birds and bells

I sat in bed this morning with my journal to have some quiet time with Jesus.  This has become a healthy habit for me over the last several years—something a mentor of mine recently likened to “taking out the garbage,” or letting the emotional clutter escape the body into prayer on a page.  That image works for me.  And I’ve had plenty of clutter lately to think about, like nearing the end of my CPE internship at the hospital… writing my final evaluation… prepping to teach an upcoming Sunday School class… planning a trip to Washington soon to see my family for the first time in nearly a year… among many other, smaller things.
 
As I opened the blank pages, I had a random song stuck in my head—one from a movie I watched days ago that wasn’t exactly conducive to quiet, reflective moments (it’s always the worst ones that get stuck on a loop).  I grabbed my phone off my nightstand and found the Peaceful Hideaway playlist on Spotify to quiet the mental clamor.  That oughta help.
 
Slow piano tunes mixed with birdsong began to play softly.  I lifted my pen, creased the journal pages open, and flipped my devotional book to the scripture for today.   
 
It took me a second to realize that I was now hearing bird chirping not just from the phone to my left, but also through the window to my right.  I reached over to pause the music and peaked through the cracked blinds.  Sure enough, several tiny birds sat on top of the bushes outside, chattering up a storm.  Birds from further away chattered back.  I hadn’t noticed at all until now.
 
Then bells rang in the distance.  I have no idea which nearby church they echoed from.  I glanced at the clock—it was 9 AM—and I listened to the bells.  I couldn’t believe I’d never heard them before.  Why hadn’t I heard them before?
 
I looked down at the text in front of me.  “…with minds alert and fully sober…”
 
There it was.  Heavy on the clutter, missing the alert. 
Pretty simple, actually:  I didn’t hear because I wasn’t listening.  I was distracted.
 
We’ve lived in this apartment now for eight months, and I’ve never once heard those bells.  Apparently, I’ve had other things on my mind.  The TV has provided background noise.  My brain has routinely glazed over looking at my phone screen.  In and out of these walls, life runs along in a perpetual state of diversion and thinking about “the next thing.”  Presence and paying attention are oft-neglected virtues.

I took three deep breaths while the bells faded out and the birds chirped on.  Those simple sounds were good for my soul.  How many other unassuming, yet God-given moments was I missing on a daily basis?  I live in a spacious world, but regularly only occupy the portion of it that exists between my ears—and that area gets cramped quickly.   

 
I copied the words into my journal: “with minds alert and fully sober.”  At 32 years old, I hope I have a lot more life to live… but heaven help me, the time goes by fast, and I rarely inhabit the moment I’m actually in.  I’m more anxious than alert, more distracted than engaged.  The future comes sooner than expected and the past gets blurry. 
 
There’s no way to change the time that has already come and gone.  But perhaps a prayer for today will suffice:  God, help me to see, hear, feel, and appreciate the abundant gifts you offer—the birds, the bells, and everything else—rather than miss those little moments of grace simply because I'm too distracted to pay attention.

the passion of christ: a sermon for good friday

The story that we remember each year on Good Friday is the story of Christ’s death—the transition in Holy Week from the celebration of Palm Sunday and the intimacy of Maundy Thursday to the abandonment and suffering of God on the Cross on Good Friday.

It is a familiar story, but one that should never become so familiar that we’re incapable of being moved by it again… and again…and again.  So, this year, consider again the story of Christ for us and for you, from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 15, verses 16-39 after Pilate has just given Jesus over to be crucified: 
 
The Soldiers Mock Jesus
¹⁶ Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. ¹⁷ And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. ¹⁸ And they began saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” ¹⁹ They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. ²⁰ After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

The Crucifixion of Jesus
²¹ They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. ²² Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). ²³ And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. ²⁴ And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.

²⁵ It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. ²⁶ The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” ²⁷ And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. ²⁹ Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, ³⁰ save yourself, and come down from the cross!” ³¹ In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. ³² Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.

The Death of Jesus
³³ When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. ³⁴ At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ³⁵ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” ³⁶ And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” ³⁷ Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.  ³⁸ And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. ³⁹ Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
 

*****

 
In our Presbyterian church tradition, when someone is going through the process to become an ordained pastor, one of the requirements that we have is for that person to do a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)—which, in most cases, is a very intensive internship as a hospital chaplain to learn and practice and offer pastoral care to those who are experiencing pain and crisis.  I am currently in that ordination process, and so I’ve been a part of the CPE internship at St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City for the past several months. 
 
Throughout the week as I’m there at the hospital, I spend most of my time in the rooms with patients and their families, listening to people’s stories and processing through fears and grief and things that are related not just to what’s happening to them medically, but often deep-seeded traumas and memories that come up for people when they’re in this vulnerable space.  I’ve also spent a lot of time family members whose loved ones have been brought to the Emergency Room, or have been put on a ventilator, or have passed away.  I have encountered so much real, human pain and suffering and loss in the past few months—more than I’ve encountered in my entire life.
 
But something I’ve noticed in a lot of cases of hearing people’s stories—even while they’re lying on a bed in a hospital gown with IVs hooked up and machines beeping in the background—is that many people end their stories by saying, “It’ll be okay… I’ve just gotta make it through.”  One woman who had just been diagnosed with cancer told me, “I’ll just stay positive, and things will be alright in the end.”
 
This shocks me a little, but I also get it.  The desire to stay positive and focus on the good makes sense.  We wonder: are we going to be lost in our pain if we don’t cling to hope?
 
Experiencing and sitting with pain is uncomfortable and scary.  Humans don’t like pain.  We have a very natural desire to move away from it—to minimize the suffering, or smooth it away, or to tell ourselves that it doesn’t matter because God is good and everything will be alright in the end.  That’s the story of Resurrection Sunday, right?  We know that in the end, suffering and death are conquered, and everything returns to the light, so all we have to do is make it through. We just take the steps… with our chins up… and keep pushing forward.
 
It makes me wonder if that’s what Simon of Cyrene was telling himself as he carried Jesus’ cross to the hill at Golgotha: “I’ve just gotta make it through.”
 
This has probably served us well in the past.  To be able to weather the storms with resilience and hope has likely gotten us through some hard times. To be able to stand where we are now on the other side of Holy Week, and to see the glorious end to this story of Jesus’ death is a powerful thing.  We know that Easter follows Good Friday.  We know that resurrection comes after death.  And that because of that we hold hope and call this day “good.”
 
But what if there was no Resurrection Sunday?
What if we were those first followers and all we had was the story of Jesus’ death?
Would we still call this day “good”?
 
Sometimes, despite our best intentions, Good Friday—and not Resurrection Sunday—is where we land.  Sometimes the pain is so great, that regardless of what we know and believe, we are overwhelmed by it.  We are caught in the suffering, and hope feels naive… or impossible.
 
My second night at the hospital, I sat with a man who lost his wife of 30 years.  His sisters were there and told me he was a man of great faith.  But his wife had a heart attack, and she didn’t make it.  He held her hand at the side of the bed… and kept calling her name.  He asked me, “What am I gonna do without her?”
 
That is pain that belongs on Good Friday.  That is when we truly know the meaning of Jesus’ words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
 
When we see the story of Jesus’ death through the lens of the resurrection, we can easily glaze over the suffering of the crucifixion.  We know there are just three days... and we’ll make it through.  But the entire story is laced with suffering…
 
They put a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head.
They struck him and spat on him.
They beat him so badly he couldn’t walk under the weight of his cross.
They mocked and taunted him.
Then they crucified him, driving nails into his body to hold him to a cross… an act that Cicero called, the “most cruel and horrifying punishment” reserved for slaves, criminals, and anyone the Roman empire wanted to not only kill, but publicly shame as they put them to death.  And it was meant for torture.  They would beat someone before nailing them on a cross, but they wouldn’t sever any major arteries… so the one who was hung would suffer pain, but would die slowly from exhaustion, or suffocation, or a heart failure.
For six hours, Jesus hung on the cross in pain.   
 
This is why we call this story “the passion of Christ”: Passion comes from the Latin word for suffering.  

Yes, Jesus was raised from the dead.  Yes, he was resurrected and glorified.  But first, he suffered... and suffered terribly.
 
Even in the midst of this, we see people trying to take away Jesus’ pain, or get him to take it away himself.  At some point, someone offers him wine mixed with myrrh, which was a first-century narcotic meant to deaden pain, but Jesus doesn’t take it.  Then there are soldiers and people passing by and the priests and scribes who taunt him to take himself down from the cross—to bypass the suffering—but he doesn’t do it.  And some others even assume Jesus calls out for Elijah to come take him away, because they can’t imagine him dying on a cross—a death that Paul called “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” because it was written in Scripture that “anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.”  Still, he stays.  And he laments, as a righteous man who is made to suffer.  “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—is the first line of Psalm 22.  It’s a psalm of lament to God.
 
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

and by night, but find no rest…

 
I am a worm, and not human;

scorned by others and despised by the people.

All who see me mock at me;

they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;

‘Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—

let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’…

 
I am poured out like water,
              and all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
              it is melted within my breast…
My hands and feet have shriveled;

I can count all my bones.

They stare and gloat over me;
They divide my clothing among themselves,
              for my clothing they cast lots.”
 
Jesus claims this lament for himself.  He is the righteous one who suffers unjustly.  And by the end, the Psalm reminds us that redemption will follow:
 
“All you who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him…
For he did not despise or abhor
              the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,
              but heard when I cried to him…
 
To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
              before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
              and I shall live for him.”
 
Jesus is not unaware, even in this moment of his death, that God will be glorified in the end.  But that doesn’t mean he skips the suffering.  Even knowing that there’s light at the end of the tunnel—that God will redeem even the worst of human brokenness and evil—doesn’t take away the pain. 
 
For some unknown reason, it was in this moment, when Jesus cried out and then died on the cross that the Roman centurion who stood before him said, “Truly, this man was God’s son!”  This is the Savior God sent to us. 
 
Take a minute and find that moment in your own life… that dark night of the soul... that feeling of forsakenness…
Maybe it was losing someone you loved—a parent, a child, a spouse, a friend.
Maybe you were the one in the hospital gown being told by a doctor that your body wasn’t working like it’s supposed to.
Maybe it was finding out you lost a job, or lost a home. 
Maybe it was battling the temptation of an addiction.
Maybe it was a moment of loneliness or emptiness in this last year when you were cut off from loved ones because of a deadly disease.
Maybe it was simply a moment of overwhelm and desperation in the otherwise “ordinariness” of life.
 
It’s okay to sit in the space of that pain.  

And I’d like to propose that even this—this moment of deepest despair—can be called good.  
 
We know that Christ, on Good Friday, suffered for us so that we could be saved from our sin and be made right with God. But Christ, on Good Friday, also suffered with us.  And in crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he gives us permission to feel our pain… to name it, to lament it with our entire being, and to know that even in the worst of it, he is Emmanuel—God with us. 
 
Maybe we don’t always have to just “make it through.”  Sometimes we can just be right where we are… in the midst of terrible suffering.
 
And even if we never got to Resurrection Sunday, we would still have a God hanging next to us on our cross who could say to us in that darkness, “I am right here with you.  I know your pain.  I have been mocked.  I have been beaten.  I have felt utterly forsaken.  And I went through all of it just so that I could be here, in this moment with you, to tell you that you are not alone.  You will never be alone.”
 
Thanks be to God.
 

*****

 
*If you would like to watch the live service that was streamed on Facebook, you can find it HERE.

top 10 reads of 2020

Third year in a row of Top 10 Reads—it’s officially a tradition!  After the general dumpster fire that was 2020, it’s nice to have an uplifting list of good books to look back on. 
 
I studied for two of my PC(USA) ordination exams and took a C.S. Lewis class this year, so prepare to see that reflected below.  I also found some great novels and interesting autobiographical reads, so if you’re into those, these are a few I’d highly recommend! 
 
Happy New Year, and here’s to finding more good books in 2021!
 
1.  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver
 

“It’s hard to reduce our modern complex of food choices to unifying principles, but this is one that generally works:  eating home-cooked meals from whole, in-season ingredients obtained from the most local source available is eating well, in every sense.  Good for the habitat, good for the body.”
 
I love Barbara Kingsolver’s novels (The Poisonwood Bible is one I hope to revisit sometime soon), but it was fun to read something from her actual life as well.  This is a “food memoir” of sorts—an account of her family’s experiment in eating only home-grown or locally sourced food for an entire year.  She shares personal stories about growing and raising food, data-driven commentary on American food culture, and helpful information on supporting local agriculture.  It’s not just for “foodies,” but anyone interested in healthier, more compassionate eating.  And it includes seasonal recipes… you’re welcome 😉

 
2.  I’m Fine and Neither Are You, by Camille Pagán
 

“I loved my husband.  I loved my kids.  I mostly liked my life.  But I was so damn tired.”
 
Camile Pagán has become my go-to author for quick, witty, and eerily relatable stories.  This is a simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious novel about a woman named Penelope who realizes that her life is taking place around her while she somehow feels barely in control of it.  In her words, change is “a privilege reserved for people whose families didn’t rely on them for food, shelter, and health insurance.”  Sound familiar? But when an unexpected loss rocks her “normal” world, Penelope decides to reevaluate her marriage, her job choices, and who it is that she ultimately wants to be.   

  
 
3.  The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
 

“My name is Kvothe… I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings.  I burned down the town of Trebon.  I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life.  I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in.  I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day.  I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.  You may have heard of me.”
 
This one’s for all my fantasy nerd friends (or anyone who wants a great introduction).  Think of it as Lord of the Rings meets Game of Thrones—world-building, intrigue, and magical storytelling at its finest.  It’s the wayward tale of a mysterious hero named Kvothe, told in his own words.  This book and its sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear, are part of the Kingkiller Chronicles trilogy (the third of which is still in the works, so it may be wiser to hold off if you can’t handle the wait!).  They’re decently long, but so compelling that I flew through them both in a matter of weeks.  What can I say?  I’m a sucker for magic and marvel.
 
4.  Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, by Lori Gottlieb
 

“No matter how open we as a society are about formerly private matters, the stigma around our emotional struggles remains formidable.”
 
Lori Gottlieb is a therapist.  And she’s funny.
 
This book is what we get when the therapist realizes she needs a therapist—a select combination of client stories, personal confession, psychology lessons, and candid humor.  She normalizes the struggle of merely being human and writes about understanding and accepting oneself while attempting that monumental (and often miserably comical) task of changing oneself for the better.       

 
5.  This We Believe: Eight Truths Presbyterians Affirm, by Stephen W. Plunkett
 

“…I am reminded that God calls me not to be successful, but to be faithful.”
 
Out of all the books I read in studying for my Reformed Theology ordination exam, this one came to the top of my list.  It is a concise, accessible, and informative summary of the basic tenets of the Reformed faith—the branch of Christianity built upon the teachings of John Calvin (a 16^th century contemporary of Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation).  The book begins with a broad overview of Scripture, and then lays out eight core beliefs that Reformed theology teaches.  If you belong to or have ever been curious about the Presbyterian tradition, or wonder what buzzwords like “sovereignty,” “election,” “total depravity,” and “sanctification” mean, this is a phenomenal read.  It was very encouraging and made me grateful to have been called to ministry in the Presbyterian church.  

 
6.  Rewilding the Way: Break Free to Follow an Untamed God, by Todd Wynward
 

“We’ve become like domestic house pets, tamed by the twin masters of nonstop technology and comfy consumerism.  How we who follow the Way of Jesus choose to act right now—in this “watershed moment” of history—matters more than ever.”
 
As you can probably tell by the quote above, Todd Wynward doesn’t mince words when diagnosing the state of the church in the midst of American culture.  As someone who practices what he preaches, Wynward urges the followers of Jesus to embrace the way of the wilderness:  accumulating less, stewarding more, and daring to follow the Holy Spirit into uncomfortable, but transformative, spaces.  This is what the people of God—the citizens of a different Kingdom—have always done.  Rewilding the Way is part Bible study, part environmental guidebook.  I highly recommend it for anyone jaded by the broken Western promise of the “good life,” and who may be passionate about reviving the faith communities and ecological habitats in which they live. 
 
7.  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
 

“She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats… A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet…”
 
I put The Lord of the Rings trilogy in my “Top 10 of the 2010s” list, but the Narnia books belong in the same vein.  Not only were Lewis and Tolkien professors together at Oxford, they were also very good friends—based largely on their shared Christian faith and love of mythology.  They wrote the kind of stories they loved to read and brought new worlds and creatures to life for the rest of us. 
 
This was the third time I’ve read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  The language is a bit dated, but the marvel of the Pevensie kids going to Narnia to defeat the White Witch was just as good as ever… and I have more appreciation for Lewis’ theological imagination now than I did as a kid.  Not to mention the fact that Mr. Beaver’s line about Aslan is one of my favorites of all time: “Who said anything about safe?  ’Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”    
 
8.  Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
 

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
 
In addition to his creative fiction, Lewis gained a reputation in his time (and since) as a profound Christian apologist.  Mere Christianity is a collection of his World War II radio broadcasts, which attempted to convey the logic of faith to a wide, war-torn British audience.  It’s an approachable Christian primer for anyone who values reason, the pursuit of truth, and discussions of faith and morality.  His assumption of universal truth may chafe a bit against current postmodern worldviews, but it’s a thoughtful text to engage with regardless.  The whole book is good, but “Book 4” (on the Trinity) was my favorite.

 
9.  Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences, by Nancy Duarte
 

“Ideas are not really alive if they are confined to only one person’s mind.”
 
If you’re in a position of having to craft presentations, public speeches, or even sermons, this is a great resource!  Nancy Duarte has made a living out of analyzing remarkable presentations (like MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech or Steve Jobs’ iPhone rollout, for example) and helping others who want to change the world with their ideas create similar experiences for their listeners.  She advocates for adding narrative and emotion back into our speeches, compelling the audience to take your great vision for the future and make it real.  The book is full of good advice and tips for finding your main point, narrowing content, creating interesting contrast, and honing your message so that it will resonate and create lasting change. 

 
10.  Winter Garden, by Kristin Hannah
 

“Her name is Vera, and she is a poor peasant girl, a nobody.  She lives in a magical realm called the Snow Kingdom, but her beloved world is dying…”
 
Two young girls in modern day Washington state have grown up estranged from their Russian mother, whose cold demeanor would only warm when she told them fairy tales in the dark.  After a traumatic event that forces the three of them to interact with one another again as adults, the fairy tale continues to unfold…
 
This was the last book I finished this year (a fantastic recommendation from my mother-in-law) and I’m happy to have gotten to include Kristin Hannah in yet another Top 10 Reads list.  Similar to The Nightingale, she weaves historical events—in this case Stalin’s “Reign of Terror” and the 900-Day Siege of Leningrad—into a fiction about strong women and family relationships.  I stayed up until 2 AM two nights in a row to finish it.  So good… and the end will have you wonderfully shocked.

"Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are." -Mason Cooley

hesed: a sermon about a powerful hebrew word

Last weekend, I was so excited to preach at our home church in Salt Lake because we opened a sermon series called “Seven Hebrew Words Christians Must Know.”  (“Must” may seem like a strong word, I know—but stick with me and you’ll see why I was so jazzed about this!)  To watch the live version, please check out the FB video located HERE.
 

*****

 
Some of you may know this already, but the Bible was primarily written in two ancient languages—the Old Testament is originally in Hebrew, and the New Testament is in Greek—and scholars of these two languages have worked for years to translate them into English and other languages so that they can be read by you and me and the church around the world.  But if any of you are bilingual or have ever tried to learn another language, you also know that the problem when you translate from one language to another is that some words don’t have direct correlates between languages—meaning there isn’t any one word or phrase in the new language that means the exact same thing as a word in the original language.  This is the case with many of the Hebrew words in the Old Testament.  It takes a bit more digging to accurately or fully describe their meaning.
 
One of these is the Hebrew wordחסד  (hesed).
 
[Note: it’s not “hesed” with a soft “h.”  It has a guttural “cha-” at the beginning.  It’s not a very pretty sound to pronounce, actually.  We have to reach all the way to the back of our throat for it.  And not only does the Hebrew sound different, but:

·       The letters are different (as you can see below),

·       It’s written “backwards,” as we might say, from right to left across the page,

·       The sentence structure is different, and

·       The original Old Testament Hebrew didn’t have vowels or vowel markings. 

So just in the speaking and the grammar, much less the meaning, we can see how difficult this language is for us to translate.  But we should try because understanding the true meanings of these Hebrew terms has the potential to unlock so much depth to our faith and the way we understand these Old Testament stories—the way we see God in them, and his relationship to the people of Israel and with us.]

So, hesed.  What does it mean?
There are literally dozens of words that we have tried to use in our English Bibles to capture the meaning this one Hebrew term.  Take Psalm 145 for example.  Verse 8 says,
              “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in hesed.”
 
If you read this in the NIV, it will say, “abounding in love.” 
The NRSV and the ESV translations both say, “steadfast love.” 
The New Living Translation says, “unfailing love.”
The Common English Bible says, “faithful love.”
And the New American Standard Bible and the King James Version both say, “mercy.” 
All of these different attempts to describe the same word… and this doesn’t even exhaust half the list.
 
According to the other nearly 250 times we find this word in the Old Testament, hesed can also be translated as:

·       Kindness

·       Lovingkindness

·       Goodness

·       Faithfulness

·       Loyalty

·       Closeness

·       Solidarity

·       Covenant love

·       Graciousness

·       Devotion

·       And the list goes on…

We can see that so much more is meant by this one Hebrew word than any single word in English can describe.  How do we begin to understand a word with this much depth? 
 
Well, the Jewish people had a practice of conveying meaning through stories, so given that we’re trying to understand their language, I’m going to tell you a story about hesed.  The story begins with a woman named Naomi…
 

Naomi was a Jewish woman married to a man named Elimelech.  The two of them lived in Bethlehem in Judah during the time of the judges (many years before Israel had a king), and they had two sons.  All of a sudden, there began a long season of drought in the land. The ground dried up and there was a famine in Bethlehem.  [Naomi may have thought that that was a bit ironic, given that in Hebrew, beth means “house” and leḥem means “bread,” so her town was literally called the “House of Bread” and suddenly there was no bread to be found.]

 

Elimelech and Naomi were forced to leave their home to feed their family, so they traveled to the neighboring country of Moab.  But not long after they resettled, Elimelech died and Naomi was left alone to raise their two sons.  She was a single mom—this wasn’t going to be easy.  But she somehow managed, and eventually her sons grew up and took each took Moabite wives.  One was named Orpah and the other was a young woman named Ruth.

 

Having lived so long with only men, it’s no surprise that Naomi would have connected quickly with her new daughters-in-law.  They would have helped her around the house, and she would have told them all about the history of Israel—the great stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses… and Yahweh, the God who made covenants with his people to care for them.

 

Ten years passed this way before both of Naomi’s sons, Mahlon and Chilion, died.  She was now a woman completely alone in a patriarchal society—with no sons and no husband—and in a foreign country no less.  This was devastating.  Then one small piece of good news came.  Naomi heard that Yahweh, the God of Israel, had considered his people and had given them food.  The famine had ended and there was bread in Bethlehem again, so she decided to go back home. 

 

Orpah and Ruth helped her pack everything up, and the three of them started the journey back to Judah.  But not long into their walk, Naomi realized something: she loved these two girls, but there was nothing for them in Israel.  They would be the foreigners with no husbands, and she knew how hard that was.  On top of that, they didn’t have sons that they could raise who would eventually take care of them.  So, she said to the two of them,

“Go back, each of you, to your mother’s house.  May the Lord show kindness toward you, as you have shown to my sons and to me.  May He grant that each of you find security with new husbands.” 

 

Naomi asked for God to show her daughters-in-law kindness and mercy with their own families, even though it meant she would be alone.  This is hesed.

 

At first, both of the girls refused.  They cried and told Naomi they would stay with her, but she knew what waited for them if they did, so again, she said,

“Turn back, my daughters.  Why would you go with me?  I’m too old to have a husband, and I have no other sons for you to marry; and even if I had more sons tomorrow, would you remain unmarried until they grew up?  No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.”

 

Finally, Orpah gave in.  She kissed Naomi and grabbed her things and started to make her way back to her family in Moab.  But Ruth… Ruth was stubborn.  She clung to Naomi.  Naomi tried to reason with her.  She said, “See, your sister-in-law is going back to her family and her gods.  Go with her.”  But Ruth said to Naomi,

“Do no press me to leave you or turn back from following you!

Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge;

Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

Where you die, I will die—there I will be buried.

May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!”

 

Ruth stuck by Naomi’s side even though it meant giving up her home and her hope for a stable future.  This is hesed.

 

When Naomi saw that Ruth was so determined, so she stopped pressing.  She took this foreign, unmarried, recklessly faithful young woman back to Bethlehem with her.  And in their state of grief, these two women settled into Bethlehem just as the time of the barley harvest began.

 

Now, God had given a law in Israel that when the workers harvested the fields, they were not supposed to go back and gather the crops that had been left or had fallen on the ground.  They were supposed to leave them for the widow, the orphan, and the alien who were in need.  So, Ruth, having heard these stories from Naomi, came to Naomi and suggested that she be the one to go out and gather food for them from the leftovers of some of these fields, and Naomi agreed.

 

Ruth left and she came back that night with a huge bag of sheaves of barley, and even some leftovers that had been roasted for her lunch, and Naomi was shocked.  “Where on earth did you gather this much grain?”

 

Ruth told her that, by chance, she ended up in a field that belonged to a man named Boaz; and that he had told her she could glean alongside the women who worked for him.  She also told Naomi that at lunchtime, he invited her to come eat with them and had given her roasted grain and bread and more than she could even finish, so she brought back the leftovers.  Naomi was thrilled.  She knew Boaz, and she said to Ruth,

“Blessed be he by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead! This man is a relative of ours, one of our next-of-kin.  And you should stay in his fields because other people might bother you elsewhere.”

[Remember: Ruth was a Moabite.  Not all Israelites would take kindly to her.]

 

So, Ruth gathered from Boaz’s fields through the rest of the barley and the wheat harvests, and the two women were taken care of.  But Naomi hadn’t forgotten the initial problem: Ruth wasn’t married.  She had no one to provide for her going forward… so Naomi hatched a plan.  One night she took Ruth aside and said,

“I need to find some security for you, so here’s what you need to do.  Boaz, our kinsman, will be winnowing barley at the threshing floor tonight.  Go get washed and put on your best clothes and go there, but don’t let him see you.  Then, when he falls asleep [which owners of the fields would do at their threshing floors so that no one would come steal the barley], see where he lies, go uncover his feet, and lie down.  He’ll tell you what to do from there.” 

 

So again, Ruth did just as Naomi asked.  In the middle of the night, Boaz woke up (presumably, because his feet were cold), and he found Ruth.  Ruth told him what Naomi had told her—that he was one of their next-of-kin, and she asked him to “spread his cloak over her,” which was a way of asking Boaz to marry her and be their kinsman-redeemer.  [Marriage at this time wasn’t an expression of romantic love, but a way of passing on one’s land and legacy; and for a woman it meant having security and being taken care of, since women couldn’t hold land themselves.  The kinsman-redeemer was the one who would marry into the family in order to acquire the land and carry on their family name.]

 

When Ruth asked Boaz to be their kinsman-redeemer, he praised her for her loyalty to Naomi—for not going after a younger, more eligible bachelor for herself, but for trying to carry on Naomi’s family name—and he told her,

“there is another man who is closer to your family than I am… I will offer him his right to be your kinsman-redeemer; but if he refuses, I will marry you myself.”

 

When Ruth went back to her mother-in-law the next morning and told her this story, it was incredible news for Naomi.  She and Ruth waited, and (long story short) the other next-of-kin refused the offer when he found out that gaining Elimelech’s land meant having to marry Ruth, so Boaz was able to marry her instead. 

 

Boaz took care of Ruth and honored her, even though she was both a stranger and a foreigner.  This is hesed.

 

After they were married, the Lord gave Ruth and Boaz a son, and they named him Obed.  Tears came to Naomi’s eyes when she saw that baby boy.  He was the restoration of her family.  Naomi took care of Obed, and many years later, Obed became the grandfather of a man named David, who would soon grow up to be the greatest King that the nation of Israel ever had.

 
This whole story is recorded in the Old Testament book of Ruth.  It is a story of hesed.
 
Each of the three main characters in this story—Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz—demonstrate the meaning of hesed.  Each one of them made difficult choices that showed loyalty, kindness, and faithful love for one another.
 
In the midst of that, God’s hesed is demonstrated as well.  His love, mercy, and devotion toward his people is shown in the way this story plays out… Naomi meeting Ruth in Moab, the famine ending so that they could return to Israel, Ruth happening to glean in Boaz’s field, Boaz happening to be related to them, Ruth and Boaz having a son… God is not often mentioned explicitly in this story, but he is present in every step. 
 
Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz weren’t “special” in any way.  They were ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives in a small village in Judah.  But they acted with hesed, and God rewarded their faithfulness by establishing, through them, the lineage of King David and Jesus Christ.  That is hesed.  That is steadfast, unfailing, faithful-to-the-end, covenant love.
 
My hope is that each one of us, as we reflect on this hesed of God and this story of Naomi and Ruth, that we are also encouraged to practice hesed in our own ordinary lives.
What are acts of kindness, love, and loyalty that we can show to the people around us, even when we’re struggling, and even if it costs us?  How does God want to enact or demonstrate his hesed in the world through us?
 
May God help us to discover those things and offer them to Him, knowing that He will use them to bring about His great plans of redemption and mercy in the world and in our lives.