The Upper Room
(photo from Internet; I didn't get a good one)
In November, I was blessed to be able to spend 10 days in Israel with 24 members of my extended King family. My Grandpa and Grandma King gave us this trip for Christmas last year. We learned and saw so much during our time, that I don't think I will ever be able to remember it all! Thank goodness for the Internet! :) But I did learn a few important things:
1.) My Grandparents rock! I never would have been able to make it to Israel on my own. Grandpa and Grandma (especially Grandpa) have been promising to take us grandkids since we were little. It finally was able to happen!
2.) My family rocks! Amazingly we were able to keep from getting on each others' nerves for the entire trip (well, mostly, anyway) even though we spent long days traveling in a bus and visiting sites. It was hard to say good-bye when we got home.
3.) Israel is amazing! There really aren't any words to completely describe what it was like to see and to stand on and to touch places that before have been just places/things to read about in the Bible. And the history! So surreal to stand in front of a Canaanite gate made of mud and straw bricks that has been standing since Abraham entered the land. Unbelievable. Climbing across the aqueduct that King Herod built so he could have fresh water in Caesarea...beautiful. And to sit on the same Temple steps that Jesus walked on...mind-blowing! Even learning about modern-day Israeli politics was sobering. At one point we were driving down a road that had towering trees on either side. Our tour guide, Malcolm, (who was also amazing) told us that these were planted to keep the Lebanese snipers from taking out the vehicles. Later that day, we stopped at a lookout spot where we could look across no-man's-land (full of anti-tank trenches and land-mine warning flags) into Syria. Malcolm told us not to be fooled: there were thousands of Syrian eyes watching us.
4.) The way I read the Bible before my trip is nothing like the way I read my Bible now. Places make more sense. I can see what the words are describing in ways that I couldn't before.
5.) I am much, much, more interested in the Jewish faith and in Israel itself. My Grandpa fell in love with the country many, many years ago and now he has been able to pass on that love to his family. Yes, Israel has a significantly large Arab/Muslim population, and a teeny Christian (mainly Orthodox) population. But my belief is in Jesus as Savior and Messiah, so Christianity is my faith and that is what I focus on. BUT, Jesus was Jewish and unfortunately, Christians (throughout history) seem to have forgotten that very important fact.
So, it was no wonder then, knowing all of this, that a particular book jumped out at me while perusing the shelves at Barnes and Noble (yes, I realize I bought this at B&N and not Berean, but I hadn't had any intentions of buying a book that night). The title is Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. This is a fantastic book, and I recommend that everyone who professes to be a Christian to read it (and when you do, I suggest that you also read the "notes" as you go along. There is a lot to be learned from them as well).
As today is Maundy Thursday, I thought it fitting to give you the following excerpt:
Why is this feast important? One reason is that it tells us something about the kind of bread Jesus was holding when he broke it and said, "This is my body." ... There would not have been a scrap of regular bread on the table or anywhere else in the house because Jews were required to eat the Passover meal using only unleavened bread. In fact, leavening of any kind was forbidden for the entire seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, starting with the Passover meal. So Jesus would not have been holding ordinary bread, but matzah.
Why is this significant, and what's so terrible about yeast anyway? In ancient times leavening was done by adding a blog of old, raw, fermented dough to the new dough. The fresh batch was deliberately infected with microbes that would cause it to rise, but then later to sour, decay, and eventually rot. The puffiness of the leavening reminded the Jews of human pride and hypocrisy. Throughout the year, all grain offerings given to the Lord by fire had to be free of leaven. The ancients saw leavening as a picture of sin and contamination, something God didn't want in his burnt offerings.
So when Jesus held up the bread and said, "This is my body," on the night before his death, he was using a specific kind of bread, made without leaven, unadulterated by decay. Unlike the rest of humanity, Jesus had not been infected with the "rottenness" that was in the rest of humankind. He alone was a fit offering for our sins. When God prohibited his people centuries earlier from eating leaven during Passover, perhaps he was thinking ahead to the night when Jesus would take the bread in his own hands, break it, and then say, "This is my body, given for you."
