Blessings בְּרָכָה

Background:

The Arabic word بركة (barakah) has several meanings and carries significant theological and cultural meaning in Islam. In Judaism, the Hebrew word בְּרָכָה (barakah) also has deep meaning, including as a name for daily prayers or “blessings.” Both peoples consider "barakah" as deeper and more multifaceted than the English word “blessing.” 

 

When I was looking at Ephesians 1:3-14, a kind of song or poem that starts with the theme of God’s blessings, I found that Paul uses the word εὐλογητός (eulogetos) as the Greek equivalent of barakah that is found in the Hebrew scriptures. So when I wrote this poem based on the Ephesians passage, it seemed using this word with so much depth and meaning was appropriate:

 

Barakah

By Paul Bunge

Blessed be is “barakah”

In temple, synagogue, and scroll

Praise God the source of barakah

He’s the blessings honor roll 

 

God fathered Jesus Christ

Who is our Lord and President

He barakahs us at God’s side

Though he knows our lesser tent

 

Barakah started long ago

Pre-paleozoic age

The God of law and perfection

Took us at our awkward stage

 

Before the time of time began

This God of perfect want and will

Of nature planets cosmos rolling

Used barakah to make them still  

 

Insight of God is fact and wise

All inside of us he knows 

Our plans and dreams of selfish gain

One cut, it’s gone, as red blood flows

 

But barakah and baby’s breath

Eternity found in a stable

Put that red blood in sacred bag

To nurture one who would be able

 

The marrow barakah’d his cheeks

His voice gave life and clarified

In others loss of blood you’re gone

When his flowed out, our sins died

 

Barakah to us is free

Lavished all he has stored up

He planned it though it’s mystery

All punishment he drank that cup

 

But wait, there’s more it’s hope he has

We without a bank account

Have all things promised to deliver

Have his will, last testament 

 

The promissory can’t be lost

Barakah between our cells

Holy Spirit gospel faith

In moving body deepest wells

 

All this promise hope and truth

Now who we are, his final story

He will be back our only vision

In meantime barakah and glory

 

 

 

Who is this About?

When you read the Bible, you are going to be tempted to think that this or that passage is about somebody else.  Let me just warn you: don’t go there. Let the word of God plunge deeply into your heart. Let it expose things that are uncomfortable. That’s the only way you’re going to grow. That’s the only way you’re going to become like Jesus.

                                                                 -Phillip Miller

There is but one question of the hour: how to bring the truth of God's Word into vital contact with the minds and hearts of all classes of people.      

                                                                             -William E Gladstone

Holes

“Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me?”

This is what Jesus said in Mark 14. He knew what was going to happen: in fact he had just explained it several times to his disciples both during supper and later in the garden of Gethsemane. He knew the disciples would all desert him: he had just been arguing that point with the Peter, who angrily thought he would be better than that. So the question is: why did Jesus ask this question? Surely he was not looking for an answer. In addition, he knew that in asking it, it would not change the course of events: he would still be captured, tried unfairly, and tortured to death by crucifixion.

One reason I think that Jesus asked this question was simply his emotional response to the situation. The injustice, the absurdity, the irony. As if he was overthrowing a government, or he was a master criminal. After all of his efforts put in to teaching these very people. After all the miracles, all of the work, all of the sacrifice, was this the result? A night time secret arrest by a bunch of thugs? Surely Jesus must have been upset at this, even if he knew it was to happen. Sad, lonely, even confused if that could be possible. No wonder he asked this question: is this really what is happening? Are you really going through with this? Et tu Brutus?

Are we who follow Christ to expect no confusion, no being forsaken, no betrayal in walking the pathway He walked? Do we expect no existential crisis when the world in its insecurity and vanity turns its back on us? No, more than turns its back on us: actually seeks us out to capture us, as if we were a danger and not a help. A threat and not a hope. A bringer of chaos and not what we are in reality: the hands and feet of Christ in the world. Remember that His hands and feet have holes in them. If we are his hands and feet, are we not to have gaping holes?

We will run away. We are more like Peter than like Christ. The crisis is too much, and we like all of the disciples bend under the pressure. But the life of Christ depends on Christ, is fulfilled by Christ, and is sustained by Christ. With Christ, the laws of mathematics are put aside and 1-1=1. When we fall, he does not. When the rooster crows, we cry; but even then Jesus is not finished with us. It is then he dies for us. It is then that his body sustains and His blood washes.

We have our questions, just as did Jesus. Like the holes in Jesus hands, there are pieces missing, things we cannot explain. Even moral and religious matters that gnaw at us and weaken us, draining out our life strength. But Christ is with us. He is our strength. Let us serve Him with all of our selves, holes and all. Be like unto Christ and wear those holes without shame.

The Bible is Full of Contradictions

Like any good book, like any honest person. Most of the most glaring contradictions I find not between some old book from Moses and another from Paul. But within a few verses of one another. Here is one example:

(Proverbs 10:3-5)

When it comes to food and provisions, Solomon says that it is the Lord that prevents the righteous from going hungry. Yet in the very next verse it says that “lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.” So, in other words, it is the hard-working nature of a person that makes them to be able to eat. Yet again, in the very following verse it says that the one who gathers crops in the summer is wise, but the one who sleeps through the harvest is disgraceful.

So what is it? What is the thing that brings provision? That brings wealth? What is it that brings poverty? That causes hunger? These are extremely important questions. Solomon first says that it is the Lord who provides. Suggesting we need to trust the Lord and He will give us all of our provisions.

But the next verse says lazy hands make a man poor. Cause and effect, this is one of the main pillars of scientific thought. In this case: Work, and you will get things. Sit around, and you will wind up poor.

And the next verse adds another twist: the relationship of the child with the parent is what is relevant here, not cause and effect, not God providing. But very simply honor versus disgrace to the family.

How is it that three of these competing interpretations of reality can all coexist? How can reality have cause-and-effect science, a family-centered hierarchy of honor and disgrace, and God’s provision the key to trust, all at once?

The answer is: all are true. Not true in the sense of separate components of a whole, but really three whole explanations that are completely true in themselves, but non-negating of the other truths. That is to say: cause and effect is completely true. There is not some cause-and-effect in observed phenomenon, and that which cannot be explained by cause and effect is attributed to God or to the human spirit, or something of that sort. No, if you observe phenomena, you will find cause and effect going on. If you look for the missing causes, the missing effects, you will find them. That is the structure of the universe.

And the reality of the person is a complete reality, the person in relationship. In this case relationship with the family. The person in honor, the person in disgrace. The person with a real, bona fide existence as an unexplainable being despite your best explanations. The person with an immeasurable soul in a world of measuring sticks.

And you have God. God acting in the world: constantly, consciously, purposefully, lovingly. Not a God of the missing pieces, the parts we have not explained yet. Not a God of the origins only, the clockmaker uninvolved. But God, knowing, relating, intervening.

***

My friend, if you are looking for God by searching for a missing piece, you will not find Him. For from the beginning you are looking for a smaller being that that which He is. If you look for a whale in a microscope, you will not see it, though the microscope is pointing in the right direction. God is not there filling in the gaps of science, holding things together until a new discovery can be made to explain Him away. If that is your concept of God, whether you believe in Him or not, it is in error. This is why the evolutionist battles the creationist over the fossil record: The evolutionists shows that the “missing link” has been found thus disproving the creationist’s theory. The creationist looks for another “missing link” to show the evolutionist that his theory is wrong and he must believe in God. Both are discussing fantasies, for God the creator is so glorious that He has made the world at once smooth without ruffles, and at the same time with an endless thoroughly saturated layer of His own fingerprints. If those fighting would pause long enough, they would behold together the glory of the dinosaur pointing to the glory of God, and would revel in both.