As a kid, I was enamored by candles. I even started making candles at a pretty young age. Christmas candles were especially intriguing to a young kid. So were the candles that were lit around the house during a power outage (which were fairly regular in rural Minnesota during the 1950s-60s). I was enthralled by the dancing flames and the dancing figures they created on the walls. By the time I reached Junior High, I was pretty familiar with candles, or so I thought.
My eighth-grade science teacher gave us an assignment at the beginning of the year. Wanting us to learn to be observant, she gave us a homework assignment that involved observing a candle for 10 minutes and writing down all the things we saw. She issued a challenge to observe 10-15 things. Given my familiarity with candles, I was looking forward to the challenge, pondering it while I did my evening chores in the barn – what candle to use, where to conduct this high-level experiment, in which room, etc. I was a middle school science geek!
I was surprised at the number of things I observed, far surpassing the anticipated 10-15. What was more surprising was that despite my “familiarity” with candles, there was far more to observe than dancing figures on the wall. For the first time, I noticed the various flame colors – yellow, orange, and blue. I noticed flame shape – pointed, rounded, irregular. Pausing to watch for an extended time allowed me to observe the wax melt, pool, and drip down the side of the candle. I had never previously paid attention to smoke dispersant – the various ways the smoke rose or dispersed around the flame. I have continued to discover over the years there are lots of surprises that surpass familiarity if we are observant…
I continue to follow Anne F. Downs’ Let’s Read the Gospels podcast that she rolled out in January 2023. Throughout 2023, she read all four Gospels monthly, so I got to listen to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John twelve times each over the year. I was constantly hearing things I never remember reading and/or hearing before. If you know me, you know that I’ve consistently and regularly read the Gospels for the past 50+ years – maybe a few hundred times each.
And I still see/hear new things.
This year Downs is reading a chapter a day. By slowing things down, I read the same text in a couple of translations while consulting an on-line Greek interlinear source. It’s been a transformative time. I see things in a different light and the Greek interlinear source is invaluable in helping understand the richness of the words the evangelists selected to describe Jesus – his teaching and his actions – and how the first-century readers would have understood what they were writing.
And I keep hearing and seeing new things
Recently, Matthew 24 was in the queue. For context, Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives with his disciples overlooking Jerusalem, the center of Jewish religious and political power. He had been preparing them for a future that did not include the restoration of Israel but rather a complete destruction of their beloved city.
After listening to Downs, I then read from the Kingdom New Testament (aka New Testament for Everyone) and saw this…
And because lawlessness will be on the increase, many will find their love growing cold (Matthew 24:12).
This passage has been running through my mind since I read it, mulling over several questions: (1) What did Jesus want his disciples to hear regarding the impending fall of Jerusalem and the effect on their lives? (2) What did Matthew want the readers to hear and understand given that he may have written his gospel a dozen years after the fall? and (3) What might we want to pay attention to 2000 years later? Some of my pondering and wonderments…
(1) What did Jesus want his disciples to hear regarding the impending fall of Jerusalem and the effect on their lives? On a very basic level, I suspect Jesus wanted them to know what was coming down the pike regarding their nation and its occupancy by Rome. Keep in mind that Jesus (and his followers) knew nothing other than Roman occupancy. Nor did their parents. Or likely even their grandparents. So everyone was looking for a messiah that would restore their kingdom.
At this stage in the journey, Jesus had spent several years teaching his followers that God’s kingdom was not going to look like a restored nation, but something entirely new and different. During the last portion of his journey with his apprentices, Jesus repeatedly (literally, repeatedly) presented them with the vision of a Messiah who was ushering in this new kind of kingdom. And that those in power (not the Romans, mind you) who were uninterested in the ethics of this new kind of kingdom would kill him. Others who cared only about a national kingdom would stay their course and revolt against the Romans with brutal and disastrous results.
I suspect Jesus wanted his initial followers to be alert and not be caught off guard when the “City of God” is sacked. And practically, he may have been warning them of the impending brutal Roman siege and the resulting starvation.
There will be lawlessness, but don’t let your love grow cold
(2) What did Matthew want the readers to hear and understand given that he may have written his gospel a dozen years after the fall of Jerusalem? What comes to mind is the letters to the seven churches that we find in Revelation. In the face of lawlessness that resulted in suffering and persecution, they were admonished to keep their faith, to not lose their first love. These very churches could have been readers and hearers of Matthew’s gospel.
There will be lawlessness, but don’t let your love grow cold
(3) What might we want to pay attention to 2000 years later? (This could be a whole other blog post.) The word lawlessness grabbed my attention. The New Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a state of disorder due to a disregard of the law.” No big surprise here. However, look at the list of synonyms that Oxford included…
Anarchy, disorder, chaos, unruliness, lack of control, lack of restraint, wildness, riot, criminality, crime, rebellion, revolution, mutiny, insurgency, insurrection, misrule
I suspect this list contains several words we’ve heard and seen in the news in recent years. And on social media. Words that cause us to be concerned about the state of our world and society. Words wielded in the arena of cultural contention. Words that cause us to wring our hands in lament and angst. What might Jesus say to us today in the midst of all this? Maybe…
There will be lawlessness, but don’t let your love grow cold
Practical Theology Today 