The Prophetic Legacy
So YHWH says this: “If you return, then I will bring you again; you shall stand before Me.”. . . Jeremiah 15:19
Stand Before Me – My friend turned away and walked to the street. The dirt-floor, one-room house with two small children overwhelmed this Wall Street success story. When he heard they had not eaten in two days, he could hardly hold back the tears. From a world of pointless affluence, he was plunged into the extreme poverty of the masses. In an instant, he was lost. His carefully-organized world collapsed. We would all have the same reaction. What should we do? How do we know the right path when so much is unclear? What we desperately need is a prophet.
Abraham Heschel points out that the prophet was more than a messenger from God. He was a man who stood in the presence of God. He was a participant in God’s vision of the world. The prophet was not a soothsayer, a fortune teller or a mystic. This unique position allowed him to cut through the chaff, the ephemeral and the mystical in order to bring God’s perspective to us. In other words, the prophet is not simply one who delivers the mail. He is a co-author of the letter. A prophet can be direct about God’s will because he shares God’s heart.
Just for a moment, a fleeting moment, imagine the life of a prophet. What is it like to share God’s heart about the world? What is it like to see injustice as God sees it? What kind of pain does He feel over the destruction of His children, His world, His image? How does God feel about those who turn away from Him? How is His spirit injured when we choose unfaithfulness? What must it be like to love so deeply that you are willing to die to rescue and still find rejection, rebellion and resentment? How does His heart ache over those who wander away in ignorance? How angry must He be when His precious ones are led astray on purpose? The prophet shares in the heartache of God. That’s why his insight is invaluable. He isn’t just a man with a mission. He is the revelation of God’s evaluation of our world. The prophets die not only because men refuse to turn to the truth, but because the burden they bear is more than mortal men can carry. The are crushed under the weight of divine sorrow. They die from compassion for God.
God reveals the routine of life, the steps needed to participate in His grand plan. The prophets don’t need to remind us of these steps. They are clear enough in the Torah. The prophets come to exhort us to feel as God feels, to empathize with the pathos of the Creator, to break down in tears and trauma over the tragedy that is unfolding before us. Then we will rise to follow His path. Then our questions for guidance will be folded into His agony and His joy for the redeemed. Being lost is but a symptom that God’s grief is drawing near. Perhaps today the prophet’s words will spur you to see the world as God sees the world. You may expect to cry. I am sure that God does. Nothing will change until we cry God’s tears for Him.
Topical Index: stand before me, lefanai ta’amod, Jeremiah 15:19
Boker Tov
Ins’t it that the prophet enjoy this level of relationship with HaShem through meditation. There are excellents analysis made by Rabbi Arieh Kaplan.
“excellent analysis made by Rabbi Arieh Kaplan”
Hi Yishmael,
Boker Or
Speaking of vertical angles, the excellent analysis made by Rabbi Arieh Kaplan is chock full of them.
But I don’t want to make light of his work, because it is quite unlike anything I have ever seen.
Truly amazing!
My only regret is that I did not come across his work when I was 16 rather than 61 years old.
Otherwise, to quote Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, maybe “I coulda been a contender.”
Instead of ending up on “437 River Street.” 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeVq1e6JKlw
As it is, I can only begin to understand about 20% of Sefer Yetzirah; 80% is like “dark matter.”
But it has definitely helped me appreciate a tiny portion of the Hebrew language.
And I do tend to see things in terms of the structures he describes.
Most of my books I keep in book cases or stored away in boxes.
On my desk, I keep The Jerusalem Bible and Sefer Yetzirah.
Funny, I just flipped open Sefer Yetzirah and noticed in section 1:6:
And His Word in them is “running and returning”
They rush to His saying like a WhirlWind.
Shalom to all! .
We do have the mind of Christ. Paul to the Corinthians.
Let this mind be in you which also was in Christ Jesus. Book of Philippians.
We have the same Spirit that raised Him up. Romans.
We can feel as He feels and shed His tears. The love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts.
The choice is ours!
What kind of pain does He feel over the destruction of His children, His world, His image? How does God feel about those who turn away from Him? How is His spirit injured when we choose unfaithfulness? What must it be like to love so deeply that you are willing to die to rescue and still find rejection, rebellion and resentment? How does His heart ache over those who wander away in ignorance?
-Well done sir! -So eloquently written, and not one mention of Y’shua other than a capitalized “His.” Y’shua wept. The tears we cry are His. It is because His Ruach HaKodesh lives in each of us that we feel compassion for those in need. (We are made in His likeness).
Yes,- we cried out to “Him” and He healed us. Yes, we know the Healer and we know the Peace-Speaker. We know the One who is Prophet, Priest and King. Even HaSatan knows G-d as Creator, -moreso than we do. But He does not know Him as Savior and neither will we, until a prophet speaks His name and tells of the mighty power of “His” tslav. -(“wound up” as usual..- lol!)
Carl
You always have such a clear response and message and always ‘tie it up’. I look forward to your replies and relate to what you have to say.
I like you !
I am reminded of when Jesus told Nicodemus that he could not reveal heavenly things to the man who could not even understand the earthly things – that salvation was like being born again and that the Spirit was like the wind. I wonder how often God has shielded his heart from us because he knows that we would be utterly crushed. If we have not attained the correct perspective on our own state – if we believe either that we have no sin or have too much to be able to be forgiven and sanctified – then how can we bear the burden of having his eyes towards the entire world?
On a personal level, I’ve noticed that the times I feel very little compassion for others are exactly those times when I feel utterly condemned or completely independent; when I fall away from God’s perspective on myself, I lose his perspective on others. Like John said, anyone walking in darkness “does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him” (1 John 2:11).
“if we believe either that we have no sin or have too much to be able to be forgiven and sanctified”
Hi Joel,
I don’t know what you mean by “having sin,” but I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.
Your sin is always in the past unless it is in the present; in which case, you should stop sinning.
Worrying about sinning is a waste of time; it is better to focus your mind on the present.
In prayer or meditation.
“How does His heart ache over those who wander away in ignorance?”
Are we ever ignorant? Or does being in God’s likeness enable leave us without excuse? A teacher named Sha’ul said ignorance was no excuse, and explained alleged ignorance as a “suppression” of the truth.
Hi Ian,
I think most of us wander around in ignorance much of our lives.
And because we reap what we sow, our suffering must be sad for God to see.
It seems unlikely to me that we are just gluttons for punishment.
In my view, we are often truly lost, and although our ignorance is no excuse.
Paul’s teaching has never been of much help to me.
Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
Galatians 6:8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Galatians 6:9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
Michael
Paul’s comment in Romans is in relation to the existence of God. Your quotations from Galatians, on the other hand, deal with the differences between “flesh” and “Spirit”. We can read this as a Greek in terms of mind/matter, or we can read it in light of the Tanakh teaching in Gen. 3:5. Hence the importance of Torah, originating in the “Spirit,” or man’s rules, originating in the “flesh”.
I am so grieved by what I see around me that I stay to myself much of the time so that I can recover from the horror. So many lost, suffering and wandering. What do do? Grieve, help where I believe I’ve been called to help and pray. Often, I feel paralyzed. There is a story about a huge forest fire. A little humming bird kept going to the river and dipping his tiny beak in the water to take a drop to put on the fire. One animal asked it what it was doing? The hummingbird replied, “What I can.” That sums it up for me.
I am into youth ministry, that ABBA opened doors to; HE sees the need of young adults especially, not that that was HIS only concern, but HE sees my heart towards them in particular, perhaps?
I was in a church system then and sensed their need for guidance and truth which was not there for them. ABBA gave me a mother’s heart for them.
I often grieved over them in prayers, for the many distractions that were drawing them away from ABBA, e.g. sports-soccer, badminton, computer games and girl relationships, to just name the main issues.
ABBA ‘spoke’ to me, HE said He sees the tears, and every tear-drop would be a jewel in my crown of life! That was such an encouragement to me, and it was worth all the grieving I ever did!!
Shalom!