Seder 86: Isaiah 57-58---Repentance Precedes Restoration

 The "second half" of the book of Isaiah, chapters 40-66, has an emphasis on offering comfort to Israelites in exile.  There are prophecies of the Messiah and the messianic era, looking ahead to the coming of a new Exodus and the restoration of Israel in the Promised Land.  

The main focus in these chapters is not correction and rebuke, but these features are still present.  Isaiah foresees that Israelites returning from exile will still be clinging to some syncretism (e.g., chapters 57 and 58).  In Isaiah 58:3, people are pictured fasting in order to gain God's favor.  This is an attitude from paganism, where religious practice is about trying to manipulate the gods.  

Isaiah also makes clear that God invites his people to come to him in repentance.  Isaiah 57:14-21 pictures a highway on which the humble and contrite can return to God.  Instead of fasting to try to influence God, Isaiah says that worshipers should show "fruits meet for repentance" by helping the needy (Isa 58:5-6).

Seder 85 and Seder 86: Prayer in a Time of Suffering

 In discussing Leviticus 13, commentator Jay Sklar notes some things that the chapter does not mention.  Most notably, there is no explanation of why certain skin conditions lead to ritual impurity.  Moreover, there is also no discussion in Leviticus about how people dealt with the great suffering that can go with skin conditions.  

Sklar observes that we can get a sense of this suffering from another part of the Bible---the Psalms.  There we find prayers made in times of suffering.  Sklar lists Psalms 6, 13, 38, 41 as examples.

These psalms give a sense of the magnitude of suffering involved.  They also show a firm trust in God's help---see 6:8-10; 13:5-6; 38:15; 41:11-12.

Another lament of this type is in Psalm 88. At Church of the Messiah, Kyle Kettering gave a sermon on this psalm on September 27, 2925.

Psalms of this type remind us that life includes lots of suffering, and in our worship we should not ignore this part of life.  As Ecclesiastes 3:4 says, there is a time to mourn.  

Seder 86: More on Ritual Impurity and the Messiah

 In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on Jan 8, 2022, Kyle Kettering explored some Talmudic traditions about the Messiah involving skin conditions.  

One remarkable one, attributed to Rabbi Yitzhak in b. Sanhedrin 97a, says that the Messiah would come when the "heresy" of Christianity fills the kingdom.  This claim was based on Lev 13:12-13, which declares a person ritually clean when a skin condition completely covers his body and is no longer spreading.  To Christian ears, this sounds remarkably like Jesus' statement in his Olivet prophecy in Matthew 24:14:  "And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

Also remarkable is the story about the "leper Messiah" in b. Sanhedrin 98a.  Another midrash describes the Messiah as "leprous scholar."  These traditions are based on Isa 53:4, which says that the Suffering Servant would be "stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted."   The Messiah not only takes sickness away; he takes it upon himself.

Seder 86: Mark 1:40-45---Why Was Jesus Angry?

 When John the Baptist sent two disciples to Jesus to ask if Jesus was really the Messiah, Jesus listed a number of mighty works that bore witness to his messiahship: "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them" (Luke 7:22).  

We can understand why Jesus included "lepers are cleansed" in this list.  The book of Leviticus gives instructions for the priests on how to identify a defiling skin condition, but it is not expected that the priests could take such a condition away.  In Jewish tradition, taking away a skin condition was considered to be tantamount to resurrecting the dead---b Sanhedrin 47b.  This tradition is based on Num 12:12.

So it was an amazing miracle when Jesus removed this kind of skin condition.  One of Jesus' disciples was known as "Simon the Leper" (Matt 26:6; Mark 14:3), and it has been speculated that Jesus healed Simon of his condition.  

That speculation is believable in light of other things that we read in the Gospels.  Mark 1:40 says that a man with a skin condition approached Jesus and implored him, "If you will, you can make me clean."  This man exhibited a commendable faith in Jesus, and Jesus responded by touching the man and taking away his condition (vv 41-42).  

The ESV says that Jesus was "moved with pity" in this situation.  Some early manuscripts, though, say that Jesus was "moved with anger" (see the NRSV footnote).  Textual scholars believe that this may have been the original wording, since it is not likely that a scribe would have wanted to attribute anger to Jesus.

Matthew Thiessen suggests that the most likely answer is to be found in the man's qualifying clause "if you will."  How could the man, with all his faith, not realize that Jesus had come for the purpose of overcoming all the forces of death?  He wanted the man to know this, and he wants us to continue to know and proclaim it.

Seder 86: Lev 14:1-32---Cleansing after a Skin Condition

 Leviticus 14:1-32 describes the cleansing ritual for a person who is judged by a priest to no longer have a defiling skin condition.  It is an elaborate ritual with several stages, befitting the fact that a person who has suffered a sort of death is coming back to life.  The ritual includes a number of things that symbolize cleansing---living water, blood, hyssop, for example.

In a ceremony with two birds (vv 6-7), one bird is killed, symbolically taking on the ritual impurity of the skin condition.  The second bird is dipped in the blood of the first bird and then allowed to fly away, symbolically taking away the ritual impurity.  This ritual with two birds reminds us of the one with two goats that will be described in Lev 16.

The person who is being cleansed shaves off all his hair, symbolizing a sort of new birth (vv 8-9).  

In a later stage of the ritual, each of the major kinds of sacrifice is involved, with the exception of a fellowship offering (vv 10-20).  It is often asked why a "guilt" or "reparation" offering is included.  One commonly given answer is that the reparation offering makes up for the offerings that the person was not able to give while being away from the tabernacle or temple with the ritual impurity.  Provision is made for someone who cannot afford all of these sacrifices (vv 21-32).

In Mark 1:40-45, when Jesus takes away a man's skin condition, he directs the man to go through the ritual of  Lev 14.  As  Matthew Thiessen points out, Jesus did not oppose Israel's ritual purity system.

Seder 86: Psalm 88---Prayer in a Time of Suffering

In Psalm 88, the psalmist cries out to "the God of my salvation."  He is suffering greatly, and his suffering shows no sign of ending, but he will continue in prayer. 

This is a Korahite psalm, and it speaks often of death and the grave, as is typical for these psalms (see especially verses 3-6).  When Korah was swallowed up by the ground (Num 16), his children were spared from death (Num 26:11).  After that his descendants seem to have been keenly aware of how God had rescued their ancestors, and the Korahite psalms say much about rescue from death and God's presence in times when death is near.

In Christian tradition this psalm has often been read on Good Friday.  The psalmist's experience has been seen as prefiguring that of Jesus on the cross.  For example, when verse 8 says, "You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a horror to them," we think about how many of Jesus' disciples fled when he was arrested, while those who stayed with him through the crucifixion could only watch from a distance (Luke 23:49).