Tag: faith

The Ones We Embrace

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn Inspiration, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Who knew that a “thumbs up” would become one of the most recognizable of international hieroglyphs.

Never before has humanity been able to say so much with so little: enter the emoticons. With these little symbols we are able to communicate the vast range and subtlety of human emotion, evaluate our interest, announce our disdain or pleasure.

Imagine, if you will, that we applied the emoticon to actual life circumstances: walking down the street I give a thumbs up to show approval for someone eating their lunch; or I displayed a red frowny face when overhearing a conversation in passing; or, I hugged myself when hearing something nice, or eat something yummy.

I would surely gain more followers: some police officers, maybe an investigator or two, perhaps even a therapist. Not at all pleasant.

How has emoticon shorthand changed relationships? Perhaps a question best answered by social anthropologists. Still, as a shepherd, I do have some thoughts.

The Lord said of Abraham:

אַבְרָהָם אֹהֲבִֽי

Recorded in Isaiah 41:8, these two Hebrew words are often translated as “Abraham my friend,” slightly differently, “Abraham my beloved,” or a little deeper, “Abraham whom I embrace.” The word translated friend above is אָהַב/ahav, meaning to love, desire, breathe after, beloved, or friend.

The Torah says that Abraham “walked with God” (Gen. 17:1). Abraham had relationship with the Lord. They walked, talked, interacted, and lived together; apart from emoticons: real, personal emotion and intimacy.

Social media was already radically changing human relationships. Now, coupled with a pandemic (at the time of this writing), many of our relationships have been reduced to emoticons, text messages, or socially distant interaction. It has rekindled, in many of us, a strong desire for the closeness of a handshake, a friendly embrace, and crowded congregational fellowship.

In the gospel of John, 15:12-17, Yeshua/Jesus calls us friends, those He embraces, just as the Father called Abraham His friend. As our Emmanuel, Yeshua is ever-present with us (Matt. 28:20), in living relationship.

When speaking these words, Yeshua was reclining with the disciples at the Passover Meal: close, sharing food, remembering the exodus, teaching, communing over the bread and cup, creating the embrace of friendship; and real emotion as the disciples wondered who would betray Him (Jn. 13:25-26).

Emoticon approval, in most cases, keeps a distance between us. Yet, in so many other instances, they introduce a door to deeper communication leading to a real embrace, a real friendship; with living faces, living emotions, and living experience of the human dynamic in friendship.

While social media has a place in modern society, it cannot, and should not replace living, breathing social interaction. And what many of us are most certain of: it will not.

Be well. Shalom.

Pacesetter

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn InspirationLeave a comment

Cross-country was not my sport of choice. Just days before the start of my junior high career, a friend and I showed up for tryouts to join the team. Neither of us were runners, so we expected to be quickly sent packing.

We made the team. Well, cross-country is one of those sports in most schools where, if you show up with a functioning heart, you’re in.

Running became a passion. Largely due to the influence of the senior team members, the older kids, the high school guys. One in particular made a lasting impression.

Coach would use him, and others, to take groups of us out for long training runs around town – two of those loops took me past the Messiah Congregation building.

On these runs, Dave – not his actual name – who was a natural athlete, would set the pace for us. Explaining, based on specific body type and experience, how to approach the terrain, and adjust our pace and posture.

He would effortlessly go out ahead of us, causing us to pursue, let us pass, get well ahead of him, only to catch us, and ease in at that quicker pace to help us breathe, maintain, endure, and ultimately finish the race.

He was our pacesetter.

The author of Hebrews writes, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).

This “cloud of witnesses” has been greatly misunderstood; often imagined as people sitting in the gallery watching a play. This is not the case at all, as Hebrews 11 confirms, they were people pursuing God in faith, running the race. They are not on the course now, but they know it well, and have pointed the way.

They are pacesetters in faith. Those who came before us, as examples of how to run the race set before us. Not perfect in themselves, or their lives, they looked for the finish line, that city built by the Lord. They had their struggles, faults, missteps and stumbles, but they kept the Lord always before them.

This cloud of witnesses are not only historic, a relic of antiquity; we have pacesetters with us even now. Those who have been running in faith a little longer, have had more time in the texts, prayer, and worship. They have made it over more hills and through more valleys.

They are there, around us, helping us to see what is ahead, helping us to adjust our stride, our breath, and our posture. They are not perfect, but they are in the race, helping us all to mature in Messiah (Eph. 4:12-14).

Remember, the coach, the Holy Spirit, may send them out on the run to help us learn the subtleties of faith to endure to the end. They are not there as a rebuke, but as brethren training for and running the race.

Be well. Shalom.

Chiseling Stones

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn InspirationLeave a comment

Labor can be tedious. Trying to find meaning in mundane, repetitive tasks, exhausting. Walking in the Spirit while in the workforce, or tending to the home front, tiresome.

Paul, recognizing the challenge of finding the Spirit in the midst of the worldly, wrote, “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” (Col. 3:23).

I often meditate on the construction of the second Holy Temple. The enormity of the project. The years of constriction. Then the response to seeing the foundation of the second Temple by those who had seen the first? They wept; because it did not measure up (Ezra 3:12).

Imagine if your only task was to chisel stones. Day after day: hammer to chisel. Not tasked with the finishing work, you labor in the dust and heat. Yet, your labor apparently pales in comparison to what had come before. Devastating.

Still, the Lord said, “The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts” (Hag. 2:9).

How could the glory of the second surpass that of the first?

It would be personally visited by the Lord Himself, not in presence, but in person (Mal. 3:1).

The stones mindlessly chiseled. The dust filling the air. The scorching heat. It all served a purpose, more grand than could be imagined: Emmanuel walking on those very stones.

Today, as Paul tells us, we are a habitation of God personally visited, and in dwelt by His Son (I Cor. 3:16), chiseled by the Holy Spirit. Yet, the labor isn’t to building up and out, but to be present as Yeshua reaches through us to the next living stone to be chiseled out of this world for His advancing Kingdom.

When you recognize how He has reformed you into a living stone, a living presence in His dwelling, those hours with the chisel seem to fade away as one more appears before Him, and is ushered into His Kingdom.

Be well. Shalom.