Friday, August 15
John 2.1-12: The evangelist writes of this miracle: “This, the beginning (arche) of his signs, Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and he manifested his glory—kai phanerosen ten doxsen avtou—and his disciples began to believe [aorist tense: epistevsan] in him.”
This is not just the “first” of Jesus’ signs, it is the arche, the “principle,” the font from which the subsequent signs come forth. It is the transformational sign; it reveals the glory of Christ in such a way that his disciples, who have been with him only one week at this point, begin to believe in him.
The verb phaino (to reveal, manifest) is the root word for our English words “fantastic,” “fanatic,” and, simply “fan.” The disciples of Jesus start to become “fans,” fanatics, because they have perceived the transformation of the water into wine.
It was just inert water at one moment, but then suddenly it becomes alive. Wine is a living thing. The fermentation in the wine means that it is a living reality, and the transformation of water into wine signifies the mystery of the Resurrection.
This transition of the chemical to the biochemical is what catches the attention of the disciples. This is really a new thing, and they begin to believe in him.
I suggest to you that this transformation is the meaning of Christmas. And this suggestion prompts me to speak of the person first named in the story, because this story depends very much on his presence and initiative at this wedding feast.
The Mother of Jesus—John never names her—is sensitive to the shortage of wine at the feast, a circumstance perhaps caused by the unexpected appearance of Jesus new disciples, disciples he acquired only within the previous week. The text says that the Mother of Jesus was “invited.” It does not say that Jesus and his disciples were invited. It simply says that they showed up. I have always suspected that their crashing the wedding feast may have been the reason the wine ran short.
The Mother of Jesus who first notices this, and she immediately assumes a mediating and intercessory on behalf of the newly-weds.
First, she speaks to Jesus on their behalf.
Second, she speaks to the waiters on Jesus’ behalf: “Do whatever he tells you.”
This is her permanent role in the lives of Christians. She speaks to her Son on our behalf, and she speaks to us on his behalf. The example of her life imposes on us the obligation to “do whatever he tells you.”
This prayer and this obedience are not incidental to the transformation that takes place during the story. Water is transformed into wine whenever the Mother of Jesus intercedes for those in need. This is the reason that Christians, from the earliest days of the Church, have brought their concerns to the Mother of the Lord, the same Mother who met with the Apostles in the upper room to await, in prayer, the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church.
Besides God, of course, she is the one who makes Christmas a reality instead of just an idea. Her assent to God in obedience—“bed it done unto me”—becomes the model of all Christian service.
Saturday, August 16
Acts 24.1-21: Paul now makes his defense before an official representative of the Roman government. To be his prosecutor, the Sanhedrin put forward a trained orator, Tertullus, who begins his argument by attempting to ingratiate Felix. It is shameless. When he credits Felix’s administration with the blessings of peace (24:2), for instance, the statement is true only in the sense that Felix had rather ruthlessly suppressed rebel uprisings and acts of terrorism (cf. Josephus, Jewish War 2.13.2 [252]). Tertullus diplomatically passes over those activities of Felix which effectively fomented rebellion and terrorism, those displays of his administration’s rapacity and harshness that would in due course lead to the Jewish rebellion against Rome.
Tertullus, aware of the attitude of Felix toward anything smacking of sedition, endeavors to portray Paul as a sort of revolutionary. The allegedly seditious party represented by Paul and here called the Nazarenes, is described as a “heresy” (24:5; cf. 24:14; 26:5; 28:22). This is hardly the first occasion on which Paul is portrayed as a troublemaker (cf. 16:20; 17:6).
The opening sentence of Paul’s rebuttal is an exercise in irony that may, without exaggeration, be paraphrased as follows: “Well, there you have it, your Honor, you already know what these Jews are like, so you surely are not impressed by these trumped-up accusations.”
In the course of Paul’s argument we learn that only twelve days have elapsed since his arrival in Jerusalem, a sum attained simply by the compound of seven (21:27) and five (24:1).
Explaining that he has come to Jerusalem solely as a pilgrim (“to worship” in 21:11) and to bring aid for the poor (21:17), Paul makes three points by way of “defense” (apologoumai in 21:10): First, no witnesses have testified to the charges brought against him (24:12-13,19). Second, he is, and has always lived as, a loyal, religious Jew. This is a scoring point, which Paul emphasizes by mentioning the Law and prophets (24:14). Because the Sadducees do not accept the prophetic books of the Bible as canonical, Paul is appealing once again to the judgment of the Pharisees. Third, Paul shares in the hope of the resurrection of the dead, a standard doctrine taught by the Pharisees (24:15,21) and which he himself had proclaimed before the Sanhedrin. As in his earlier appearance before that body, Paul is endeavoring to draw attention to an internal doctrinal split among his accusers.
Sunday, August 17
Acts 24.22—25.12: Felix hardly knows what to make of all this. Here are all these warring groups among the Jews — Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Herodians. And now this new group they call the Nazarenes. Who can make sense of it all? Who would want to adjudicate all these religious disputes? Feeling that he needs more concrete evidence about this Paul, Felix postpones a decision until Lysias should arrive at Caesarea to give testimony in the matter (24:22), and Paul, meanwhile, may continue to receive visitors freely while in custody. At least this is what Felix says. Since we hear nothing about Lysias ever coming to Caesarea, however, we begin to suspect that a certain amount of foot-dragging has commenced.
In fact, hearing about this collection of money that Paul and his companion had recently brought to the Holy Land, Felix is hoping for a bribe (24:26), a detail in Luke’s story that fits in very well with what we learn about Felix from other writers of the period. Two years pass (57-59/60), and Paul is still in prison. During this time he writes the epistles to the Ephesians, the Colossians, and Philemon. He receives many visitors, including Aristarchus, Tychicus, Mark, Jesus Justus, Demas, and Epaphras (Colossians 4:7-14). Luke the physician, who was in Jerusalem at the time of Paul’s arrest, comes to Caesarea to look after his favorite client (cf. Colossians 4:14; Philemon 24; Acts 27:2).
At the end of the two years, Felix is succeeded by Portius Festus, who inherits Paul as a bit of unfinished business. This new procurator, a conscientious man chiefly remembered for his efforts to stamp out the terrorism prevalent in the Middle East during that time (cf. Josephus, Jewish War 2.14.1 [271-272]; Antiquities 2.8.9-10 [182,185]), must deal with Paul as the first chore of his two years in office (59-61/62). He does so in less than a fortnight. The authorities in Jerusalem, of course, want Paul to be tried there, all along planning that Paul would never reach the city for his trial. The times are treacherous.
The substance of Paul’s defense (apologoumenou) in this section is that he has violated no law, whether of the Jewish religion or of the Roman Empire (25:8). His accusers, moreover, have not met their burden of proof (25:7). Festus, however, unwilling to offend the Jewish leadership so early in his administration, proposes a compromise: a trial at Jerusalem, over which the governor himself would preside (25:9).
Paul will have none of this compromise. He already stands before an imperial court as a Roman citizen; why should he forego that privilege in order to expose himself to a Jewish lynch mob? Therefore, he appeals his case to Rome. It is worth noting, in verse 11, Paul’s explicit recognition of the state’s proper authority to use the death penalty, the “right of the sword” (jus gladii), on certain classes of criminals. This position is identical to the one earlier espoused by Paul in Romans 13:1-4. Accordingly, the Christian Church, even when discouraging recourse to capital punishment in practice (in the Byzantine Empire, for instance), has always recognized, as a matter of clear principle, the state’s God-given, biblically affirmed authority to put certain criminals to death.
The response of Festus, taken with counsel, accedes to Paul’s legal appeal to a higher court.
Monday, August 18
Mark 12.28-34: The Pharisees, perhaps not entirely displeased with the discomfiting of the Sadducees, meet again among themselves. One of their number, likely representing the rest, approaches Jesus to test him.
The rabbinic tradition counted up to 613 Commandments in the Torah, 248 of them positive (“you shall”) and 365 of them negative (“you shall not”)—one for each day of the year. They were not considered all to be of the same weight. The prohibition against idolatry, for instance, clearly carried more weight than laws about the maintenance of a man’s sideburns.
Jesus answers the questioner by reciting part of the Shema, which devout Jews recited several times each day (Deuteronomy 6:5We notice that Mark’s text includes the whole Shema. Jesus cites only two positive commandments, not the prohibitions. Love is the fundamental commandment on which all the others rest.
As the Sadducees had failed to notice the implications of Exodus 3:14-15, so the Pharisees had somehow missed the true meaning of (and relationship between) Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Not really loving God, they have also not loved their neighbor, whom they were currently plotting to kill. They were not rendering unto God the things that are God’s.
The Apostle John reverses the order of these two commandments, not in an absolute sense, but in the sense that the second commandment is the easier to check on. He writes, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21).
The inquirer had asked only about the Torah, but Jesus says that these two commandments dominate not only the Torah but also the prophets.
Acts 25.13-27: After this decision of Festus there follows another scene, Paul’s somewhat unofficial hearing before King Agrippa II and his sister/mistress Berenice. The purpose of this hearing is to help Festus identify the charges for which Paul will be sent to Rome for trial.
Jesus had already outlined the apologetic process described here: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake” (Luke 21.12). Now Paul, having been tried before a synagogue and a governor, appears before a king.
Tuesday, August 19
Mark 12.35—13:2: Since the Lord’s enemies, completely foiled by His answers, dared not ask Him any more questions (verse 34), Jesus turns the tables by putting to them a question of His own. Indeed, this question, which touches His true identity, evokes the theological problem at the heart of this whole chapter: Just who is Jesus? Jesus has been picking at that point in several of His confrontation with these enemies: the matter of his “authority” (11:27,33), His sonship with respect to God (12:6,10), and His oblique claim to divine honor (12:17).
Since the Messianic hope in Israel expected that the coming Messiah would be of the lineage of King David, how comes it that David referred to the Messiah as his “Lord”? The answer to this question, as Mark well knew, was obvious to his Christian readers, who understood the word “Lord” in its full confessional significance (cf. Acts 2:29-34; 13:23-39; Hebrews 1:5-13). To the enemies of Jesus, however, His question was provocative beyond measure, because they sensed what the Questioner was driving at without overtly claiming to be the Messiah.
Our Lord’s citation from this Psalm, in a context dealing with His own identity, laid the foundation for the Christological praying of the Psalms. Within the NT there are more references or allusions to this verse than to any other OT passage. In these few words of the Psalter, “The Lord said to my Lord,” Christians learned that Jesus is not only David’s descendant but also his preexisting Lord. He is the Son, not only of David, but of God.
Acts 26.1-11: There is a sense in which the present speech of Paul is the high point of Luke’s account of his ministry. Containing the third narrative of Paul’s conversion, it will represent a fulfillment of a prophecy contained in the first narrative (9:15), namely, he will now appear before a king. Paul’s apologetics (apologeito in verse 1, apoplogeisthai in verse 2) in this speech is consonant with his legal defense hitherto, but he becomes more explicit about his faith and his conversion.
Legally Paul has nothing to lose, for his appeal to a higher court at Rome has already been granted. He will use the present circumstances as an opportunity, rather, to bear witness to the Gospel, which he treats as the fulfillment of the hope he had always cherished as a loyal Pharisee (verse 5; cf. 24:5; 28:22). That is to say, the hope of the resurrection (verse 8). At this point Paul begins to move from apologetics to evangelism.
Wednesday, August 20
Acts 26.12-23: Paul continues recounting his own history, not omitting his earlier persecutions of Christians, and then goes on to describe his conversion. We have here the third and most elaborate account of that event in the Acts of the Apostles and the only version of the story to contain the detail about Paul’s “kicking against the goad,” a metaphor for resistance to divine grace. This detail insinuates that Paul had already been feeling the pangs of conscience for his grievous mistreatment of Christians. This verse suggests, then, that Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus represented a sort of climax to a spiritual struggle already being waged in his own soul.
In this experience Paul was “grabbed” by Christ (Philippians 3:12), and a radical destiny was laid upon him (1 Corinthians 9:15-18). Like Ezekiel (2:1-2), he is told to stand on his feet (verse 16). Indeed, this account of Paul’s calling should be compared with the stories of the callings of several of the Old Testament prophets, chiefly Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. What Paul is called to preach is the fulfillment of all that the prophets wrote. Thus, various prophetic themes appear in this account of his call. For example, the metaphor of the opening of the eyes from darkness to light (cf. Isaiah 42:7,16). Paul clearly regards his ministry as a completion of the work of Moses and the prophets (verse 22).
Joshua 10: This chapter, in which attention is directed to the southern campaign of Joshua’s invasion, begins with an alliance formed to resist that invasion. This alliance, alarmed at the capitulation of the Gibeonites, recorded in the previous chapter, determines to attack Gibeon itself rather than Joshua’s invading force (verse 4). This procedure made military sense. If the alliance could punish the Gibeonites for their treaty with Joshua, it was reasoned, other Canaanite cities would think twice about following suit. If the attack on Gibeon proved successful, other cities would be disposed, rather, to join the coalition against Joshua.
This alliance of five Canaanite city-states, under the leadership of Jerusalem, had another reason for conquering Gibeon as a way of resisting Joshua’s advance. In fact, this second reason rendered the control of Gibeon imperative to the resistance—namely, Gibeon’s strategic position guarding the route through the Ajalon Valley, a route that would enable Joshua to divide and isolate the southern cities. After Joshua’s defeat of the alliance, his campaign pursued its remnant forces southward through that valley (verses 10-13).
Understanding the political situation throughout Canaan, Joshua resolves to make an example of the five kings involved in the alliance (verses 16-27). His ruthless tactics were extended to the citizens of Makkedah (verse 28), Libnah (verse 30), Lachish (verse 32), and elsewhere (verse 39). We may want to bear in mind that these descriptions are common in the language of battle, where they bear what we may call a “poetic sense.” That is to say, if ALL the citizens of all of these cities really did perish under Joshua’s sword, we readers of Holy Scripture will be hard pressed to explain why they continued to pose problems for Israel in the very near future.
Thursday, August 21
Acts 26.24-32: When Paul mentions the resurrection, however, Festus believes that he has gone too far. Paul’s excessive study of literature (polla grammata) — that is to say, the Bible — has caused his mind to snap, Festus asserts, so that he can no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy. In this response of Festus we discern the reaction of the pagan world to this most Christian of doctrines — the resurrection. Greco-Roman culture, with its chronic disrespect for the material world (as evidenced, for example, in the pagan custom of cremating dead bodies), would have scanty respect for the doctrine of the resurrection, which takes so seriously the holiness inherent in the human body sanctified by the Holy Spirit. The situation is not so different today.
Faced by a pagan unfamiliar with belief in the resurrection, Paul turns to Agrippa for a more sympathetic hearing. However, when Paul, answering what seems to be something of a jest on the king’s part, invites him to become a Christian, the king becomes uncomfortable, and the hearing is abruptly ended.
Joshua 11: This is the sort of story that causes many modern people to wince and squirm—so much violence!
Well, this is true, but let me mention why such texts do not bother me. I liken these darker parts of the Hebrew Scriptures to shadows cast on the earth by the earliest appearance of the light. The Latin Psalter says to the Lord, “Thou hast crafted the dawning and the sun”—Tu fabricatus es auroram et solem (Psalm 74:16). We observe the order: Dawn-then-sun. Strictly speaking there could be no dawn unless the sun already existed. The Psalmist’s sequence of dawn-then-sun describes how things appear, not how they exist. The early light comes to us on a curve and then an angle. The daylight is presented to us in stages, the full sun itself being the final stage.
The angularity of the early morning light seems to hurl long lines of darkness on the earth. This is only an impression, nonetheless. What sort of logic would blame the light for the shadows? Who among us does not recognize that the shadows were already there, long before the light appeared? Indeed, it is the gradually emerging light that reveals the dark places. These shadows, they shorten, bit-by-bit, and they will vanish in the fullness of time, when the sun increases to full strength.
I am no more offended, then, by the darker parts of the Bible than by the shades thrown forward by the slanting daylight. To me, the dark recesses of the Book of Joshua resemble the somber drama of the Grand Canyon, as myriad silhouettes take shape down its walls, just before the sunrise.
Friday, August 22
Mark 13.24-37: There have always been Christians persuaded that they can discern, from a close reading of biblical prophecy, the various stages of world history and even the specific events attendant on the end of history. In the present reading, however, Jesus warns against such speculation, saying that no one knows of that day and hour except the Father (verse 32).
These prophecies of the last times, whether in the present chapter of Mark or elsewhere in Holy Scripture, are too general to disclose such particulars of time. They serve, rather, as warnings for all times, exhortations of vigilance to the Church in every age. They instruct us less about God’s schedule than about our responsibilities.
In this final section of Mark 13, Jesus takes up the question with which the chapter began: When will these things happen and what will be the signs thereof? That question, we recall, was raised by the Apostles in response to the Lord’s prediction of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. All through this chapter the Lord has described, in dramatic imagery, the complex events that will culminate in that catastrophe. He could truly assert, therefore, “I have told you all things beforehand” (verse 23). Jesus has clearly prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem within a generation, destruction so complete that it could foreshadow the end of the world itself.
And what are Christians to do in the face of these impending disasters? They are to remain vigilant, to watch and to pray and to trust in God.
Psalms 120 (Greek & Latin 119): We know that the Church in the upper room, as she anticipated the arrival of “the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13) from on high, “continued with one accord in prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14), nor is it difficult to hear this psalm arising from her mouth as she waited: “To the Lord I called in my distress, and He answered me. O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips, and from a deceitful tongue.”
Lies and deception lay all about the Church on that morning. Already, for instance, the rumor was started that the disciples had stolen the dead body of Jesus from the grave while the soldiers slept (cf. Matt. 28:11–15). And as for the body of believers, already “we know that it is spoken against everywhere” (Acts 28:22). But soon would arrive that Holy Spirit to confront their accusers and “convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8).
Meanwhile the Church answers her calumniators in prayer: “What further would you have, or what more be given you, a deceitful tongue? The warrior’s sharp arrows, with coals of desolation? Ah me, that my sojourn (paroikia) is prolonged, and I have made my home among the tents of Kedar. So much the sojourner (paroikesen) is my soul. Peaceful, I spoke peace to those who hated me. When I addressed them, they warred against me without cause.”