Well, week 7 is over and done with, this was the "hump week" with the work out that was going to make or break many people.  More on that in a second.  The video for this week can be downloaded here .

Week 7 looks at "The Mighty Acts of God" from a New Testament perspective.  In the three passages we read, the mighty acts God does shows the reality of the Kingdom breaking into this world.  It's kinda cool.. 

What many Christians seldom fully grasp was how Jesus was radically different from the Messianic expectations of the day.  It's as though we know the end of the story and so skip the tension that exists in the middle of the story (kinda like the way Protestants do Palm Sunday, skip the events of Holy Week, and then show up on Easter and wonder why they don't feel like it's a big deal - but that's another soap box).  Jesus just didn't fit.  The Messiah was supposed to be a warrior-king who would re-establish David's throne in Jerusalem and draw all nations under the rule of the Davidic monarch.  Jesus didn't do that, which is why John the Baptist sent his disciples in Matthew 11:1-6 to ask Jesus, "Are you the one, or should we expect someone else?"

This floors a great many Christians.  I mean, John baptized Jesus.  John heard the voice that spoke from Heaven and saw the Holy Spirit come down like a dove and settle on Jesus.  How could he doubt?  It was actually pretty easy.  John had annointed his monarch, and was likely expecting Jesus to over-throw not just the Romans, but the dynasty of Herod as well.  Instead of seeing Herod over-thrown, however, John was introduced to the confines of a prison cell.  See, Jesus didn't fill the expectations.

Yet, when he was asked about his identity Jesus answered, "Go back to John and tell him about what you have heard and seen-- the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor (Matthew 11:4b - 5, NLT)."  The BE groups kinda wondered why Jesus mentioned these miracles - and why they seemed to convince John that he'd been right.

Well, each of these afflictions symbolically kept people out of the Temple - which means that they couldn't return to the "Garden" where God and Humanity walked and talked together.  Blindness, Lameness, Deafness, and skin diseases make someone "ceremonially unclean."  This wasn't supposed to be a statement on their moral character (though some took it that way) - rather, these things reminded people that they weren't in a state of Shalom; that sin was affecting Creation and that redemption was needed.  Death, of course, was the unavoidable consequence of being cut off from the "Garden" where fellowship with God opened up the path to the Tree of Life.

So there was Jesus,  ministering in a world ripe with messianic expectations, and he skips over temporal problems and begins to deal with the real problem - he deals with the fact that folks are cut off from God (and therefor, each other).  In dealing with all these afflictions, Jesus opens up the path to the Temple, where there had been no path for them before.  In the truest sense, Jesus overturns the judgment of Genesis 3 and calls people to return to the Garden and, through him, be in fellowship with the Lord.

Added into the mix was that the Good News was being proclaimed to the poor.  The prophets in the Tanakh were quick to point out the special place that the poor and the widow and the orphan had in the Lord's heart.  The breakdown of the social order, clearly seen in "the least of these" was also a constant reminder that Sin was affecting everything.  Jesus opens up the path to the Temple for them as well (and calls his disciples to do the same).  Jesus was a different kind of Messiah that people were expecting, but he did see himself as the Messiah.

The other two passages we read this week (Matthew 28:1-15, Acts 11:36-42) both dealt with Jesus showing his disciples how death really had been conquered on the Cross (Chrisus Victor) - thus, confirming his self-declaration in Matthew 11.  All in all, a very awesome study.

Now, here's the down-side about this week.  Very few people successfully completed the work out.  Quite a few folks asked multiple people but no one could come this week - they get a pass but have to set up a time to complete this work out.  Other folks invited people (even multiple people) who said they would come but then life got in the way and they didn't show - like the previous group, they get a pass and they're already planning to finish this work out.  Many other folks didn't even ask anyone - this upset me greatly.  Now reasons for this ranged from the logical ("it was my week to be on-call so I wouldn't be there"), to the silly ("We're going somewhere right after so it didn't make any sense to invite anyone"), to the sad ("I just didn't").  Regardless, no one gets off the hook here - I told the first week 8 group that they were going to do this by the end of the study, and the other two groups will get the same message. 

The good news was that four people did manage to invite someone and got to listen to their perspective on our worship - but that's only about 1/6 of the participants.  We need to do better.

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