 (Suk. 48b, 51a) . . . [7]

At the last day of the festival a priest has poured out water, which is associated with Isaiah 12:3, “With joy you (plural) will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Also on the last day, priests read to the people from Zechariah 14 and Ezekiel 47, which talk of rivers of living water flowing forth from the Temple in the end time [8]. With such thoughts in people’s minds, the Gospel tells us (John 7:37-39):

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart [literally, “belly”] will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

It is a bit ambiguous as to whether “belly” refers to the believer or to Jesus. Because of the apostolic comment about the Spirit being given through Jesus, it is preferable to see “belly” as referring to Jesus. So the passage pictures people who have come to the Feast of Tabernacles as those who thinking about spiritual thirst. And Jesus identifies himself as the one who can forever satisfy that thirst with rivers of living river (symbolic of the Holy Spirit) flowing from him. The Holy Spirit, as we’ve seen from John chapter 3, is the one who comes with cleansing from the pollution of sin and comes with power over sin to enable us to live pure and truthful and loving lives.

A half century ago a teenager was spiritually parched and in desperate need of the water of life. The Christian Standard tells his story:

About 50 years ago in India, a Christian named Fred David visited a forlorn 17-year-old in the hospital. The young man David visited was hospitalized because he had tried to end his own life by drinking poison.

Fortunately, the attempted suicide failed and the teenager was going to recover. Fred handed a Bible to the patient’s mom, showing her the page containing John 14:19, where Jesus says, “Because I live, you also will live.”

The young man in the hospital bed was Ravi Zacharias.

No one there that day—least of all Ravi himself—knew he would grow up to become, in the words of Charles Colson, “the great apologist of our time.” Zacharias credits Fred David with leading him to Christ and urging him to preach the gospel. Loving actions, not just logical arguments, changed his life. [9]

Do you spiritually thirst? Come and drink the water of life from Jesus Christ. Believe in him and you will find your thirsts satisfied: the thirst for ultimate truth and a spiritual center, the thirst for meaning and purpose, the thirst for an ethical life and a worthwhile destiny, the thirst for inner freedom and change, and the thirst for eternal life.

[1] A. N. Wilson, “Why I Believe Again,” New Statesman, April 2, 2009. http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism

[2] Ibid.

[3] Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden (New York: Basic Books, 1995), p 133.

[4] Wilson, op. cit.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Matthew Parris, “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God,” The Times [of London], December 27, 2008. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/matthewparris/article2044345.ece

[7] “Tabernacles, Feast of,” Isidore Singer (ed.), Jewish Encyclopedia (12 volumes; New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1901-1906). http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14185-tabernacles-feast-of#anchor9

[8] Craig S. Keener, “Rivers of living water in John 7:37-38,” Bible Background; Research and Commentary by Dr. Craig Keener, August 22, 2011. http://www.craigkeener.com/rivers-of-living-water-in-john-737-38/

[9] David Faust, “A Day with Ravi Zacharias,” Christian Standard 6/14/14.

http://christianstandard.com/2014/06/a-day-with-ravi-zacharias/. Faust says: “Zacharias recounts the story about Fred David’s hospital visit in his autobiography, Walking from East to West (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), and in a first-person article “Antidote to Poison” in Christianity Today, April 26, 2013.

Memory and history, and the first step of the Gospel

•Memory and History.

One nephew of mine asked about the relationship of memory and history. Because this has been an important topic in biblical studies since the turn of the century, I’d like to do a post on the subject.

1. Memory is recalling experiences from the past. These may be either your personal experiences or else the experiences you’ve heard or read from other people, including formal education. The recalling may be random or organized and may involve merely recalling or both recalling and retelling.

2. History is a subset of memory. History is the selective retelling and/or recording of memories (recalling of experiences from the past) that have significance. These are told by a speaker or writer who has a particular point of view which will somehow shape and color the retelling. The experiences may or may not have happened as the history teller says. The retelling involves oral history in pre-literate societies and includes documents in literate societies. When history tellers believe that there is such a thing as truth, they typically strive to be “objective” and evidence-based. However, point of view and selection of which evidence to tell remain.

3. Historians of all stripes now accept this as a truism: “All history – meaning all the historians write, all historiography – is an inextricable combination of fact and interpretation, the empirically observable and the intuited or constructed meaning.” — Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans, 2006) PDF version p 12.

4. History can be told through various forms, including poetry. For instance, as a child in Midwestern United States, I learned this school age rhyme:

In fourteen hundred ninety-two

Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He had three ships and left from Spain;

He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.

He sailed by night; he sailed by day;

He used the stars to find his way.

5. Families, ethnic groups, societies, and nations typically have histories that serve as a self-identity for the group. In the U.S. we have “the American story.” Religions and cultures provide an overarching framework by which individuals may view reality. In postmodern theory this framework is called a metanarrative (a grand history or grand story). Postmodernism proposes a grand narrative of the end of all grand narratives in favor of small, local narratives. It thereby has its own metanarrative and, as a philosophy, is self-refuting.

•History and the Gospel.

Because of my interest in biblical studies, I would to add several particulars.

6. In an address to the International Congress of Old Testament Studies meeting in Edinburgh in 1974, M. H. Goshen-Gottstein of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem did a survey of academic Bible study from 1500 to 1974 [1]. This is one of his conclusions (and I paraphrase): Since World War II, in order for Jews (liberal and conservative), Christians (liberal and conservative), unbelievers and atheists to have harmony in the academic study of the Bible and in their scholarly meetings, the various disciplines related to Bible study deal only with secondary issues rather than the main issue, which is: what is the message of the Bible?

For Jews, Goshen-Gottstein cites an old midrash which said, “Since the Holy One, praised be He, foresaw that the nations are going to translate the Torah and read it in Greek, and they will say ‘We are Israel’ . . . He said unto them: ‘You maintain that you are my children? . . . Only those who guard my ‘mysteries’ are my children.’ What is that? The Mishnah.” [2]

In the New Testament Jesus Christ said, “The (Hebrew) Scriptures . . . testify about me” (John 5:39). Goshen-Gottstein wrote:

It should be borne in mind that no system of biblical theology can exist in vacuo. Exegesis cannot be divorced from theology—and vice versa. . . . Franz Delitzsch [spelled out the very truth, which] Luther had expressed centuries earlier: if the exegete ceases even for one moment to disregard the presence of Christ in the Old Testament as an exegete, he ceases being a Christian. [3]

Unbelieving humanists say with the pre-Socratic philosopher, Protagoras, “Humanity is the measure of all things.” That is, no truth exists except what individuals or groups deem to be the truth. Atheists adhere to materialism and deny any possibility of miracles or revelation from God. “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” [4]

[1] M. H. Goshen-Gottstein, “Christianity, Judaism, and Modern Bible Study,” Supplement to Vetus Testamentum 28 (1975), pp 69-88.

[2] Ibid., p 75.

[3] Ibid., p 81.

[4] Carl Sagan, “Cosmos: A Personal Journey” (TV series), 1980, Episode 1.

7. In “Story as History – History as Story; The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History” (2000) Samuel Byrskog shows that Greco-Roman historians – such as Thucydides, Polybius, Josephus, and Tacitus – believed that true history could be written only while events were still within living memory, and they valued as their sources the oral reports of direct experiences of the events by participants. And it was better yet that the historian was one of those participants. [Bauckham, PDP version p 15]

8. In the New Testament, the four gospels and Acts have the genre of ancient biography and history. In 2006 Richard Bauckham, New Testament professor at St. Andrews University in Scotland (now emeritus), came out with a book, “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony” (referenced above.) I now quote from an unpublished lecture of Bauckham’s available on his website as “Denver.pdf.” The lecture was given after the publication of the book. Bauckham says:

The first point I want to make is that the Gospels are not based on what detached observers of the events said, but on what participants in the events remembered and recounted. One modern response to that could be to say that it’s very subjective, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be much better to hear the evidence of uninvolved observers?

Well, ancient historians certainly did not think so. What they valued was the testimony of eyewitness participants in the events, people who could speak of the events, as it were, from the inside. Moreover, this is what oral historians today are after: they want to know what it was like for people involved in the events. The detached observer often doesn’t remember much anyways, while there’s a lot that we simply could not know about historical events except from insiders.

Such insiders are, of course, people who were affected by the events. In the case of the events narrated in the Gospels, for those who told the stories. In the book [Jesus and the Eyewitnesses] I use as a kind of parallel the modern example of testimony by survivors of the Holocaust. [Without the testimony of survivors, we wouldn’t know what it really was like.]

9. Skeptics use ridicule as the tool of choice to defeat people who dare to defend biblical history as true history. For example, Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor, University of Sheffield, England, denies the historicity of Abraham and the patriarchs, Moses and the Exodus, Israel’s wandering in the wilderness and conquest of Canaan. He is doubtful about the existence of David and Solomon. In the article, “Biblical History and Cultural Memory” (April 2009) http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/memory.shtml he writes:

For it is still the common popular view that the Bible relates real events, and this belief is the result of complacency, laziness, and poor education about the Bible among those for whom biblical scholarship is alien (this includes a few of my university colleagues). Nevertheless, among biblical scholars, we should recognize that the major differences in evaluation of biblical narratives between “conservatives” and “radical” (or whatever the terms) can nearly always be identified with the role and importance of the biblical story as part of contemporary Jewish or Christian cultural memory.

That is to say, only skeptics know what the real events of history are. All the rest of us are either complacent, lazy, and poorly educated or else we are scholars driven by religious ideology. In contrast, educated skeptics are, in the field of history, as pure as the driven snow and their thinking is free from ideology.

The first step of the Gospel is humility and that first step is one step that no skeptic will take. Jesus said (Luke 18:10-14):

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

The skeptic walks the earth and proclaims, “I am so very thankful that I’m engaged, diligent, and well educated, and that I’m not like those Christian scholars over there on and off campus: humble and praying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.'"