Just before being betrayed by Judas and arrested, Jesus sought some solitude in the garden of Gethsemane, where “he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” (Mark 14:35-36). Jesus knew He was soon to die.
Donald McKim notes that “In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, Abba is the word for ‘Father.’ It is a term that expresses the closest and deepest intimacy of the relationship of parent and child.”[1] Jesus knew this intimacy even on the way to the cross.
McKim also quotes Philip Melanchthon, who said: “’Abba, Father’. By this he taught us that these two things are required in prayer, namely, the ardent affection of the mind and the faithful trust of children toward God: these two words testify that both of these aspects were present in Christ.”
The Father loves us always, even on our most difficult days. Trust Him in prayer today.
[1] McKim, Donald K. Everyday Prayer with the Reformers (2020). P. 73.
40 years after God first made a covenant with Israel, promising to be their God and bless them if they would love and obey Him, the covenant had to be renewed. Israel had been led through wilderness for decades after refusing to enter the Promised Land, but Moses eventually gathered them again to finally cross the Jordan River and take the Land. Moses prepared them by renewing the covenant, but before that, Moses reviewed blessings and curses from God that would come with obedience or disobedience.
We know that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”[1] and therefore any blessing is an act of grace because only Jesus lived a life of full obedience. However, the choices of the ancient Israelites, and modern people, have consequences, and these blessings and curses carry a lesson about God’s sovereignty. God would not make promises or threats that He is unable to carry out and therefore He must have the power and control to deliver on all of them. Consider these parallel verses in Deuteronomy 28 showing God’s control over…
…all places, rural or urban: “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.” (verse 3) “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.” (verse 16)
…reproductive and agricultural success: “Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.” (verse 4) “Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.” (verse 18)
…military success: “The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.” (verse 7) “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.” (verse 25)
…the weather and its related benefits: “The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands.” (verse 12a) “And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. The LORD will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.” (verse 23-24)
There are further curses, without parallel blessings, where God is declared as sovereign over…
…disease: “The LORD will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. The LORD will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish.” (verse 21-22)
…human psychology: “The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind.” (verse 28)
…nature, including the smallest worms and crickets: “You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.” (verse 39) “The cricket shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground.” (verse 42)
…and even over the fates of nations: “The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand.” (verse 49)
As we know, Israel was eventually carried away into captivity by Assyria in 722 B.C., and Judah to Babylonia in 586 B.C. because of their ongoing unfaithfulness to God, however God fulfilled His covenant through Jesus Christ, descended from the tribe of Judah, centuries after they returned from Babylonian exile. In Christ, people from all nations can be His people, and He will be their God.
We are all in exile, sojourning on this earth, but our God, sovereign over all, has Promised a new Land, a new heaven and a new earth, and we know He is faithful, even if it takes centuries. Therefore, praise God for the blessings He gives His people in all of the areas under His control, which is everything!
Nothing escapes His notice and nothing is beneath Him to be concerned about. Pray for His blessings in all areas of life, no matter how large or small.
Have you ever wondered what life was like for Adam and Eve during Genesis 3:7? This verse, which happens between the moment they fell to temptation and the moment they next meet God, says “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” Since they were able to figure out how to make clothes for the first time, we can guess that the time frame within Genesis 3:7 was more than a few minutes.
The song “Trees” by the band twenty øne piløts may be a contemplation of that time, and if it is, the song imagines that Adam and Eve had some time to think about it. Songwriter Tyler Joseph crafts lyrics that allow for religious and secular meanings, but also that sometimes also apply to multiple audiences. In the song’s lyrics, “You” is sometimes capitalized, and sometimes not, and therefore I think the song has two intended audiences, God and the band’s fans.
Reading between the lines a bit, I’ll explain below what I get from this song, in each audience perspective.
You = the Father The lyrics are relatively compact, with the repeated verse of:
I know where You stand, silent in the trees And that’s where I am, silent in the trees Why won’t You speak where I happen to be? Silent in the trees, standing cowardly
Our first ancestors had lived a perfect life in fellowship with God in the garden of Eden, but the fall into temptation changed that relationship, and the verse imagines how.
First, the sense of togetherness was gone. They were still in the garden, but the sense that God was also there was gone.
Second, although “the eyes of both were opened,” the voice of God guiding their activities had gone silent. They had chosen to determine their own way but had not considered the consequences. Wherever they were, He used to guide them, but now they were confused.
Third, instead of being comfortable in God’s presence, they were terribly afraid of Him.
And a repeated chorus of:
I can feel Your breath I can feel my death I want to know You, I want to see I want to say Hello, hello Hello, oh, hello
In the original Hebrew Genesis was written in, the words for “breath” and “spirit” are sometimes the same word. Therefore, the first two lines of this chorus mean that our ancestors could still feel God’s presence (His breath/spirit), but instead of it being a comfort, they now felt something they never felt before – their mortality. This is a foreshadowing of their being cast away from access to the tree of life.
Also, instead of the constant conversation with God they had known their whole lives, now they wanted to speak with God and know Him again, but He was not responding. In the context of the song, maybe it was then that “they knew that they were naked.” They knew they had done wrong, were exposed, and thought judgement was what they should expect. Adam and Eve went from perfectly hearing their Father’s and Master’s voice, to feeling like orphans and castaways from His family.
What came next? Genesis 3:8 says, “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”
You = The Fans The “you” in the song is also the band’s fans – and Tyler sings out to them, in the trees. Tyler says the song is also about a personal experience he had, which he doesn’t publicly explain, but He does publicly display tattoos of both the cross of Christ and of bands around his wrist, which likely represent rubber bands people wear to manage and prevent self-harm. These tattoos are like permanent memorials – or Ebenezers – from his life, and his ongoing recovery from mental illness. Many of the band’s fans are going through similar struggles and many feel left behind by the world.
Therefore, the “you” of the song is those who feel alone and silent in the trees, who feel ashamed before God, hiding themselves. They expect God to show up in judgement, as Adam and Eve expected, and hid their nakedness. Tyler could be calling out to them: God did not judge me, and neither will He judge you if you call out to Him. God will speak to them, “where they happen to be.” After all, Genesis 3:9 says: “But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” It was God who desired and initiated reconciliation with His people.
The outro of the song has Tyler screaming HELLO over and over again, before the song ends with 12 seconds of intentional silence before the track ends.
What will be the answer?
When you find someone alone and silent in the trees, remember James 1:27 – “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
If you find yourself alone and silent in the trees, tell your Heavenly Father you want to say hello. He wants to know you and He wants to see you.
Coda For many years, “Trees” has been the last song played at every twenty øne piløts concert. Why is this? On the album “Vessel”, “Trees” was the next-to-last song and other parts of the album built to it. The first song on “Vessel” describes demons and spiritual warfare, the second song is called “Holding On To You,” and the third song, “Migraine,” has the repeated line:
And I will say that we should take a moment and hold it And keep it frozen and know that life has a hopeful undertone
It seems like from the beginning of the album, that moment to hold on to when you’re battling whatever demons you have was coming. So, in each concert, the fans know that the moment to hold on to is coming. The song is a moment you can remember when you’re down and know you’re not alone. The song an Ebenezer in its own way, and a bold statement that the band is not going to ignore the problems of people left behind, the metaphorical widows and orphans of the world. Also, if they pay close attention, those fans can find the message of Christ in the lyrics. God doesn’t wait until our affliction is over and we make ourselves acceptable to come to us. He bridges the divide Himself.
Below is a video I took last year at a concert in Philadelphia. Apologies for the video quality, especially when they fired massive amounts of confetti into the air, which fans collect to remember the moment later. My phone camera just couldn’t keep up, but I offer it as a 5-minute moment you can take and hold and know that life has a hopeful undertone.
And what’s all this about widows and orphans? This post continues a series on James 1:27, which began here. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
Often in the Bible, a person’s name tells us more than just what they are called – it tells us something about their character or history. Also, a name describes the authority and honor due to someone, like when we do something in someone’s name, we claim their authority to do it. There are many names for our Lord Jesus, describing His character and authority, and a great summary of these is the worship song, “Jesus, Name Above All Names.” It has two main verses, listing many of Christ’s names, as follows:
Verse 1 Jesus, name above all names Beautiful Savior glorious Lord Emmanuel God is with us Blessed Redeemer living Word
Verse 2 Jesus, loving Shepherd Vine of the branches Son of God Prince of Peace Wonderful Counselor Lord of the universe Light of the world
There are many truths about Jesus we can know, and much meaning is contained in the names from this song, but as infinite God, we cannot understand every truth about Him. A verse that reminds us of this is Revelation 19:12 – “His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.”
We know Jesus by many names, but He has at least one that only He knows. We know many of His names, but none of them can fully describe Him. Likewise, He has many crowns (“diadems”), but none of them can fully describe His power, authority, and honor.
But it was because of our Lord’s humility, taking on the form of man and voluntarily suffering death on the cross for His people, that Philippians 2:9-11 declares: “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
He alone has the name that deserves all of our devotion and respect. While we cannot fully understand Him, we can seek to fully trust Him.
It’s common to think that the point of religion is to have the right laws and to follow them. However, James 1:27 says “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” This is a different definition of religion than we often think of. Today continues a series based on this verse, focusing on the insufficiency of laws as a way to salvation. Only by Christ’s fulfillment of the laws of God through His life, death and resurrection can we achieve salvation, or a restoration of a right relationship with God and with each other.
Which laws do I mean? In the Old Testament, there are three types, which include what many people think of as “religion”: moral laws of what is right and what is wrong, civil laws about what to do when those laws are broken, and ceremonial laws that explain requirements for restoring relationship with God. But also in the Bible are signs that all civil and ceremonial laws are provisional, or temporary and incomplete, even if they are designed by God. They exist because man cannot keep the moral laws, which is where this post begins…
The Poor Among You Consider these verses from the same chapter in Deuteronomy: “But there will be no poor among you; for the LORD will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess— if only you will strictly obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.” – Deuteronomy 15:4-5 “For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’” – Deuteronomy 15:11
Just a few verses apart, it says that “there will be no poor among you”, but then that “there will never cease to be poor in the land.” It seems like a contradiction, but the two thoughts can coexist because the first one is conditional on full obedience of the law – “if only you will strictly obey…” God knows His moral law is perfect, but also that our obedience is imperfect, which will lead to poor in the land. So, He further commands that His people take care of the poor. This second command shows that He provides additional moral and civil laws to help those who are hurt by the failures of people to follow moral law. Every failure of His people throughout time was known to Him when He gave the law, but He gave it anyway because it was not intended as an ultimate solution.
Jesus also recognized that poverty would not be solved until we reach Paradise, after He comes a second time. In Mark 14:7, He said “For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me.” He said this because His disciples were criticizing Mary of Bethany, who decided to use ointment worth a years’ wages to anoint Jesus rather than to sell it and help the poor. The gospel of John singles out Judas as the accuser of Mary, but also says that Judas “said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”[1] Elsewhere, Jesus quoted Isaiah, who said “this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.”[2] What we now call “virtue signaling” is not new. Throughout history, people have been better at promoting virtue in concept than in practice, and in others rather than in themselves. Therefore, even if the law we have is perfect, we will never achieve its ends.
Ruth and the Civil Law Second, the Old Testament story of Ruth shows that even a perfect moral law, perfectly followed, cannot solve every problem – specifically the problem of “orphans and widows in their affliction.” In addition, civil law can only limit the impact of some problems, not eliminate them. The civil laws for gleaning and levirate marriage are key to Ruth’s story, while providing examples of faithfulness in a broken society, are also reminders that society is broken in ways laws can’t fix.
Gleaning, provided for in Leviticus 19:9, 23:22 and Deuteronomy 24:19, is necessary because “there will never cease to be poor in the land.” God commanded His people to leave the edges of their fields unharvested, so the poor could eat what was there. Levirate marriage, defined in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, is necessary because there are widows and orphans in the world. It gives provision for widows by obligating relatives of the deceased husbands to care for, or even marry, the widow to preserve the family line and inheritance. However, these laws didn’t prevent Naomi and Ruth from becoming poor, or from losing their husbands.
One aspect of Ruth’s story is that people of faith can rely on God’s provision, both through His civil law and through others who follow it, to make a tangible difference in a world where many ignore God’s law. Good civil law can improve the conditions of the poor, the orphan, and the widow, if people also follow the eternal moral law of love.
Civil law is a provision for a fallen world, not a pathway to a perfect world.
Another aspect of the story of Ruth is how it keeps us “unstained from the world.” The world wants us to believe that with enough time, effort, resources, cultural revival, laws, coercion, or whatever, that we can produce a widow, orphan, and poverty-free utopia. But whatever its source, civil law is a provision for a fallen world, not a pathway to a perfect world. There will always be widows and orphans as long as there is death, and no law can overcome death.
Jesus, Our Religion For me, the power of thinking about James 1:27 this way is not that I come away thinking, “now I know what to do! Let’s go!” but that I come away knowing there is no way any of us could possibly measure up to the standard God requires. Every time we see someone left behind it is a reminder of our collective failure, evidence that we really don’t have the answer even to our own individual problems, much less a path to perfection for the world.
Fortunately for us, the book of Ruth ends with hope, in the form of a genealogy showing her as an ancestor of King David, and therefore an ancestor of Jesus Himself.[3] Through His life, death, and resurrection, He overcomes both death and the cause of death – our inability to generate religion that is acceptable to God the Father on our own. Only Jesus, in a perfectly lived life, seeking out and loving “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” fulfilled the requirements of “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father.” He offered His perfect record to the Father in our place, so we could be accepted based upon His religion, not ours. He fulfilled the moral, civil, and ceremonial laws in our place, providing a way to a world with no poor, no orphans, and no widows.
For many in the world, civil law is their false gospel, their hope of salvation. But the Bible lets us know that in this world, we will always have poverty. There will always be widows and orphans here. However, because we cannot follow moral law perfectly, we need temporary civil law as a provision for a fallen world. To keep society from falling apart until Christ returns and molds us into new creations that follow the moral law of love naturally, with no need for civil or ceremonial law.
Until that day, Christ rejects both the tyranny of, and freedom from, law as the answer for His people. Any civil law – even that of the Old Testament – can only mitigate the damage of sin, but in many cases, the wrong laws can make the damage worse. However, absence of, or rejection of, all law is not the answer because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of a Kingdom. Jesus said in John 8:31-32: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This freedom is from the failed kingdoms of this world, but not license to reject His righteousness as our personal standard of behavior.
Jesus said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”[4] His righteousness brings us into a Kingdom like no other, where to “Visit orphans and widows in their affliction” is the freely offered sacrifice acceptable to our Lord, and an example of what James refers to later in his letter: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”[5]
This is the 3rd post in a series on James 1:27, which began here, and continues here.
[1] John 12:6 [2] Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 15:8, Mark 7:6 [3] Ruth 4:17-22 [4] John 14:6 [5] James 2:18
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 