O Beard, Where Art Thou?
This article, with all its bearded banter, has nothing negative to say to you. We agree with Shakespeare that “he that hath a beard is more than a youth,” but not when he continues, “and he that hath no beard is less than a man” (Much Ado about Nothing, 2.1). For if you walk according to your God-given and God-matured masculinity, you are a bearded man, whether you have hair on your face or not. To understand that statement, consider the wonder of why God made beards.
Joab’s charge to play the man still endures, immortalized in Scripture. “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him” (2 Samuel 10:13).
Joab, facing enemies from the front and from the rear, took some of his best men and faced the Syrians ahead. The rest of his army would turn with his brother, Abishai, to meet the Ammonites to their back. Here we find the iconic words of Joab to his brother:
If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him. (2 Samuel 10:11–13)
This battle scene, equal to the best of Braveheart, Gladiator, or 300, began, if I may comb things out just slightly, with a man’s beard. Or, to be precise, the beards of several bushy men.
Sheared Like Sheep
David had sent several bearded messengers to meet the newly crowned King Hanun of the Ammonites, who succeeded his father, Nahash. David expressed his condolences for the deceased Nahash by dispatching these warm-chinned chums to “console [Hanun] concerning his father” (2 Samuel 10:2). Nahash had remained loyal to David — the neighboring kings kept the peace between each other. David’s delegates extended, as it were, the right hand of good will to Hanun.
A hand Hanun would not shake.
Led by the folly of suspicious counsel, the princes of the Ammonites convinced Hanun that these servants did not come to comfort but to conquer. “Has not David sent his servants to search the city and spy it out and to overthrow it?” (2 Samuel 10:3). And this is where things get rather hairy for the king. How should he respond?
He decides to shame David’s men and make them a spectacle. “Hanun took David’s servants and shaved off half the beard of each and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away” (2 Samuel 10:4). He left multiple cheeks exposed.
Like sheep, Hanun sheared these men. These trees lost half their leaves; these lions, half their manes. When David heard of the barber-ous deed, he sent to meet them because they were “greatly ashamed.” The king acknowledged their humiliation and told them, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return” (2 Samuel 10:5).
And what would David do next? Touch a man’s goat, and it’s time for court; touch a man’s beard, and it’s time for war.
Still Waiting in Jericho
In the twenty-first century, we might miss how hostile this act really was, how deeply shaming for an Israelite man in that day. If King Hanun cut off half of our beards today, it would be considered less shameful than strange. Also, not very effective — for each could just shave the other half off and still fit in with society. So why did this razor cut them to the heart? Why wait outside Jerusalem until it grew back? One historical commentary states, “What may seem like a ‘prank’ was in fact a direct challenge to David’s power and authority, and precipitated a war between the two nations” (336).
And beyond its spitting upon David’s outstretched hand of peace, consider the prominence of the beard in Israel.
First, in Israelite culture, the beard served as a sign of mature masculinity. All Israelite men grew beards; God commanded it: “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard” (Leviticus 19:27).
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Sprinkled Nations & Speechless Kings
It’s a well establish fact of the universe that the ruling class prefers to hear the sound of their collective voice. They spend a great deal of their time making decrees, utterances, proclamations, and often appear in front of the camera telling you what to think or how to behave. But according to Isaiah, Israel’s messiah would inspire monarchs around the world to shut their mouth for once. And astonishingly, this prophecy actually came true! Think about that for a moment. Certainly, the sprinkling of the nations lies at the heart of Christ’s mission, but the fact that he also left kings around the world speechless is definitely something worth celebrating at this time of year. And, Lord willing, his story will continue to shut their mouths—and ours as well.
Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. — ISAIAH 52:13-15
Because I was raised in a secular Jewish home, I was basically unfamiliar with the story of Jesus throughout my childhood. In fact, I even recall a time in high school when I wondered about the meaning of “Good Friday” which was printed on the calendar hanging right there on the wall in front of me. Then it struck me—Good Friday must be the opposite of Friday the 13th!
A year or two later, I stumbled on to various passages in the Old Testament that seemed to relate to the idea of a coming messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of his people. And of all the texts I studied, the one that stood out for me as the most significant was Isaiah’s famous “Song the Suffering Servant” recorded in Isaiah 53. In coming months I’ll devote a few episodes to this topic, but in this article I’d like to focus on the very beginning of this famous song, which actually starts in the last few verses of Isaiah 52.
When I first encountered this section of Isaiah’s famous prophecy, I immediately made the connection to Jesus. So I began to discuss it with various Rabbis, asking them about the identity of the suffering servant. That’s when I discovered that most contemporary Jews interpret this passage metaphorically (Isaiah essentially personified the suffering of the nation of Israel as a single individual). But as I later discovered, ancient Jews both before and after the time of Christ believed this passage spoke of Israel’s coming messiah.
In Isaiah 52:13, we read, “Behold, my servant shall act wisely…” but when Jews of the second century AD translated this verse into Aramaic, it was rendered, “Behold my servant, the Messiah…” Now, based on the way they continued to interpret that passage, it’s clear that these Aramaic translators were not Jewish Christians, nevertheless, they did end up affirming, not only that Isaiah’s Suffering Servant referred to the coming messiah, but also that “our iniquities will be forgiven on account of him,” and that in the process, he would hand “his life over to death.”
Among the treasures of the Dead Sea Scrolls are found a number of hymns and poems that reflect on various passages of the Hebrew Scriptures. And one hymn in particular is included in multiple scrolls, which is helpful because some of these scrolls are fragmentary, and that which is missing from one scroll can be replaced with the text from another.
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What to Expect When Battling Sin
While the battle is long and fierce, “He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.” Therefore we should expect to see frequent successes shown in significant and measurable victories over our sin. “Frequent success against any lust is another part and evidence of mortification. By success I understand not a mere disappointment of sin, that it be not brought forth nor accomplished, but a victory over it and pursuit of it to a complete conquest.”
To become a Christian is to accept the lifelong challenge of becoming who you are — of putting sin to death and growing in holiness. Today I want to channel a little John Owen and tell you three things you ought to expect when battling sin.
Expect that the Battle Will Be Long
Owen says that putting sin to death consists of “a habitual weakening of sin,” and I take this to mean that over time and through our habits we chip away at our sin bit-by-bit and day-by-day. Rather than expecting sin to be destroyed in a moment, we expect that it will take time and focused effort. In this way putting sin to death is relative to our maturity as Christians and to the amount of time we have dedicated to battling a particular sin. He says, “The first thing in mortification is the weakening of this habit of sin or lust, that it shall not, with that violence, earnestness, frequency, rise up, conceive, tumultuate, provoke, entice, disquiet as naturally as it is apt to do.”
He has this amazing quote that is quite an indictment of humanity: “The reason why a natural man is not always perpetually in the pursuit of some one lust, night and day, is because he has many to serve, every one crying to be satisfied; thence he is carried on with great variety, but still in general he lies toward the satisfaction of self.”
He also makes a very helpful comparison between putting sin to death and a man being executed on a cross:
As a man nailed to the cross he first struggles and strives and cries out with great strength and might, but, as his blood and spirits waste, his strivings are faint and seldom, his cries low and hoarse, scarce to be heard; when a man first sets on a lust or distemper, to deal with it, it struggles with great violence to break loose; it cries with earnestness and impatience to be satisfied and relieved; but when by mortification the blood and spirits of it are let out, it moves seldom and faintly….
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Eight Short Lessons From the Essendon CEO Saga
There’s a naive optimism that somehow if we just keep to our patch as Christians, and maintain the line between the public square and our lives, that we will be okay.
It’s been a breathless 24 hours. Essendon CEO, Andrew Thorburn was barely in the job a day and then he resigned. And lots of media and social media flurry around it all. I’ve obviously had a bit to say on it, but while the virtual ink is still a bit damp on my previous posts, here are eight lessons (so far) that we can take away from this whole saga. Not definitive, but worth thinking about.
1. We Are No Longer a Society Committed to Genuine Pluralism.
Issues like the one Essendon and Thorburn faced shows that for all our declared love of an open, diverse society, Australia is no longer genuinely pluralistic. The number of caveats around what that means in the public square is large and increasing. This will be looked back upon as a drawing of a line in the sand.
2. Sexual Freedom is the Public Religion.
Any organisation or person who puts a limit on what that means (and eventually that will be all limits, given how even the language around paedophilia is being shaped towards “attracted to minors), is going to face problems. The holy days in our calendars are increasingly painted purple.
3. Don’t Expect a Level Playing Field.
There’s a naive optimism that somehow if we just keep to our patch as Christians, and maintain the line between the public square and our lives, that we will be okay. That if we honour this new secular frame, and pay homage to it, we will be free to get on with our own set of values within our own ethical communities. Wrong. This is already clear from how Christian schools are being squeezed on sexuality matters, and state governments such as those in Victoria and WA are already pushing hard to ensure schools cannot employ according to their own standards. This is not about funding. If Christian schools were fully self-funded, accreditation would be on the table on these issues.
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