Today
was spent involved in helping orchestrate ...
A
symbol1 of
GOD’s NEW COVENANT2..
Old Greek word “Baptidzo”
spoke of
being washed, so,
folk in
the First Cent’ry
“baptidz” before entry..
..to clean
family places;
or
religious spaces;
after
doing shopping,
after
sex, when stopping..
[Some-times
it had to be
(to wash
you really clean -
-culture’s
understanding)
liv-ing
water, run-ning.]
“Washed” can mean bathed or showered:
(though
not norm'ly "empowered")
part of
read-y-ing for
meeting
folk of import..
before we
see their face;
or maybe
with a race:
kind of
"get ready, set..",
then we're
lift-ing our head,
That was
all John offered
John the
Washer/Prophet,
but then
his master came,
&
John did not refrain
from
announcing to who
heard (as
some folk do who
try to
watch and listen),
they followed
the glisten.
The rest
is, as they say,
it’s
"His-story" today..
Jesus (or
Yeshua)
He would
clean his folk in-
side
their core-soul, from sin
by
showing us that LOVE
lives on
Earth, from above.
He would
grow his folk - us
(following
him), our focus -
from our
death-ly need to
have
things our way, or “blue”.
Loving-kindness
(kHes-ed),
He rose
up from the dead,
Now he
would rise in us,
first “dead
& buried”, thus.
Jesus-washed
might mean
like
be’ng “washed - out to sea”
both “rubbish”
(stuff that’s been),
but also
“little ol’ me”5!
1“Baptism”, as it was introduced into
this NEW WORLD ORDER, with a NEW WORLD-VIEW, twenty centuries ago:
1.
On the surface of things it certainly was a ritual. (But we don’t
have to be scared of rituals, because so is “hand-washing” nowadays in a
hospital, and it can help.)
2.
The English word “Baptism” is simply a transliteration of the Greek word
“Baptizo”, which means to wash. (That is to have a bath or a shower. Who
here has washed in the last week? Who had a bath? Who had a shower?) So it’s a ritual
washing (Mark 7 & Mark 1)
3.
John says “I’m washing you with water (a paraphrase might be: “I’m washing your
outside body, with water”). But he’s (the greater one coming
after John the washer) going to wash you (on the inside, your inside being)
with the Holy Spirit”. There’s two washings here: a water washing & a
waterless (spirit) washing, a dry-cleaning. … Will his (the
greater one coming after John the washer) baptism be symbolic? – or is water
baptism the symbol of this deeper washing of our non-physical being?
I think so, since the apostle Paul says we have only one baptism or washing…
the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…
This first symbol of God’s TRUE, new WAY of LIFE goes
with another symbol which Jesus left his followers to get involved in. This first
symbol is like washing your hands, before the next big event which is: let’s
EAT & DRINK – let’s share a meal together… God & Humanity at table are
to sit down! There is a big feast coming
up, and the “symbol” of it involves having “FOOD & DRINK” TOGETHER, WITH
HIM, & US. So let’s do the wash bit, then maybe we can do the Food &
Drink bit together too.
2..This is different to a CONTRACT (which seems to be aimed more at a
task). It focusses back on LOVE, affection, response, inclusiveness, with the
goal of us “getting & keeping together”. It involves love & discipline,
and is aimed at people relating (not primarily based on maintaining, protecting
& enhancing POWER, but) in LOVE.
God does “covenant” (and “kingdom”,
and “power” & “glory”) different to us ZOMBIES. The covenantal way brings
on the consequences of either keeping it, or not, in order to help the
covenant happen. If you break it, you don’t throw it away and get on with
uncovenanted life again, you come back to your covenantal partner hoping that
the LOVE of the covenant will creatively help you find a way forward… (like a
child coming to their parent & asking for a spanking, “Daddy,
I think I need a spank, because of the way I just treated my little sister”, to
help the child grow good).
The new covenant is based on love, so it’s
between PEOPLE, both those people; to form A PEOPLE (e.g. One MAN, in covenant
with One WOMAN, forms a new FAMILY SYSTEM; or PARENTS in covenant with CHILDREN
forms a new FAMILY “SOLAR”-SYSTEM)
God’s new covenant understands a difference
between signposts & labels. This side of reality, it’s not much into
labels, but it is not scared of signposts and symbols. It knows that they are
secondary, but we’re in a kingdom where secondary things (e.g. humans) are to
be included and loved. So e.g. Marriage covenants in human society commonly
have different kinds of symbols (1 - once off) a wedding ceremony &
celebrations, & (2 - ongoingly) rings (exchanged & worn ongoingly), and
a yearly wedding anniversary.
In our “unloving agreements” we have a tendency
to keep the minimum, our propensity is to “unlove” the Universe, in line with
our King or Leader, who appears to have gotten on ICE, & to be almost
programed to steal, kill, and destroy. So we look at the surface of things, not
the heart of things; the words, not the spirit of things.
As with most covenants, you learn as you go:
you are setting rails to run on, to live IN love, and to live OUT love; (at the
same time) so you’ll even build on it as you go till you find you have a
beautiful dance, song, building, created through the out-workings of this
covenant of creative love in God’s World. We’re all invited into it. We find
out who the “chosen” are by finding those fish who have been lured by the bait
(that expression of God’s Love we find in Jesus) – into LOVE.
3 Christian Washing (Baptism) is
following Jesus, with Jesus as our model:
1. Jesus got “baptised”
(washed) with the washing of “John the Washer” as a symbol, model.. but then
much later on, he said that
2. he still had
another “baptism” (washing) to undergo (Mark 10, & Luke 12)… what was that?
A washing away of this old biological life (because for us it is lived by the
principles we learned from the culture of this world;) and a bringing forward
of the new life that everyone expected after the General Resurrection at the
end of the World (lived by the principles of Love & Wisdom) expressed in
Faith, & with an expectation of much, much more. [As James (Jesus’ little
brother) says later, looking back at Jesus’ life as he had seen it: The kind of
life that God is on about is “Looking after the fatherless & widows in
their distress, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world”]
3. The Apostle
Paul then actually interprets this (Jesus way of seeing things) for us &
says that OUR washing (baptism) is to copy his - his death, burial,
and resurrection. So these 3 are central to the life of a Jesus follower,
and our Christian washing is the symbol of this new way of
living.
4But this baptism is not supposed to
make us, as legend says that Pilate became: OCD about hand-washing; nor like
filthy pigs that don’t care about getting anything dirty, “… ‘cause we’ll just
get it dry-cleaned”. We need washing when-ever we get dirty. As Jesus said to
Peter… “If you’ve had a bath, you only need to clean the parts of you that have
gotten dirty, in this case your feet”. We need a washing/exchange of our
spirit, by a holy spirit, we want to wash away our dirty ol’ lives, then get on
with doing what-ever you were washing your hands for: eat a meal, shake
someone’s hand, do your art-work, play the piano, cut up the vegies…
5In this case (for Greg & Jacque)
, a further background in this symbolism seems to be that families that came
into God’s new Covenant or God’s NEW FAMILY AGREEMENT, in the first Century got
washed together (like all having a bath, or a swim, together –symbolically
following Jesus in washing away their old way of doing life, and taking on his
new life). Families do that sort of thing, sometimes.
Here
Greg & Jacque have already set themselves to work together with God to create
a new family unit, in this New Covenant, strangely, under the rule of “the most
maligned, blamed, person in Australia”. So it’s not yet apparent that he’s been
picked to rule the Universe; but they’ve placed their eggs in this one basket.
So they’re wanting to pledge themselves (and are asking their chosen
“God-parents” to pledge them-selves; and also just giving them the right) to
poke their nose into the “raising” of Francie; to model themselves, & help
train her to head in this same direction of following Jesus, living out his
life, he takes fa(r)ther into us, coming to see that the core of reality is in
fact personal, & adopting his method & WAY of living, in other words to
model to her, & to help train her to: 1) Look after the fatherless &
widows in their distress & to 2) Keep
uncontaminated by this world’s way of doing things.
I’m
suggesting a WINDOW WASHER (and an apron) as an appropriate symbol of the task
of keeping on looking at reality through the WORLD-VIEW Yeshua brought us (and
doing it).
