Jesus - His Name is not a Comma

My Pet Prayer Peeves.

By some miracle of space and time we find ourselves flung back to a Palestine some 1980 years ago. We stumble upon a gang of people assembled around another scruffy person, listening to him intently, asking questions and debating.

It dawns on us that we are looking at Jesus engaged in discussion with his disciples and we feel moved to address Him, to express the love and thanks we feel for all that He has meant to us. Here we go. This is our best extemporary effort.

“Precious Lord, we just really want to thank you Jesus, because, precious Jesus, you are just so amazing Lord, so truly wonderful, precious Saviour. You are the Lamb, the Almighty, the Everlasting Lord Lord……….” (this goes on in similar form for some time. The key elements are the words “just” and “really”, liberally sprinkled with various terms for Jesus and/or God all mixed together).

I have no issue with the intent behind the prayer (for thus it is), but where does our vocabulary go when we pray? We don’t talk like that to anyone else. I have this bizzare image of Jesus hearing us rabbiting on in this fashion and leaping to his feet to try to cast out the demon of “Weird Prayer Talk.”

I have the same problem with the established churches who seem to feel that, in order to pray effectively we must read from a book. Where does that come from?

 Imagine the same group of people on a mountainside and we hike up towards them and, when we eventually get to them, we pull out a book and proceed to read to Him from the book. Wouldn’t he look puzzled and start to look around wondering who we were speaking to? Why read from a book – He’s sitting right there listening to you, trying to engage in conversation.

I guess that is my peeve. I feel that prayer is about communication and discussion but we never seem to stop talking long enough for God to get a word in. If we are talking with the Creator of all things, then perhaps a sense of perspective might descend upon us and we might realise that our words might not be contributing much; perhaps our listening might be a more useful tool.

I know God hears every prayer from a grateful heart and hears it with love. But is that a good excuse to be so awful at it?

Dying to Live!

Firstly awesome awesome thought provoking messages that you have posted here Mr Manan-Istok!! (Amazing how they have internet in the middle east!! Haha) Thanks for sharing these thoughts with us all.

Ok so this post is in relation to one of the things that we touched on briefly at our last chat night. After hearing the stories I was then sharing about a common thread (a bit of an understatement!) I see with Jesus' teachings about how surrender = gain, and dying = living.

So lo and behold after a late Saturday night with the Jonses I ended up missing church and went up the road to do my own study time at my local cafe. I've recently taken to re-reading and studying Rob Bell's book 'Love Wins' --> Side note if you ever want a really good wrist workout try taking notes on this book!! You pretty much write it out line for line coz there's so much profoundness contained within those covers. So anyway to my surprise the chapter that I was up to was titled 'Dying to live'. I love this concept and just wanted to share a few excerpts as a refresher and in light of what we have already discussed regarding this topic:

"Jesus talks about death and rebirth constantly, his and ours. He calls us to let go, turn away, renounce, confess, repent and leave behind the old ways. He talks of the life that will come from his own death, and he promises that life will flow into us in small ways as we die to our egos, our pride, our need to be right, our stubborn insistence that we deserve to get our way. When we cling with white knuckles to our sins and our hostility we're like a tree that won't let it's leaves go. There can't be a spring if we're stuck in the fall (autumn!)"

"Lose your life and find it he says. That's how the world works, that's how the soul works, that's how life works when you're dying to live."

So I hope you enjoyed that as I just wanted to share these excerpts that I noted over an extra large mocha last Sunday. I hope that we can see in our lives opportunities where we can take up this kingdom living and follow Jesus' way, where we can see where we can surrender so ultimately we can be DYING TO LIVE!

Also a while back I wrote this down and have recently been referring to it as my little mantra. I hope it encourages you, and feel free to share in this mantra with me and we can all be mantra partners (haha I just wanted to say that coz it sounds weird!!)

Here it is:

i wanna live for something more,
i wanna live for your cause,
this life of mine i choose to give,
may i die to self so i can truly live.

Let's live our lives DYING TO LIVE!!
1love!

Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

I remember my Mum walking around the house singing some of the old hymns of her childhood. I especially remember this one

“Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

It seemed odd to me then and it seems odd to me now to talk about washing in blood.

I know where it all comes from and how it has become such an integral part of Christian speak. It comes from the idea that Jesus was sent by God to be the sacrifice for us – to be offered up to death on a cross, to spill his blood so that we might then be seen as “spotless” before God.

Jesus was sacrificed, like a lamb or pigeon might be sacrificed; only with Him it was the biggest of big sacrifices – it meant that nothing would ever have to be sacrificed again; the price was paid, our redemption guaranteed.

This is a part of the Christian faith I have always struggled with.

I struggle with the whole idea of “sacrifice” being pleasing to God at all – “an aroma pleasing to the Lord.” (Lev 1:13).

I don’t mean the kind of sacrifice that we all know and respect as our current understanding of the term today:

-       “Their parent’s sacrificed so much to put their children through school”

-       “What sacrifices she made giving up her career to stay home with the children.”

-       “She could have been anything she wanted to be, but she sacrificed it all for a quiet life.”

These sacrifices speak of the human quality of looking beyond ourselves and beyond our immediate reward and making choices to put others first or to put other higher values first.

We are also familiar with acts of sacrifice which may have permanent repercussions – things like putting ourselves in harm’s way in order to protect children, husbands and wives etc. and being prepared to lose one’s life to preserve the life of another.

In terms of a loss to ourselves we cannot offer anything more than the offering of our life. Yet this kind of sacrifice is not even that uncommon. Most summers we read of people throwing themselves into rivers and surf to rescue others in trouble – sometimes others whom they do not even know – and losing their own lives in the process. When we read these stories we may think a lot of things:

-       “What a fool – he didn’t even know them.”

-       “Didn’t he realise he had four other children to care for?”

-       “Why would she do that when she knew she couldn’t swim well enough?”

But always, I suspect, at the very bottom of our thoughts is a respect for someone who would do such a thing and a question we ask ourselves – “Would I have the courage to do that?”

When I think of Jesus and the crucifixion I understand sacrifice in exactly that way. Jesus would rather die than deny or recant his faith in the Kingdom and the passion of his belief in the goodness of God and the all abiding presence of God’s Grace and Acceptance. I get that. I respect that and I wonder if I would have the courage to do the same, although there are many who have.

What I don’t really get is exactly how we mix that particular kind of sacrifice up with the other kind – with the kill the pigeon, bull or lamb kind of sacrifice; the “purchase” of God’s approval (forgiveness, acceptance, appeasement, favour) by killing another creature.

We know that adherents to the Jewish faith used to bring animals for sacrifice. Different animals (and birds) for different reasons and seasons  - the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering and the fellowship offering. (Lev 7:37). And these sacrifices became an established part of the religious ritual of the Hebrew people, starting with shrines and tents and culminating in the rites and sacrifices practiced in the temple in Jerusalem.

With the destruction of the temple the general practice of sacrifice was, for the most part, halted

Even before the temple was destroyed prophets were starting to speak up about God being more interested in the sacrifices of a penitent heart.

I do understand why the early church used the symbology of this kind of sacrifice to describe the crucifixion. Clearly it spoke to the understanding of the people of the time and their understanding of how a relationship with God functioned.

At the time the early church began their thinking would have been that, for us to be “right with God”, a once for all time sacrifice had to be made; a perfect creature of ultimate value had to be brought before the altar and blood spilt. Our sins must we washed away by the blood of the Lamb. For them this idea of the substitution of one life for another had been part of their practice for hundreds of years. And the Hebrew people are not alone. Sacrifice, mostly animal, and offerings to the gods have been part of appeasement and atonement rituals for almost all peoples and religions.

However, I like to think that we are capable of learning and changing and growing. I like to think that the image we may have had of God (as reflected in some of the earlier writings in the Bible) has changed and grown as we have come to more fully understand the real nature of God. I believe that is why Jesus’ teachings were so radical – they reshaped the way we think about God.

In that light then I believe that it is worth asking this question about God; Did God ever really like those kinds of sacrifices?

When we think about the very nature of God, does it sound likely that God would like us to take small animals and kill them so that we may believe that we are in closer relationship with Him?

Does that feel right? Something about the very idea of deliberately extinguishing another created thing and spilling its life blood just to let God know how sorry we are or how happy we are or how grateful we are seems somehow abhorrent to the idea of the loving Creator.

Think of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. When the son turned around and made his way back home to the Father, was there anything standing between the two of them; a ritual that had to be performed, a sacrifice made? Or did the Father rush out to meet the son with unconditional love, without even waiting to hear the words from the boy’s mouth?

It seems to me that Jesus forgave sins before his death (without the need of the sacrificial crucifixion) – Mark 2:9, Luke 7: 47 - 50. It seems to me that he proclaimed the coming of the new age, the immanence of the Kingdom of God and the desire of God to be in relationship with us.

His crucifixion, as far as I see, is an example of sacrifice, but not the sacrifice of the “washed in the blood” variety. From my perspective Jesus had already told me that I was good with God and God was good with me and that my sins were forgiven before he ever took the walk to Golgotha.

So where did this Word of God come from anyway?

That beautifully bound book that sits by our bedsides and in our bookshelves did not drop from the sky one beautiful afternoon as a completed entity. It is not even a “Book”, even if it is held between two covers. It is more of an anthology, a collection of writings, comprising stories, songs, poems, narrative, prophecy, letters, rules and wisdom. It tells the story, in its many forms, of the ways in which human kind has discovered, uncovered, been inspired by and gained insight into the nature and person of the Divine.

So where did this Word of God come from anyway?

The Bible, as we (mostly) have it now comprises an Old and New Testament.

If you are a Protestant Christian your Old Testament will have 39 “books”, if you are a Roman Catholic Christian it will have 46 “books”, if you belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church it will have 51 and, if you are of the Jewish faith it will have 24, referred to as the Tanakh.

The oldest of these books seems to have been written about 1,100 BC and may have been the book of Job or the books of the Pentateuch (the first 5 books). The most recent book of the Old Testament  is Malachi, written about 400 BC. The generally agreed group of books (Canon) which make up the Old Testament were categorised around 300 BC.

The three parts of the Old Testament are:
1. The Law, Torah in Hebrew and Pentateuch by Christians. It is sometimes called the Five Books of Moses, it consists of first five books of the Old Testament (5 books).
2. The Prophets, Neviim in Hebrew (21 books in Christianity, 8 in Judaism).
3. The Writings, Ketuvim in Hebrew, and Hagiographa by Christians (13 books in Christianity, 11 in Judaism). 

All Christian denominations accept that the New Testament has 27 “books.”

1.       The Gospels (4 books).
2, The Acts of the Apostles (1 book).
3. The Epistles or letters (21 books).
4. The Revelation of St. John the Divine (1 book).

The oldest is probably the letter from James, written as early as 45 A.D. The Book of Revelation is the youngest book of the New Testament, probably written about 95 A.D.

The Third Council of Carthage in 397 and 419 ratified what had become by then the most widely accepted list of writings for inclusion. However, while there was general acceptance of these writings, the Letter of James and the Book of Revelation continued to create considerable discussion and controversy. Even as late as the 16^th century Martin Luther questioned whether the Letter of James and Jude, the Letter to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation belonged in the canon of scripture.

Now let’s try some perspective. We seem to treat the scriptures as if they were the words of indescribable ages and had been in existence for all time. No they aren’t. We are young in the eyes of God and all our learnings of Him are only at their beginnings.

The oldest living, non-clonal tree – verified by dendrochronology – is "Methuselah", a nearly 4,800-year-old Great Basin Bristlecone Pine still growing in a secret location somewhere in the White Mountains of California. The oldest piece of scripture we have was written around 1,100BC, roughly 3,100 years ago. 


The entire history of our faith and experience with God is spanned by the lifetime of one tree. In God’s eye how do you think that God sees the lifespan of one tree – the blink of an eye perhaps? It is just as well that God is infinitely patient. I think that, if I were He, I would become a little annoyed at humankind’s presumption, pushiness and impatience.