Mandelbrot Jesus

I was reading an excellent biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer last night and went to bed having discovered that back in the 1930s he practiced something known today as lectio divina.

Lectio divina involves taking a small portion of scripture (perhaps only a single verse) and spending a lot of time digesting it and reflecting on it.

If you google the phrase lectio divina, you'll find about 1.5 million web pages that mention it. Hardly novel stuff, right? But back in the 1930s this practice was not only weird, but scary weird. Bonhoeffer's good friend and world-class theologian Karl Barth wrote him a letter expressing great concern over what Bonhoeffer was doing, teaching his students this practice!

Which goes to show that even world-class theologians don't have a lock on the truth.

Thankfully Bonhoeffer trusted the scriptures to do their work and did not give in to outside pressures pushing him to abandon the practice.

But all that is prelude.

This morning I woke up and thought, "I'll stare at.... at... 1 Peter 1:19. For at least five minutes. And see what happens."

I had no idea what the verse would say. I had randomly picked the reference out of the dark airs surrounding my bed.

So here it is:

1 Peter 1:19 ...but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

Wow. Not a lot to work with. Not even a complete sentence! So I did cheat a bit and read the surrounding text too! But I focused on the verse itself, and after a bit a new idea began to form.

It had been brought to my attention once that, when Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last week of his earthly life, God was playing out a new version of the Passover. Note God's instructions to the Israelites, given just before the first Passover in Egypt.

Exodus 12:1-6 (excerpted) The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "...Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. ... The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect ... Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight."

Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. I'm not good at ancient calendars, but it's my understanding that it would have been on this very day that Jews through Israel were bringing lambs into their homes. For inspection.

Jerusalem was, for the Jews, quite literally "the city of God," so it's no stretch of words to say that on Palm Sunday God brought Jesus into his own home. For inspection.

If Palm Sunday was the 10th day of the month, the 14th day would have been Thursday/Friday. (New days begin at dusk by Jewish reckoning.) So on the very night that Jews were eating their slaughtered lambs, Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples. A Passover meal. And a few hours later Jesus himself was slaughtered. A sacrificial lamb.

So as I read 1 Peter 1:19, it was clear what Peter meant when he chose those words. In the prior verse Peter begins the sentence by saying that we were not redeemed with silver or gold but rather with... the Passover lamb.

So I began to reflect on God's sense of overlap. What we have covered here is not unusual. God clearly likes to echo and prefigure past and future events, respectively. It'd be a distraction to list them all, but there are many well-known examples of this sort of thing to be found in the Bible.

If anyone wants to know God's next big move, rest assured it's already on display before us. Some version of the future has already been played out in miniature before our very eyes.

So the last week of Jesus' life was a reenactment of the Passover, taken to a whole new level.

On display for a week in Jerusalem, God's city. Examined. Sacrificed.

Were there any other things like this?

Well, in a sense, it could also be said that Jesus' whole life was also a reenactment of the Passover redemption.

On display for 30 years in Israel, God's nation. Examined. Sacrificed.

Ok. Did the pattern bear any further repetition?

And then the thought struck me.

We, the Church, are also an embodiment of Jesus Christ. We carry on his very work, carry his name, and we too have been brought forth, brought into a home that is not our normal abode.

Are we also an even larger scale re-enactment of the Passover? If so, this is a sobering thought.

On display for an era on Earth, God's planet. Examined. Sacrificed.

No, it's not entirely a pleasant thought, but it does fit the tenor of the New Testament, with no due respect to televangelists and Prosperity Gospel proponents.

Are we, the Church, on an extended Passover display? Is this the "week" before a time of persecution the scale of which has never been seen before? (If so, this is bad news for pre-Trib rapture enthusiasts.)

But I'm not here to argue end-time scheduling.

I'm just reflecting on Mandelbrot Jesus.

These reflections may not stand closer examination, and the end is in God's hands. But as for the rest, the pattern fits. There are many verses to support the notion. For example:

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God...

So the notion of us, the Church, being sacrificial materials is not at all foreign to the New Testament, however strange it may appear to modern eyes. It's all there, for those with eyes to see.

Yes, we have been brought forth on Earth. We are in a home that is not our own. And we are being examined. Peter said as much himself, just two verses earlier...

1 Peter 1:17 "Since you call on a Father who judges each person's work impartially, live out your times as foreigners here in reverent fear.

A Feast! And Only Half the Dishes are Poisoned!

In our home we celebrate "non-digital" Sundays. This generally means no iPads, no iPods, no computers... but it also means no TV. Since we pretty much never watch any TV anyway, this last exclusion is of little consequence to anyone in the family.

Yesterday, however, was Superbowl Sunday.

Should we make an exception?

Sure.

So we turned on the TV at some point a bit before half-time just to see where things were at. Maybe catch a funny commercial or two?

But as we turned the TV on, a recurring concern surfaced yet again in my thoughts. "What else might we see?"

At first, things went well enough. As the TV powered up we found ourselves watching a bit of footage involving an elderly fellow with a cane demonstrated some nifty skateboarding tricks in front of some ogling young teen boys. Cute.

The next footage was just goofy. Some old dude with a pool stick shooting Hellman's mayonnaise off a display stack and onto the floor in a supermarket. "Corner pocket!" he declared. Time to change channels and find that game.

Next channel was on commercial break. Gyrating scantily clad women danced next to a car... Hmm... My four young children (and one boy not young enough!) are staring at the screen. Time to change channels. Fast!

Next channel was also on commercial break too... I think? Hard to say. All I know is that the old lady was in a driveway explaining with a gleam in her eye that she never went anywhere without (and I quote) "six young scantily clad men." The camera panned back to reveal that she was, like the ark of the covenant, being borne on a 2-pole litter by six buff men. Yikes! Change channels. Fast!

The next channel was displaying home-video footage of an extremely obese woman trying to ride a scooter down a cement walkway adjacent to the side of the house. She careened from side to side and eventually hit her head on the cement base of a window located at eye level. She fell backward off the scooter, obviously in pain.

I told my wife to turn the TV back off.

We didn't end up seeing any of the game, but I heard this morning that it was pretty close.

This time next year maybe we won't even bother to turn the TV on.