The Sylvr Pen

“Even my own familiar friend…who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.” -Psalm 41:9

Betrayed! To add further insult to all the injury (and insult) we’ve already seen, betrayal played a major role in the unfolding of events leading up to the cross—betrayal and slander intended to destroy.

Deadly Bullying

That’s the one kind of bullying I didn’t mention yesterday—the kind that has been so deadly nowadays in the form of “cyberbullying.” As government agencies troubled about this have said, you can be bullied without ever coming face to face with the bullies. They can very effectively bully you behind your back, just by running you down in others’ estimation.

In Jesus’ case the frustrated bullying mushroomed to downright plotting of His death—at someone else’s hands, of course. Cyberbullies, Hitlers, and religious hypocrites often don’t soil their own hands with the dirty work; they just try to bring it about at someone else’s hands (Jhn 18:31; Mk 15:11).

Motives

From the time Jesus began His earthly ministry, this kind of bullying assaulted Him. It seems to have arisen from two motives: 1) the envy Pilate perceived (Mk 15:9-10), and 2) the rebukes Christ repeatedly voiced about religious hypocrisy (e.g. Mt 23:14-15,23-25).

Certain people don’t want competition—or exposure and rebuke—or anyone just getting in their path to self-aggrandizement.

That seems to have been the case not only with the Pharisees, but also with Judas. A commentary I just read notes that his betrayal happened right on the heels of Jesus’ rebuking him for calling Mary’s pouring out of expensive fragrant oil to anoint her Lord’s feet “wasteful.” Judas was the money-box keeper, and that’s where he thought the money ought to have gone—so he could get his hands on it like the rest from which he was pilfering (Jhn 12:3-6).

What sordid little criminal activity! And what an attitude toward Christ! He wasn’t “worth it”!

He Knew

But Jesus knew what Judas’ heart was like before He chose him (Jhn 6:70), and He knew beforehand that Judas would betray Him (Jhn 6:64,71). He knew what that little verse tucked in Psalm 41:9 prophesied, as well as Zechariah 11:12-13. Surely He also knew ahead of time how Psalm 41:5-7 would apply to Him. Yet He willingly submitted to it.

What does this say to us? That even when things look all wrong, Jesus knows what’s going on and is working everything together for final good (Rom 8:28). And, if we’ve ever been betrayed or slandered or otherwise plotted against, we can rest assured that we do not have a High Priest Who can’t identify with all our trials. Even foreseen betrayal brings plenty of pain, so He can identify. By the same token, through experiencing the kinds of suffering Christ went through, we can more fully identify and relate with Him. This is “the fellowship of His suffering” that Paul desired in order to know Christ more fully and “lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus laid hold of me” (Ph 3:10-12).

Yes, all things work together for good, even friends who break bread with us and lift up their heel, or tongue, against us.

Bullying has gotten so bad in our culture that the government has websites dedicated to helping people recognize and deal with it.

Maybe you’ve experienced or witnessed bullying yourself.

But you never saw a worse case of bullying than what our Lord Jesus subjected himself to before and on the cross.

1 Peter 1:10-11 says that Christ’s Spirit, in the prophets of ancient days, testified to them about the things He would suffer. In Psalm 22 we can read the expressions of anguish He voiced about His suffering through the psalmist David. Then, in the gospels we can recognize their fulfillment. Then, lining these both up with our government’s indicators of bullying, what a revealing picture we get of man bullying God’s own Son and the effects He endured: of not only excruciating physical pain, but also deep emotional suffering!

Christ Himself verified Psalm 22 as applying to His suffering when he cried out its first line on the cross: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” What  anguish! What sense of aloneness!  The Father is allowing Him to experience the full sense of aloneness that a bullied person can feel…

Now compare:

Stopbullying.gov says bullying involves an imbalance of power. The bullied person is in a position where it’s hard for him to defend himself. Medline.gov defines it as a person or group repeatedly and purposely doing harm to someone they perceive as weaker. The bullies are misusing their power, to control or injure.

Psalm 22:12-13 says, “Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me… like a raging and roaring lion.”

Psalm 22:16 says,  “For dogs have surrounded Me; … enclosed Me…”

And Psalm 22:20-21 pleads deliverance from “the power of the dog…the lion’s mouth…and…the horns of the wild oxen.”

In all the gospels we see men of power surrounding Christ and mistreating Him—from the Jewish religious and political leaders to the strong soldiers of the Roman army.

Mark in particular tells how the Jewish leaders met and schemed (Mk 15:1-3,11), then how the soldiers led Him away to the Praetorium and called together the whole garrison to abuse him.

Bullying as defined can of course involve hitting, punching, shoving.

Psalm 22 expresses Christ’s physical pain that resulted from this kind of abuse: Psalm 22:14-17

And Mark relates some of the abuse that caused it: Mark 15:15,17,25.

But bullying can also take the emotionally destructive form of name-calling, mocking, teasing, and taking or abusing the victim’s property. And this can do damage that physical harm alone cannot. It can shatter the bullied person’s esteem, which indeed is its purpose.

In Psalm 22, we hear Christ crying out about the demeaning, mocking and taunting (Psalm 22:6-7,13). Verse 18 even mentions people taking his garments and casting lots for them (like modern dice tossing)–so demeaning.

And about this emotional bullying Mark gives detail: Mark 15:16-20,24,26,29-32.

It took me time to write this, not only because of the difficulty in lining up info, but because sometimes I had to stop and, well, grieve.

What a Savior, to submit to pain that we deserved, to deliver us from death. What a lover of our souls!

“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and His Anointed…” Psalm 2:2. “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth…” Isaiah 53:7

Until I was writing the (March 25th) post about the different aspects of Eden’s curse that our Lord took upon Himself at the time of His crucifixion, I’d never considered human oppression as one of them. I almost skipped over the last phrase in “Eve’s part” of the curse, “… he will rule over you” (Gn 3:16c).

But Isaiah 53:7 says, “He was oppressed,” and the record shows how he was dragged from one authority to the other and never got a shred of justice.

Now looking at Psalm 2:2, which Acts 4:26-28 declares is a prophecy fulfilled in Christ’s earthly persecution, I find myself staring at this issue again.

Facts of Life

The spirit of “he shall [lord it] over you” has plagued more of humanity than just woman. Although God declared certain aspects of the Curse to Serpent, others to Adam, and others to Eve, every one of them affects every one of us—sorrow, pain, death, striving with one another, and all the rest—much of it the natural result of sinful selfishness.

Oppression and power struggles form the fiber of recorded history. And the more you read about this—or try (futilely) to fix it—the more depressed you can get! Ecclesiastes says we shouldn’t be shocked when we see it; it’s a fact of life “under the sun” (Ec 5:8 NIV).

While the poor and helpless suffer under the oppression, even the top dogs in the human power struggle find themselves pushed and pulled by political tides and rival threats, never at ease on their high thrones. Such was the case with those who took “counsel together against the LORD and His Anointed” that long ago holy week (Jn 11:47-48; Mt 27:15-20,21-24; Mt 14:1-5,6-10).

…And Facts of Life

Well, thank God, there’s also Life under the Son—a whole different story. And it was Christ’s willing placing of Himself under earth’s most unjust oppression that broke open for us the entrance to His new life, and just Kingdom!

Someday “all oppression will cease,” as the Christmas carol proclaims. Those of us who have obtained Eternal Life in Christ already “own” that freedom essentially, and in Eternity will enjoy it absolutely!

Who’s In Charge, Anyway?

Jesus told Pilate he had no power except what God gave him (Jn 19:11). God had not only granted this ruler his power, but had orchestrated its part in Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross to bear the penalty for our sin and break the power of the Curse.

One day Christ will return, to usher in His everlasting and ever-just Kingdom, and though the process then won’t all be pretty, either, the end thereof will be beautiful and glorious beyond our wildest imagination. What a relief and joy to anticipate: that utter absence of oppression in God’s coming Kingdom–as we fix our eyes on the now-empty cross!

It must have been the winter of their discontent: those last years of trudging through wasteland…

“Winter of our Discontent”

“Winter of our discontent” takes on literal meaning for us in the weather-badgered Northeast this year. Maybe we can connect with the children of Israel better because of it….

I gaze out my window at snow-weighted branches and continued shades-of-gray view, and wonder how many people around me are waking to white and gray—again!—and groaning. Then I reflect on how Israel’s wilderness experience was like this—only way worse—and  wonder how quickly I would have joined the clamor against the whole expedition, longing for greener times. One long winter can’t compare with forty years of bleak desert!

Remembering Sweet Surprises

I glance away to write these thoughts, then look up again—to the sweet surprise of a crimson cardinal perched amid the grayness. Savoring this refreshment, I consider the fantastic high points the LORD gave His people out in that desert—and how quickly they forgot them.

At the brink of a new beginning, life can get bleak and wearying. If we only view the dull how-it-is-now without depth of thought or gratitude about how far we’ve come, or our journey’s highpoints, or the great possibilities ahead, our mood will remain gray indeed.

Endings and Moving On

New beginnings usually involve endings, too. It was a time of many endings for God’s people. Moses was gone. Miriam also had died—as well as all their parents, except Caleb and Joshua. The children of Israel wept thirty days for Moses in the plains of Moab. But then, says Deuteronomy 34:8, “the days of weeping and mourning ended.” And they moved on.

They could have stayed stuck on all the endings, and the miserable trekking and erring—they could have wimped out like their fathers before them at reports of giants and military might. But what lay ahead held the reward, and required sharpened focus and faith.

Fresh Focus

For this new beginning, God gave a new leader to focus on—who so-strikingly pre-figured Christ:

Joshua. J’shua…Y’shua. Where have we heard that name elsewhere? Yes, it’s the Old Testament equivalent to the English name-form of Jesus and speaks of salvation, deliverance (Strong’s Expanded Dictionary). Figure of a mighty conquering leader, ushering God’s people into the Place of Promise.

Other pictures soon emerged in the Joshua story.  Like Rehab: helpless prostitute in a pagan city of destruction, putting all her faith in J’shua’s God (Josh 2). Like her means of representing it: a “line of scarlet” hung in a window–picture of Christ’s shed blood, means of deliverance from destruction.  Like her inclusion as part of God’s people (picture of 1 Peter 2:9-10)—even to become part of Christ’s family line, as great-great-grandmother of King David, forebear of J’shua/Jesus, “the Son of David” (Mt 1:5-6).

To Remember:

What to remember here? That Jesus the Messiah (Christ) not only delivers from, but also to: In the times of grayness, after many endings, let us focus on the hope of a new beginning– and on the Christ Who delivers us to it.

Poor Moses. What a crying shame! Putting up with that muttering, mutinous mob for forty years, even standing in the gap for them when God threatened to destroy them all—and now God forbids him the Promised Land — when others could go in! Even after his pleading (Deut 3:23-26)!

It seems so unfair. Why such a harsh edict, for such a faithful man?

The answer lies in…

Moses’ Mistake

Moses was old and hurting and weary. Moses was still mourning his sister’s death (Num 20:1). Moses had dealt with the people’s unruliness for decades. And here they were again, clamoring for water, griping, grumbling, and coming against him (Num 20:2-5).

So Moses appealed to God again (Num 20:6). And God said, “Speak to the rock” (Num 20:8). But Moses, pressed and stressed and weighed down and worn out, lost it, and struck the rock instead, crying, “Must we bring water out of this rock?”

What was so terrible about that?

Numbers 20:12 says Moses, in so behaving, did not believe or hallow God.

God’s hard “penalty” shows how important His symbols are. The rock represented our Rock, Christ (1 Cor 10:4). Moses had already struck rock once, and the relief gushing out then mirrored the living water in Christ, who would be killed, then resurrect, and ascend to the Father, opening the way to our Promised Land of eternal life.

“Once for all” Christ’s sacrifice would happen, not on repeated occasions, like the sacrifice of bulls and goats (Heb 10:11-12,14).

The picture was perfect till Moses struck this second time (and claimed “we” brought forth the water). For him now to enter the Promised Land would confuse the picture even more.

Moses begs God to let him go with the others, but God says no. He lets him view the land from Mount Pisgah’s height (Deut 3:27), but how can He violate the Christ-promise imagery?

Right Judgment…

Some of the cryptical Levitical laws the children of Israel needed to obey with no understanding why. Yet it was vital that they do it all as prescribed, partly because so much of it pre-figured the coming Messiah.

We long for understanding of every command God gives. We’d like to know why we should follow an instruction before deciding to obey it. And that’s often wise, with commandments of man. But here is a command from God, requiring the obedience of faith—in the spirit of Deuteronomy 29:29.

God must be hallowed, and so Numbers 20:13 says He was, despite Moses’ momentary lapse. How? By His denial of Moses’ entry into the Promised Land–and by Moses’ contrite spirit. In Moses’ Last Song (Deut 32), look how often he mentions “the Rock”–and what he says about Him (Deut 32:4,13,15,18,30,31)!

Yet Mercy!

What’s more, as my husband once showed me, Moses did get to the Promised Land after all, later (Lk 9:28-31).  Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration not only saw the Promised Land, but also the Promised One, Whose death and resurrection Holy Week soon celebrates. Hallelujah to the just but merciful God! May His name always be hallowed!