"He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him."
- Isaiah 53:2
Several years ago as I was going through the Old Testament, I kept running into passages like this:
- Exo 28:31-34
As I would read this, the pomegranates would just jump out at me. I didn't even have any idea what they were, but it seemed so strange to me that God would want pomegranates all along the hem of the ephod, which was the clothing the high priest wore. So you can see it with your own eyes, look at the hem of the garment in this picture.
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| Can you see them? The pomegranates? |
They are there between the bells. This was so striking to me, so I decided to find out more about what pomegranates are, and why God would find them so important as to not only put them on the ephod, but also put it in David's heart to put massive amounts of them in the temple Solomon built.
"And the capitals on the two pillars had pomegranates on the upper part, over against the belly which was by the grating; and the pomegranates were two hundred in rows all around on the other capital."
- 1 Kings 7:20
Remember that even though Solomon built the temple, David spent a large part of his life gathering the materials, drawing up the plans and so forth.
There are different beliefs about pomegranates and what they stand for. One of the big ones is that they stand for righteousness, or holiness, and they probably do, but God showed me something different about them that I would like to share with you today.
Pomegranates come from this shrub:
If you are wondering why I added that Isaiah verse at the beginning, this is why. A pomegranate shrub is just a regular old, ugly bush that calls no attention to itself. It doesn't glow or shine, or even look desirable. If you were to pass by this shrub you probably wouldn't give it a second glance. And yet God found it special enough to keep bringing it up! Why?
It turns out that despite its unattractive display, the pomegranate is actually one of the most fruitful plants in the world. A single pomegranate fruit produces up to 1400 seeds! Not only that, but pomegranate plants are easy to cultivate, so a very high percentage of those seeds, if planted correctly could easily produce 1400 pomegranate shrubs.
You may or may not be getting my point by now, so I'll just make it as clear as possible.
"He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him."
- Isaiah 53:2
There was nothing special to look at with Jesus. He looked just like a regular old Jewish guy. Before He began ministry He blended in with everyone else, nobody saw anything special in Him. However, contained within Him was something nobody would have expected, a fruitfulness only God could see. He was brought into the world in humility, but He was the ultimate powerhouse. The world has never seen anyone like Him or anything like He has ever done.
The pomegranates on the hem of the garments and temple not only prophecy of Jesus Himself, but they are also signs for us as Christians. They are reminders that fruitfulness and the power of God are found in humility.
Even though we preach humility, and talk about it in church often, it is one of the least lived out principles in the church. It is easy to talk about, but it is a completely different thing to actually live. How many of us would willingly give up the shotgun seat in the car so someone else can sit there?
This is one of my greatest weaknesses as a human being. I have never been one to hide that because I want it removed from me, and that comes from confession. I am not one who needs much approval from people to do what God tells me to do, but I have always wanted to be one of those people who goes into the history books after I die. I wanted to be the Billy Graham of my day. What a life! But as I grow in the Lord, and I learn to imitate Him, I discover that Jesus didn't "shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets," (Isaiah 42:2).
He did not go around saying, "I am the man of God of our hour. I am the living God. Come, be dazzled!" As a matter of fact, as I have mentioned in another post, He usually preached things nobody even understood until after He died. He was not after fame and fortune, all He cared about was obedience to God.
I should clarify that I certainly don't believe writing books, making dvds and audio cds are sinful. Jeremiah wrote his messages and distributed them, King David worshiped God publicly in front of his entire kingdom. Being known, and even being famous is not sinful. How many thousands, or millions of people are walking faithfully with God today because of a Billy Graham crusade or tv program? Lots. Some of the most awesome ministers I know today were saved through his televised programs. My point is whether we do those things in obedience to God, or to build our own fame.
This reminds me of one of my favorite writers, E.M. Bounds. During his lifetime he was almost unknown. He woke up at four a.m. every morning and sought God for several hours, and then if he had the opportunity he would preach. However, his great passion in terms of ministry, was to diligently write the books on prayer that are so famous today. In his lifetime though, nobody knew about these books, nobody cared! "Who is E.M. Bounds?" Nobody knew who he was, because even though he wrote some of the most profound books on prayer that are on earth today, he never went around declaring how wonderful of an author he was, or setting up book tables with his face and a sparkling, winning smile plastered all over the covers.
This is similar to Brother Lawrence, the monk known for the book, "The Practice of the Presence of God." I find it funny because he was a man who didn't want anyone to know who he was. He actually fought it. The book was not created by him, it is a set of letters he wrote to a young man who wanted to know how to know God the way Brother Lawrence did. If you read the book it will make you laugh, because in one of the beginning letter Brother Lawrence gives specific instructions to the man not to ever publish or make public the letters. The guy just waited until Lawrence died and published them anyway!
That is how we should be, how I should be. Not like the publisher, but like the Lawrence! Because of men like that, even writing this blog is a struggle for me, because I want to be like them. I have almost shut it down several times, and it's not because I am such a humble guy, it is because I want to be a humble guy, and I want to follow the example of other men of God, but I feel like God keeps asking me to write one more time, so I do.
Not that I am old by any means, but as I get older my heart longs to be more like Jesus, and this is the conclusion I have come to, even with this blog. Jesus did not call attention to Himself, or make Himself look spectacular and sparkly, but He did preach openly. So that is the example I am going to follow. I will preach the Gospel, but do my best not to do it His way.
I would encourage everyone who reads this to do the same. Do not hide your lamp, but don't throw fireworks into it either.
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