FLOODS OF FAITH PUBLISHING PRESENTS

The Pinnacle

From The Desk Of Rev. Joan Krempel

 A gentle stirring within him caused him to pause and listen. It was time. Slowly, Jesus put down his hammer and removed his carpenter’s apron. He walked out of the little wood shop he had spent years in with Joseph and even after Joseph’s death, waiting for this day. Did he know who he was? Of course he knew, was he not God the Son? Mary, his mother, also knew. Other than the two of them, only God the Father, all of Heaven, and the devil knew, and the devil wasn’t sure!

 Satan has witnessed the nativity, the adoration of the shepherds, the Wise men’s journey and he had heard the prophecies spoken in the Temple and King Herod’s court. He had urged Herod to destroy this newborn king but God had hidden the child away and Satan’s eyes were blinded as to where.

 For thirty years Jesus’ identity was hidden from the world, his childhood silent to protect him from Satan’s on-going search, intense jealousy and fierce intent. This devil could not find him, but his eyes and ears were ever open and soon now, soon this seed of a woman God had spoken of in the Garden would step out, and when he did, this devil had to be ready. Thirty years had passed and he still had not found the young mother. There were so many Marys in the land, so many Joshuas. Surely he must be in the City of David or Jerusalem, but where?...WHERE?... “I must keep looking, it is just about the time...”

 The devil sat down on the banks of the Jordan. He had run to and fro throughout the land, his mind racing, ever alert, and he still had not found the one that threatened his kingdom. A fine kingdom it was too.Why, he even controlled those haughty self-righteous Sadducees...

 “Of course, that preacher standing in the Jordan could become a problem...that John the Baptist...he could become a real thorn in my side. I’ll keep a watchful eye on him. Who knows, maybe he’s the one. He could have changed his name...just to throw me off. He seems to be very good at calling people to repentence, and baptizing. Yep! He has a mighty anointing alright, and he is a powerful prophet. Not since Elijah have I seen such an anointing. He MUST be the one...OR...the one I seek will come...

 Racing from street to street, through every town and village, all of Galilee was combed in record time. He had been looking in all the wrong places. He had taken Judea apart and now he searched the Galilean countryside. If God had indeed hidden him, what better place to hide in than poor inconspicuous Galilee.

 How foolish he had been to think he would find him in a temple or a fine, rich house with servants. No wonder he had missed him! He had looked for God’s poured out blessings. He had not considered the humble beginnings in Bethlehem as anything more than just that...a small beginning. How many times had he heard those words, “Despise not the small beginnings...” The one he searched for then could be a thirty-year-old stone mason, a husbandman, a shepherd, a carpenter...

 Satan hovered just above the rooftops of Nazareth, searching intently...There...over there! That man gazing toward the south - that’s him, and that’s his mother, Mary, in the house. What’s this? A carpenter? God’s Son...a carpenter? Surely there is some mistake...and yet there is something familiar about him and the way he looks toward the south...I have seen that stance before. Satan moved closer until they stood face to face...

 Like a lightening bolt, the self-proclaimed arch-enemy of the Almighty was dealt a royal blow: “The Lord rebuke you,” thundered Michael. He had appeared out of nowhere, sword flashing, muscles flexed. Satan vanished, Michael followed, and the indwelling Holy Spirit led Jesus away from the little shop, taking him south, then east and then south again toward the River Jordan. Jesus had made this journey many times, but today he walked as a visionary set upon a predetermined mission.The journey on foot was perhaps 80 plus miles, a rather long one for someone in a hurry and it would take him several days.

 John saw him coming. They were cousins, John being six months the eldest by divine plan. He was the Prophet with a loud voice, wearing strange apparel, crying in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord...”  It was on this day, as Jesus approached, that John’s spiritual eyes saw before him the manifestation of the promised Messiah. They recognized the Spirit in each other and remembered and in this moment of recognition John understood at last and proclaimed, “Behold, the lamb of God...” Jesus drew near and stepped into the water.

 “I have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me?”  John had been born filled with the Spirit, and called as a powerful no-nonsense prophet of God but he recognized and confessed his need of a saviour in those immortal words,  “I have need...”

 “ Suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness,” Jesus answered. John surrendered.

 John had preceded Jesus in life, he would precede him in death. Marching into Paradise John would declare to Father Abraham and all the Old Testament saints, “Get ready saints, the Messiah is coming to take us out of here and into the kingdom of heaven.” Once a prophet, always a prophet, in either world, and on the third passover of his ministry the resurrected Jesus fulfilled that prophecy.

 John was the prophet and heralder of the good news of Christ’s coming in both the world and in Paradise. He was the bridge between the Old and the New, between the law and Grace, between the letter and the Spirit. In Matthew 11:13 Jesus said, “For all the prophets and the law prophesied UNTIL John.” Again in Luke 16:16 he repeated, “The law and the prophets were UNTIL John. Since that time the Kingdom of God is preached and everyone presses into it.”  John was the last prophet of the Old order and the first prophet of the New, a virtual bridge to the beginning of all new beginnings.

 He counted himself the friend of the bridegroom “who standeth and heareth him” (John 3:29) and could very well be the best man at the bridegroom’s wedding.

 Scholars ask the age-old question, “Why would the Son of God, sinless and pure need repentence and baptism?” Most believe it was to obey the Father by setting an example.

 I agree, but the Holy Spirit ministered another understanding to me and I will share it with you:

 Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary as the Holy Spirit moved upon her. The Pure and Holy Almighty God was his Father, the young Godly Mary his mother. Jesus inherited the sonship of his Father God, but he also inherited the sonship of man through his mother, the last of the line to embrace the royal seed. This seed had traveled 4,000 years through fallen man. Although the seed itself was holy and untainted, it nevertheless had dwelt in tainted, flesh and blood vessels. 

 By the time the seed was found in Mary, at her own conception, it had traveled millenniums on an olympic highway, being passed from father to son, generation after generation, never knowing they were carrying precious cargo. Then as Mary grew into young womanhood it was revealed by Gabriel as the Seed of a woman that the Holy Spirit would make alive. This in itself is a miracle for women do not carry seed. Only men carry seeds of life and yet God had declared in the Garden that Satan’s overthrow would come through the Seed of a woman.

 On this baptismal day Jesus would receive his anointing for the three-fold offices of Prophet, Priest and King, and in the Levitical order, the High Priest was first washed and then anointed. Everything was to be in order, even the washing away of the dusty highway. The son of man within him would bow to the Son of God that he was, and through the washing they would be made one in the Father. Later, that same son of man would be the first to be crucified with the Son of God. This sacrifice of the two, blended into one, would open the gates of redemption for all sons of men.

 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water; and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ (Matt. 3:16-17)

 For the first time the Trinity was manifested in the earth at the same time as the heavens were opened and the Spirit descended on the now-washed Son while the Father spoke. The Spirit would remain with power on this Messiah from his new beginnings right through his ascension to the right hand of God.

 He would serve in the office of Prophet while on earth, as our Great High Priest when he was offered up as the Lamb of God, and as our King-Priest when he comes again to reign forever.

 Afterward Jesus left the river and, passing silently through the crowd, he set his face toward the wilderness. Now he and John were the only two people on the earth to be anointed by and filled with the Spirit of God. It was the tie that binds. They had no one but God and each other to understand their burdens and the loneliness of those burdens.

 “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”

(Matt. 4:1) It was a barren wilderness with jagged rock, wild beasts, hot by day and cold by night. There was no inn on the corner, no marketplace, no morning bustle or evening candle. Not even a fig tree or a blanket. The Son of God had no place soft to lay his head.

 For forty days and nights he meditated, fasted, prayed. He was of one thought and purpose...submission... the son of man had to submit to the Son of God and the Son of God would submit to the Father. He would become the servant Son to God first, then to man, and as the only-begotten Son he would be obedient even unto death. The whole earth was teetering in the balances that rested upon his shoulders. Forty days and forty nights he wrestled with the awesome and emotionally trying responsibility of  his mission. Afterward, he was hungry...

 Satan had been watching him and waiting...waiting for weakness to consume him and hunger to discomfort him. He moved in for his prey and appearing to Jesus he said, “IF thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” (To Eve he had said, “Did God say...?”, questioning God’s authority.)

 Jesus answered him. “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Then the devil took him up to the Holy City and set him on the pinnacle of the Temple, saying, “IF thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.”  (To Eve he had said, “You won’t die...”, disputing God’s warning.)

 Jesus answered him, “It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

 Then Satan took him to the top of an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. “All of these will I give you if you will fall down and worship me”  (To Eve he had said, “Your eyes will be opened and you will be as gods.”)

 Jesus responded with a rebuke, “Get thee hence Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.”  Then Satan left him and the angels came and ministered to Jesus.

 It was a Pinnacle temptation offered to the Pinnacle of faith, a pitiful attempt to subdue a weary enemy who was hungry, but who was no Esau. His Pinnacle of faith would give rise to a Pinnacle ministry, a Pinnacle sacrifice, and a Pinnacle redemption for all who have invested their eternity with Christ.

 He was and still is the Pinnacle of men, the Pinnacle of God, the Pinnacle of all creation. He who overcame the challenge of the Pinnacled Temple offers to us a Pinnacle life. 

 Lifting us from the valleys, showing us the glories to come, setting us on the doorsteps and rooftops of the world as candles in the night, he calls us to be Pinnacles with him as we face the same temptations, the same burdens, the same hunger and thirst for a more intimate walk with God.

 He was and is our example. As his Pinnacles today, looking toward tomorrow, we face the same Pinnacle tempter. Remember these words, “It is written...” It is still a Pinnacle answer.

1998

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