John the Baptist sat in a prison cell increasingly depressed. His energetic preaching, spurred on the the Spirit of God, and the crowds pushing on the banks of the Jordan for baptism seemed so far away. Knowing he might never leave this hole, John wondered if his life’s work meant anything at all.

So John sent messengers to Jesus to ask, are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?

John baptized Jesus and heard the stories about Jesus. But John sat in jail while Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead. John saw none of this for himself. John, the precursor of Jesus, the one of whom Jesus said, among those born of women there is no one greater than John, never saw with his own eyes the miracles of Jesus. Instead, John lay in filth and darkness and doubt.

I love the way Jesus answered John’s emissaries: Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Jesus referenced familiar passages from the book of Isaiah pointing to the Messiah, words John knew by heart. Who knows, perhaps the cousins learned these promises together as boys, or maybe they had discussed them late into the night under the stars? I have a feeling these were the exact words John hoped to hear.

Regardless, Jesus comforted John with the only message he and the world and all of us need to hear—indeed, the Messiah has come.

Luke 7 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Spencer Tamichi

I find restaurants who claim they’re hip because they break all the rules super annoying. I mean, can I really break all the rules? Might I order filet mignon after filet mignon and walk out without paying? Could I build a small fire pit on my table and roast my meat myself? What if I dined in my underwear? As you can see, this concept totally bugs me.

Which perhaps is how the Pharisees felt when sitting with Jesus in a synagogue one fine morning, watching like hawks to see if he would heal someone on the Sabbath. Jesus, in the sometimes you got to break the rules mode, blatantly did just that.

A man was there whose right hand was shriveled…Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”

The crowd sat silent. Jesus looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.

This healing on the Sabbath created massive animosity among the Pharisees and led to their destruction of Jesus. It seems odd to me that Jesus did no work here at all, but simply spoke and the man’s hand healed itself. But rivalries were afoot, and a healing created a good pretext for violence (which is a strange thought in itself).

The bigger issue involved Jesus’s earlier statement: The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. The religious authorities rejected the idea that Jesus might represent the Lord—or actually be God in the flesh—and that Jesus created the whole Sabbath idea and could bend it as he wished. This represented a stunning claim, one many refused to contemplate. Not sure if I could have either.

Can a person really break all the rules? Not me or you, but with Jesus it appears that an entirely different set of rules apply.

Luke 6 & Mark 3 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Jonathan Stout

It’s funny what pops in your head when reading the Bible. Sometimes nothing, to be honest, but other days connections snap like corn popping.

Mister Spock, from the TV series Star Trek, loomed before me this morning with his dour visage. Spreading his fingers he pronounced the classic line—Live long and prosper.

I thought of the Enterprise’s faithful first officer as I read how Moses, in his parting words, implored the children of Israel to stay true to the Lord. Walk in obedience to all that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you possess.

Live long and prosper, the blessing attributed to Vulcan sages, was appropriated by the writers of Star Trek straight from the mouth of Moses. But they left out one vital prerequisite—walk in obedience to all that the Lord has commanded you.

As kids my friends and I worked to spread our fingers like Spock. The move creates more of a challenge for some than others. But what remains a challenge for all of us is the practice of walking in obedience to all that the Lord has commanded. This proved too hard for Moses’s audience, just as it proves too hard for us.

Thankfully, Jesus followed Moses, creating a new path toward prosperity we all can follow.

Now to figure out how to make a Vulcan Mind Meld work for me.

Deuteronomy 5 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022