Our Torah reading for this week is about “making space” for God in our lives… We read God’s appeal: “Let them make for me a sanctuary (i.e., mikdash: מִקְדָּשׁ) that I may dwell in their midst” (Exod. 25:8). Each of us has an inner void, a place where only God belongs. Substituting the values of this world – money, power, fame, entertainment, pleasure (or even just a sense of personal security) – never satisfies our deepest hunger and thirst for life. Indeed the Lord laments: “My people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water (מְקוֹר מַיִם חַיִּים), and they have dug cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). God is found by the thirsty soul; he is revealed wherever the heart permits him to speak. As Yeshua said: “If you had known the gift of God, and the one speaking to you, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10). Ask Him today.
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The Apostle Paul wrote that the time before the “End of Days” would be “perilous” and full of unrelenting human depravity and lawlessness (2 Tim. 3:1-5). Yeshua warned that apostasy would abound and that the hearts of many would run cold as ice (Matt. 24:12). In light of the raging spiritual war going on all around us, the following needs to be emphatically restated: “The important thing is to not lose your mind…”
It is written in our Scriptures: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). Note that the verb translated “be anxious” here (i.e.,μεριμνάω) comes from a root word (μερίζω) that means to be fragmented or divided into parts and pieces. Being anxious is therefore the uneasy state of being distracted, unfocused and divided within yourself. When we worry we heed voices of fear and begin to feel ‘double-minded,’ (i.e., δίψυχος), unstable, and unable to think clearly; we get restless and find it difficult to deeply breathe. We start to feel out of control, fearful that something bad will happen despite all our efforts or wishes to the contrary; we sense doom; we lose heart; we go dark… The Scripture here admonishes us to pray when we are tempted us to be anxious by focusing on something for which we are grateful. Doing so will instill the “peace of God” (שלום יהוה) that rises above all worldly thinking to keep watch over your heart and your thoughts through Yeshua the Messiah (Phil. 4:7). We gain the “light of life,” that is, inner illumination from God, so that we can remain steadfast and unmovable in our faith, despite the temptation to look for relief from our struggles apart from God.
The Apostle Paul likened the crossing of the sea as a metaphor of baptism: “All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:1-2,11). In the New Testament, baptism symbolizes our identification with Yeshua’s death, burial, and resurrection (Col. 2:12; Rom. 6:3-5). The Israelites were facing death and were therefore at the “end of themselves.” They had no other appeal or hope than God’s gracious intervention on their behalf (i.e., salvation). Still, they needed to act and move forward. After they took the step of faith, they could see the Shekhinah Glory lighting up the way of deliverance, though this meant being “buried” within the midst of the sea. Their earlier fear of death was replaced with a song of God’s great deliverance (shirat hayam). The other side of the sea represents new life in the Messiah, the life that comes from above, by the power and agency of the Holy Spirit… The Israelites died to their old life, were symbolically buried in the waters, but arose to new freedom by the grace and power of God…
The Scriptures declare that though the “outward self” (ὁ ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος) inevitably wastes away (διαφθείρω), the “inner self” (ὁ ἔσω ἡμῶν) is being renewed (ἀνακαινόω, i.e., “raised up in newness of life”) day by day (2 Cor. 4:16), which implies that we have nothing to fear regarding our perpetuity and acceptance as God’s beloved children. Therefore we do not “lose heart” (lit., act badly, from ἐκ, “out” + κακός, “badly”). Despite the shadows of this world, we take hold of the words of our Savior, who said: “I give you eternal life, and you will never be destroyed (ἀπόλλυμι), and no one will snatch you out of my hand” (John 10:28). And in another place he likewise said, “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die (οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνη)” (John 11:26).