Wonderful

Wonderful.  Without listing them, because he assumed his readers knew, the ancient historian, Herodotus, wrote of “the seven great architectural achievements in the world.” This dusty sentence gave rise to our notion of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Six of them are long gone, but the Seven Wonders were probably: (1) The Great Pyramid of Giza [Egypt], (2) The Lighthouse of Alexandria [Egypt], (3) The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [Bodrum, Turkey], (4) The Colossus of Rhodes [Greece], (5) The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus [Turkey], (6) The Statue of Zeus at Olympia [Greece], and (7) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon [Iraq]. These engineering feats and expressions of opulent wealth were famous because they were gaudy and large. But the Bible uses the word wonders in an entirely different sense.

Biblical wonders were predominantly divine acts of cosmic, historical, or redemptive magnitude. The first time the word wonderful appeared in the Hebrew text was when God repeated to Abraham and Sarah his promise that they would have a son together in their old age (Gen. 18:14). “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Jeremiah, too, used wonderful in the same sense: “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jer. 32:17, 27). Too hard captures the disturbing sense of the word (Hebrew: pela’) elsewhere translated as wonderful.

Wonder is incredible in the most literal sense: unbelievable, defying physical explanation. Witnesses to wonders have a similar response. They do not whisper to their neighbor while they balance their teacups, “How lovely; you should be so proud.” Instead, wonder terrifies and rattles onlookers. Witnesses are shaken, not exactly in a friendly way.

This fear element should cast biblical wonder in a different, more accurate light. On the eastern shore of the Red Sea, Moses sang a new song: “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Exo. 15:11). On the way to conquer Jericho, Joshua reminded the people what God had promised them, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you (Josh. 3:5). After dialoguing with God from inside the whirlwind, Job said, “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3). Messiah would be known by the titles: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). Wonder-working, therefore, identifies God.

In the New Testament, the same concept of wonderful endures (Greek: thaumasios and teras), which makes the rejection of Jesus by the religious rulers even more egregious. Jesus did and said things only God does and says, yet: “The chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did … and they were indignant” (Matt. 21:15). But for others, God’s wonders cured their disbelief and solidified their wobbly knees. “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know” (Acts 2:22). Infinitely more than politely charming or comfortably endearing, his name is wonderful! 

The Cloud and the Darkness

The Cloud and the Darkness.  The same God who “separated the light from the darkness” (Gen. 1:4) at Creation is he of whom it was later written: “he is light and in him is no shadow of darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Light and darkness form a great motif stretching from Genesis to Revelation, especially in the book of Exodus. Although there are only three passages where “darkness” is mentioned in Exodus, they mark three major milestones: at the Ninth Plague (Exo. 10:21-22), at the Red Sea (Exo. 14:19-20), and at Mount Sinai (Exo. 20:21). In each of those instances, darkness is more than the physical absence of light; it is palpable and eerie.

The Egyptians were loathed to experience this other-worldly darkness in the ninth plague. As with all the ten plagues, God effortlessly wielded complete dominance over the entire Egyptian pantheon. The ninth plague toppled the Egyptian’s sun god, Ra. “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.’ So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days” (Exo. 10:21-22).

“A darkness to be felt” must have rattled the Egyptians’ timbers, but not nearly enough to keep Pharoah from changing his mind about releasing the Hebrews and giving pursuit. But the pillar of cloud and of fire that was leading the people of Israel abruptly moved to defending the people of Israel. “Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night” (Exo. 14:19-20). “The cloud” and “the darkness,” were both highly unusual descriptions for the middle of the night. Usually, it was the pillar of fire during the night and of cloud during the day, but here “the cloud” was emphasized. Nighttime would have brought a normal darkness, but here “the darkness” was specifically identified. Perhaps the same kind of supernatural darkness from the ninth plague melted the hearts of the Egyptians again. Either way, although both Israel and Egypt saw the same cloud, each received drastically different glimpses of God. To Israel, God was enlightening and beautiful, a Savior, but to Egypt, God was condemning and terrible, a Judge (Thomas Fuller, Pisgah-Sight of Palestine, p. 148).

The final mention of “darkness” in Exodus again defies physical properties. At the base of Mount Sinai, the Israelites were terrified because a storm of thunder and smoke enveloped the summit. “Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die" (Exo. 20:18-19). They weren’t wrong! They had seen, and felt, this supernatural darkness twice before. Now, only Moses was willing to climb up into the darkness, into God’s pillar of cloud and of fire. “The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was” (Exo. 20:21). The Lord of light governs the dark. 

He Began to Speak in Parables

He Began to Speak in Parables.  While I am barely able to claim the classification dog-person, I’m certainly not a cat-person. When the children were little, we tried to adopt a stray cat, but within a week it was clear that Tiger preferred belonging to everyone and no one than to one family on E. Vine Street. So much for trying to cozy up to a cat. But that week was enough to help me better understand this joke. A pet owner befriends, feeds, waters, shelters, and occasionally pampers his dog, and the dog thinks, “He must be God.” A pet owner befriends, feeds, waters, shelters, and occasionally pampers his cat, and the cat thinks, “I must be God.”

Whichever side of the cat or dog debate we might populate, one thing is agreed: cats have claws, metaphorically and literally. Soft and cuddly can become sharp and combative in a moment. I think of a cat’s retractable claws when I read Jesus’ parables. Most people think of parables as soft and cuddly imaginary stories, and they are … until they are not. In a moment, they can turn ferocious. The Lion of Judah has claws that shred our defensive barriers to his truth. His parables are serious business!

A pivot occurred around the midpoint of Jesus’ earthly ministry where he transitioned from teaching directly to speaking in parables. Parables were a result of disbelief. Like the people rejected John the Baptist, saying, “He has a demon” (Matt. 11:18), so the people rejected Jesus, saying, “Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matt. 11:19). Pivot—“then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent” (Matt. 11:20). Pivot—Jesus “began to speak to them in parables” (Mark 12:1) because of their galvanized disbelief.

We assume that Jesus used parables to narrow the gap between belief and disbelief, like clever sermon illustrations, but the exact opposite is true. The parables widen the gap. The parables are judgment. Those who understand the parables give evidence that they have a regenerated heart, eyes that see, and ears that hear. Those who do not understand the parables give evidence that they have a heart of stone, spiritually veiled eyes, and spiritually dulled ears. "Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, `We see,´ your guilt remains’” (John 9:39-41).

“With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous” (Psa. 18:25-26).

Ears to Hear

Ears to Hear.  Eighteen times, in various combinations, our Lord commanded, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 11:15). Let him hear is a bold imperative without any caveat! Jesus alone can fully issue such a summons because he fully listened to his Father.

Infinitely more than Moses and Elijah, Jesus alone had the force of prophecy behind him: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen” (Deut. 18:15), coupled with the audible testimony of God the Father about him, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased—listen to him” (Matt. 17:5). Unlike the nation of Israel that repeatedly refused to listen to God, Jesus alone wielded the full weight of obedience: “Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward” (Isa. 50:5). Unlike the religious rulers of the day, Jesus alone carried the unblemished track-record while on earth: “I speak just as the Father taught me” (John 8:28). By contrast, Jesus said of the Pharisees, “You speak what you have heard from your father … the devil” (John 8:38, 44).

Surprisingly, it was not Jesus who first said those words, “Ears to hear.” He picked up where Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel left off. And they, too, picked up where Moses had left off. Despite Moses’ long career leading Israel, although Israel had the opportunity to hear God, they lacked the capacity to listen to God: “But to this day, the Lord had not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear” (Deut. 29:4). This paradox continued all throughout Israel’s history. They had access to the word of God but lacked belief in the God of the word. “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may observe it” (Deut. 30:14; Rom. 10:8). Yet they persisted in their idolatry, bending their ears to hear a response from the idols that they had stylized with mouths, which were unable to speak. “[Idols] have ears, but do not hear” (Psa. 115:6). The horrible irony is as prevalent in modern times as it was in ancient epochs: “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Psa. 115:8). We begin to resemble that which we worship.

By the time Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel picked up the refrain from Moses. “His ears are open, but he does not hear” (Isa. 42:40) was a well-established loop. The prophets, however, were not permitted to stop speaking the word of God to the people, despite the people’s stubborn refusal to receive and believe the word. Failure to listen became a form of punishment to the people of Israel. Instead of hearing the Lord who loved them, then they would hear the trumpets of war (Isa. 18:3), the commotion of invading armies constructing their siege towers against Jerusalem (Isa. 22:5), and the babble of the foreign language of their slavers yanking them across the desert like livestock (Isa. 28:11).

The nonreceptivity of the people regarding the word of God continued into Jesus’ day. When he said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear” (x18), it was both an illustration of life among those who were healed of their spiritual deafness and a confirmation of death among those who denied their deafness and so, remained unhealed. Jesus’ parables functionally eliminated the middle space between life and death, belief and disbelief.