Pickled Followers of Jesus Christ
CROSS PURPOSES # 95
22 August 2007
A dozen or so years ago, by odd circumstance, I found myself in attendance at a teaching seminar organized by a charismatic group. At one point the main speaker quoted from an ancient document, generally believed to date from about the time of Jesus. It was written in Koine Greek (Common Greek) which was in use in the first century after Jesus birth. It was from a letter a woman wrote to her sister about an ordinary daily event. It changed my thinking about how God deals with us.
The quote went like this. “This morning I went to the garden and picked a cucumber which I baptized (washed with water), and then I went inside and baptized it (immersed it) in the vinegar”. Simply, she picked and washed a cucumber from the garden, then set about pickling it in vinegar!
Try an experiment. Cut off a slice of cucumber, eat it and record the taste. Next take a pickled cucumber, cut off a slice and record the taste. What’s the difference? Is the pickled cucumber still a cucumber? Why does it not taste like one? Because its immersion in vinegar and spices has caused it to absorb all the qualities and taste of the substance it’s been bathed in.
What a fantastic analogy for the life of a follower of Jesus. Our life in him begins with a washing of cleanliness. And from that moment, having declared us clean, he sets about the task of transformation, of creating a new heart in us, of making our whole life holy. How does it happen? By our being immersed in the Spirit! Does baptized in the Spirit sound familiar?
The newly picked followers of Jesus find themselves immediately the subject of pickling by Jesus Christ as he immerses them in all the things of the Spirit. How does it happen? The Christ based loved of parents. The soothing joy of Christ’s song. The drawing of a young child into the story of Jesus Christ. Love and truth in Sunday School. Reading the Scriptures, especially with Jesus Christ, new covenant focused glasses. Joyful parenting and other adult mentoring. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit in worship and community.
Immersed in the Spirit – baptized in the Spirit – in this way we find ourselves taking on the qualities and nature of Jesus Christ. This is expressed in the fruit of the spirit, (love, peace, joy, nature, gentleness, kindness etc), and the gifts and capacities the Spirit gives (giving expression to the gifts and capacities of Jesus himself). It also causes our walk to be within the walk of Jesus himself – where our story becomes his story, our vision becomes his vision, our mission becomes his mission, our cross is actually his Cross, all infused with and constrained by his love and compassion, holiness and truth. Along the way, he’ll be nailing away our sin, shame and guilt!
(Man the last paragraph was a mouthful!)
That doesn’t happen in a day just as Rome wasn’t built in a day. Pickling doesn’t happen because you share a cucumber in some vinegar and pull it out a moment later, a day later, a week later or even a month later. It’s about constant, long-term immersion in the things of Jesus Christ, actually in Christ and in his Spirit, over a lifetime. It’s especially about the sheer joy and discipline of swimming in the Word of Jesus Christ, the Word of the Cross, the Word of the Lord raised.
Guys when that happens, as it happens, you begin to smell like Jesus! Think the aroma of the gospel. You know, we talk about drug addicts getting stoned! We talk about drunk people getting smashed! But God sets out to pickle us. And I’ll promise you this – your walk with Jesus, which is by faith, will also become a walk with experiences to boot.
Bless you all
Fred
22 August 2007
A dozen or so years ago, by odd circumstance, I found myself in attendance at a teaching seminar organized by a charismatic group. At one point the main speaker quoted from an ancient document, generally believed to date from about the time of Jesus. It was written in Koine Greek (Common Greek) which was in use in the first century after Jesus birth. It was from a letter a woman wrote to her sister about an ordinary daily event. It changed my thinking about how God deals with us.
The quote went like this. “This morning I went to the garden and picked a cucumber which I baptized (washed with water), and then I went inside and baptized it (immersed it) in the vinegar”. Simply, she picked and washed a cucumber from the garden, then set about pickling it in vinegar!
Try an experiment. Cut off a slice of cucumber, eat it and record the taste. Next take a pickled cucumber, cut off a slice and record the taste. What’s the difference? Is the pickled cucumber still a cucumber? Why does it not taste like one? Because its immersion in vinegar and spices has caused it to absorb all the qualities and taste of the substance it’s been bathed in.
What a fantastic analogy for the life of a follower of Jesus. Our life in him begins with a washing of cleanliness. And from that moment, having declared us clean, he sets about the task of transformation, of creating a new heart in us, of making our whole life holy. How does it happen? By our being immersed in the Spirit! Does baptized in the Spirit sound familiar?
The newly picked followers of Jesus find themselves immediately the subject of pickling by Jesus Christ as he immerses them in all the things of the Spirit. How does it happen? The Christ based loved of parents. The soothing joy of Christ’s song. The drawing of a young child into the story of Jesus Christ. Love and truth in Sunday School. Reading the Scriptures, especially with Jesus Christ, new covenant focused glasses. Joyful parenting and other adult mentoring. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit in worship and community.
Immersed in the Spirit – baptized in the Spirit – in this way we find ourselves taking on the qualities and nature of Jesus Christ. This is expressed in the fruit of the spirit, (love, peace, joy, nature, gentleness, kindness etc), and the gifts and capacities the Spirit gives (giving expression to the gifts and capacities of Jesus himself). It also causes our walk to be within the walk of Jesus himself – where our story becomes his story, our vision becomes his vision, our mission becomes his mission, our cross is actually his Cross, all infused with and constrained by his love and compassion, holiness and truth. Along the way, he’ll be nailing away our sin, shame and guilt!
(Man the last paragraph was a mouthful!)
That doesn’t happen in a day just as Rome wasn’t built in a day. Pickling doesn’t happen because you share a cucumber in some vinegar and pull it out a moment later, a day later, a week later or even a month later. It’s about constant, long-term immersion in the things of Jesus Christ, actually in Christ and in his Spirit, over a lifetime. It’s especially about the sheer joy and discipline of swimming in the Word of Jesus Christ, the Word of the Cross, the Word of the Lord raised.
Guys when that happens, as it happens, you begin to smell like Jesus! Think the aroma of the gospel. You know, we talk about drug addicts getting stoned! We talk about drunk people getting smashed! But God sets out to pickle us. And I’ll promise you this – your walk with Jesus, which is by faith, will also become a walk with experiences to boot.
Bless you all
Fred
posted by PastorFredVeerhuis at 1:18 PM
1 Comments:
Great stuff Fred,
May you continue to be pickled through and through in the things of Christ and soaked in his spirit.
Prayin' for you and your ministry as I hit send.
Matt Thiele.
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