By the rivers of Babylon we sat and also wept when we remembered Zion. There on the branches we hung our harps, and our captors asked us for songs of joy; they said, “Sing for us from Zion’s songs!” How can we sing the songs of the Hashem upon the alien soil? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue adhere to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem above my foremost joy. -Psalm 137:1-6

Tisha B’Av or the Ninth of Av (the ninth day of the month of Av in the Hebrew calendar) ended at sunset last night. This is the culmination of a period of mourning that began three weeks earlier, on the 17th of Tammuz. Tisha B’Av is an annual fast day that commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, as well as marking the day when the Children of Israel failed to enter and take Canaan at the command of God (see Numbers 13 and 14).

Yesterday, as is tradition, Jews came from all over Israel and perhaps the world, to Jerusalem to once again march around the walls of the Old City and to pray at the Kotel or Western Wall, mourning the loss of the Temple, and grieving the absence of God’s House. This is as close as any Jew today can come to praying to God from the Temple Mount. Unfortunately, access to the Temple Mount itself is forbidden to Jews (amazingly enough), due to the presence of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, standing on the southeast corner of the mount, facing Mecca, as well as the Dome of the Rock, another Islamic shrine.

Imagine how frustrating it must have been yesterday, for all the Jewish faithful of Hashem to be so close, yet be denied what was once easily accessible to thousands of Jews millennium ago. Even though I’m not Jewish, the very thought of these two Muslim structures standing where the Holy Temple should be is very upsetting. But how should I really be feeling right now?

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“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” -Matthew 3:11-17

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The Jewish believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we Jews have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ). Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days. -Acts 10:44-48

The passages you’ve just read are illustrations of the nature and character of baptism. Certainly the baptism of Yeshua (Jesus) by Yochanon the Immerser (John the Baptist) teaches us that he was baptized into both water and spirit. The example from the Book of Acts is illuminating, since we see that the concept of baptism in water and spirit was uniquely Jewish up to this point and time, and the Jews were amazed that even the Gentile believers received the spirit and thus, also should be baptized in water.

Many believers think that baptism began with John as we see in both Matthew 3 and Mark 1, but is this something that began in the “New Testament”? In John 3 we see Jesus telling an apparently amazed Nicodemus that a man must be “born again” of the Spirit to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is actually talking about the baptism as well here and in fact, he chided Nicodemus, because the concept of rebirth by water should (and probably was, as we shall see) have been completely familiar to him in a Jewish context. How can baptism and being born again be Jewish, and why is this important to the Gentile believer today?

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Update, 8/27/2009: Joe wrote on Facebook that Heidi’s blood counts are back to normal! Praise God! Back to the synergistic combo of full chemo + prayer!

Update, 8/24/2009: Joe wrote an update to Heidi’s current condition. Please continue to pray: Chemotherapy Flare of Failure.

Wife’s targeted chemos failed – next they try untargeted chemo – plz say a quick prayer for Heidi: Heidi’s Cancer Growth Markers.

What do I say about Joe and Heidi Hendricks? How do you describe someone you know only through twitter? If you belong to twitter, you can see Joe’s “tweets” at twitter.com/JoeHendricks. That will give you a snapshot of the messages (at 140 characters or less per message or “tweet”) Joe’s posted in the last few days. What do I say about Joe and Heidi?

It’s at moments like these, when I want to write something meaningful and inspiring, that I realize I know next to nothing about them. Such is the nature of “casual” Internet relationships. For those of you who don’t know about twitter beyond the name, it’s a “microblogging” service on the web that allows you to create an account, and then to post very short messages of up to 140 characters at a time, including spaces, punctuation, and so on. You can search for and follow other selected individuals and businesses that are on twitter, including celebrities, and others can choose to follow you. People who don’t follow you won’t see what you’ve posted and in fact, only people who think your content is worthy of reading will choose to do so (unless they want to sell you something).

At some point, Joe thought something I wrote made it worth his time to follow me. When someone chooses to follow you on twitter, you typically get an email announcement from the service letting you know. I clicked on the link in the email to see what Joe has written about on twitter, and his compassion and warmth convinced me to “follow him back”. Since then, our tweets have appeared to each other, along with the stream of other messages posted on twitter by those we’ve chosen to follow (for Joe that’s over 1600 people, businesses, and services and for me, it’s about 250).

Why am I writing this? I knew that Joe and Heidi were battling her cancer together. It’s not like this particular tweet should have caught me by surprise. In my congregation, we have had many in our number touched by the battle against cancer, and we still bear the scars of those who we’ve lost. That might be part of what’s getting to me now, and why I’m so annoyed with myself for not being able to give an apt description of Joe and Heidi. To answer my own question as to why I’m writing this, I just got back from lunch, logged into twitter and saw the following:

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When do you feel close to God? For a lot of people, it’s in active worship, usually on Sundays for traditional Christians and on Saturdays for traditional Jews and Messianics. Particularly for Sabbath keepers, this is the day when we put aside all of the cares of the secular week to the best of our ability, and focus on our relationship with God.

Shabbat is more than just a particular day of the week; it’s a model. The “Shabbat model” of worship means the entire 24 hours (and a few minutes on either side usually) is designed to be used as a day of renewal, in relationship with the Almighty and with Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus). It takes some planning, particularly if you don’t want to spend part of that time cooking, doing chores, or even driving, but it can be done. In the Messianic community, we still need to work on our dedication, but part of our difficulties in keeping Shabbat is living in a fallen world that doesn’t honor the Seventh Day. Since most of us don’t live within walking distance of where we worship, we are unable to honor our relationship by staying from behind the wheel.

That said, I always look forward to the Shabbat. As God says in Exodus 20:9-10, “For six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the LORD your God. You shall do no work. You, your son or daughter, your manservant or maidservant, your animal, and the stranger who is in your gates”. It is a day when I can put aside my job, my errands, my yard work, and everything that I have to do as part of my day-to-day life, and focus on Him. It’s a day that, in some small way, mirrors the final rest we will experience in Messiah when he finally returns. It is a day of relationship with my brothers and sisters in the faith and with God. It is a day of closeness and renewal. But what about the rest of the week?

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anokhi Adonai eloheykha asher hotzeitikha maeretz mitzrayim mibeit avadim -Exodus 20:2 (Heb)

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. -Exodus 20:2 (NIV)

This verse from Exodus 20 is largely thought of as part of the preamble to the Ten Commandments, written on the stone tablets by God Himself and brought down from Mt. Sinai by Moses (twice, actually). Most people are familiar with these commandments, which form the core of the Torah and the basis for both the Jewish and Christian understanding of God’s requirements for a redeemed people. What is less obvious is the actual order of the commandments and amazingly, what is a commandment and what is not. What does that mean? I’ll explain.

In Judaism, it is thought that the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) contain 613 commandments for the Jewish people who, after all, were the sole guardians of monotheism and worshipers of the one true God for thousands of years. Abraham, Issac, and Jacob were worshiping the God of the Universe when the Gentile nations were mired deep in pagan idolatry (lest the Gentile Christians of today are tempted to feel even the smallest bit of superiority because they “have Jesus”). Standing at the foot of Mt. Sinai 3500 years ago, 6 million people, including the entire body of the Children of Israel, as well as the “mixed multitude” who joined with their God and left the Land of Egypt, said these words:

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