The Lutheran Hour
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"Tattooed"
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Text: Isaiah 44:5
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“This one will write upon his hand which is Hebrew meaning ‘Belonging to the LORD.'”
Rob Poulos is a walking piece of literature. He has tattooed on his left wrist, “B-A-C-K.” It looks as though it was lifted from the end of sentence. It was. A few years ago Poulos joined a worldwide effort to help author Shelley Jackson tell her story on people’s bodies. Appropriately called Skin, the “book” has 2,095 words. Each person bears on their body just one word.“It’s not that everything I do has to be tricked out with gimmicks and games,” Jackson said. “I’m just interested in exploring the range of what a text can do.” Poulos heard about it in a literature class at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He said, “I
always told myself that if I got a tattoo, it had better be important.”At last count, Shelley Jackson was looking for 400 people to bear her final 400 words. Just think we could contact her this week, offer our human hides, and be part of an alternative publication! How many are ready to line up for a one-word tattoo?
That’s just what I thought. And, truth be told, and much to my children’s dismay, I’m not all that eager to get a tattoo, either.
Isaiah also wants people to be marked with one word. He writes in our text, “This one will write upon his hand ‘Belonging to the LORD.'” But Judean exiles in Babylon didn’t line up. They weren’t interested in being marked by their Maker.
Because, you see, there was another text in town. One of the ancient near east’s most dominate narratives in the sixth century BC was the Babylonian creation epic called the Enuma Elish. The Enuma Elish narrates Marduk’s defeat over Tiamat. He cut her in two and built the universe out of her remains. Read during the annual Akitu festival, the feast reached its pinnacle with the acclamation, in the Akkadian language, Marduka ma surru – which, when translated means, “Marduk is King”!
Connected to the pomp and pageantry of Babylonian religion was the empire’s program of changing people’s names. Just ask Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azariah. Or maybe you know them by their Veggie Tale names Shach, Rach, and Benny. Some affectionately call them, “Your Shack, My Shack, and a Bungalow.” But in Daniel 1:7 the empire changes their names to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The goal? Mark the Judeans with a new name that will entice them into worshiping Marduk. And so Judean exiles were slow to line up to be marked ( – Babylon seemed to offer so much more!
The dominate narrative of our day is peddled by the young and the beautiful who guarantee we can be young and beautiful, just like them, if we buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to be surrounded with stuff we finally won’t even like.
Their text is hammered into our heads at an alarming rate. On a typical day in America, from the time we open the morning paper (or more likely, log on to Yahoo News), until we finally doze off in front of another rerun of I Love Lucy, we will encounter more than 2,000 advertising images. And these images portray over and over again the dominate American narrative – “You can buy happiness!”
In league with the pomp and pageantry of American consumerism is the enemy’s program of changing our names. His goal? Mark us with a new name that will entice us into seeking ultimate fulfillment in things. Beamed beloved through water and the Word, Satan renames us cheap, dirty, and worthless. Deemed washed and cleansed in the name of Jesus, he whispers to us, “Guilty as charged.” Designated as “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,” the liar brazenly boasts, “It’s all fiction, it’s all fantasy, it’s all a figment of your imagination.”
Put together, the dominate narrative and the dominate devil, create in us a slowness to be part of a counter text by means of the word, “Besides,” we reason, “to stand out in the crowd would be most uncomfortable. And furthermore,” we continue, trying to convince ourselves, “I can sell my soul to the American dream and claim its promises of prosperity while, at the same time, profess the name of Jesus.”
O God! We need an alternative narrative!
Enter Isaiah 40-55 where the prophet takes dead aim at the empire. In 40:12 Isaiah maintains that Babylon and all the nations are only a drop in the bucket, while in 40:23 Isaiah dares to write that the empire’s leaders are empty and their god Marduk amounts to little more than dust in the wind. And then the clincher, his oracle against Babylon in
Isaiah 47, which includes these words, “Sit in silence, go into darkness, Daughter Babylon; no longer will you be called the queen of the kingdoms.”And the counter narrative of Isaiah 40-55 is just getting revved up! “‘Comfort, comfort My people,’ says your God. ‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her warfare has been completed … Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, [God says] I am doing a new thing! … How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God is King!'”” And, taking another shot against Babylon and every other seductive and satanic narrative, Isaiah maintains, “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
All of this, and so much more, to the end that we line up, each one, and “write upon our hand” not – “belonging to Babylon,” but – ‘Belonging to the Lord.'”You see, our God has always told His story on people’s bodies, call it … Skin! In Genesis 4 he marks Cain and in Genesis 17 he gives Abraham and his offspring the covenant mark of circumcision. Deuteronomy 6 describes people tying the Lord’s words on their hands and binding them on their foreheads, while in Ezekiel 9 God commands a man with a writing kit saying, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in this city.”
All of it points to the most awesome story ever told on human skin. Isaiah describes the body with these words. “His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness … Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not … We all, like sheep, have gone astray. And the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.” One spear, three nails, and a crown of thorns left their marks on Jesus.
We can only imagine!
But first the Ten, and then climactically Thomas, saw Jesus alive and our Savior showed them His scars. Jesus is forever marked with scars announcing for you, right now, His loyal love and His free forgiveness and His grace gone wild! And so people began lining up to be marked. Paul puts it this way in Galatians 6:17, “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.” Eyes marked with tenderness and kindness, a mind marked with toughness and truth, and a mouth marked with Jesus and joy.
To be a part of this counter-cultural narrative all we need to take on is one word, ( in Hebrew, in English, “belonging to the Lord” But just how does that happen? Recall the water, remember the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” and forever cherish this liturgical rite. “Receive the sign of the holy cross, both upon your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.” In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for September 27, 2009
Topic: Did Jesus Drink Wine?Announcer: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus responds to questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer. Today, a topic that seems to surface every now and then.
Klaus: Something about depression, death, church membership?
Announcer: No, not even close. Actually, today, we’re going to talk about wine.
Klaus: I’ll drink to that-sorry, this is supposed to be a serious question.
Announcer: And for our questioner, it certainly is. He says, “I have heard more than a few sermons in which the pastor spoke out against alcohol in all its forms-including communion wine. They maintain that when the Bible says Jesus drank from the ‘fruit of the vine’ it’s really talking about unfermented non-alcoholic grape juice. Is there any proof of this one way or the other?”
Klaus: We have dealt with that subject before. And, it is one that keeps cropping up.
Announcer:Well, with there being so much abuse of alcohol in our culture today, many people take a strong stand against it.Klaus: Yeah, that may be the reason. Along with the fact that the temperance movement is still alive – and there are those who feel, scripturally, they need to avoid alcohol.
Announcer: So, what’s your reply?Klaus: Probably a number of them. First, if someone’s conscience says, “Thou shalt not drink alcohol,” they really need to listen to that internal voice. On the other hand, they dare not make that a regulation for other people.
Announcer: OK, answer #1. And what does Scripture say about this?
Klaus: Mark, in my readings, I can’t find anything that says Jesus and the disciples drank only unfermented, non-alcoholic grape juice. In John 2, at the wedding of Cana, the word used to describe the liquid Jesus miraculously made is oinos, which as far as my scholarship has taken me, refers to wine as we know it-fermented juice. There is another word the Greeks used, trux, which means unfermented grape juice. That word, however, never appears in the Bible.
Announcer: So, that means St. Paul told Timothy to take a little oinos for his stomach’s sake (1 Tim 5:23)
Klaus: In the story of the Good Samaritan, he used oil and oinos on the man’s wounds, which would make sense. Alcohol in the wine would kill the germs, although they wouldn’t have understood that back then.
There’s one other parable where Jesus speaks of oinos. The story of putting new wine in old wine skins. The point of the story has to do with the gas produced by the fermentation process which would explode the skins. Plain grape juice won’t do that.
Announcer: So, it would seem that generally we’re talking about Jesus and the disciples drinking wine, as we know it, in moderation.
Klaus: We are. It’s not necessarily a sin to consume alcohol. As is the case with so many of God’s gifts, the sin is in the abuse. However, we should also be sensitive to those around us and be careful not to let our example or our freedom lead others into sin.
Announcer: Very good. Anything more to add?
Klaus: Yes, two things. In Jesus’ day people just didn’t drink wine because they liked wine. At that time, drinking wine was one way of making sure you didn’t get sick from germs in the tainted water. The same kind of thing applies to travelers today.
Announcer: And the other reason?
Klaus: When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, He did so in the spring of the year. The grapes which produced what they were drinking had been harvested in the fall. They had been processed into juice. As far as I am aware, the ancient world had no way of stopping that juice from turning.
Announcer: That’s true. In fact, wild yeast is naturally found on grape skins. And so, once the fruit is crushed, fermentation will occur spontaneously unless you take steps to prevent it.
Klaus: Yeah, by spring it would have been either wine vinegar or it would have been wine for drinking. And, I’ve got to ask, how did you know that about grapes?
Announcer: Actually, my brother grows grapes. He’s a dentist by profession but he enjoys making wine as a hobby. And he’s quite good at it.
Klaus: Here’s a story. In the 1800s, a dentist who didn’t like the use of fermented wine in his Methodist church. So, he experimented in his kitchen and came up with a nonalcoholic grape beverage. Offered it to his church officials, they didn’t like it. The dentist’s son, himself a dentist, thought it was great, set up a facility in the barn to process it. People liked the taste of the drink, he ended up quitting his dental practice so he could
devote himself fulltime to making Welch’s Grape Juice.Announcer: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music selection for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Come Let Us Sing to the Lord” by John Leavitt. From Symphony of Songs by John Leavitt (© 2008 John Leavitt) www.johnleavittmusic.com
“Baptized Into Your Name Most Holy” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
“Lord of Glory, You Have Bought Us” by Eliza Alderson & Rowland Prichard. Public domain
“Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word” arr. Paul Manz. From Hymn Improvisations, vol. 2 by Paul Manz (© 2002 Paul Manz)
“Praeludium pro Organo pleno, BWV 522” by J.S. Bach. From Pipe Organ Dedicatory Concert by Charles Ore (© 2000 Chapel of the Cross Lutheran Church, St. Louis)