Instead of devoting this month’s column to one topic, I’d like to share with you a number of tidbits about different scriptures. These are various items that I have read or discovered in researching verses that I thought were interesting. Hope you will think so, too.

Tidbit #1
In Matthew 5:18 Jesus is quoted as saying, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” In Hebrew, a “yot” is the tiny mark that looks like an apostrophe. A “tittle” is the decorative hook that appears on certain letters. This is roughly equivalent to saying today “dotting an ‘i’ or crossing a “t”. So Jesus was saying that even the very tiniest marks in the Torah (law) would be fulfilled. Perhaps he was suggesting that there are very minute meanings behind the text itself of the Torah. Maybe we (as students of the Bible) should be examining all the details of scripture more closely.

Tidbit #2
In the Cairo Museum is a stele (a pillar or stone slab engraved with an inscription) of Pharaoh Merenptah. He was the 13th son of Ramses II. The inscription is most interesting because it includes a reference to the “tribe” of Israel. The mummy of this Pharaoh is also very unique that he drowned in salt water. Maybe Merenptah is the Pharaoh of the exodus.

Tidbit #3
I Kings 7:23 gives a detailed description of the size of the “molten sea” (the brazen sea) of the temple. It has a diameter (“from one brim to the other”) of 10 cubits and a circumference (“a line…did compass it round about”) of 30 cubits. Remember your geometry. The formula for the circumference of a circle is pi times the diameter. According to this scripture, the circumference of the brazen sea was 3 times the diameter. The value of pi is just over 3 (3.14159…). As far as we know, this scripture therefore contains the earliest approximation of the value of pi.

Tidbit #4
Have you ever wondered about the term “rapture”? I have read some writers who say this is a non-Biblical term. Actually, though, the term comes from the Latin translation. 1 Thessalonians 4:17 talks about “we which are alive and remain shall be caught up with them in the clouds…” The words “Caught up” are translated from the Greek “harpazo” which is the Latin “rapio”. “Raptus” is the past participle of this word and our English words “rapt” and “rapture” stem from this past participle. The word literally means “to snatch up” or “to seize with force.”

Tidbit #5
What do you consider to be the greatest miracle of the New Testament? Incredibly, one writer did not pick the resurrection of Jesus. He (Ted Roberts, with tongue in cheek) picked the “miracle” recorded in John 21. This is the story about Peter and his friends fishing all night. In the morning, as they are coming to shore, Jesus calls out to them and asks them if they have caught anything. And then comes this greatest of all miracles: a whole group of fisherman tells the truth! (Ted adds that this is incredible because fisherman make golfers look honest!)

Tidbit #6
What exactly was the blood relationship between Abraham and his wife Sarah? In Genesis 20:12, Abraham says, “she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.” Usually this is taken to mean that Sarah was his half-sister. But Josephus says that Sarah was a daughter of Haran, Abraham’s oldest brother. This would make Sarah Abraham’s niece. The Hebrew word translated “daughter” is a word actually used for any female descendant of the family. So Abraham is saying that Sarah is of the family, but not a full sister. Genesis 11:29, however, identifies Haran’s daughters as Milcah (who married her uncle Nahor, Abraham’s other brother) and Iscah. The name appears nowhere else. The Bible Study Monthly points out that there is a striking similarity between the Babylonian cuneiform signs for Sarai and Iscah. And the first eleven chapters of Genesis originally existed in cuneiform. When translated into Hebrew a simple mistake by the translator could have led to the misinterpretation of the sign for “Sarai” to that of “Iscah.” Iscah was actually the name of a minor god of Egypt at the time when these verses were thought to be translated into Hebrew.

Mary is a prime example of Christian servant-hood. Others pushed the frontiers of the faith to the uttermost corners of the earth. Others preached the gospel of Christ and gave their lives for the cross of Christ. But only one person said, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said" -- whereupon God, through his Spirit, entered her body and planted the seed of the Son of God. Our Lord literally grew inside her.

Tradition tells us that there was a brief meeting between Jesus and his mother, Mary, on the way to the cross. Although the New Testament doesn't recount such a meeting, it certainly wouldn't have been unlikely or impossible for such a meeting to take place. In fact, I believe Mary was indeed there... there on the way to the Place of the Skull. Matthew tells us, "Many women were there [at the cross], watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs." (Matthew 27:55) Of course, we know from John's record that Mary was there. "Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, 'Dear woman, here is your son,' and to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' From that time on, this disciple took her into his home." (John 19:25-27)

I believe that Jesus met his mother along the way, somewhere on the streets between the Praetorium and Golgotha. Perhaps she and the other women were outside the gate of Pontius Pilate's garrison at daybreak when the news spread that Jesus had been arrested during the night. Perhaps one of the disciples ran from the garden of Gethsemane, awakened the women and told them of the arrest. It seems inconceivable that such serious news wouldn't be communicated to Mary immediately and that she wouldn't be there to offer her love and support. No doubt the women stood far out on the edge of the bloodthirsty mob, shocked, dismayed that the people could hate this One whom they loved so much. And as the death squad opened the gate and moved their prisoner into the street, the women probably followed at the rear of the procession. It's likely that Mary would have followed the grim proceedings as they developed, rather than simply going directly to the place of execution and waiting for the death squad to arrive --if she knew where that place was.

Yes, I'm almost sure she was in the crowd, and I believe there was at least one fleeting moment when she moved through the jumble of curious spectators and approached her beloved son. I can almost see it...

A Mother and Her Son
There is a slight pressure on our arms, and as we turn to identify the source, a woman slips between us, stepping directly into the street. We see her face for only a split second -- yet it is etched in our memory. Her eyes are filled with pain, her cheeks are flushed and streaked by tears, her brow is knit in sadness... she is oblivious to us and to all but the center of her gaze. She's ordinary looking enough to disappear in a crowd. Still, if you stop and really focus on her, as you might in a conversation, she is a striking woman indeed. She is small and somewhere near fifty, but could pass for a younger woman. However, that isn't what makes her striking. It is her eyes. They are like deep pools of clear water, like crystal springs. You feel as though you can look into her eyes and see her soul. And the soul that's visible there in the depths is a truly remarkable one.

She steps into the street and straight up to the first condemned man, who has paused for a moment to catch his heaving breath. Is it the slightness of her person that causes her to go unnoticed for a minute? Or is it the unexpected audacity? The prisoner's head rests on his chest, but he sees a small, familiar shadow cross his path. With the back of his hand, he wipes the salty sweat and blood from his eyes, and then looks up. For the first time, we see his eyes! They are the same deep, clear pools as the woman's... they are her eyes! As the gazes of mother and son meet, in an instant, lengthy conversation seem to pass between them... without a word being spoken. Her small hand brushes the blood-stiffened hair from his eyes, as if he were a little boy again, returning home from playful summer fields. The touch of her fingertips on his forehead is like a cool, invigorating breeze. The faint hint of a smile flits across his cracked lips – then is gone.

The moment is shattered as a large, battle-hardened soldier steps up and raises his spear shaft. The woman glances up with eyebrows pressed together in grief. The Roman lowers the spear slowly and simply pulls gently on her shoulder. A last time, her eyes bathe his face in an invisible ointment of love. Then she retreats a pace or two as the procession picks up the cadence of the death drum again and is on its solemn way. There is a look of horror and helplessness on Mary's face as Jesus lifts and pushes his cross ahead. As only mothers can, she feels every ache and pain that her son experiences. Her heart is breaking, but she must be brave, she must have faith... just as he admonished her. There's no stopping the new tears that well up, then spill over the pools of her eyes. The grim scene before her is blurred by the flood, and suddenly her mind is flying back over the years, to images from other, better times -- the strapping young carpenter in whom she took such pride, the 12-year-old boy she found asking and answering profound questions with the temple scholars, the beautiful infant at her breast, rocked to sleep by the swaying of the donkey on the way to Egypt. It was only yesterday, wasn't it?

The Bond of Motherly Love
On the way of the cross, their eyes meet in the midst of tremendous tragedy. For a moment, she is the mother again of a beautiful, tiny infant in the corner of a stable, with the pungent smell of hay and animals all around. The eyes she sees now are narrow with pain, lined with agony, but somehow they are the same soft eyes of the baby she clutched long ago. They are still filled with eternity. Love surges between them like a river. The death squad moves on down the street, and she reaches out into the increasing space between them, as if to say, "O my son, how I wish I could relieve your sorrows; how I wish I could take your pain myself." And I honestly believe that Mary would have died in his place if she could. Just as most mothers would.

He lifts a weak hand, as if to say, "Yes, Mother, I know. You bore me in pain those many years ago; you gave yourself to my Father in heaven to be his holy vessel. Then you gave your young womanhood to raising me to manhood. But this present pain, this present death, I must bear alone. Because it is for you, dear woman, as well as for the whole world that I die. It is for you..."

A few precious seconds, then the soldiers push the condemned men forward. But I believe I saw them there together... a mother, a son... a woman, a Savior. Can you see them, too?

Viewpoints

Hope
by Joe Funari

A Daughter's Heart

Peace
by Sharon Whittaker