The Carpenter Hammers Home Mixed Messages

 

           It’s hard to imagine a Jesus movie might be entertaining rather than mainly pious, heartrending, or inspiring, but the first thing Aida said when the credits ceased rolling on the way out was, “That was a lot of fun!” This movie is fun. It’s also very moving, inspiring, and heartrending. Filmed in South Africa, the visuals are expansive and beautiful. The characters are memorable and well-acted.

Some may be shocked at the boxing scenes, but Jesus movies are known for their gore especially inflicted on Jesus in the crucifixion. But boxing was a popular sport in the Greco-Roman world,[1] and we are spared the crucifixion which is done off set. The relationships are important and do drive the film, especially the moments when Yeshua (Jesus, played by Jeff Dickamore) teaches the boxer who has become his carpenter apprentice (Oren, played by Kameron Krebs). Oren will be accessible to men and boys watching this film. He is reminiscent of a modern time traveler dropped into the ancient world. He thinks his dream mate is “out of his league” and he seems to elicit a modern response from his brother Levi (Kaulin Krebs) who asks if he is going to “take her out on a date.” The boxing training sessions are certainly all ancient and appear believable.

The film is refreshing. It’s definitely the most different Jesus movie we’ve ever seen. But it’s very likeable and well worth watching if you don’t mind the opposite of a chick flick—what we might call a rooster flick. If you haven’t had the experience Bill had as a small boy sitting in his dad’s lap watching the Friday nights fights, you might brace yourself up for some of these scenes, but they are not R-rated and quite tame for what you might see in a secular movie.

One of Aida’s favorite scenes was: when our protagonist Oren makes a table and asks Yeshua how he knows so much about him. Yeshua says, you know everything about the table you make. The Creator knows everything about what he creates. We’ve never seen John 1:3 flushed out more poignantly (“all things through [the Word] came into being and apart from him came nothing, not one came into being”) or Luke 12:6-7 (“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies; and not one of them is forgotten in God’s presence. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows”).[2] Bill was impacted by the scene where Yeshua gives Oren a kithara that Yeshua crafted (a predecessor of the guitar) and tells him to write a song and sing it to the woman he loves (Mira, played by Aurora Florence). If she can still love him after hearing him sing, then he can know this is true love. Yeshua also points out that writing songs is not for oneself, but to give them to others. A major theme is Yeshua’s generosity which fills the entire story, which he embodies throughout the film by his infectious actions (“It is more blessed to give than to receive” [Acts 20:35]).

Did you ever wonder why Jesus never asked the centurion whose servant he healed to drop out of the Roman army in Luke 7:2-10 but simply praised his faith and moved on? The Jesus for The Carpenter answers that puzzle. He simply tells people where they are, assesses the level of their faith, and moves them on in it by involving them irresistibly in his own search and rescue activities. He simply works with them.

And, what about its mixed messages? The director, producer, and one of the writers is a Mormon: Garrett Betty. The movie is aimed at general audiences, but its Mormon theology comes through when he has Jeshua speak to Oren about finding an “eternal” mate. This explains why the film begins by picturing couples, such as Adam and Eve and Abraham and Sarah, which alludes to their eternal marriages that produce in eternity spirit children who await being assigned bodies that will come to earth to learn to “become like their eternal father, return to him, and achieve their exultation to godhead” (Doctrine and Covenants).[3] However, the real Jesus never promoted marriage after death or becoming equal to the father God as he was (Phil 2:6). The Sadducees asked Jesus about a woman who married seven brothers, “In the resurrection, whose wife would she be?” (The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in the resurrection.) Jesus replied firmly that there was no marriage in the resurrection (Matt 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:35). The Apostle Paul reiterates that marriage is annulled at death and is not eternal or forever (1 Cor 7:39).

In short, this film is engaging and entertaining. But, beware of any Mormon doctrine that is implied. The takeaway is to enjoy practicing and perfecting the gift God has given you, because it was given to you in love for the benefit of others, but its use is not sufficient to ensure salvation (cf. Rom 10:9-10).

Bill and Aída

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[1] E.g., see E. Norman Gardiner, Athletics of the Ancient World Chicago: Ares, 1930 [1980], ch. 15.

[2] The translations are by Aída unless otherwise indicated.

[3] See further Harold Carl, “Families Are Forever: Why Eternal Families Just Won’t Work,” Africanus Journal 9:2 (Nov. 2017): 15-23. Mormons emphasize doing good works as part of the plan of salvation since they believe the substitutionary death of Christ for our sins is not sufficient. See Harold Carl, “The Impossible Gospel: The Doctrine of Salvation According to the Text and Canon of Mormonism,” Africanus Journal 2:1 (April 2010): 14-24; Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cult, ed. Hank Hanegraaff (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1997), ch. 6, especially 237-40.

Let’s Watch Movies That Encourage Virtue!

           For a long time now we have been gravitating toward 1940s movies even though most of them were made before we were born. We like movies from this era because they tend to be more moral than many earlier and later movies.  For one thing, there are consequences for actions.  For another, successful, strong, and moral women are presented as the norm, especially during the war years.

 Ted Baehr, founder and publisher of Movieguide and chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, in his book How to Succeed in Hollywood (Without Losing Your Soul), confirms our preferences. He cites the noted singer and actor Pat Boone, who recalls the clean movies of yesteryear, in “the heyday of the film business,” when “families used to go together at least once a week to see a good movie in the neighborhood cinema.” “You could always count on it being a happy family experience…movies that don’t offend a large portion of their audience tend to make more money,” he adds, than those that “purposely insert foul language and other offensive material.”[1]

When he was very young, Bill remembers his mother, who was a young working girl during the depression, loved to watch the Maisie movies whenever they would come on television.  Bill would enjoy how much his mom would enjoy them, breaking in to tell him stories about her own experiences that paralleled Maisie’s.  The heroine (played by the versatile Ann Sothern) was a type of “Rosie the Riveter” with a strong moral center. Maisie was always aggressive, forthright, sober, and moral. Her prototype, Rosie the Riveter, was the symbol for World War II women who worked in the factories creating the equipment for the war effort. Rosie the Riveter had a strong work ethic with a solid moral center.

When the war ended, however, so did Rosie – and Maisie.  They were replaced in the 1950s by “Blondie,” who was now limited to homemaking and sending the incompetent Dagwood to work. The message was that women were needed to step back and vacate jobs for returning male veterans. Had Rosie/Maisie been preserved, husband and wife could have split full-time jobs and secured more family time.

 And what about the classic Casablanca? Could such a movie have been made today?  Wikipedia notes that “during scriptwriting, the possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together,” but was rejected so that Ilsa and Victor could “carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two little people,” as scriptwriter Casey Robinson explained to producer Hal Wallis.  Further, “it was certainly impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the production code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man.”[2]

 Today, however, we have no such restriction. Instead of welcoming the iconic film that it became, would today’s audiences have preferred the discussed ending? The Nineteen Forties’ context and code guided the filmmakers to choose the moral sacrifice, which took the film to a deeper level. The question for us, of course is - which ending would audiences choose today: the Christ sacrifice or the self-centered abandonment of virtue and loyalty for self-gratification?

In his book, Ted Baehr contrasts a “pagan” and a Christian “theology” of art.  Steeped in pluralistic relativism, the current secularist has lost the Christian moral center so “they have reinterpreted sin to mean politically incorrect speech, and carefully removed any burden of guilt from the family destroying sins of adultery and sodomy.”  He cites Noam Chomsky, reputedly among the six most quoted historical thinkers, observing, “The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control – ‘indoctrination,’ we might say – exercised through the mass media.”[3] 

A long-time friend of ours, Arch Davis of Davis Systems in Princeton, New Jersey, was once asked by an Afghan delegate to the United Nations where in the Bible Jesus condoned adultery.  Our friend was surprised and assured him that could be found nowhere, since Jesus completely opposed adultery.  The delegate was shocked.  He explained that in Moslem countries the public voice is one.  The media reflects the government, which reflects the religion. Then he asked our friend why he supposed that the young zealots with all their lives ahead of them were willing to give up those lives as suicide bombers.  He explained their sacrifice was to keep what they perceived to be the “pollution” of Christianity out of their countries.  The Afghans and those like them assumed that all the adultery, violence, promoted dishonesty, disrespect, and moral laxity routinely served up as staples in United States’ films and fictional television shows is indicative of the values of our government, our people, our culture, and our religion.  We sow the wind of degradation and are shocked when we reap the whirlwind of extermination. 

Ted Baehr, however, contrasts a Christian theology of the arts in “The Christian World View of Art and Communication,” a document whose forging he co-chaired for the Coalition on Revival.  The Art and Communications Committee identified “God” as “the Author of creation and communication,” Jesus Christ as Lord over “all art and communication,”  art as susceptible to “good and evil,” and needing to be harnessed as “expressions of God’s creativity” in human communication, and, thus, intended to “glorify God,” reflecting “the mind of Christ,” who “is the standard of excellence,” and, therefore, Christians in the arts should use their “great influence” to help our culture and its people shape a “view of reality,” submitted to “the lordship of Jesus Christ in accordance with His Word.”[4]      

All of us know that no era in the fallen world is ever perfect, including the 1940s.  But, as Ted Baehr and Pat Boone remind us, enough of the moral center was still apparent in films and radio stories of times like this to make many of us long for the type of morality promoted in these war time expressions of cinema art during the late 1930s through much of the 1940s. 

What did Maisie and Rosie have that we have lost?  A moral center that portrayed them as independent, generous, and strong, matching hammer blow for hammer blow with the men at the front, while, at the same time, sober and serious, not jumping into bed with any man they dated, but, certainly in Maisie’s case, preserving sex strictly for marriage, her constant ideal in each of her nine movies.

What a Christian moral center teaches is that all of us are created by the one God who made all things “very good” (Genesis 1:27-28, 31).  And we were created to steward this earth together, women with men.  This is reality, so we need to ask ourselves some serious questions about the way we portray reality:  Do we reflect God’s good intentions in our movies for men and for women? Do we create and support movies with moral centers? Do we reflect faith/virtue in our media? And, if not, how do we recapture our moral center in media, bringing this all under the lordship of Christ, who is our standard of excellence?

The Apostle Paul encouraged the Philippian church to think about “everything that is true, everything that is honorable, everything that is just, everything that is pure, everything that is pleasing, everything that is auspicious—if anything is virtuous and if anything is praiseworthy” (Phil. 4:8 Aida’s translation).   Those are the ideals we need to take with us to the multiplex.

Bill and Aida

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[1] Ted Baehr, How to Succeed in Hollywood (Without Losing Your Soul) (Washington, D.C.: WorldNetDaily, 2011), xxv.

[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)#Initialresponse, accessed 26 August 2013. 

[3] Ted Baehr, How to Succeed in Hollywood, 16.

[4] Ted Baehr, How to Succeed in Hollywood, 13-14.

What’s Going to Happen at the End? 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

 

google image of ancient Thessalonica

Many of us are interested in what is going to happen at the very end. The apostle Paul was informed by God what would happen! These happenings are recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11. To my surprise, this passage is all about encouraging one another and hope. Disciples of Jesus also need to give encouragement and hope and not leave people without hope. Yet today many of us are fearful and hopeless. Paul repeats his point twice, at the beginning of our reading and at the end of it:

4:18 “Encourage one another with these words” and in 5:11 “Encourage one another and build up one another, just as also you are doing.”

I.The first explanation in 4:13-17 is in response to a question the Thessalonians had: What happens to Christians who die before the Lord returns?

The second explanation in 5:1-10 is a reminder of what Paul already taught them about the day of the Lord.

As you know, Paul and Silas visited the major city of Thessalonica on their second missionary journey, around AD 52, recorded in Acts 17:1-9,. For three weeks they taught in the synagogue there. Some Jews and many Greeks became believers. The non-Messianic Jews became jealous of the positive response Paul and Silas had and they got angry at them and dragged some believers to the city officials, shouting that Christians believed in another king, Jesus, and not the Roman emperor, who was Claudius at that time (Acts 17:7; 18:2). Because of the danger to their lives, the believers at Thessalonica sent Paul and Silas to a neighboring city for safety—Berea.

The Thessalonians are like many of us: they were loving, but they could love even more (4:9-10).

I’m not sure how much teaching you’ve received on Jesus’s second coming, but in a month or so time, Paul and Silas made sure to let the Thessalonians know the basics.

Illus. I didn’t know about Jesus’s return until my late teens after many years of attending church. I remember when it happened. I was at a college Intervarsity retreat out at Hudson House in New York, where the guest preacher mentioned several times about Jesus coming back. At the question-and-answer period after his talk, I raised my hand, and asked: “Just to be clear, are you saying that Jesus is returning?” He affirmed: “Yes!”

“Well,” I thought, “I didn’t know that!”

Paul begins by saying: in verse 13: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”[1]

Illus. A few of you may remember Bill’s mother, Helen Spencer. She lived in New Jersey before we brought her up to MA to live when she developed Alzheimer’s. She lived in Hamilton safely many years. Even with her memory loss, she never forgot that she was a disciple of Jesus.

When she was dying, the nursing home called us to be there so Bill and I came. Bill was with her at the very end. She no longer spoke but she lay there quietly, holding onto Bill’s hand for hours. When she finally stopped breathing, her African nurse asked Bill:

“Was this a Christian woman?”

Bill answered, “She was very devout and loved Jesus.”

The nurse responded, “You can tell.”

Bill asked, “How can you tell?”

She replied, “The peace, you can feel it all around.”
Bill questioned her: “Isn’t it the same with everyone?”

She insisted: “Oh, no, sometimes it is terrible, even I hear screaming.”

Both of them paused and looked around because they could feel the peace in the room.

Why is it Christians have hope?

Paul explains in verse 14: ^“If we believe that Jesus died and rose, in a similar way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.^”

And in verse 17, he adds that believers will always be with the Lord, now, when we are alive, and, in the future, when Jesus returns.

Paul describes the dead as “sleeping,” using a metaphor to describe that the death of believers is temporary. In the same way, Jesus described the death of Jairus’s 12-year-old daughter as “sleep” although both Jesus and the family and friends knew she was indeed dead. Nevertheless, Jesus commanded her to live again by saying in a loud voice: “Child, rise!” And she stood up immediately (Luke 8:40-42, 49-56).

How will the end happen?

Paul’s answer is not one that he and Silas made up (4:15). The Lord told them of the 4 steps involved:

First, The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a signal, the loud voice of the archangel (Michael), and with God’s trumpet sound (4:16).

Jesus’s return will be loud and self-evident! (vs. Acts 1:9-11)

Second, The dead in Christ will rise.

We get a preview of this in Matthew 27:52-53:

When Jesus died, there was an earthquake, many tombs broke open and believers were raised to life, entered Jerusalem and appeared to many.

The apologist Quadratus around 75 years later mentioned that the deeds of Jesus “were always there to see, for they were true: those who were cured or those who rose from the dead were seen not only when they were cured or raised but were constantly there to see, not only while the Savior was living among us, but also for some time after his departure. Some of them, in fact, survived right up to our own time.”—Quadratus’s time (Eusebius, Church History 4.3)

Third, Those who are alive at that time, together with the resurrected dead, will be taken forcefully into the clouds in order to meet the Lord in the air. (arpazō)

At that point, there is no hemming or hawing or hiding or being forgotten. We will suddenly be snatched up or seized, just like Philip was snatched away by the Spirit from the Ethiopian eunuch and taken to Azotus in Acts 8:39-40 and Paul was caught up to Paradise in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4.

In 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, Paul adds that in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, we will be changed, our bodies will become imperishable.

Fourth, We will always be with the Lord.

This is encouraging news!! Use it to encourage one another, Paul writes.

II.The second explanation begins in ch. 5,

the Thessalonians had been told that the day of the Lord comes, like a “a thief in the night” (5:2).

Illus. When Bill and I lived in downtown Newark, NJ, in the last month several times thieves broke into our house. Our building had been hidden by the neighboring ones, but they were knocked down and only our narrow townhouse was left. We lived in community with a few students, but on the weekends they all left for their homes.

I had planted some grass seeds in our little backyard, which was enclosed inside a wall. On one Friday I saw footprints in the new grass. I showed them to Bill and one of the students. The student got very scared, so we told him not to worry, and we did nothing.

          What we should have done was reinforce the windows that did not close tightly. God gave us a warning, but we didn’t act on it. Exactly one week later, Friday, the thief broke into our house late at night. Only Bill and I were present. We were sleeping. A mosquito woke me up and then I heard sounds. Our bedroom doors were all closed, but I could hear noises in our small office next door. I woke up Bill. By then the only sounds were downstairs. I called the police. Then, Bill grabbed a vacuum metal pipe and made all this racket on the stairway as he went down, while he called to the nonexistent boys to come:

“Hey, Chuck, Joe, Paul, come down!,” in his low voice. Meanwhile, I jumped up and down at the head of the stairs, trying to sound like a bunch of guys coming down the stairs from the third floor. Suddenly, downstairs we heard the kitchen back door burst open. The thief had been packing all our musical equipment into a bag, but left it all behind as he kicked over the back door and leaped over our back fence. He was way gone when the police finally arrived 45 minutes later from the nearby station.

Jesus tells his disciples: in Matthew 24:42-44: ^“Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

We had not figured out that the thief was coming back in one week and we did not prepare, but in our case, we were awakened (I think God sent us that little mosquito!) and prevented the thief from taking all our musical equipment: record player and receiver! He dropped a calculator he had picked up as he dashed out!

In a similar way, at Jesus’s return, the day of the Lord is unexpected, and sudden, and can’t be avoided.

The Lord’s day is also like labor pains.

Illus. When I was expecting Steve, the medical staff told me to pack my overnight suitcase and keep it in our closet ready because we could not know exactly when I would go into labor.

One night, my water broke, and we had to go quickly to the hospital. We could not escape going. ﺃI was sure glad that I had that suitcase all set to go!

What does it mean to be caught by surprise?

We will not know the day the Lord will return. Jesus told his disciples that they would not know the day just before he ascended to heaven:

“It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” (Acts 1:7)

Jesus repeated many times at many different occasions that his return will be unexpected, for example,

Matthew 25:13: at the end of the parable of the 10 bridesmaids, who took their lamps, some brought oil and some did not, Jesus warned: ^“Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.^”

In Mark 13:34-37 Jesus further explained: ^“It is like a person going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”[3]

We also have Luke 12:35-38: “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes;

 truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night or near dawn and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.”

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis the Spirit told John to write in Rev. 3:3: These are the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard; obey it and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.”

Even in the last book of the Bible, In Rev. 16:15, Jesus reminds John:

“See, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed, not going about naked and exposed to shame.”

That’s a lot of references to Jesus’s unexpected return.

In the meantime, we’re supposed to be alert and self-controlled, according to 1 Thess 4:6.

            “Alive” and “awake” and “alert” are different ways to translate the same Greek word: grēgoreō, to be roused from sleep and be now awake.[4] The Thessalonians who are alive were worried about those who were sleeping, or dead, but Paul’s question is—were they themselves literally alive but not metaphorically alive or awake and alert, clothed and ready for the daylight?

How do we stay awake?

We stay awake by the way we live. We are to live like children of the light and children of the day, not children of the night nor of the darkness. Paul writes about 2 kinds of “sleep”:

1.A temporary death—that’s good and can’t be avoided;

2.living like we are “dead”- Doing actions that you try to hide from God and from others at night in the darkness.

For example, when you’re drunk, you lose self-control and are not filled with the Holy Spirit, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:7. That’s also the message in Ephesians 5:18: “Do not get yourself drunk or intoxicated, in which is wild living, but be filled with the Spirit.”

Earlier in 1 Thessalonians 4:8 we read that God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us have self-control in order that we can live holy lives.

Paul writes a mini version in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 of what he will develop in Ephesians 6:10-18: Put on or wear protection, defense against assault, a breastplate and a helmet, which are faith and love and hope of salvation (5:8).

What is our hope?

God does not want you to perish but wants you to be saved through Jesus Christ our Lord. “Our” means we’re not alone (5:9). We have a community to help us and stand with us. Christ died so that you can be holy before God (5:8), but we need to make that holiness an actuality. Paul summarizes in 1 Thessalonians 5:10: whether you are alive or you are dead when Christ returns, “together with Jesus we will live.”

What can we do now? I would like to suggest 3 options:

1.   Continue to share this good news about the Lord’s return to others, especially to other Christians, to encourage them;

2.   Ask the Lord if you are doing anything now that is not pleasing to God, “hidden,” and seek help to stop this behavior of darkness. Of course, if it is more than 1 behavior, pick one thing to work on at a time.

3.   Ask God that your faith in Jesus, love for Jesus and others, and hope may increase this coming week.

Colossians 4:2 is good advice: “Devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving” and also 1 Peter 5:8: “Be self-controlled, alert.” Why? Our adversary the devil is looking for someone to devour.

Illus. When Bill’s mom, Helen, came up to Hamilton, at first she stayed at the senior housing downtown. We figured she was safe. We brought her to Pilgrim church with us and she participated in all the church activities. But one day when we were in her apartment, the phone rang, and we discovered that a group that did not believe Jesus was God had been calling her and asking her if she wanted a Bible study in her apartment. With her mind unclear, she was almost ready to do so, but we told them that she was not interested! After a lifetime of devotion to Christ, we sure did not want her to end up not believing in the true Jesus, incarnate God! You can never feel secure about yourself or your loved ones, but we must always be vigilant.

So in summary,

BE ALIVE AND ALERT.

BE CLOTHED WITH FAITH AND LOVE AND HOPE.

And LIVE IN THE DAYLIGHT! Amen!

 

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify all of you wholly and completely.

may he guard your spirit and soul and body [so that you may be] without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one calling you is faithful, who also will act! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you (1 Thess 5:23-24, 28).[5]

 

Aída

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[1] All Scripture is from the NRSV updated, unless otherwise indicated. this blog is an adaption of a sermon given June 9, 2024 for Pilgrim church, MA. 

[3] This version uses some of the NIV version.

[4] Thayer’s Lexicon.

[5] This is author’s translation.

Rising Up Above the Waters (Exodus 14:21-31)

Picture of lock and Viking ship by Aida Besancon Spencer 6/26/2024

Three o’clock in the morning, I slid back the heavy curtain on the window to take a look at night on the river and the early dawning of the northern sun. Instead, to my shock, I found myself confronting a solid, concrete wall just about two feet from my face.[1]

It wasn’t there when I went to sleep. I wasn’t dreaming; I was awake, and I was astonished! If I’d opened the window, I could have reached out and touched it! But, as I gaped at it, it looked like this wall was gently but steadily dropping away. Then, I realized, the wall wasn’t moving. No, the 2,600-ton Viking river cruiser, on which we were traveling the Rhine River, was rising until it crested the top of that wall, and we emerged up into the night air.

Now, the reason I was there is that we were attempting to recapture and explore a treasured childhood memory Aída had wanted for years to share with me: journeying through the castles of Germany which she had visited in her youth with her Dutch father and family. The cruise was set for eight days, riding the Rhine from Amsterdam in the north down to Basel, below the Alps, from where we would fly home.

When we reached Germany’s castle-country, we did indeed see twenty castles from the top of our ship.

The gracious staff of this affordable, yet immaculately-kept cruiser equipped us all with an informative and entertaining narration, a glossy handheld pamphlet guide to the “Castles on the Middle Rhine,” large umbrellas to keep the sun off us, chaise lounge chairs on which we could stretch out our legs, all the bottled water we could guzzle on a bright sunny day, and a break from the previous days of excursions in which we toured cities, cathedrals, fortresses, and other interesting sites all along the river. And all that in 8 days!

But to arrive at this destination toward which we’d set out from the Netherlands through Germany into France, as we approached Switzerland, our ship had to navigate through ten separate locks, a new experience for me.

Every one of the staff was so pleasant and accessible, I decided to ask what these brief passages in and out of the cement locks I had witnessed in our window that morning were all about.

I was guided to the ship’s Hotel Manager, Stefan Strobl-Santos, an imposing young officer who looks like a European movie star and melds efficiency and friendliness like an art form.

My question was: what exactly are locks and why do we need to go through them? It’s not that these brief nautical passageways were annoying. Not at all. Eight of them I didn’t even notice we were in, if I hadn’t occasionally looked out a window, after that early morning discovery, but, having never been on a river cruise before, I wondered: why were these locks here at all?

He drew me a picture as he explained that it was as if our ship was climbing a stairway. The Rhine River we were on was actually rising between Germany and Switzerland and the locks were chambers we were entering so a sluice could pour in water beneath us and slowly, carefully, raise our level at each juncture. What we were avoiding were rough rapids over the equivalent of waterfalls in the river’s stream, and other obstacles such as sandbars that would have made our journey much more arduous and treacherous.[2] We were constantly being moved to a greater height.

The hefty Viking craft was being lifted by the power of the increasing volume of pouring, rising water to a new level, on which it could begin to move carefully at first and then more swiftly out of the lock to continue on the river to its destination.

Thinking this over, I was struck by the curious similarity between what we were experiencing and the marvelous delivery of the fleeing Israelites, escaping from Egypt in the Exodus, when they suddenly found themselves confronted by the impassible Red Sea.

The similarities? We both needed to go through a deep river to get to safety.

For us, who knows? If caught in a terrific storm, without the locks, could our ship have hit rapids, logs, sandbars, and the force of the waves constantly slugging into us with tremendous force sweep our ship sideways, backwards, careening into a sandbar or thrown up onto the shore? Probably not, since the ship was closed by strong walls and windows, but at least the ride would have been rough, not smooth as it always was.

The differences? Well, as we look at what confronted the Israelites, our situation, even theoretically in worst case scenario, was nothing compared to theirs.

*They had no ships, no boats, no rafts, no bridges, no means but their feet to get themselves, their children, their elderly, their infirm, across a body of water deep enough to drown them all.

*They were in a rush now with no time to sit down and rethink their plans. They were escaping from a land that had held them captive for several hundred years. And their former captors who had begrudgingly let them go had just been told by their leader, as recorded in Exodus14:5: “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!”

So, an army of war chariots were in pursuit of them.

And here they are, their route of escape suddenly blocked, stymied by a huge body of water and nowhere to run.

What they needed desperately was a lock like we had to hold back the water and avoid ending their escape by the catastrophe of drowning in a rough deluge.

Sherri Chasin Calvo in Encyclopedia.com tells us locks appeared fairly early, mainly being used in canals and, “The first known canals were dug in the Middle East thousands of years ago.” One example, she notes, is familiar to all Bible readers: the “50-mile (80-km) long stone canal built to supply the city of Nineveh with fresh water.” It was built, in fact, by “King Sennacherib, who ruled Assyria” and who was eventually going to besiege Judah in the time of King Hezekiah and capture 46 of its towns, demanding a huge tribute in the late 700s to the early 600s BC.” We can read that account in 2 Kings chapters 18-19.

Further, “several additional canals were built elsewhere in the Mesopotamian region, as well as in Egypt and Phoenicia. In about 510 BC the Persian king Darius I (550-486 BC) even attempted to connect the Nile with the Red Sea.” So that would have been helpful for Israel, trying to go through the Red Sea.

But, the problem here is that these dates are all about 500 years or so after the Exodus.

A similar problem surfaced with the flash locks, where water built up and behind “movable barriers” or “lock-gates” like those developed by the Chinese in the first century BC,” in canals near Nanyang,” wherein boats could float over problems when the barriers were removed if going downstream or hauled over the difficulty if going upstream.[3]

But that would be too little and way too late – by a millennium!

So human-made locks were not an option.

They had no bridges to cross, no ferry to carry them over, no locks to hold back the water.

But they had one great advantage. They had the power of God at work.

Exodus 14:21-22 tells us that, at God’s command, Moses stretches his hand over the sea and God drives back the water into a wall that opens a passage and God dries that passage up, so Israel can cross over safely.

In short, God creates a natural lock. No cement, no concrete, no sluices, but the inspiration is there for humans to imitate it – but only the power of God is at work to make it happen naturally.

But, how did God do this?

We have an explanation from no one less than Sir Colin Humphreys, Professor at The School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, Professor of Experimental Physics, The Royal Institution; Cambridge; and Director of both Cambridge University’s Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre on Advanced Materials and its Aixtron Centre for Gallium Nitride, as well as Emeritus Professor of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge.[4] He is well-known for his work developing the LED lightbulbs we use and has received many awards and honors, including being knighted for his accomplishments in science.

Alongside Colin Humphreys’ expertise as a physicist and materials scientist, he has also become an apologist in defending the miracles of the Bible.

In 2004, he released an interesting book, The Miracles of Exodus – A Scientist’s Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes Underlying the Biblical Stories. In it, among other contributions, is an impressive explanation of how God built overnight the natural “lock” that saved Israel and destroyed the pursuing army.

Here is a summary of some of the light this LED pioneer sheds on this event:

Noting Exodus 14:21, which recounts “all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind” (NRSV), he explains: “A wind blowing along the surface of a body of water exerts a stress on the water which forces it back.” Oceanographers call this a ‘wind set-down.’” Moses and the Israelites were able to cross. When they all arrived, God ceased the wind, and the sea rushed back with great swiftness and force onto the pursuing army. He estimates that the height of the wall of water was about “800 metres.” At 1 metre to about 3.3 feet, that is roughly over 24 feet (re Exod.14:22). Sir Colin also explains: “The mathematics shows that the water returns as a fast-moving vertical wave called a ‘bore’.” Since this happens only on a long stretch of water and the Bible specifies it was an east wind, Prof. Humphreys focuses on the Gulf of Aqaba as the most probable location of the crossing and calculates the speed of the returning “bore” wave to be about five metres per second, “sufficient to knock over a horse and its rider and hurl them into the sea.”[5] Maps of the area still show that the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Gulf of Aqaba are waters that are all connected.

The Archaeological Study Bible adds an extra point, “Humphreys also suggests that the name Red Sea could be accounted for by the red coral that grows in the Gulf of Aqaba.”[6]

Therefore, as our sleek and solid Viking craft was lifted by the power of the pouring water to a new level, on which it could begin to move carefully at first and then more swiftly out of each lock to continue up the Rhine River to our destination, just so, the fleeing Israelites were rescued by God with an east wind and led across the emptied deep to rise up and climb to a higher physical plane on the far shore, while at the same time being raised up through this experience to a higher spiritual plane.

Step by step, we see that, when difficulties confront us, they can be solved by obeying God’s command to follow God’s lead, seeking escape from the bad, and actively moving toward the good solution God provides to get us out of as much of the misery and trouble as we can.

As the Israelites slowly had their consciousness raised to the power of God on earth, we, the heirs of this great epic account we read in Exodus, should remember that, when catastrophe hits us, as it often does, we are gifted by God to rise up to a higher, farther shore. God leads us through the troubles mounted up around us, empowering us to transcend the obstacles facing us and enables us to continue on our own spiritual journey in the power of God’s grace.

So, what should we do when catastrophe strikes?

1)           Don’t despair at overwhelming problems.

2)           Ask and listen for God’s leading to a solution.

3)           Act on God’s solution:

a) Follow the Lord.

b) Seek the higher ground.

4)           Trust God to protect you, because you are in God’s eternal hands.

5)           Don’t let fear unnerve you or turn you back.

6)           Keep pressing on.

Bill

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[1] This blog is an adaption of a sermon given August 18, 2024 at Pilgrim Church in Beverly, MA.

[2] For those who want a parallel explanation, the website of the Government of Canada’s Saint-Ours Canal National Historic Site explains, “A lock usually consists of a watertight basin known as a lock chamber, which is used to raise or lower the water level as required. Boats are raised or lowered by filling or emptying the lock chamber. Gates at each end of the lock chamber allow the boats to enter and leave. The gates are operated by various hydraulic, electric or manually operated systems, depending on the canal. Sluices in the gates or walls of the locks are operated to fill and empty the lock chambers by gravity. https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/qc/saintours/culture/ecluses-locks , accessed June 30, 2024.

[3] Sherri Chasin Calvo, “The Development of Canal Locks,” Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/development-canal-locks

[4] The Royal Society, “Sir Colin Humphreys CBE FREng FRS, https://royalsociety.org/people/colin-humphreys-11662/, accessed 8/11/20. The Royal Society, which is “a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence,” applauds Sir Colin Humphrys for his “valuable work on the electron microscopy of semiconducting materials,” and “his world-leading research on gallium nitride (GaN),” which has resulted in a substantially improved understanding of this important material with a wide range of technological applications.” As a result, the USA, along with Europe has awarded him gold medals for his work, and he was knighted by Great Britain’s Queen in 2010 for his contributions to science.

[5] Acaemia.com: “Science and the Miracles of Exodus” by Colin Humphreys, Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, University of Cambridge- Cambridge, UK, https://www.academia.edu/75936355/Science_and_the_Miracles_of_Exodus. For other explanations of what may have happened in the parting of the waters at the exodus, see “Parting The Red Sea - Could It Have Happened? Wind Setdown Model Says Yes,” News Staff, Scientific Blogging: Science 2.0, posted September 2, 2010, accessed August 19, 2024|.

[6] “The Wind Set-Down Hypothesis,” Archeological Study Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 111.