The Long Road of Discipleship: A Journey of Freedom.

Discipleship isn’t easy.  Following after Jesus is incredibly beautiful and filled with joy.  But sometimes—like Paul & Silas—it costs everything, and you find yourself bolted down in a jail cell, singing praises to God at midnight.

There are days when you see miracles—both big and small, but there are also days when you feel like Elijah & want to run off into the wilderness.  You become impatient with God, and if you dared to be so bold, would tell him to get a move on, step it up and bring his kingdom fully now.  There are days when you wander in the wilderness, and you get tired of the heat and the lack of water.  You long for the living water to quench your thirst. 

You tire of people fighting over which mountain is the best one to worship God on, and long for the day when we will worship face to face.  Where there will no longer be night because the brightness of the Son will be our light.

And there are days when your heart breaks and rends in two.  Because you watch people who have been rescued fight to understand what that means.  As they struggle and tussle with this God who has rescued them…  As they wonder what it means that there is someone who truly loves them.  As they wander through the desert on this journey.

And every once in a great while, there is a day of celebration. A day of jubilee.  A day where the person makes it to the mountain and really begins to realize they are no longer a slave, but a son or daughter of the King.  The heat from the desert may have scorched the soles of your feet.  There may have been days where you don’t think you could have walked another step with them.  There may have been days when you had to carry them on your back because they were too weak to continue on.  But when the day comes, when you see the gleam in their eye.  When they truly begin to realize that God is including them in His story?

That is the day that you dance and celebrate with them.  Not because you have done something good in your striving, but because God has prepared this road for you to walk with them.  Community is a beautiful thing.

Because in life, you are never really “Counting the Omer” alone.  It is a beautiful journey together with the people of God.

"From the day after the Sabbath day you brought the omer of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks.  Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath and then present an offering of new grain to The Lord."  --Leviticus 23.15-16

It's the time between the Passover and Pentecost.

Counting the Omer.

It's a time of celebrating freedom.  For hundreds of years God's people were oppressed.  Slaves living in a foreign land.  The cries of sa'aq....some of the most powerful words in the Hebrew language.  "Pervaded by moral outrage and soul-stirring passion...the anguished cry of the oppressed, the agonized pleas of the helpless victim." (Sarna)

"The primal scream that permits the beginning of history."  (Brueggemann)

The cries of God's children did not fall on deaf ears.  He raised up a deliverer.  And ten plagues later...  The day of Passover comes.  A day of horror for those who had hardened their hearts and refused to listen to the words the Creator of the Universe had spoken over them. 

Year after year, people had written the name of their gods on the doorposts if their homes so all would know who they served.

This night, the blood of the Lamb was smeared on the doorposts of the children of God's homes.  And death passed over.

The cry of God's children did not fall on deaf ears and a word of freedom was spoken.

"Because The Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt" (Exodus 12:40).

And out into the wilderness went the children of God.  And how very specific was God?  There were different ways for them to journey to the promised land.  He could have sent them about the shorter way through the land of the Philisitines, but He did not.  "For God said, 'If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt."  (Exodus 13.17).  So God led the people.

He led His people.  A pillar of cloud by day.  And a pillar of fire by night.  Never leaving its place in front of the people.

Into the wilderness.  A place for depending on God.  The journey begins now.  Elijah.  David.  John the Baptist.  Jesus.  Paul.  Because in the desert you can follow God or depend on yourself.

But after 430 years....  Generation upon generation.  After being entrenched in slavery for life time upon life time.  How do you live?  Practically speaking, the Israelites didn’t have the faintest clue.  Because you have been freed but freed for what?  This deliverance from Egypt wasn't just from a physical slavery, but the mindset of living outside of the people of God.

So God commanded them to count the Omer.  These days that lead to the Feast of Pentecost are said to be days of preparation.  That Moses told the people that God was going to give them the Torah.  As if in a relationship between God and Israel, the Torah would be a wedding gift at Mt. Sinai.  A marriage celebrating the total commitment of two parties to one another.  Normally the bride price?  50 shekels. 

And so these 50 days lead up to Pentecost.  The day when God gives His word to His people.  And no longer are they slaves.  But His word is freedom and speaks the truth of showing them how to serve.  An incredible gift that Yahweh chooses to include them in the story He is telling.

As these 50 days lead up to the days of celebrating the First Fruits, no longer do the people pray for rain as they do at Passover, but a sweet dew to fall upon the ground.  As they long for the fruit of the ground, so too do they cultivate, prune and coax a harvest from their own hearts as they prepare to receive God's Word again.

All of this being well and good.  But most Christians no longer pray the ancient Hebrew prayer and teaching: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments and commands us to count the omer."  We have enough of sadness and preparation as we journey through Lent towards Easter.

But what if we took a moment to ponder what our ancient family finds so important?  What if we told the story of transformation of a people who go from being slaves to those who are free?  What if we rejected the Egyptian definition of life and began living into our story?

What if we realize that we stand on the shoulders of the giants who come before us.  And their story is ours?

That the journey from Passover to Pentecost has deep meaning for us as well.  That as the Passover was celebrated and Jesus became the Passover Lamb...  That his blood has been painted on our doorposts, redeemed us from the curse of the law, and won our salvation...  That we have been set free.

And in the wandering of the wilderness, we didn't know what to do with this freedom.  It was too much for us to imagine.  And so yet again, the Word of The Lord comes to us on Pentecost.  And this time the Holy Spirit is given to us--God with us.  The good news of the kingdom of God spoken in every tongue and into every nation.  The story of great rescue. And so just as the Israelites were freed to serve.  So too, are we also set free to serve.

Do not cling to the shackles of slavery any longer.  You have wandered in the wilderness.  And our God has dared to draw near to lead us yet again.  This time clothing himself in humanity.  A cross before us.  And an empty tomb.

It is real. So too is our story, for we have been called into the family of God and set free, that we may “bind up the broken hearted, proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners… to rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated.  For we will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” (Isaiah 58, 61).