The Sylvr Pen

(7) Heart-felt Reflections on Foreshadowings so far

(8) Musings about Midwives

(9) Two Widows and a Prostitute

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Linked to Brag On God Friday, letting Hannah and Mary do the bragging today, and

In Search of Beauty Bloghop

Posted on 2011-12-082011-12-10 by Sylvia

Seeking the Christ Child (9) – Two Widows and a Prostitute

Time wound down through centuries, from Egypt to the wilderness, to the Jordan River and across.

And the scarlet thread of hope became a scarlet line of yarn hung in a window, while spies clambered down a great wall’s side, by a rope of escape from a city of doom. And the scarlet line hanging in the window became a lifeline for a woman, a woman named Rahab, prostitute foreign to the Kingdom of God. And she too escaped from the city of doom.*

Many years later, two widows trudged, weary and world-worn back to a place long forsaken. Near hopeless the one, filled with the gall of error and loss, regret and grief—and aloneness, but for the other. The other: her faithful friend forsaking all – all earthly hopes for family of her own, even for prospect of place to dwell when the older widow should come to die.*

Back home, back “home,” the older one trod, thus accompanied, taking new name, but not new hope, only tired desperation.

“Can this be Naomi (Pleasant)?” gasped old friends, as she re-entered the House of Bread (Bethlehem). “Don’t call me Pleasant,” she replied. “Call me Mara, Bitter. I went out full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. The LORD has testified against me. The Almighty has afflicted me.”*

And so they came into the House of Bread. And so one went to glean the grain that became the bread: poor beggar, braving the harvest fields, and “happening upon” the fields of Strength (Boaz).*

And Strength beheld the faithful Friend who’d left it all to come to the Kingdom of the great King to come (although “in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”) He beheld that beggar girl come for Naomi’s God to be her God. And he was pleased to pour abundance and redemption and new life into her life. And so a child was born in the House of Bread.*

And the father of the baby was Strength. And his mother was loyal Friendship. And His grandmother was the prostitute who’d hung the line in the window. And his great-great-many-greats Grandson, also born, millennia later, in the House of Bread, became their Bread, our Bread, from Heaven, Redeemer foreshadowed in kinsman-redeemer Boaz/Strength, but to redeem us all.*

And we read of them all in the family line, recited for us in Matthew’s book (Mt 1:1,5-6).

What a powerful parable of our All-Powerful’s perfect plan!

What to Name the Baby? A List of Names and their Meanings:

Naomi – pleasant

Mara – bitter

Ruth – friend

Boaz – strength

Jesus – Savior

*[To read, hover your cursor:

Joshua 2:1-3,4-7,8-14,17-18;

Judges 21:25; Ruth 1:1,3-6, 11-14,16,19-22;

Ruth 2:1-3,4-8,11-13; 3:15-16; 4:10-15,17-22;

Mt 1:1,5-6; John 6:35,48,51.]

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Seeking the Christ Child (in the Old Testament)

Previous posts in this series:

(7) Heart-felt Reflections on Foreshadowings so far

(8) Musings about Midwives

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Linked to…

Thoughtful Thursday Blog Hop

Posted on 2011-12-072011-12-08 by Sylvia

Seeking the Christ Child (8) – Musings About Midwives

They were nobodies, really. Slaves serving slaves. And all they did was their regular day-in, day-out jobs – in faithfulness and fear of God – never wavering, even under threat. And that in itself ensured a nation’s survival, kept possible the rise of two indispensible leaders in their respective times.

But those simple women never knew, I’m convinced they never could have known, how great the consequence of their humble obedience, their daily faithfulness.

Those midwives in Egypt–who refused to destroy male infants, even after Pharaoh’s face-to-face command—those two, Shiphah and Puah, made up the thin, two-strand thread that held fast Israel’s continuance (Ex 1:15-17). Without such as they standing in the gap, the baby destined to lead their people out of Egypt would not have survived to do so, and the messianic line of promise also would have snapped. But for such a firm stand as theirs, no Moses would have lain in a wee ark amid bulrushes (Ex 2:1-3), and eons later no Christ Child would have lain nestled in a feedbox full of hay.

But how could they know, in their earth-lifetimes, the enormous benefit their faithful service to God and His people would ultimately produce?

Moses was 80 years old when he returned to Egypt from the back side of the desert and confronted Pharaoh. So how old would that have made those who had been defying the emperor’s death order since before he was even conceived? Something like 100? Maybe years and years older!

Even if, at such advanced age, they made the trek out into the wilderness, they would have been part of the crowd who couldn’t cross Jordan, wandered instead in desert land for another forty years. That would make them upwards of 140 by the time the crossing finally happened. And God had sworn that wandering generation, except for Caleb and Joshua, would not enter the land of promise.

So they never knew Moses’ magnificence, and certainly not the manifestation of the Messiah. But what a difference their simple faithfulness made to the whole Hebrew race, to the whole of humanity!

Of course what was true in Esther’s day applied in theirs: Without their faithful obedience, “relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place…” (Esther 4:14). God would not let His promise perish. But since they did act in God-trust, they were the decisive factor.

Lord, let me be reminded of this when my life seems insignificant, humdrum and going nowhere special. Who (but God) knows the eventual outcomes of simple faithfulness in just living out our daily life and tasks.

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Seeking the Christ Child (in the Old Testament)

Previous posts in this series:

(7) Heart-felt Reflections on Foreshadowings so far

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Linked to…

Posted on 2011-12-062011-12-07 by Sylvia

Seeking the Christ Child (7) – Heart-felt Reflections on Foreshadowings so far

Seeking the Christ Child in Old Testament foreshadowings and prophecies can quickly drift from seeking Christ to seeking only things theological. And much has pressed on my heart, concerning this series so far – much that word count prevented including.

So today, connecting with On Your Heart Tuesdays, I’m following its direction to pause and reflect on my own recent posts. I doubt I’ll get past the first and keep this post a readable length. So I’ll share further reflections later – next Tuesday, maybe Five-Minute Friday, maybe even tomorrow. But for now…

(1) On Eve, and the painting:

The painting of which I showed a chunk is inaccurate. You can find several errors: Only one angel oversees Eden’s entrance, and Genesis 3:24’s “cherubim” is plural. Eve and Adam are naked, and by then God had clothed them in animal skins – at the cost of some innocent creature’s life, which leads many to believe the victim a lamb. And so on…

But whenever I thought of Eve and Genesis 3, that painting filled my mind, because of that greatly authentic thing in it (I believe): the vivid portrayal of anguish, overwhelming grief.

Sin is not a light thing – any sin. It leaves a path of destruction behind it yawning wide. And the sin they sinned left the greatest destruction…

2) Why their sin was so bad:

~Ask people what’s the worst sin, they’ll probably answer something like murder or terrible treatment of other humans. But Eve and Adam’s sin murdered not just one person, but, in a sense, all of us: Now we all die!

~Their sin itself shut us all out of God’s kingdom, because it chose man’s own kingdom instead: our own “knowing”/determining of good and evil over God’s, our own godhood instead of His, our own exclusive rule of our own little world. In all respects they decisively rejected God’s perfect Kingdom, wisdom, rule, provision, love, and all.

~And in shutting us out of His kingdom into a kingdom of our own – where we decide good and evil and make up the rules and judgments and punishments, where naturally the biggest bullies secure sway – they put us in a place of erroneous everything, as the pre-Flood world so clearly proved. All selfishness and cruelty and human violence and destruction arises from us each doing “what is wise in our own eyes.”

~ And above all, it sinned against the greatest, most undeserving, sinless One – their own all-wise Creator, and all-loving Provider, to whom they owed everything!

So now the beautiful, innocent enjoyment of knowing only good went lost amid the knowledge of evil they had coveted as well.

And so the wrenching anguish, the sense of immense loss. Not just the idea of physical death would have grieved Eve. After all, she’d have no idea what human death was, till Cain killed Abel. But she knew already, painfully well, what it was to be outside God’s perfect way and love and care, the irrevocable choice she’d made.

No wonder her grief! And no wonder her heart-straining hope, for the “seed of the woman,” who would crush the kingdom of rebellion and evil, and restore that of only love and right and good.

Nothing man could do could reverse the damage.

Only God could. And would. And will.

And that’s what the baby in the manger is all about: the little Lamb Who would sacrifice His own skin for us all, and later return to restore the Kingdom – no, to establish a kingdom even better than if they’d never sinned – because now man would know grace, beautiful, shining grace.

Thus, Eve’s hope. Our hope. The Christ Child, the Seed to come.

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Seeking the Christ Child (in the Old Testament)

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I am searching for prophecies and foreshadowings

of the Christ child, book by book. I plan to post (nearly) every weekday (leaving myself some margin) a short peek at some hint or promise of the coming baby who would make all the difference. Like the wise men, I’ll be Seeking the Christ Child, but in Old Testament promises and foreshadowings, and sharing what I find. I hope you’ll join me, because if it turns out as rewarding as the past spring’s pre-Easter explorations, this focus could make this one of the richest, most blessed Christmas seasons yet.

Previous posts in this series:

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Posted on 2011-12-052011-12-05 by Sylvia

Seeking the Christ Child (6) – Power in Small Things, and Fear of Babies

Here’s a Monday-morning, wake-your-brain question…

What time period in history contains all these elements:

a man named Joseph who dreamed prophetic dreams

a powerful king with baby phobia who ordered Israelite babies killed en masse

the nation of Egypt

a faithful mother

the hiding of a baby who would become a great leader destined to deliver God’s people out of bondage

God’s calling for a return from Egypt to the land of Israel

…..

What’s your answer? Or, should I stipulate Old Testament or New?

Because it’s all there, both places. Exodus. Matthew. Israel’s 400 plus years in Egypt before Moses led them out—and Jesus’ escape there with His parents in the time of horrid Herod. Just a coincidence? Or flashing foreshadows?

There’s also “Out of Egypt have I called my son,” written both historically and prophetically in Hosea 11:1, and cited in Matthew 2:15.

Astonishing, the fear a “mighty” tyrant can have of the most helpless of creatures, the human baby! Both Pharaoh and Herod suffered such great angst over male babies, it drove them to drastic reaction: Wipe them out! (Ex 1:16; Mt 2:16-18).

In either case, if the despot had succeeded, that Promised “seed of the woman” would have been cut off—there would have been no Messiah as promised.

Such strong foreshadowing!

But the earlier story held one important element absent from the later: two faithful “insignificant” women who made all the difference…

Shiphrah and Puah. Together they determined to disobey their orders from the most powerful human potentate of their time—and do the right thing (Ex 1:15-18).

Now, this is no light thing. This king is fierce, and they are nobodies—less than nobodies, if that’s possible—mere midwives (servants) to a bunch of slaves (the Israelites, in Egyptian bondage). Getting called before that dictator for disobeying his orders would be like having to directly face, say, Hitler for the same reason.

I can hardly imagine how much I would tremble! But like John Laird Mair, they “feared man so little because [they] feared God so much.”

And they prevailed, because smallness with God’s backing holds tremendous power. And even in those impossible circumstances, God rewarded them with families of their own! (Ex 1:20-21)

For God honors those who honor Him by bravely and faithfully doing what is right in His eyes, despite how “small” they are—and despite how much their knees might shake doing it!

Small = helpless babies + “nobody” midwives = powerful (with God added in).

Because God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2Cr 12:10).

And God says, “Those who honor me, I will honor” (1 Sa 2:30).

God, give us courage like these two noble women!

Thanking God this morning for these great gifts:

~His strength in my weakness

~This favorite verse: “When I am weak, then am I strong…”

~The faithful, like the midwives, who inspire me with their courage

~The Messiah who came and will come again

~This season of His Advent, with Him the star of the show

~God’s promise to honor those who honor Him

*****

Seeking the Christ Child (in the Old Testament)

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I am searching for prophecies and foreshadowings of the Christ child, book by book. I plan to post (nearly) every weekday (leaving myself some margin) a short peek at some hint or promise of the coming baby who would make all the difference. Like the wise men, I’ll be Seeking the Christ Child, but in Old Testament promises and foreshadowings, and sharing what I find. I hope you’ll join me, because if it turns out as rewarding as the past spring’s pre-Easter explorations, this focus could make this one of the richest, most blessed Christmas seasons yet.

Previous posts in this series: