Last night, March 8, was the Purim 2012 celebration. Adar 14, 5772 was yesterday's date on the Jewish calendar.
HAMAN...Booooooooo! Mordecai...Yeah! Costumes and levity. Humor and spoof! The story related in the book of Esther was read (from a special Purim celebration script) in 9 'chapters'; first in Hebrew, then in English. Interjected between the chapter segments there were jokes, pies-in-the-face, a parade of those who dressed up that serpentined around the room, music. Attending a Purim celebration has been on my bucket list for a while - and now I have been to my first. I expected cheering at the mention of Esther's name. That was my only unmet expectation. In fact, I only went with two expectations: that Haman would be booed and Esther would be cheered.
The other joy of last night was that I got clarification for the transitional part of segueing to other people being responsible for other areas of what has to happen to complete the musical. What I heard was: "I don't have time." "I need you to be willing to release me." Those were stated, but within that the intention was that the release would be for the larger picture - that future segments of the project have to be done by someone else - not that there is no help for getting some of the detail things done to make that transition smooth. So - that was a huge relief. I heard the words that I heard; but I over-reacted to what was meant. So - my concern about timing was not as relevant as I projected. Deep sigh of relief. I will be looking for the people to do the other pieces, and the transition will honor the Lord's timing. Yeah!!!!! Hooray!!!!! I am confident He has a plan!
In reality the only absolutes in this world are Jesus and change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Nothing else is. Everything else changes. I often cling to the known just because it is known. It is safe and comfortable and I like that. I do embrace some changes happily - but not all of them. Today will bring change.... I need to remember that! Change is a constant I have to expect....
Change was happening for Jesus as well. I think of my Senior Pastor, who has known for some time the precise date he would retire, who very intentionally announced that to the congregation a year in advance, and who has had events and times away all scheduled with intention. Even so, his planning was not from 'before the foundation of the world'! But God's was.
So - - I see the change happening for Jesus, but it is all in sync with what Jesus knows is to be. It's easy for me to project what my feelings might be in those circumstances on Him, and that would be counterfactual reasoning. I don't know precisely what He felt. I just know some basic facts. His time on earth was definitely winding down, and for the human side of His nature, that was fraught with emotion.
In a prior Lenten journey, I did some research to try to find out when Easter might actually have occurred. The best information I found leaned strongly toward April 3, 33 A D. The calendar converter I looked at today indicates that October 6 - 13, A D 32 was the celebration of Sukkot that preceded Jesus' death and resurrection the following Spring. I have no inside knowledge as to whether the specific dates are accurate, but they help bring the timeline into perspective. No matter what year it actually was, the celebration times would have been this distance apart (unless it was a year that had 13 months in the Jewish calendar,which occurred 7 out of every 19 years).
The point is, Jesus knew why He came - and knew that the next Passover, he would become the perfect Passover lamb, the sacrifice to pay the debt for sin for all people from the beginning of time until the end of time. The provision in the Old Testament involved sacrificing animals, with their shed blood providing a promise of forgiveness - - but that was just 'legal tender'. The gold standard to back up the deposit was Jesus' blood sacrifice for mans' sins.
On the last day of the 8-day Sukkot feast, 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 will flow rivers of living water.' "
He's the only way! He says it in a myriad of ways, but repeats it over and over...and here He even foretells the effect of the Holy Spirit who will be poured out on all who accept Jesus: rivers of living water flowing out of our hearts...and the water is Jesus! He is the only one who can satisfy the thirst of mans' souls.
In chapter 7 following that plea, we see people's fallacy of reasoning. They assume Jesus is 'from Nazareth' because that is where he had lived for about 28 years of his life (after spending +- 2 years away as a refugee in Egypt when His earthly parents hid Him from Herod.) But - they didn't have all the facts. They knew the Messiah was prophesied to come from Bethlehem, from the City of David. He was! He did! They just didn't know it. Yet - they wondered if 'when Messiah comes, will he do any more miracles than this man?'
And we see Nicodemus' name again.... He believed in Jesus, but he kept his belief private. When other leaders of the Pharisees question why the 'officers' didn't bring Jesus in, part of the retort recorded for us is, "Have any of the authorities or Pharisees believed in him?" And almost 6 months before an unfair trial would take place, Nicodemus asks in response, "Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?" They jumped on that as support and immediately scathingly replied, placing his intelligence and learning into question. But the direct answer to the question would have been, "If it threatens our security, you bet your boots!"
The final interesting tidbit for this section is that John 7:53 - 8:11 is omitted from all the early texts of John and was apparently added later on. Since Verse 53 ends John 7, I'll address that story tomorrow.
