The other day, as I was reading my weekly Torah Study, the thought came to me of 'Why did I choose this route' for the expression of my faith? Why have I broken from the traditional Christianity, with its' meeting on Sunday, with Liturgy, comfortable songs and Hymns? Why did I choose to move to an expression of my faith to a group that meets on the Sabbath, uses a different method of determining the day, I have to learn a new language, sing different songs? What is it about this group of believers that draws me closer to the One that I worship?
After spending 59 years of my 60 years in mainstream Christianity, and the last 21 years with the last church, I was quite comfortable in my position, and rock solid in my expression of my faith. I was a faithful member of the church choir, was a member of one of the church committees, and occasionally taught a class or two. My wife was a member of a group that supplied prayer shawls for the church, and worked in the nursery and toddler classrooms, she also was a faithful member of the choir, as well as a member of one of the church committees. So, as is expressed by most people, we were active members of our church, and quite satisfied ith our church. So, what happened, where did I get off the usual faith route, and move to the 'road less traveled'?
As I have stated above, I was comfortable with my position in my church, and in my faith. I, as a health care worker, was busy with life and job and was not listening for anything to move me off the path I was on. Maybe that was the problem, I don't know. But what I do know is that I injured my back, and during my convalescence, my Pastor (and my wife) suggested that I begin a study of the Bible. As a comfortable New Testament Christian, who had done some fair amount of reading in the New Testament, I (at first) resisted, then out of boredom finally decided to take them up on the challenge.
I read through some of my favorite letters by Paul to the various churches, and decided to read through the Gospel of John. Now John mentions that Jesus was teaching at several of the Feasts of the Jews, I vaguely knew of them, but they weren't important, just minor points of interest. Anyway, I was in chapter 11 of the Gospel of John and came to a point where Jesus disciples are arguing with Him about going back through Judea to see His friend Lazarus of Bethany, raise him from the dead (one of my favorite stories of Jesus) when in vs. 9 Jesus answers the disciples "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumbe, for he sees by this world's light. 10It is when he walks by night that he stumbles for he has no light." A thought came to me, there are very few days in a year that you actually have twelve hours of daylight; when was it that He said this? I looked back and in the preceding chapter 10 vs. 22 it says "Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter,"… Hmmm, winter, not much chance for twelve hours of sunlight, unless Israel is located closer to the equator. Being from the medical industry, I tend to be a little analytical. So I did some investigating; nope, Israel lies between the 30th and 33rd parallels (somewhere between Waco and Houston, Texas), so no twelve hours of daylight in winter, unless it is late or early winter. Hmm, Feast of Dedication, also known as Chanukah, held in December; definitely no twelve hours of daylight here. What did Jesus mean?
I decided to finally turn to the internet, which led me to a website called Hebrew4christians.com. There, I learned about the Jewish tradition of segmenting the times of daylight into twelve segments, no matter how long those segments were, each day had twelve 'hours' of daylight. That led me on to ask the inevitable question; "What else do I not understand, because of Jewish tradition, that Jesus and everybody else, listening to what he said understood; but to us western Christians is inconsequential"?
This led me on to read everything I could get my hands on concerning Jewish history, traditions, faith practice, etc. Anything I could read I did, a lot of it over the internet, so I had to be careful about where I got my information. I finally found several websites that are very respected for the information they have, and were very helpful, the aforementioned hebrew4christians.com, biblos.com, Judaism101.com, and the Jewishvirtuallibrary.com. Through the first website, I started even learning to read Hebrew, because I needed to be able to go to the original language to parse out what was really being said, rather than rely on someone else's interpretation of what was written. Freaky, huh? Sounds like a college course you would want to avoid, and yet I was doing this on my own! Can I say I was being more driven than led to this revelation, by a Loving and Merciful Lord, who wanted His child to have a deeper and fuller understanding of His Strength, Power, Grace and Mercy?
After six months of personal study, I felt that I needed a more personal interaction, where I could actually ask questions. This led me to a messianic congregation, with a leader and members I could ask questions of, and even debate the answers. They too were following Paul's' advice to the Philippians to "work out their salvation with fear and trembling". They too were following a path less traveled, some coming from the Jewish faith side, as well as others, who like me, were coming from the traditional Christian side together to a more First Century Follower of Christ Congregation.
So, on Friday night, as we light the Shabbat Candles, recite the Baraka, and the Shema, sing the blessing for the children, I reflect on my journey to this point. The liturgy for Shabbat is half Hebrew and half English, all the songs seem to have a little different melodic trend toward the minor (I was a music major in college), but the message delivered by our Ribbi, is deeper in that I can see how Adonai was laying a trail for Yeshua HaMachiach from Genesis throughout the Torah, the Writings and the Prophets (the Tanach), so that we begin to understand what Rabi Paul meant when he wrote to Timothy that "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:16-17) And, on Saturday morning, when Dianne and I join with our Torah study group, to read and discuss the Word with fellow congregants, who are like minded, we grow in confidence and wisdom of the scriptures, so that we may be equipped to go forth into the world with the knowledge of Truth and Righteousness.
Can I say that this route was not chosen by me, but rather chosen for me? Is there something ahead that I cannot see, that I need to be equipped for, that I don't yet understand? Maybe, as the song writer of my youth said "These times, they are a'changein'".
Baruch HaShem, Chaverim.
