Maintaining Orthodoxy Within The Contemplative

Numbers 19:1-25:9, Chukat/Balak, Statute/Balak

 Just the titles of these two Torah portions cries out to the challenge of opening up our hearts and minds to the balance between the orthodoxy of our faith (the laws and statutes) and the contemplative or mystical side of our faith (the story of Balak, Balaam, and his talking donkey).

The two titles only provide a glimpse into what these scriptures reveal in what I believe to be at the heart of the Judeo-Christian faith experience and the heart of our journey with God.  As we read these sections of scripture we are given the opportunity to ask some tough questions about our faith, allow the Holy Spirit to quicken into our minds other scriptures that support what I believe these scriptures support, and as such move deeper into our understanding of Him, this world, His ways, the spirit realm around us, and how all of these things are interconnected.

The reading covers:

• The law of the red heifer and the return to "clean" after contact with the dead,
• The death of Miriam,
• Moses striking the rock and being told he will not enter the promised land,
• The death of Aaron,
• The first official battle Israel faces on their journey,
• The people complaining, the Lord sending fiery serpents, and the bronze serpent,
• The introduction of Balaam, his relationship with the Lord, and his using God's words for self-promotion,
• Balaam's talking donkey and how it protected Balaam from his death at the hands of the Angel of the Lord,
• Men of Israel led astray by Moabite women and their gods,
• God's steadfast commitment to His plan in spite of His people,
• God sends a plague upon the people, and
• The plague is put in check when Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, kills an Israelite and the woman he is with.

As I began reading the statues of the red heifer my mind instantly went to the statues of the bitter water found in Numbers 5:11-31.  This is another section of scripture that tells us how deep the mystical runs in the veins of the Judeo-Christian faith.  As Christ followers we simply cannot ignore that this is a major part of our faith.  We must allow ourselves to look at this and ask some hard questions.  The answer to these questions will ultimately define our walk with God and how we observe and interact with the world around us. Let’s look at the questions we must ask ourselves as we look to grow in our understandings of the world around us:

• What do we believe about the spirit realm?
• Do we believe God talks to us through the Holy Spirit?
• Do we believe the demonic realm speaks to us through unholy spirits?
• Do we believe that witchcraft and occult practices are real in that these people are in deep connection with the demonic powers of this world and are acting as their agents doing their work their way?

One of my favorite New Testament scriptures comes in Ephesians 6:12 where it reads "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."  Have you ever considered that every time an evil spirit is referenced in the New Testament it is referred to as an "unclean spirit”?  If there are "unclean spirits", are there "clean spirits"?  Just something to think about.

This section of scripture also forces us to ask some other questions that will also be foundational in defining how we interact with God, others, and the world around us.

• What do we believe leads to blessings or "good things" in our lives?
• What do we believe leads to curses or "bad things" in our lives?
• Has God brought us into this covenant for His purposes or for ours?
• Do we believe that blessings can appear as curses and curses appear as blessings?
• How open are we to embracing new understandings of what it looks like to represent Him, to live according to His ways, and to "be Holy as He is Holy"?

I want to explain that I am not holding a position of right or wrong in these matters.  I am simply sharing scriptures that definitely support a case for how I view this walk with Him and why I believe it so important to understand the value of the orthodoxy (the ways of God) and equally important to recognize the contemplative (mystical aspects) as well.  

In saying this, I ask, if you disagree, to not let yourself believe that what I share is not biblical.  Because it most assuredly is.  Instead, if you tend to disagree, take on a position that takes responsibility for your decision to disagree that is reasonable, justifiable, and that you can own as if you were standing before Christ Himself and explaining your beliefs and decisions to Him.  

To take a stance that you believe Moses, Jesus, Paul, and the other bible authors lived in a time when mysticism was popular and as such, they were swayed by these misunderstood practices is a reasonable argument.  When it comes to the description of the clean and unclean, maybe you believe that Jesus and those that God commissioned to write the scriptures just didn't understand what science has come to show us and as such created the concepts of "clean", "unclean", "blessings", "curses", and evil spirits.  Maybe you believe that it would be evil for God to do what Moses, the prophets, Jesus, and the other bible authors tell us about God's interactions in our lives and as such, you don't believe that they really understood God as well as we do today.  

I am not saying that these are the only reasons that you may have for not believing that God is involved in sickness, disease, "curses", or casting people out where there is torment and gnashing of teeth.  I am not implying that these are the only reasons that you may have for not believing that there are things that are "clean" and things that are "unclean" and that God defines these as holy and profane.  And I do not believe that I understand every perspective that would disagree with how I see things.  I am simply asking you to take a deep look inside, pose the tough questions, and be honest with yourself.  Why do you believe what you believe and more importantly, why do you reject what you reject?

As I began this blog, I thought I knew where it was heading but assuredly I did not.  I never saw what I just shared and I had so much more that I was sure God was going to ask me to share.  In light of the direction this has gone I believe He is asking me to simply share a few basic points from this scripture without getting too teachy.

The scripture starts off with this incredibly mystical understanding of how important water is in transforming the unclean ashes of the red heifer into the most important potion held by the priesthood.  This potion is the only thing that can be used to transform a person who has been in contact with a dead body from an unclean state back to a clean state.  It should remind us of how important water is in the general practice of moving people from unclean back to clean and as such reminds us of how important water is in the spiritual aspects of our relationship with God.  Very soon after God gives Moses this statue Miriam, his sister, dies.  When she dies the water stops flowing.  The people of Israel start grumbling against God because there is no water.  What were they focused on?  What do you think Moses was focused on?  Moses needed a red heifer and some water so he could spend his last moments honoring his sister and attending to her burial without putting himself into the position of forever losing his relationship with God.  All the people cared about where their physical bodies.  Does this give us new understanding as to why Moses called them rebellious just before striking the rock?  What were they rebelling against?  For me, my mind goes to the story of Jesus with the woman at the well.  She too was focused on water to drink but Jesus told her that He was the living water and that if she drank of Him, she would never thirst again.

Now let's look at John 3:13-16.  We all know John 3:16, but how many of us know John 3:13-14?  In John 3:13 Jesus tells us that he descended from heaven.  In 1 Corinthians 10:4 we are told that Jesus was the "Spiritual Rock" that followed them through the desert WAS Christ and that when they drank, they were drinking Him.  In John 3:14 Jesus sets the conditions for what the faith referenced in John 3:16 must be.  "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

I see a few things in this.  First of all, it was mystical for the people of Israel and it is mystical for God's people today.  This is the entire context of John chapter 3.  Nicodemus couldn't understand it.  Jesus said to him in John 3:10-12 "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? "Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?"

Isn't it interesting that the image that God told Moses to put before the people was to be the very thing that He sent to kill them?  With this in mind can we see Jesus in the same way?  He did come to bring life and life eternal.  But, if we are all just like the Israelites in the desert, don't we need to die just like they did?  The entire context of 1 Corinthians chapter 10 is Paul comparing our walk with Christ to the Israelites walk with Spiritual Christ as they too struggled against the tendency to return to the death of what we were all born into and God's unending pursuit of delivering us into the lives that He has promised.  

On the mystical side, the spirit of Messiah has been and forever will be.  He is the aspect of God that washes us, feeds us (He was the mana too), and sustains us.  He is also the aspect of God that is sent to bring death to the death we live so that we may gaze upon His love and be delivered into the life that He has promised.

On the side of orthodoxy, we come to see that we have been born into a physical world that is not only physical but is also spiritual.  This is a place of immense struggle, temptation, and battle.  He has given us tools to help us understand, and through faith, believe that what we do in the physical will somehow shift things in the spiritual and that these practices, sometimes referred to as rituals, are real.  

This is what the Israelites just couldn't see.  They saw the physical as physical and the spiritual as spiritual.  They missed the interconnectivity.

As we walk out the rest of our days may we allow the love of God to reveal to us how we struggle against the same things that the Israelites and other bible characters did.  My we forever bend our knees when we force Him to send fiery serpents into our lives to reveal where we are doing the same things they have done.  And may we learn to gaze upon those "curses" in the same way we look upon Christ on the cross, with the love in His eyes, knowing that all that He has done has been for us and not against us.  Finally, may we come to grow in our understanding of the interconnectivity of the spiritual and the physical, be set free from the belief that anything is "ritual", and be delivered into a heart that can understand the spiritual nature of all that He has offered.