#Hyssop&Sacrifice || verse

[pyrrhicpaths]

// verses tag dump!

[impeccablenest68]

What Does the Bible Say About Itchy Right Hands? Unpacking the Meaning of Its Itchiness in Religious Context - Impeccable Nest

Exploring Contexts Wherein an Itchy Right Hand Symbolizes a Blessing or Curse Conclusion Excerpt The meaning of itchy right hands in a biblical context is rooted in the Old Testament, particularly in passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Itchy palms are interpreted by some to be a warning sign from God that certain actions may have consequences. This idea stems from verses found in the Bible which reference hands being “pulled away” or “slapped” depending on one’s behavior. This notion of an itchy palm as a divine warning originated during the time of the tabernacle when sacrifices were brought before God and atonement was rendered for sins. In Leviticus 14:13-14, it mentions how a priest might inspect one’s hand before making a sacrifice: “He should take two live clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop…If a man has any kind of infectious skin disease, he must first his right hand to the priest.” While passage does not explicitly r - 6jzy7t0dfp

[allsoulspriory]

The Cry Of The Heart For Forgiveness

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your loyal love! Because of your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! — Ps 51:1

I remove the guilt of your rebellious deeds as if they were a cloud, the shame of your sins as if they were a cloud. Come back to me, for I protect you.” — Isa 44:22

Myriads of penitent souls have trodden this staircase. Few of God’s elect saints have passed through life without painfully climbing its stairs. On the wall opposite the pallet in the cell where St. Augustine died, this first verse was set out where his eyes could constantly see it.

The Psalmist uses three words for the Forgiveness he craves—that his transgressions might be blotted out like the legends scribbled over the ancient Gospels of the palimpsest; that his iniquity should be washed away, as the soil from linen; and that all traces of his past sin should be forgiven and cleansed away, even as leprosy in the case of Naaman was so obliterated that his flesh became as a little child. How tenderly Jesus responded to the agonized cry of the leper for cleansing: “I will be thou clean!”

How wonderfully these petitions of the soul burdened with the sense of sin are answered! Do you ask to be purged with hyssop? Listen to the voice of God saying: “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for My own sake and will not remember thy sins.” He purges us with the Blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God. Do you ask to be made white as snow? “These are they who have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.” Do you ask to hear joy and gladness? “It is meet to make merry and be glad, for this, my child was lost and is found.” Do you desire to offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God? Give Him your broken and contrite heart; think not that He will despise it! The fragrance of a damaged box of alabaster fills Heaven and earth to this day!

Prayer

Let there be no doubt with any one of us that Thou dost forgive, even to the uttermost, all those who draw nigh in penitence to Thee; that so, those of us who are sad because sinful, may have this day the joy of the Lord. Amen.

[deniigi]

will we be getting anyting spooky for this year? "ain't afraid of no ghost!" fed my halloween loving soul.

hi!!

I’m a little burnt out with writing right now, BUT I do have a piece from the Selkie Verse that’s a little bit ghostly/scary. I can’t remember if I posted it here already or not, but I’ll give it to you (again?)

It’s like 8k so be prepared!

Title: ember ghosts

Summary: Flash forces Peter, Ned, and MJ to go ghost hunting in a local cemetery. Peter decides to add a little pizzazz to this trip in the form of Resident Dead Hero Jack Murdock to get back at Flash. Things, as they are wont, go terribly wrong.

--------------

Matt’s new coat was white and incredibly heavy; Peter learned that last part upon dragging MJ and Ned over to catch Matt in the act of grooming it.

He barked at them and the volume of the sound locked Peter into place for a minute before he came back to himself and hustled in to go flop down next to Matt and ask him if he needed help first, and then secondly, if his dad was busy.

Matt felt for his chin and then jerked his face close.

“What business do you have with him?” he asked.

Stories about baby seals, obviously.

Matt tossed him away.

“You’re not borrowing my father’s spirit to scare Flash,” he said.

MJ and Ned came over to join the pleading session.

“But Mr. Murdock’s the biggest ghost ever,” Peter lamented.

“He’s a normal sized spirit, not a ghost,” Matt sniffed at him as he gathered up his fur rug from the floor and started picking through it in his lap.

The gesture he used was mesmerizing. He dragged the fur back the wrong way until he found something he didn’t like, then used the last three fingers on his hand to scrape at it until it was vanquished. He pulled his whole hand over the place again and carried on down the stripe he was making until he found another knot or bit of dirt or something to scratch at.

“Can I try?” Ned asked.

Matt’s face jerked his way and he dragged even more of the coat into his lap.

“No touching,” he said.

“I thought Foggy’s coat was the white one?” MJ asked.

Matt gathered his coat even further in offense.

“It will shed,” he said. “It is a new coat.”

“It’s baby fur,” Peter told the others. “Foggy said—”

He got a face full of baby fur and could now confirm that it was soft and fluffy and amazing. He could sleep in this.

“It’s a new coat,” Matt emphasized. “Annoying me will not unlock access to my old man.”

Boo on you, sealman.

“I’m gonna ask your mom then,” Peter declared.

He got yanked down before he was even all the way up.

Matt held his chin again.

“He’s a spirit,” he said. “And a hero. Say it with me.”

“He’s a spirit and a hero,” Peter repeated.

Matt shoved him away.

“If you ask him very nicely, he might be interested in having some time away from the church. But not too long. He can’t be away from Mum for too long, you hear?”

That was permission.

“We hear,” Peter promised. “Should we bring Sister Maggie an offering?”

Matt huffed and stood up. He left his pile of coat behind him and the urge to pet it behind his back was insurmountable. Peter met Ned and MJ’s eyes and bounced his brows. MJ shook her head.

Matt returned from the table and held something out towards the coat. MJ leaned forward and plucked it out of his hand.

“A comb?” she asked.

“Tell her its teeth are too wide,” Matt said. “Go get a bouquet of flowers—no roses, Peter. Go for hyssop if you can find it.”

Copy that.

“Be gone with you.”

“You’re my favorite teammate,” Peter said.

“I said begone,” Matt sniffed.

---

--

-

 “You think he should have just kept it anyways?” MJ asked on the way to May’s friend Tonya’s place.

Ned took the comb from her and held it up to the sun.

“What do you think it’s made out of?” he asked.

Knowing the selkies? Probably teeth.

The other two stared at Peter.

He shrugged.

“Johnny says selkies are obsessed with guarding their teeth,” he said. “So maybe it’s whale bone or something.”

Ned huffed.

“Maybe it’s turtle shell,” he said.

Maybe.

“Why not roses?” MJ asked Peter.

Oh, well that was easy enough.

“There’s not really a kind of rose that isn’t a curse for Mr. Murdock,” he said. “It’s all friendship this, scorned lover that. And from the sounds of it, he doesn’t like them. Hyssop is a sacrifice flower, so you know. It’s an offering for both him and Sister Maggie.”

MJ tapped at her lip.

“Do you think we should cover our basis with a can of sardines, too?” she asked.

Well, it couldn’t hurt.

 ---

--

-

 Tonya, upon learning that the flowers Peter was seeking were to be given to a ‘selkie and her young man’ (in her words) went a little overboard.

She stuffed the hyssop in as an afterthought among a tryptic of sunflowers in a bed of bursting blue cornflowers. She mused on a pink rose or two to top the whole thing off, until Peter informed her that the son of the recipients had warned against it.

She said hollyhock would have to do, and then she gave Peter a basket of herbs for drying back home. She said to leave them outside when he went in to talk to the selkie.

Tonya’s apprentice said nothing the whole time and stared at Peter like he was scum while she snipped the low leaves off the stems of black-eyed susans. Peter resolutely didn’t look at her or her fancy, pale-eyed familiar.

She was a poser, anyways.

“Tell me how it goes,” Tonya hummed, draping herself across the desk and humming. “I wish I could bag a selkie. Imagine it, Missy. Strong handsome man comes up from the banks and—”

“The banks of the Hudson, Ms. Rice?” Missy said scathingly.

Tonya considered this then shrugged.

“He’s shower first,” she said.

Peter and the others said bye.

 ---

--

-

 Sister Maggie was suspicious of the flowers. But to be fair, she was suspicious of pretty much everything. She accepted the comb back much more comfortably.

“You want Jackie?” she asked once that was done.

“Yes, ma’am,” Peter said.

“What for?”

A reckoning.

“One of our classmates is a jerk,” MJ said. “He’s forcing everyone in our club to go ghost-hunting with him even though no one wants to. So we thought we’d give him a run for his money, but we didn’t want to like, disturb anyone or raise the dead or whatever.”

Sister Maggie’s eyebrow arched and Peter swore that she was going to start in for a lecture. He braced himself.

It did not come.

“That’s considerate of you,” she said instead. “How long do you need him for?”

“Like, just a few hours? Fourish?” MJ said.

“Let me ask him,” Sister Maggie said. “I think he’ll be interested, he’s been rolling balls back to the wains all day. It’s only fun for the first five times.”

 ---

--

-

 Mr. Murdock was a good four inches taller than Matt and around forty or fifty pounds heavier. He looked like he could carry all the babies at St. Agnes’s all at the same time if he wanted to. But, having seen the guy in action (i.e. hopelessly lost in the tunnels of the great seanchaidh), Peter now knew that he was kind of a St. Bernard burdened with a troublesome wife and son.

“Have fun,” Sister Maggie said.

Mr. Murdock huffed at her and said that he ‘shan’t’ and it made her laugh as she closed the door behind them all.

“I’m not a ghost,” he told Peter, ignoring the other two’s shock and awe.

“A spirit,” Peter said. “Yeah, I know. But Flash is a dick and you don’t like bullies, right?”

Mr. Murdock’s jaw worked.

“What kind of bully, now?” he asked.

“He calls us names and talks shit behind our backs and runs into me on purpose in the hall during passing period,” Peter said.

“Easy fix for that,” Matt’s dad said with a hand wave.

“Mr. Murdock, I can’t fight him. I’ll break him in half,” Peter said. “Fighting is only for spiders.”

Mr. Murdock did not understand. That was okay, he and Matt only understood the language of hitting people. It was genetic.

“If you can just like, do the glowy thing right behind him tonight when we go to this crypt, that would be super helpful,” Peter said.

“You glow?” Ned asked Mr. Murdock.

Mr. Murdock was not convinced.

“How will me standing over a guy get him to stop bullying you?” he asked.

That…was maybe a fair point.

“It’ll scare him,” Ned said. “And it’ll be all his fault and everyone will blame him and he’ll feel stupid for having made everyone go along with his dumb idea.”

Mr. Murdock considered him and then looked back to Peter.

“Just go with it,” Peter said. “It’s a teenager thing. It’s how we keep each other humble.”

 ---

--

-

 Mr. Murdock didn’t want to wait with them until nightfall. He wanted to be with Matt. That was his second favorite place to be, apparently, after hanging around Sister Maggie, but Peter got the feeling that Matt would talk Mr. Murdock out of some good, honest revenge and into some Catholic guilt if they were stuck together. So he gave him the next best thing.

Foggy was basically a vengeful spirit.

He laughed really hard at the idea of Mr. Murdock going around scaring kids in a cemetery.

“No, no,” he said. “Here, you must—Jack, can you hold things?”

Peter snapped his head back to Mr. Murdock.

“Some,” Mr. Murdock said.

“How much can you lift?” Foggy asked.

Mr. Murdock squinted at him.

“I don’t like the question,” he said.

Foggy abandoned them all to go dig through one of his kitchen drawers. He came back with tiny bottle and held it out to Peter.

“Mix it with some lamp oil,” he said.

Peter took the bottle.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Ask not what you don’t want the answer to,” Foggy said. “Just mixy-mix, boyo. Here, I’ve even got a lantern around here somewhere. Jack, we need to dress you for the part.”

Peter paused and turned to look up at Mr. Murdock’s dark eyes and thick hair.

Dress? Him?

You could dress a spirit?

“Why not?” Foggy said. “You, my dear sir, need a coat and a flatcap.”

Mr. Murdock’s whole expression dropped.

“I’m not playing some ghostly lighthouse man in the middle of New York City,” he said.

“You are,” Foggy said seriously. “For your people, Jack. Think about your people. And fix that accent, I know you’ve got a brogue in you.”

 Peter took Mr. Murdock home with him when he and the others split off to reconvene at the cemetery at 8 o’clock. Mr. Murdock rode the train like a champ. It was cramped from the rush hour traffic and Peter entertained himself by watching Mr. Murdock lay his hands tenderly on top of those belonging to douchebags who were plenty tall enough to hold onto the upper bar but who couldn’t be assed to look away from their phones to realize this.

One guy yelped at Mr. Murdock’s touch on his knuckles and ripped his hand off, only to see nothing there. Everyone around him stared at him.

He coughed and reached up for the overhead rail.

Mr. Murdock abandoned him to squeeze through the carriage to the back. He found a pregnant woman standing beside a group of teenagers all listening to music. Peter watched as he inspected the lady’s phone in her hand and then her face. He tapped on the top of the phone so it fell right out of her loose grip, and the woman jumped. The kids all startled at the sound of the phone hitting the ground and two jumped up to pick it up for her. One offered her his seat.

She thanked them and carefully, carefully sat down.

Mr. Murdock watched this with no expression.

Peter swallowed a giggle.

Jonathan ‘Jack’ Murdock. Lighthouse Ghost Impersonator and Subway Manners Enforcer.

 ---

--

-

 “Oh, hey there, long time no see,” May said to Mr. Murdock when Peter got home. “You’re going with Pete and the others tonight?”

Mr. Murdock said nothing.

Peter recounted his poltergeist from earlier for him. May thought it was just delightful.

“I told him to take Johnny,” she said. “But you might be even better.”

“They should just fight it out,” Mr. Murdock said.

“Mm. School authorities won’t go for it,” May said. “So I’m afraid we must stoop to witchcraft.”

 ---

--

-

 Mr. Murdock didn’t know the full glory of Youtube, so Peter spent the next few hours snacking and showing him clips of old vines. Then, when it was time to go, he turned to google how to use an oil lamp. Mr. Murdock watched him struggle for a good five minutes before reaching over him and showing him how.

“Did you and Matt not have electricity in Ireland?” Peter asked him.

Mr. Murdock huffed.

“No, I just uh. I guess I had an interest in maritime shit since I was a kid.”

Ohhh.

“Is that how you met Sister Maggie?” Peter asked.

Mr. Murdock’s lip quirked up a little.

“No,” he said. “But we got there anyways, didn’t we?”

 ---

--

-

 “Do you not like roses?” Peter asked him on the way to the train station.

“They all smell like soap,” Mr. Murdock said as he followed Peter down the steps to the station. He was wearing the hat that Foggy had impressed on him. It was a strange thing; Foggy had marked it with a piece of chalk under the brim before handing it over and it seemed to have made it ghost-apparel. He didn’t have a big scary coat, but he did have a scarf and between that and the hat and the lantern, Mr. Murdock was plenty old-timey lighthouse man.

“Not all of them,” Peter said. “Some smell like lemon.”

“That’s what they want you to think,” Mr. Murdock said over the heads of folks by the train. “S’all soap.”

 ---

--

-

 “Did you every hunt for ghosts when you were a kid?” Peter asked when they were approaching the gates of the meeting place. May had given him a bag full of offerings to place on graves when people he was with weren’t looking. Some mandarin oranges and little bouquets of lavender and zinnias with sprigs of baby’s breath. They were pretty. Peter had something like twenty in among the fruit.

“No, the dead never bothered me half as much as the living,” Mr. Murdock said.

That sounded kind of angsty.

“How did you become a hero?” Peter asked.

“Kind of a long, boring story,” Mr. Murdock said. “The short of it, I guess, is that I did a lot of shit for the fae and they appreciated it.”

“Johnny’s starstruck of you,” Peter pointed out. “He thinks you’re like, super cool. He told me you smell really good.”

Mr. Murdock glanced down at him.

“It’s a sign of status for the fae to be attached to a hero,” he said.

Oh???

“Am I a hero? Does Johnny get a boost from being with me?” Peter asked.

Mr. Murdock shrugged.

“You’re both pretty young to be able to know or tell,” he said. “And you’re a witch. So unless you’re a hero-witch, I got nothin’ for you.”

Ah, well. It was worth a shot.

“There’s Ned, that’s our cue. Here, you can take the lantern. I’ll point Flash out to you,” Peter said.

Mr. Murdock took the lantern Peter held out to him without complaint while Peter fumbled through his pockets for a lighter.

He held it out.

“Do you want me to light it or are you okay?” he asked.

“You light it,” Mr. Murdock said. “This is heavy for me in this shape.”

 ---

--

-

 Mr. Murdock took the lantern and left Peter to go meet MJ and Ned. The light had vanished by the time Peter looked back.

“I think Mr. Murdock’s a little sad,” he told the others.

“Ghost separation anxiety?” MJ offered.

“Maybe it’s harder for him to be with people who aren’t his family. Maybe he’s tired,” Ned said.

Yeah, maybe.

“Or maybe he’s a softie who doesn’t like scaring people,” MJ said. “But that means that Matt got his nonsense gene from the nun side.”

It wasn’t implausible.

“Hey, are you guys coming?” Abe tossed back at them. He was prepared with two flashlights and a backpack with a bulky mobile charger in his pocket. He’d said that he wasn’t falling for ‘any ghost shit’ that night and no one was making any ‘dumbass mistakes’ on his watch.

Peter thought that Abe might try to punch Mr. Murdock in the gut. He and MJ agreed to separate him from Flash as soon as possible.

 ---

--

-

 Flash insisted on leading the charge—of course he did. Peter hung back a ways so that he could set offerings on graves. Ned told kept reminding him that he didn’t have to do it for every single one, and obviously Peter knew that. But some of the graves deserved stones on them and a quick prayer. That was just being polite.

Flash caught him at it and asked him if he was scared. Peter told him to mind his own business.

“We’re here to find ghosts, not feed them,” Flash volleyed back.

Peter pointed at him in a way that he hoped was dramatic enough for Mr. Murdock to catch sight of it from wherever he was.

“If they’re eatin’ these, they aren’t eatin’ me,” he said. He offered Flash an orange. “You want one?”

Ned snickered.

“You’re not funny, Parker,” Flash sighed. His breath clouded around him. “Come on, it’s not too much further.”

 ---

--

-

 The ‘crypt’ was actually a mausoleum, as Peter had expected. It was tall and made of stone and Peter could tell immediately that it was of no one of import to the local necromancers.

Even the vultures had declared the folks in this one too boring for their rituals. It was probably a family thing. A bunch of folks who were ordinary but devout. Maybe they had a little money and chose to spend it in death.

Everyone had their own thing.

Peter had oranges and flowers, for example. He snuck around the corner to set one onto the ground by the stone.

His breath puffed out around it and misted away and Peter paused before standing up out of his stoop. He could feel a breeze on his cheeks. He looked up and around.

“Mr. Murdock?” he breathed.

Nothing.

No lantern light.

“You’re not my ghost,” Peter whispered. “I’m just leavin’ a snack, okay?”

The breeze seemed to vanish.

Cool.

“Don’t mind my spirit friend. He’s big and kinda glowy, but he’s not one of you,” Peter said.

“Peter?”

He glanced over his shoulder.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said. “But this other idiot is gonna try to climb onto your grave. Sorry about him. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.”

The leaves at his feet blew up and scattered around the orange.

“No problem.” Peter said. “Bye now.”

He hurried back to the others.

 ---

--

-

 The main problem was that none of them knew how roman numerals worked and, surrounded by ghosts, looking it up on the internet was kind of challenging.

MJ and Ned gave Peter pointed looks when he came back to join them.

They knew Peter could read roman numerals. He was assigned the task of keeping his mouth shut without anyone having to tell him.

“Maybe they don’t want to be read,” Felicia said.

“Correct,” Abe agreed. “No reading. I can’t read. None of us can read. This is a blessing of ignorance, given to us by the Lord.”

Flash stared at them.

“X is ten,” he deadpanned.

“Damnit, Flash,” Abe said.

“What’s L?” Flash said. “And M?”

“Code,” Ned chimed in.

He got flat eyebrows all around.

“We live in the twenty-first century,” Flash told the stone. “Just use normal numbers like everyone else.”

The wind kicked up a bit in offense.

“Alright, well, now what?” Abe said. “Not a single ghost so far. Only a creepy stone in a creepy yard with a creepy—oh shit. Turn off the light.”

Say what now?

“Keeper,” Abe snapped over his shoulder, pointing away from them towards a floating light. “Turn ‘em off or we’ll get kicked out.”

Oh.

The lantern.

Peter joined the others in turning off their lights and hiding on the other side of the mausoleum.

“You’d have thought it would be too late for working,” Felicia whispered.

“It’s a graveyard,” MJ whispered back. “The time you need the most coverage is night.”

“Are they still there?” Abe asked.

Flash peeked out from around the stone.

“No,” he said.

Peter untensed his shoulders and stepped out.

“What if it’s not a keeper?” he asked. “What if it’s a—”

“Huh-uh. No,” Abe snapped. “We’re not asking stupid questions tonight, remember, Parker? I specifically said this not 10 minutes ago. No stupid questions.”

Abe had seen a few horror movies, it would seem.

“Alright, alright. No stupid questions,” Peter said. “It’s just—that doesn’t look like a flashlight to me.”

Ned made a show of looking around.

“It’s gone, it doesn’t look like anything to anyone,” he said.

“This is exciting,” Felicia anxiety-giggled.

“It’s not,” MJ sighed. “Well, we’re already here. Might as well keep going.”

The others all turned towards her.

“Wait, you mean, go further?” Flash asked.

MJ shrugged.

“We’re only like, part of the way in,” she said.

Peter surveyed the space beyond their current alley of monuments. The light from the two floodlights at the gated entrance was already weak. Further out, there wouldn’t be light until they hit the war memorial way, way in the back.

That was a plenty big enough stretch.

“Guys? Did it get foggy?” Felicia asked.

Peter shivered.

He had about ten oranges left and an equal number of flower packets.

Welp.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Before it rolls in thicker.”

 ---

--

-

 The grass seemed to get wetter and wetter with every yard and Peter had started to see things out of the corners of his eyes. Shadows. Little flickers of light.

He felt MJ’s fingers sink into his jacket sleeve as he watched an extra set of legs follow behind them in the jerky shadows jostled around by the flashlights.

Abe froze twice, each time to take a deep steady breath and to remind himself that he was not asking stupid questions.

Flash laughed at him, but the sound was strained and a little hysterical. Felicia had grabbed ahold of one of each of their arms up ahead. Ned touched Peter’s shoulder.

“Where is he?” he whispered.

Peter shrugged.

“He’s lantern man,” he said. “We’ll see him.”

“In the mist?”

Mmmm. Okay maybe they should have brought Johnny after all.

 ---

--

-

 They were halfway to the war memorial when the lights above it suddenly went out. MJ’s fingers dug deep into Peter’s sleeve. Ned gasped.

“Dude,” Flash’s voice said in the dark. “That’s not cool. Don’t do that.”

“Don’t you talk to it,” Abe snapped. “Don’t you dare talk to it. Just walk. Don’t ask questions. Just walk.”

Peter felt wind against his cheeks. He shivered.

Mr. Murdock wouldn’t fuck with the lights, would he? Was he that strong?

Peter thought he was supposed to be a spirit, not a ghost. And he’d seemed kind of tired earlier. Surely he hadn’t fallen asleep or something, right?

There was a loud rustle to the right of their group and Peter jumped, which made MJ jump, which made Felicia yelp.

The rustle carried on. It was punctuated with a horrible, wet-sounding slap all of the sudden.

“Wh—what was that?” Flash asked.

Another slap rang out, then another. Followed by the sound of something dropping into leaves. Something…heavy.

“Nice try, slugger,” Mr. Murdock growled.

Actually growled. Like an angry tiger or something.

Peter shivered hard.

This guy hadn’t been scared at all. He’d been preparing himself.

To fight.

Fuck.  

Abort mission. Abort, abort, abort.

“We need to leave,” Peter said sharply.

“Agreed,” MJ said.

“Yep,” Ned said.

“You speak my language finally,” Abe said. “About-face and—”

“Don’t move,” Mr. Murdock said dangerously.

Peter felt his body turn to ice.

“Who’s there?” Flash asked.

“They’re mine,” Mr. Murdock rumbled. “Hands off, ya fuckin’ lowlife. Yeah, get back to your hole. Go on.”

Oh, okay.

Fun times with the undead. Peter should have brought holy water.

“Wh—who’s there?” Flash asked again in a cracking voice.

The sound of metal clanking met them and then an orange flash crackled into sight. And there was Mr. Murdock. Six foot two and missing his hat. He looked huge and solid and his shoulders glowed ever so slightly.

Flash and Felicia and Abe gasped.

“Y’all better be moving along,” Mr. Murdock said, meeting Peter’s eyes seriously.

“Are—are you a ghost?” Felicia whispered.

Mr. Murdock flicked his eyes down at her and they didn’t reflect the light from the lantern.

“Folks call me ‘Jack,’” he said, holding out the lantern. “Or they used to. Nowadays, the little ones call me ‘John.’ This is a ritual grounds tonight, kids. Bad night for a hunt for the living. Go on, I’ll see you out. Take this; your lights won’t work.”

MJ took out her flashlight and it clicked as she turned it on and then off.

“What kind of ritual?” Peter asked.

Mr. Murdock’s lips thinned.

“Go,” he said.

Peter’s chest expanded.

“Where are they?” he asked.

Mr. Murdock shook his head.

“Go,” he said again. “This isn’t for you, little witch.”

Peter heard the others’ shape intakes of air, but he held firm.

“You’re a spirit,” he said. “You can’t stop them.”

Mr. Murdock sighed and his shoulders fell slowly.

“I’m not just a spirit,” he said. “I’m a hero. I’ll see you out. Tell my son the name of this place. He’ll come in the morning.”

Wh—

No, wait.

“Don’t go,” Peter said.

But he was already gone. Felicia was left holding the lantern.

 ---

--

-

 They ran-slipped-fell all the way back the way they’d come. This time, Peter held his breath at the sound of too many feet hitting the wet pockets of mud around them. He heard Felicia sobbing and the lantern clanking dangerously ahead of them.

The floodlights at the entrance had gone out.

They had to carefully climb the fence and pass off the lantern one at a time until they were on the other said, panting.

Peter realized belatedly that he’d dropped the bag of grave offerings.

He dipped his head and clenched his fists.

He’d have to go back for it in the morning.

“You’re a witch,” Flash suddenly snapped at him.

“Lay off,” MJ said immediately.

“You’re a witch and you brought that—that guy with us?” Flash asked.

“It was supposed to be a joke,” Peter said.

“A joke?” Abe said. “You—Peter, witches aren’t real. Ghosts aren’t real. Who was that?”

“No, you, a witch, thought it would be funny to bring some kind of spirit with us to a graveyard?” Flash demanded.

Peter huffed.

“Hey, you were a dick about this first,” Ned said. “The ghost dude is harmless.”

“Harmless?” Flash said. “Harmless? Yeah, fuckin’ streetfighter ghost is harmless.”

“He’s not a ghost,” Abe said, “He’s an actor. Peter that’s not cool, man. That’s not cool.”

“He’s not an actor,” Felicia said quietly.

The rest of them turned to see her holding the still-burning lantern. She was staring into it.

“His hands were so cold,” she whispered.

Abe executed a full-body shiver.

“Well, now what?” he asked. “We’ve trespassed, found a ghost, and nearly got ritualed to death. What else do we need to do to learn that this was a bad idea all along?”

Peter looked up at the gate.

“Dark magic,” he said.

MJ and Ned turned towards him.

“Peter, you’re not going back in there,” Ned said.

“I took charge of the spirit,” Peter said, setting his jaw. “I’m not going back on my word to a selkie.” He jerked back. “I need my familiar,” he said. “You guys can go.”

“Your…familiar?” Abe said slowly. “Peter. Peter, you are not a witch.”

“He’s not a familiar like others are, maybe, but he’s mine,” Peter said. “And he’ll know how to help the spirit.”

Ned and MJ exchanged glances.

“Okay?” Ned said. “Well, where is he?”

 ---

--

-

 Johnny answered his phone and said he’d been 20 minutes. They were the longest 20 minutes of Peter’s life and were spent primarily being interrogated by Abe, Flash, and Felicia.

They were understandably upset by the set-up, and then understandably upset by the fact that they were, in fact, living in ignorance of a whole multi-dimensional plane.

Abe demanded to know if genies were real, and Peter could only say that they probably were.

“Just so I’m clear here,” Flash said. “You went and borrowed your local seal-person’s husband for a jump-scare for us and now we are waiting on a fire demon to help us rescue the seal-person’s undead husband from some evil witches trying to raise the dead?”

Peter chewed a few fingers.

“That’s the gist of it, yeah,” he said.

“PARKER.”

“PETER. OH MY GOD.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Abe sobbed.

“I was appeasing the spirits,” Peter snapped at them. “Why do you think I brought all those oranges? Do I look like I’m vitamin C deficient?”

“You’re a witch,” Felicia said. “You’re a witch. That’s insane. How do you—”

“I’m not a witch,” Peter sighed. “I’m—I’m a—I’m almost a witch.”

“Clearly,” Abe said.

“Hey, leave him alone,” Ned jumped in. “It’s no one’s fault this happened. We all thought we were walking into a totally different situation.”

“Yeah, except Mr. Ghost Man,” Flash said. “He knew what was up. Why didn’t you listen to him? Or, I dunno, read the undead-people signs?”

“Because he’s not my family spirit,” Peter snapped at him. “And he’s not a ghost. He’s a spirit, and not like a spirit, even. He’s a—it’s hard to explain. I don’t even know what he is. He’s just different. He’s like an inbetween kind of—”

“He’s a hero.”

They all looked up to see Johnny standing there in blue with a black knitted scarf wrapped triple around his neck. His eyes flashed orange and red and gold. The ground swayed around him, light up by his internal lantern.

Everyone around Peter recoiled.

“What does that mean, Johnny?” Peter asked quietly. “I don’t understand.”

“It means that the spirits of the sea granted him another life in exchange for the protection he offered their people during his human one,” Johnny said. “You should know by now, Peter; the fae work in exchanges.”

“He already made his deal,” Peter said. “I don’t understand.”

“His deal as a human was fulfilled. His soul is safe with his selkie, only she can shepherd it. It will go to the Otherworld, where he will stay in comfort. But he’s chosen to stay here--as a hero. In this world. And as long as he is here and not in the Otherworld, his purpose is to protect humans and fae, to protect them from each other if he must, as he stands now with a foot on both sides of the line.”

Peter felt his breath coming slowly again.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“Because,” Johnny said with a sudden smile. “Your soul is already mine—we share a heart remember? I don’t need you getting stupid ideas—imagine if you decided to become a hero, then died and decided to stick around these parts instead of letting me take you to the Otherworld. You’d drive yourself mad, Peter. You’d never sleep ever again.”

Peter blinked.

“You lied to me?” he asked.

“I’m a fire demon,” Johnny said. “We listen to truths. We don’t have to tell them.”

Wow.

“Know that I’m really upset with you right now,” Peter said.

Johnny bobbed his head.

“But you’re more upset about the hero,” he said. “No need for that. He didn’t become a hero by dumb luck, and anyways, look at his kid. He’ll be fine; he’s the original material. A little dark magic isn’t gonna tear him up. He’s probably just gonna—”

There was a flash like miniature lightening through the bars of the gate.

“I take it back,” Johnny said. “Whoopsy-daisy. Come on, now, heart-boy. Up and over.”

 ---

--

-

 Peter landed on the other side of the gate right into mud that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.

“What’s going on?” he asked as Johnny hopped down with him.

“Big, wet,” Johnny said. “Dark, dark magic. Gross. Sticky. Here, we need more light.”

Little embers glittered in the throw of fire that expanded Johnny’s lantern lights. It brightened the space substantially and when Peter looked down, the ground was dry.

“Dude,” Flash said. “You know what? I’m convinced.”

“Johnny Storm is a fire demon,” Abe wept into his hands.

“Stay here,” Peter told Ned and MJ, we’ll be—”

“BACK. BACK. BACK.”

Johnny slammed Peter against the fence and let out a hiss that sounded like water hitting a scalding piece of metal. Peter’s heart throbbed. Johnny slowly released the pressure on him and made a clicking noise.

“I think,” he said after a moment. “That perhaps I am not a big enough fire.”

Dude, what?

Johnny turned to him.

“Sorry,” he said sadly. “More and more are waking up every second. They’re heavy.”

Dude, what?

“I’m really sorry,” Johnny said. “But uh. I think I need to, uh—”

“Need to what, Johnny?” MJ demanded on the other side of the fence.

Johnny looked like he was going to cry.

 ---

--

-

 “JONATHAN STORM.”

Scary, scary, scary, scary, scary.

“Sue,” Johnny pleaded. “Not here. Not now. There’s hero in the—”

“Oh, I see him,” Sue Storm said, looming. “He’s doing just fine. He’ll hold on for long enough for me to—”

“It’s my fault,” Peter blurted out. “I called him here.”

Sue Storm’s blue eyes seemed to blaze in the dark.

“Don’t blame him,” Johnny said. “I’ll take it. He’s my human. I’ll take it.”

“This is dark magic,” Sue said. “None of you should be here. This earth will turn sodden under the spell of these monsters. The hero will return it to balance. You two, in the meantime, are no heroes. Not even halves of one.”

Peter felt his face burning.

“He’s the selkie’s, Sue,” Johnny said quietly. “He’s not long a hero. Please help him?”

Sue Storm chewed her tongue, gazing holes into Johnny’s face. Johnny looked away first.

“Which selkie?” she demanded.

“Her name is Margaret,” Peter said.

Sue’s face jerked his way. Her eyes widened and she turned back out towards the cemetery.

“Oh,” she said softly. “That selkie. She’s more like us.”

Peter frowned.

“I don’t—” he started.

“She honors the earth and its fae even though she’s sea folk,” she said. She sighed heavily. “Alright, fine. I’ll help. But for the hero, not either of you, you hear? Johnny, you’ll need to make things right with the selkie. She’ll be furious. She’s been nothing but kind to our people. We can’t repay her like this.”

“Will do,” Johnny said.

“Stay here,” Sue said. “All of you. The curse has got into you. We’ll break it all at once.”

Oh shit.

MJ and Ned turned slowly towards Peter.

“Curse?” Ned asked.

Peter groaned.

---

--

-

 “It’s a friendship circle,” Johnny bubbled as Peter shoved him, once again, into the sigil he was trying to draw in the dirt at the cemetery entrance.

“I’m gonna salt you in and I will not regret it,” Peter threatened him.

“Johnny, come sit,” Ned said, patting the place between him and Felicia.

“Never,” Johnny hissed at him. “My heart is right—”

Peter left him to finish the circle. Johnny hurried to keep up with him.

Flash watched after him with furrowed eyebrows and a fist pressed to his mouth.

“This is not how this night was supposed to go,” he said.

“We didn’t even ask any stupid questions,” Abe sighed.

“What’s she doing out there?” Felicia asked.

Peter shoved Johnny’s flailing body towards her and finally finished the circle. He’d never made one this big. He started in on the protective signs around the interior.

“She’s a boggart!” Johnny chirped. “She’s boggart-ing!”

Peter felt the pause of the others more than he heard it.

“What does that mean?” Felicia asked.

“Oh. She’s a faerie of darkness,” Johnny said. “So she’s probably winding her way through all the posers and chasing them back to their hovels so that she can go chase the witches away from the hero and let him rest for a bit. She’ll guide him back if he’ll let her—which he might not. You never know with heroes. He might not want her smell on him.”

Peter had the feeling that Mr. Murdock was made of more sense than pride.

“How long will that take?” Abe asked.

Johnny made happy crackling sounds.

“Who knows! Depends on the witches,” he said. “Depends on how many people she needs to terrify. Boggarts get power through fear. The more spirits she scares, the faster she’ll be.”

Peter moved Ned’s backpack out of the way and carried on.

There was a lull.

“Peter, what are you doing?” Felicia asked.

“Protection circle,” MJ said for him.

“Oh.”

There was another silence.

“Where did you learn that?” Abe asked.

“His aunt’s a full witch. She does business in herbs, potions, and materials for their part of Forest hills,” Ned said.

“Oh.”

Flash and Abe scooted forward to let Peter in behind him. They watched him.

“That’s pretty cool, actually,” Felicia said. “Thanks for that.”

A mumbled thanks went around the whole group. Peter finished the final marks and stepped carefully over them into the circle.

“It’s nothing,” he sighed, flopping down and dragging Johnny away from Ned. “I should have known better. I think the ghosts were trying to warn me from the start. I should have listened better.”

More awkward silence.

“Well, it sounds like the fighting’s calmed down,” MJ said. “Mr. Murdock should be okay.”

Yeah.

“Wait,” Abe said. “Isn’t that your boss, MJ?”

Welp.

“Ghost man is my boss’s dad,” MJ sighed.

“Oh my god,” Felicia giggled. “You guys roped your boss’s dad into a practical joke?”

“He didn’t even want to scare you guys,” Peter groaned. “Man, I gotta learn how to read spirits. Johnny, how do I read spirits?”

“No idea. Spirits don’t like me. I’m too bright and obnoxious,” Johnny said.

“I’m un-bonding us,” Peter said. “You have nothing but bad advice and secrets.”

Johnny made kissy noises at him then scrambled up straight.

“Sue’s got the hero,” he said. “She’s arguing with him. Ahahaha.”

Peter cleared his throat. Johnny startled.

“Right, sorry,” he said. “She’s uh. Trying to convince him to come with her, but he’s refusing to look at her. Smart guy, you know that? Name a boggart and they’ll go off on you. He doesn’t want to chance it. Sue’s telling him that she’ll do the invisible thing so he doesn’t see her and he’s not into it, guys.”

Peter took it back. Maybe Mr. Murdock had too much sense for his own good.

“Can you talk to him?” Felicia asked.

“Who? Hero-man? Nah. I can just feel Sue’s frustration,” Johnny said. “Sibling bond, forever. You know?”

No, Johnny. No one knew. The only people with siblings in the circle were MJ and Abe.

“You’re so annoying,” MJ said.

“Aw, I like you too,” Johnny tittered.

Peter yanked him back and prayed that Mr. Murdock would give into the inevitable soon.

 ---

--

-

 “Look? See? No trouble. Not even a little trouble. Did I lie to you?”

Peter snapped awake and shook himself. He blinked into the dark until the shapes of bodies appeared before him as the other woke up too. They all turned around to see the dark outline of Sue standing on the other side of the fence.

Mr. Murdock’s tall shape was there too.

They looked…uh.

Kinda scuffed up, actually, hair-wise and scratches and bruises--the whole thing.

“Lord, she’s still talking to me,” Mr. Murdock said, facing away from Sue, now that Peter could see better.

“God is smart enough to see through you talking to him to talk to me,” She pointed out.

“Lord, you are so unknowable,” Mr. Murdock said pointedly.

“You know, for a fae hero, you’re sure religious.”

“Please see me through this period of suffering,” Mr. Murdock carried on. “And safely away from this hostile body and place.”

Johnny leapt up.

“You found him!” he cheered.

“Yes, of course I did,” Sue said. “He was fine, by the way. Meat-head here has anvils for hands.”

“I keep hearing voices, Lord,” Mr. Murdock said miserably. “Whatever sin it is I’ve committed, I’m willing to repent. But you’ve gotta help me out, man; the priest is convinced I’m a demon in his confession box.”

“Move,” Sue told Johnny. “Come one, Hero-man. We’re going through a fence. I dunno if you’ll fit with all those muscles.”

They all watched as Sue got a handful of the back of Mr. Murdock’s shirt and dragged him through the largest part of the gate uncomfortably.

“You did it!” she cheered. “Successful hero. Another quest fulfilled. Look at all these living children. And you even picked up a rock! That’s good for a young guy like—”

“I’m going back to the church and I’m never leaving,” Mr. Murdock finally told her directly.

“Oh,” Sue said. “You’re a church hero. That’s new.”

“I’m done. No more seals. No more mountains. No more lakes. No more cemeteries,” Mr. Murdock said, shaking himself and dragging his hands through his hair to smooth it out.

“Oh, wow, you’ve really been through it, huh?” Sue asked his back as he left them all in place.

“No more superpowers either,” Mr. Murdock said over his shoulder at her. He moved on ahead purposefully.

“I want him,” Sue told Johnny forcefully.

“He’s taken,” Johnny reminded her.

“He’s sturdy is what he is,” Sue said.

“Reed is sturdy,” Johnny pointed out.

Sue contemplated this.

“But he’s not fae,” she said.

Johnny rolled his eyes.

“Sue, we can throw your boyfriend into a graveyard of dark magic and let him fight his way home,” he said. “That’s something we can do. We can even time him.”

Sue drummed fingers across her face and slowly wrapped an arm around Johnny’s shoulders until his cheek was smushed up against hers against his will.

“You are so smart, little brother, sometimes I forget how smart you are,” she said.

She threw him away and straightened herself out.

“We’re hours from dawn,” she said. “We’re going home. Baby witch, you and my brother will apologize to the selkie tomorrow. I don’t think the hero wants to stay with you until then. I’m 90% sure, actually, the hero is already catching a train without you. The rest of you--”

She rounded on all of them.

“Do not play with ghosts, witches, spirits or any receptacle of them, do I make myself clear?”

Peter shrunk under her finger.

“Yes, ma’am,” they all mumbled.

She sniffed.

“Good,” she said. “Now we all need to go talk to baby’s witch’s mom. You have one hell of a curse hanging over you.”

---

--

-

 May was not pleased.

May doused them all in six different herb waters and made them eat something foul that tasted like charcoal and rubbing alcohol.

Then they had to get sprayed off with the hose in the backyard until all the cemetery mud came off and only then did May send everyone home.

---

--

-

 “Hey Peter?”

Peter looked up from his grinding in the doorframe the next morning—it as far as he was allowed at the present moment—and jumped at the whole group from the night before staring down at him.

He scrambled up.

“Uh, hi,” he said.

“Did you say sorry to the selkie yet?” Felicia asked him.

He almost wanted to shush her and check for passersby. May swore at something in the kitchen behind him. He edged forward and closed the door as far as he could without closing it all the way.

“No, not yet. What are you all doing here?” he asked.

He got a wave of eyebrows all around.

“We wanted to go with you and to say thanks. To the hero guy. You know. For uh, saving us from certain and horrible death,” Abe said.

Oh.

Oh.

“Let me, uh--give me just a second,” Peter said.

 ---

--

-

 Matt was at his apartment and he opened the door at the third knock. He heard MJ clear her throat and started cackling immediately.

“Don’t be a dick,” MJ said. “Let us say thank you.”

Matt remained inarticulate.

“Oh my god,” he finally choked. “Do you know—I haven’t—He hasn’t been this mad since I ate fries off the street—hold oh. Oh my god.”

Ew, man. That’s disgusting.

“Pops, come on out,” Matt coaxed, wiping tears from his eyes and skirting fingers across his kitchen counter until he got to cupboard under the sink. “They just wanna say sorry, Dad. It’s okay. There’s no secret second quest.”

Mr. Murdock refused to exit his newfound home.

Matt snickered so hard his shoulders shook. He stood up and found his counter to lean his elbows against.

“No harm, no foul to us,” he said amiably. “Mum’s been trying to keep a straight face in Mass. He came here for sympathy that I’m afraid I don’t have.”

Man. It was a wonder that Mr. Murdock stuck around at all.

Peter puffed himself up anyways.

“Mr. Murdock,” he said. “I know you can hear me. And I wanted to say that I’m sorry for roping you into the whole thing yesterday, but I’m also super glad you were there. ‘Cause we would’ve been screwed otherwise. So thank you.”

“Yeah, thank you,” Felicia said. “You’re really nice, and I’m glad you were there, too.”

The others added their thanks to the pile and Matt grinned in the direction of the cupboard.

“Come onnn,” he drawled. “I can feel you giving in, in there.”

Nothing.

Matt muffled a round of giggles in his sleeve.

“He accepts your thanks,” he said. “He’s just allergic to sunlight and gratitude.”

The cupboard door rattled violently. Matt shoved a foot against it.

“Mum isn’t mad either, she thinks it’s healthy for him to do quests without her,” he said. “So you’re all good with the three of us.”

Peter wasn’t positive that they were actually. But okay, sure?

“I guess we’ll leave you guys to uh, brood? Baseball? Whatever it is you do together?” He said.

Matt hummed and nodded and waved them out. Peter shut the door behind them.

“That was easy,” Flash said.

“Man, I hope my dad just dies the once,” Abe said.

“My dad isn’t cool enough to fight zombies in a graveyard,” Felicia said.

MJ considered this.

“My mom could do it,” she said.

Ned snorted. Peter swallowed a laugh.

---

--

-

 “So,” Flash said as they passed by the church that Mr. Murdock usually called home. “I know it was all kind of an actual nightmare, but like. I dunno.”

Peter stopped.

“You want more fae bullshit?” he asked in shock.

Flash rubbed at the back of his neck and even Abe and Felicia refused to make eye contact. Ned and MJ stared at them, then Peter in shock.

“It’s just really cool,” Flash admitted. “Like, there’s all this stuff that I thought was fake. But it’s all happening here, all at once—you know. Heroes and zombies and fire demons and witches.”

“This isn’t a tv show,” Peter said. “You know that right? Like, we don’t always win? Yeah, there are heroes and witches, but there’s also really bad magic. Dangerous fae. There are turf wars and tricksters and everything you do is a deal and you always owe someone something. It’s not always fun.”

“Okay, but isn’t it better to know?” Flash asked.

Peter closed his lips.

He didn’t have an argument for that.

“I’m not teaching you,” he sniffed. “I’m already apprenticed. If you want a mentor, it can’t be me—and you can’t have my demon.”

“But he’s Johnny Storm,” Abe blurted out. “Johnny. Storm. Peter, how did you even swing that? And why does he listen to you.”

“He doesn’t,” MJ butted in.

“He does,” Peter corrected.

“He really doesn’t,” Ned said. “Peter’s an amateur witch at best who bound himself to a fire demon with impulse control issues.”

Wow. Betrayed by his own family.

“I’m leaving, I’m grounded, you guy go get a grimoire or something and learn your magic bullshit yourselves,” he said.

“Aww, come on.”

“They were just joking, Peter.”

“Come backkkkk.”

Mr. Murdock had the right idea. Peter had a cupboard to find.

------

 Hope this hits the spot, boo!! And Happy Halloween, y’all!

[dailyaudiobible]

03/08/2021 DAB Transcript

Numbers 10:1-11:23, Mark 14:1-21, Psalms 51:1-19, Proverbs 10:31-32

Today is the 8th day of March welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today as we do what we do. We gather, come around the Global Campfire, we release, exhale all the cares of this life that we’re draggin’ around, and we just allow God's word to do what God's word does. It washes into our lives and informs us, directs us, guides us, assures us, corrects and comforts us. So, let's dive in. We are reading from the New International Version this week. Numbers chapter 10 verse 1 through 11 verse 23.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the Old Testament, we need just a little bit of a catch-up because we've gone through the book of Leviticus and through this much of the book of Numbers and so we've been focusing on the giving of the law and the customs in the rituals and the holy days, just the entire tapestry of an emerging culture that is being made out of these former slaves. So, that's been tedious, and we've been in it for a little while. So, today it's…it's easy to miss that today we packed up camp and moved out. Like we’ve been camping out at Mount Sinai for a long time, and we moved out. So, let's remember. There was Abraham then there was Isaac, and there was Jacob. Jacob's name was changed to Israel. He had children. They were the children of Israel. They would grow up in each of those names will become a tribe of Israel. We remember one of those sons was named Joseph and he was trafficked into Egypt by his own family. Of course, he became second-in-command eventually and brought 70 of his household including his father from Canaan to Egypt to save their lives from the famine. They stayed in Egypt. Joseph died and they continued to stay in Egypt. In fact, they stayed in Egypt for 400 years. So, the people that are coming out of Egypt, they have never known any kind of identity other than slavery. That's all they really know to be. Even though God has miraculously with a powerful hand demonstrated what He's capable of to protect his people they still grow weary. And it's interesting because God when He frees them from Egypt doesn't take them straight into the promised land by the coastal route. He takes them into the wilderness because their identity has to change from slave to chosen one and they need to receive the law. They need to receive what will govern them as a people to remind them of this identity. This is accomplished now. God has told them to move out and go to the promised land. They have moved out, but we can't hardly get a few miles before the complaining begins. And that's what we read about today, the complaining, and it's so discouraging. I wouldn't presume to speak for God, but it has to be so discouraging for God who has set His people free with an intention to fulfill a promise to listen to what those people are saying. And it has to be so discouraging from Moses. In fact, it was discouraging enough for Moses to say, “this is too big of a burden, I didn't have all these people, they're not my kids. You’re asking me basically to be a father to them and carry them like they were my kids, and I can’t do it.” And the people start complaining, “you remember when we were in Egypt when we were slaves. We got free meat and cucumbers and melons leaks and garlic and onions. Remember that? It was all free. We were just slaves and it was wonderful.” After all that God has gone through, that we’ve borne witness to as we’re reading through these stories, that would be such a slap in the face. That would be so discouraging. And then the mirror comes up out of the Bible and we find we’re not looking into an ancient story anymore. We’re looking into our own eyes. We had been enslaved and we were brought into the wilderness and we hate the wilderness. We ate the wildernesses of our lives. We spend all of our energy trying to escape them. When the…the truth of the matter, at least as borne out in the stories in the Scriptures is that we should embrace the wilderness. It is shaping our identity and teaching us to be utterly dependent upon God, which…which is in itself complete freedom because we are dependent upon God. But we’re seen that God is taking care of his people. It was the wilderness that God chose as the backdrop. And if you think about the wildernesses of your life, you can think of very, very difficult times that you don't ever want to experience again but that is the time when we learn the most, the most deep bed rock things about our existence and who we are. And, so let's begin as we continue to travel with the children of Israel toward the promised land. As we go out further into the wilderness, let's remember the wilderness is not purposeless. This is where we learn the most valuable things in life and the most valuable thing we can learn is our utter dependence upon God. That changes our identity from trying to be a sovereign to trying to fully be a dependent.

Prayer:

Jesus, we invite You into that. In fact, we…we move toward the Psalms because they speak so clearly what our hearts need to cry, “have mercy oh God, according to Your unfailing love, according to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions wash away all my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sins. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Create in me a pure heart oh God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.” This is our cry from the wilderness or from times of great prosperity. Come Holy Spirit and renew us, even as we continue this journey through the…the season of lent, designed to help us focus, focus our dependence upon You and lament the things that we have allowed that would separate us from You. Create in us a clean heart. In Jesus’ name, we ask. Amen.

Song

White as Snow – Jon Foreman

Have mercy on me, oh God According to Your unfailing love According to Your great compassion Blot out my transgressions

Have mercy on me, oh God According to Your unfailing love According to Your great compassion Blot out my transgressions

Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of my salvation

The sacrifices of our God Are a broken and a contrite heart Against You and You alone Have I sinned? The sacrifices of our God Are a broken and a contrite heart Against You and You alone Have I sinned?

Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of my salvation

Wash me white as snow And I will be made whole Wash me white as snow And I will be made whole Wash me white as snow And I will be made whole Wash me white as snow

Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation

[gracedman]

The Book, and The Body

Exodus 24:6–8 (ESV)

And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Hebrews 9:18–26 (ESV)

Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he (Christ Jesus) has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

 But don’t miss these two previous verses in this passage in Hebrews:

  Hebrews 9:12 (ESV)

he (Christ Jesus) entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

  Hebrews 9:9 (ESV)

(which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper,

  There were places the high Priest could not go without specific instruction. There were things he could not do; his actions would only reveal an inadequate provision and a need for something better. There were people he could not help, those who looked to him for a prophetic word from God. For this Old Testament tabernacle only mirrored the one in the heavenly realms. One day coming, there would be a reality provided by God himself. Christ would enter once for all into the eternal holy place by means of his own blood and secure an eternal redemption. The blood of goats, birds, and calves would not do the job. They would be offered year after year but “according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper.” God was not pleased with these sacrifices. For Moses and his tabernacle were symbolic, i.e. an illustration or a model “pointing beyond itself to a future realization.” Christ and his cross work are that future realization. His blood unaided works in the heavenly tabernacle. His blood alone pleases the Father on the eternal mercy seat. He singlehandedly is the full satisfaction of God’s eternal justice forever. Thank God! He “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Once for all. Forever. Never to be undone is the work of Christ for all who come to him in simple faith. He has thrown his blood on heaven’s altars for our benefit.

 But there is another tabernacle or temple of God where Moses could not go. It has a holy place as well. It needs the application of the cleansing blood as well. Religion cannot seal this deal either. It will try repeatedly. Year after year. But it cannot perfect or complete the work in the heart’s and lives of God’s people, his living temple. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins. Then he read from the book. Finally, he threw or sprinkled the blood on the people and on the means of their worship. The writer of Hebrews said this about that:

  Hebrews 9:14 (ESV)

how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Christ will enter and penetrate the most holy place of our being. He will purify our conscience. He will cleanse us of our sins, the guilt, the shame, the fear of hell and our fig leaf attempts to hide from him. No one can do what he can do. No can go where he can go. Have you invited him to come into you? Have you allowed him to fully establish you in his grace? Won’t you take the time right now to engage him and believe him for salvation and cleansing right now?

 Lord Jesus, please save me, a sinner, who has made repeated efforts to change and to try to be better. One who has lived apart from you. Save me from my religious self, save me from my sinful self. Bring me your once for all gift of grace, I ask. Amen!!!

[dailybiblelessons]

Wednesday: Reflection on the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week's blog post is here. It has a review of Modern English Version, asks the question who should we love as our neighbor, and has more on the theme of love. More information about the two complementary and semi-continuous series is here: Which Series?

Complementary Hebrew Scripture from the Twelve Prophets: Micah 6:1-8

Hear what the Lord says:  Rise, plead your case before the mountains,  and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,  and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people,  and he will contend with Israel.

“O my people, what have I done to you?  In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,  and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses,  Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,  what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,  that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”

“With what shall I come before the Lord,  and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,  with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,  with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,  the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good;  and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness,  and to walk humbly with your God?

Semi-continuous Hebrew Scripture from the Writings: Ruth 3:8-18

At midnight the man was startled, and turned over, and there, lying at his feet, was a woman! He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant; spread your cloak over your servant, for you are next-of-kin.” He said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter; this last instance of your loyalty is better than the first; you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not be afraid, I will do for you all that you ask, for all the assembly of my people know that you are a worthy woman. But now, though it is true that I am a near kinsman, there is another kinsman more closely related than I. Remain this night, and in the morning, if he will act as next-of-kin for you, good; let him do it. If he is not willing to act as next-of-kin for you, then, as the Lord lives, I will act as next-of-kin for you. Lie down until the morning.”

So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before one person could recognize another; for he said, “It must not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” Then he said, “Bring the cloak you are wearing and hold it out.” So she held it, and he measured out six measures of barley, and put it on her back; then he went into the city. She came to her mother-in-law, who said, “How did things go with you, my daughter?” Then she told her all that the man had done for her, saying, “He gave me these six measures of barley, for he said, ‘Do not go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’” She replied, “Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest, but will settle the matter today.”

Complementary Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God,  according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy  blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,  and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,  and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned,  and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence  and blameless when you pass judgment.¹ Indeed, I was born guilty,  a sinner when my mother conceived me.

You desire truth in the inward being;  therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;  wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness;  let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins,  and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,  and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence,  and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation,  and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,  and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,  O God of my salvation,  and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

O Lord, open my lips,  and my mouth will declare your praise. For you have no delight in sacrifice;  if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;  rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, then you will delight in right sacrifices,  in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;  then bulls will be offered on your altar.

¹Paul quotes the last part of this verse when writing of God and judgment in Romans 3:1-8.

Semi-continuous Psalm 18:20-30

The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;  according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord,  and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his ordinances were before me,  and his statutes I did not put away from me. I was blameless before him,  and I kept myself from guilt. Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness,  according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

With the loyal you show yourself loyal;  with the blameless you show yourself blameless; with the pure you show yourself pure;  and with the crooked you show yourself perverse. For you deliver a humble people,  but the haughty eyes you bring down. It is you who light my lamp;  the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness. By you I can crush a troop,  and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God—his way is perfect;  the promise of the Lord proves true;  he is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

New Testament Gospel Lesson: John 13:31-35

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Year B Ordinary 31 Wednesday

Selections from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings copyright © 1995 by the Consultation on Common Texts. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible text is from Holy Bible New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books (NRSV) copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All right reserved. Footnotes in the Hebrew Scriptures that show where the passage is used in the Christian Scriptures are based on information from the Complete Jewish Bible (Updated) (CJB) by David H. Stern, Copyright © 1998 and 2006 by David H. Stern, used by permission of Messianic Jewish Publishers, www.messianicjewish.net. All rights reserved worldwide. When text is taken from the CJB, the passage ends with (CJB) and the foregoing copyright notice applies. Note: The links in the titles above take you to Amazon, where you can purchase them and benefit The Lectionary Company. Image credit: Detail of Christ's Farewell to His Apostles by Duccio di Buoninsegna, via Wikimedia Commons. This is a public domain image.

[pyrrhicpaths]

 @throughthebonetrees​ || x

The other’s incredible feat of chugging down the drink stuns Talcott enough that his mouth hangs open for at least a whole minute. And he can’t tell if he should be impressed or genuinely concerned, considering how he’d just finished brewing that.

“... How--” he begins to ask, only to shake off his bewilderment while readying to refill the guy’s mug. “Must really need this, then...” Perhaps he ought to leave the pot on the table.

“Um-- yeah, that might be it, I grew up in Insomnia, so I must’ve seen you around the city.” The younger’s thoughts circle back to the mention of lack of sleep so quickly, though. “I... Are you alright, though? I could ask around if there are any places for you to sleep in?”

[ge-anne]

Reflections on Psalm 51

Psalm 51

Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

David cries out for mercy, knowing that God possesses steadfast love and abundant mercy. Sometimes the father of lies whispers to us that we’re too far gone, too evil, too sinful, too wretched for God to redeem. David knew that God was merciful, but there was work to be done on David’s part. He'd committed a terrible sin.

2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin.

Cleansing comes from God. It is nothing we can do for ourselves.

3 For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

Oh, the weight of sin! In our hearts, in the most secret places of our soul...the places no one else sees, we know that we are full of sin and transgression. There is nothing that can ultimately silence that truth because we are spiritual beings. It is the human condition to deny this...to run from the truth of our sinful heart and our dark deeds. We pretend no one knows and yet, the truth eats u alive. “my sin is ever before me”. Efforts to silence this truth can result in extreme pain, both for ourselves and for those around us. The habits, addictions, hangups, and outright acts of sin potentially cause damage to anyone in our path.

4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned,

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentence

and blameless when you pass judgment.

5 Indeed, I was born guilty,

a sinner when my mother conceived me.

6 You desire truth in the inward being;[a]

therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

How often we lie to ourselves!“I’ll quit tomorrow.”“Just one bite won’t hurt!”“I’ll do ___ when ___ happens”“Everybody does this!”And on and on. David acknowledges that God desires us to be honest with ourselves in our hearts. How can we ever expect to live in any kind of peace or relationship with Him if we don’t?David asks God to teach him wisdom is his secret heart. This is a skill that God can teach all of us. . .to counter the lies that we tell ourselves or that Satan plants inside of us.

John 8:31-32 Holman Christian Standard Bible

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word,[a] you really are My disciples. 32 You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”Truth. Sets us free.

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Hyssop is a shrub with medicinal properties. It can be used for digestive problems and has been identified to have antiviral properties as well. God can clean us up, both curing our ailment and by washing our filth.

8 Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

9 Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities.

Repentance and lament over one’s sinful state is a painful process. Grief and anguish hurt and we may indeed feel crushed under the weight of such emotion as we realize our true condition.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right[b] spirit within me.

God is our Restorer. He is not our scorekeeper. His one desire since the foundation of the world and the fall of mankind is to restore us to Himself. This is a supernatural event that He offers those who repent and who seek Him earnestly.

11 Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your holy spirit from me.

I never understood this verse as well as I do now. In a sense of desperation, I have literally begged God not to leave me outside of His presence, outside of His love. Never before have I begged from the deepest parts of my soul. Then, as I was filled with the Holy Spirit, I again, asked God to never remove this precious presence from my life. I am still praying that!

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and sustain in me a willing[c] spirit.

When a person comes to Christ, there is great joy! Most new converts cannot help but share their story every time they get the opportunity. For many, however, the joy fades as our connection with God gets overtaken with other things. It takes a willing spirit to stay intentionally connected to our Creator. David prays that God will sustain, or hold out, that willingness so that he, David doesn’t lose connection to the joy of his salvation.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will return to you.

Then…

After all these conditions are met, David promises to share with others the ways of God. Hearing this truth will turn sinners back to God. We don’t talk about sin much in the 21st Century. It’s polarizing. It seems to be critical and judgemental. It’s not polite. Or, some in the body of Christ reduce sin to a checklist of acts that get the label “sin”, while they largely ignore the heart. Sin recedes as a natural consequence of sanctification. As we grow closer and closer to God and learn His heart, our own sinful nature slips away as we take on His.

And…

Transgressors who repent and follow the heart of God will follow His ways. The issue is not behavioral. It’s a condition of the soul...the separation from God must be restored through repentance and a longing for His presence.

14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,

O God of my salvation,

and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.15 O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will declare your praise.

As we begin to grasp the goodness of God. . .His deliverance from whatever things are trying to harm or even kill us, He delivers. Deliverance leads to jubilation and rejoicing. How can we NOT praise the One who is our Creator, Redeemer. and Restorer?

16 For you have no delight in sacrifice;

if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.

Our doing doesn’t impress God. It is completely useless if we don’t surrender our heart. There are no merit awards for effort.

17 The sacrifice acceptable to God[d] is a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise

God only wants one thing: All of us in our broken state. As we lay the mess of our broken lives at the feet of Jesus, our heart breaks as we see a Holy God who can not be fooled or tricked by outward appearances. He sees us. In our wretched state and he demands that we take a good look and see our true brokenness as well.He does not despise us, Instead...That’s when His perfect love reaches through and restores us to fullness in Him.

Amen.

[impeccablenest68]

What Does the Bible Say About Itchy Right Hands? Unpacking the Meaning of Its Itchiness in Religious Context - Impeccable Nest

Conclusion Excerpt The meaning of itchy right hands in a biblical context is rooted in the Old Testament, particularly in passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Itchy palms are interpreted by some to be a warning sign from God that certain actions may have consequences. This idea stems from verses found in the Bible which reference hands being “pulled away” or “slapped” depending on one’s behavior. This notion of an itchy palm as a divine warning originated during the time of the tabernacle when sacrifices were brought before God and atonement was rendered for sins. In Leviticus 14:13-14, it mentions how a priest might inspect one’s hand before making a sacrifice: “He should take two live clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop…If a man has any kind of infectious skin disease, he must first his right hand to the priest.” While passage does not explicitly refer to an itching sensatio - 8w2541vive

[31women]

Wait, why did the Israelites have so many rules? And how do they relate to the gospel?

Think the Old Testament (OT) is boring? Irrelevant? WRONG. The OT is a beautiful picture of God’s love for his people, and his promise to provide a savior. I wouldn’t be able to fit all the imagery of the OT that points to the gospel in 10,000 million books, but I can try to hit some high points in a few hundred words. 

Like we already established, God is holy and cannot tolerate sin, yet wants to be in relationship with us, a sinful people. In our day and age, we have the righteousness of Christ and the seal of the Holy Spirit bridging the way to communication and interaction with our God. However, for most of the Bible, God’s people didn’t have this covering for sin and promise of eternal life. In Exodus, when the Israelites (the chosen nation of God in the OT) were brought out of Egypt on the way to the promised land, God gave them the law they were to follow in obedience to him. He also gave them instructions to build a tabernacle where God himself would dwell among them (think pre-Holy Spirit). 

In our eyes today, these laws seem strange, and at times, even unnecessary. We understand the 10 commandments, but staying away from dead bodies? Sacrificing animals? Not eating certain foods? They may seem strange now, but at that time, God was protecting, guiding, and shepherding his people. He was keeping them healthy through laws about their bodies, instructing them about being holy as he is holy through his moral laws, and providing ways for their guilt to be covered through sacrifices. 

The Old Testament law showed the character of God, and his promise to provide a savior for his people. But something reaaallllyyyy cool about the OT law? It was NOT a burden on the people, it was God’s miraculous GRACE! In other places in the Ancient Near East, they had ideas about inconsistent and selfish gods. They worshiped all different gods for all different things, and no one was ever clear on what they should do or who was in charge. Secondly, the Israelites had legit just been slaves for a good minute. When they left Egypt, they had NO IDEA how to be a free nation of people who followed the Lord. With the OT law given at Mount Sinai in Exodus/Leviticus, God graced the people with clear guidelines on how to live. The law was a major blessing. 

So let’s think about this gracious law for a second (Look at Exodus 24-end and Leviticus): 

1. The OT law is a part of a bigger picture - The COVENANT! Yay covenant! The law is part of the agreement that Israel and God follow: king and his nation in relationship with each other through covenantal promises. If Israel promises to keep the law, God gives them the land of Canaan, many children to create a large nation, and blesses the world through them. Spoiler alert: Israel definitely fails, and God is definitely faithful anyway. Spoiler Alert #2: We get to be under a new covenant! A covenant created with the blood of Christ that give us life. 

2. Why the sacrifices? Well, the wages of sin is death. We all pretty much got that one, right? Sacrifices TAKE THE PLACE of the sinner for the sin and cover them in eyes of the Lord so they can continue to be in relationship with a holy God, despite still being sinful as humans in a fallen world. In the OT, they sacrificed animals for unintentional sins and guilt, but more was required- we needed a sacrifice for sin itself, even when intentional. In short, we needed a lamb of God to atone for us. We needed a savior to die. 

So how do those things relate to the gospel? Well look at words from Hebrews 9- it explains everything a lot better than I ever could. 

“13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

.... But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” 

-31Women (Beth) 

References - Verses taken from biblegateway.com, most of the thoughts stolen from my OT prof (S/O to Professor Smith). 

[frederickwiddowson]

Exodus 12:21-28 comments: instructions for Passover night

Exodus 12:21 ¶  Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover. 22 And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. 23  For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you. 24  And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. 25 And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. 26  And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? 27  That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped. 28  And the children of Israel went away, and did as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.

Moses summarizes the instructions to the elders and gives them a curious warning that has doctrinal implications for us. If they follow the instructions the LORD will pass over their door and will not suffer, which means permit, the destroyer to come into their homes.

Who or what is the destroyer? It is not capitalized as a proper name. There is some agent, an angel or spirit who destroys. But, who can that be?

Is this the angel of the LORD, the presence (Isaiah 63:9) of Jehovah God who devastated the Assyrian army?

2Kings 19:35  And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

Or performed the slaughter at Jerusalem when David counted the people?

IChronicles 21:14  So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 15  And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

We will see in the next passage that the LORD, Jehovah, did smite the firstborn. We know from other passages that He often uses a spiritual agency or individual to accomplish His purpose yet He Himself is said to be the cause of it, hence the reference to the destroyer.

Judges 9:23  Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech:

1Samuel 16:14  But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

The complexity of reality, from our finite minds’ position, is that these kinds of things, God’s agency and exerting power on our physical universe, are happening so many times a second that it is impossible for us to fathom it. Here, though, is a very special event, a monumental moment in human history where God’s power, as God’s power, is being displayed to the world and to posterity after hundreds of years of the spiritual decay of mankind from the Fall of Adam. There was Creation of the physical universe, the fall of man introducing death into life, the Flood that reduced mankind to a few people, there was Babel that divided mankind into different languages and dispersed them around the earth, and there is the Exodus from Egypt where the world’s greatest superpower of the time was brought to its knees. In these actions and judgments, we see a big picture of God’s power and sovereignty.

Verse 28 shows us that this was one of the few times that the children of Israel did as they were told.

[trevisdampierministries]

June 2, 2021 - Verse of the Day - Heb 9:28 - to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.. from Trevis Dampier Ministries on Vimeo.

News Feed - facebook.com/trevisdampierministries/

15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

16 In the case of a will,[d] it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19 When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20 He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.”[e] 21 In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

[haninabaninah-word]

Coming Back To Jesus

Random thoughts from 2020.11.29-30 and today.

ON BEING DISCONNECTED

I had a Quiet Time on this Psalm, and it just reminded me of my past experience and also my current situation - feeling disconnected to God.

Psalm 50:16-17 (NLT) But God says to the wicked: “Why bother reciting my decrees and pretending to obey my covenant? For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash.

God does not need our offerings

Why bother pretend to obey?

Why bother pretend things are okay when you are actually disconnected? I remember the advice (or you could say, the rebuke) I got about two years ago. At one point in my life, there was a time when I was really utterly lost and in deep sin, and have not been repenting. I still showed up at church, thinking it is better for me to at least be exposed to the word so I won’t let go. A year later, the issue was being dealt with and was challenged over why I was still showing up and participating despite being in sin. For two days, I wondered what should I have done - did I actually do the right thing of staying and listening, or should I have just left the church completely? But the answer was nowhere there, I was told. Because the question itself is taking the wrong path. The question is not whether I should have left the church or not.

What should I have really done? The only answer would be to repent.

Just repent.

ON COMING TO JESUS

This was from a timely Sunday Service communion message.

Luke 7: 48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Jesus accepted the woman in Luke 7, despite being a sinner. 

Do you feel guilty you are disconnected and yet when you need God you would come to him? Do you feel unworthy? We don’t deserve it. It’s unfair. There are a lot judgments we can put upon ourselves. While it may be true, you can still come to him. Because Jesus thinks differently, he always accepts, no matter where we are in our righteousness. So come to him anyway.

We find it hard to forgive ourselves, but Jesus can forgive us an infinite number of times. Jesus loves you still.

Come to Jesus.

ON REPENTANCE

Another one of my Quiet Times from the Psalm series, this Psalm has always been one of my favorites that touched my heart deeply. I could quote the whole Psalm, but the verses below already get the point across.

Psalm 51

(3) For I know my transgressions,   and my sin is always before me.

(17) My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;  a broken and contrite heart  you, God, will not despise. 

(1, 2) Have mercy on me, O God,    according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion    blot out my transgressions.  Wash away all my iniquity    and cleanse me from my sin.

(14) Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed

(10) Create in me a pure heart, O God,   and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (12) Restore to me the joy of your salvation   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. 

(7) Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

What does “coming to Him” mean? Based from what I read, to me, it sounds like this:

Admitting your sin (Biblical confession is about you and God). (3)

Seeing how you have hurt God.  (17)

Understanding that He has grace, that He has compassion. (1,2)

Asking him to forgive you. (14)

Asking Him cleanse you. Asking Him to restore you, to restore His spirit and His joy in you. (10-12) And trusting and knowing that He will. (7)

The trusting part is important. I often find myself feeling like giving up when I come to Him. In my thoughts, I say, “Here we go again. I sinned again. When will I ever learn? It’s always going to be the same.” I lose hope about having a change in me.

But Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

Ask Him for forgiveness. Ask Him for help, ask Him for cleansing, ask Him for wisdom with your repentance. Ask Him for anything. He will give it to you. Seek Him again, and you will find Him again.

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The best time to repent is always now. The timing for repentance is always perfect, because Jesus always accepts.

He will accept you and comfort you, no matter where you are at.

Come to Jesus and you will find Him.

[dfroza]

in ancient Times

the Hebrews were given through Moses many instructions under the old covenant that we read in the Old Testament of the Bible that lays the mysterious groundwork for a new covenant of grace to be revealed.

and from the reading of the Torah this week for Jews in Israel here’s the weekly email sent by The Temple Institute in Jerusalem that relates to the ashes of a red heifer and its mysterious significance in the Temple and the work of the priests there. of which we see all facets of the Temple pointing to the ultimate consummation of the cross and the True illumination of the Son of God who gives us eternal life, and is indeed the only path to receiving grace and connecting with our Father and Creator of the heavens and garden earth who originally made the physical body of earth, and who breathed His very breath of life into to become man and woman made in His image. of which is the sacred sexual and marital bond that makes “One” body from two people. the purity of sex that was made by our Creator is that it is only meant for this connection which prohibits sex outside this bond, although not all see it this way or respect it, to have reverence for it. to keep it pure. a lot of people fall into sexual sin because it feels good. and we all need grace that cleanses us, that perfects us in the eyes of God.

and as far as the Temple service of the priests, there is no longer a requirement for any such sacrifices to continue in a future Temple because it was already finished nearly 2,000 years ago by the True High Priest who is also Messiah and King, known as the Word of God of which the Ark of the Covenant represents. namely, the sacrificial grace of the new covenant. and we read of this turning of the page in the New Testament where it is clearly illuminated.

from the email:

"A perfectly red unblemished cow"

(Numbers 19:2)

Tammuz 4, 5780/June 26, 2020

"This is the statute of the Torah which HaShem commanded, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and have them take for yourself a perfectly red unblemished cow, upon which no yoke was laid." (Numbers 19:2)

Welcome to the mystery and the beauty of the commandment of the red heifer - the innocent, unknowing beast that Torah tells us possesses the power to purify our souls from the contamination of the illusion of the finality of death. Why a red heifer? And how does this work? Torah teaches us in the opening verses of this week's Torah reading, Chukat - The statute (of the red heifer) - many details about the necessary components for making the ashes of the red heifer, (the heifer itself, a branch of hyssop, a piece of cedar wood, wool dyed scarlet and pure, living waters), how and where the kohanim are to slaughter the heifer and prepare its ashes, how the ashes are to be applied in order to achieve purity, and the inexplicable conundrum of why the kohen preparing the purifying ashes, as a result himself becomes impure. But the question as to how this exotic mixture of organic elements prepared under these unique conditions actually achieves what it does - lifting man above the realm of death - Torah is silent upon.

The mystery remains to this day. For four thousand years the finest minds have concerned themselves with this question, and the sages of Israel have shared tremendous insights into the meaning and significance of the ashes of the red heifer, but, ultimately, the inner workings of the red heifer, the reason why, remains opaque, beyond the reach of our human intellect. Even King Solomon, the wisest of the wise, confessed his bafflement: "'All this I tested with wisdom; I said, 'I will become wise,' but it was far from me." (Ecclesiastes 7:23)

Torah defines the red heifer as a chok - a statute - a specific classification of Torah commandment to which logic does not apply. Similar to the dietary laws concerning the clean and unclean animals, we observe these commandments, not because we understand their rationale, their rhyme or their reason, but simply because HaShem, our G-d, has commanded us to do so. To perform these unexplainable Torah statutes, just because, is the highest expression of love for HaShem that can be expressed.

But there is more to the mysterious nature of the red heifer than simply its status as being beyond the reach of the human intellect. In life, the ultimate mystery is death. The seeming finality of death, and what lays beyond death, if anything at all, are mysteries that have been pondered on and talked about and hypothesized on from the moment Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. And yet... what do we really know for certain?

The ashes of the red heifer come along to put death in its rightful place: mysterious? Yes, but not as mysterious as life, itself. Final? Yes, to the body, but not to the soul. Death is an inevitable point on the timeline of our souls' existence, but just that, and nothing more. The red heifer, by purifying our beings of the impurity imparted by contact with a dead corpse, dissipates the ominous burden of death in our lives. It grants us the ability to live beyond death in this life with a comforting wink and a nod to the life to come. Spiritual purification via the sprinkling of the ashes of the red heifer grant us entry into the inner courtyards of the Holy Temple, where G-d's presence is supreme and uncontested, where life, and life only, exists. Within the courtyards of the Holy Temple we experience, in our finite time on this earth, eternal life, and take with us the knowledge of the transcendence of life throughout all of creation and beyond.

But why a heifer, unyoked and unblemished? And why red? Parah adumah - red heifer, in Hebrew - shares the same root - adumah -red - as the Hebrew word for earth - adamah - and the Hebrew word for man - adam - named after the earth from which he was created. In short, for all man's accomplishments, we are of the same substance of all creation, ultimately no better and no worse, as the leveling effect of death teaches us. Our father Avraham said, "Behold now I have commenced to speak to HaShem, although I am dust and ashes." (Genesis 18:27) Death is nothing, if not humbling. This is why our sages tell us that G-d said to Moshe, "take for yourself a perfectly red unblemished cow." For yourself - Moshe - of whom G-d called the most humble man on earth, for only Moshe, in the depth of his unparalleled humility, could grasp the mystery of the red heifer.

The ashes of the red heifer is a lesson in humility, teaching us that the secret of the preeminence of life over death is in our recognition of G-d as our Creator and appreciation for the precious gift of life with which He has blessed us all.

[dailybiblelessons]

Monday: Reflection on the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Revised Common Lectionary Proper 18 Roman Catholic Proper 23

Complementary Hebrew Scripture Torah Lesson: Leviticus 4:27-31, 5:14-16

If anyone of the ordinary people among you sins unintentionally in doing any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done and incurs guilt, when the sin that you have committed is made known to you, you shall bring a female goat without blemish as your offering, for the sin that you have committed. You shall lay your hand on the head of the sin offering; and the sin offering shall be slaughtered at the place of the burnt offering. The priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and he shall pour out the rest of its blood at the base of the altar. He shall remove all its fat, as the fat is removed from the offering of well-being, and the priest shall turn it into smoke on the altar for a pleasing odor to the Lord. Thus the priest shall make atonement on your behalf, and you shall be forgiven.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: When any of you commit a trespass and sin unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord, you shall bring, as your guilt offering to the Lord, a ram without blemish from the flock, convertible into silver by the sanctuary shekel; it is a guilt offering. And you shall make restitution for the holy thing in which you were remiss, and shall add one-fifth to it and give it to the priest. The priest shall make atonement on your behalf with the ram of the guilt offering, and you shall be forgiven.

Semi-continuous Hebrew Scripture Torah Lesson: Exodus 12:14-28

There are parallel passages at Leviticus 23:4-8, Numbers 28:16-25, and Deuteronomy 16:1-8.

This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a solemn assembly, and on the seventh day a solemn assembly; no work shall be done on those days; only what everyone must eat, that alone may be prepared by you. You shall observe the festival of unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt: you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a perpetual ordinance. In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day, you shall eat unleavened bread. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your settlements you shall eat unleavened bread.

Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this observance?’ you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed down and worshiped. The Israelites went and did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

Complementary Psalm 119:65-72

You have dealt well with your servant,  O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge,  for I believe in your commandments. Before I was humbled I went astray,  but now I keep your word. You are good and do good;  teach me your statutes. The arrogant smear me with lies,  but with my whole heart I keep your precepts. Their hearts are fat and gross,  but I delight in your law. It is good for me that I was humbled,  so that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me  than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord,  who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;  he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel  will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;  the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day,  nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;  he will keep your life. The Lord will keep  your going out and your coming in  from this time on and forevermore.

New Testament Epistle Lesson: 1 Peter 2:11-17

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.

For the Lord's sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Year A Ordinary 23, RCL Proper 18, Catholic Proper 23 Monday

Bible verses from The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All right reserved. Selections from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright 1985 by Consultation on Common Texts. Image Credit: Beloved created by Michael Gilbertson for The Lectionary Comapany. This image may be used under the used under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0.