Approaching Easter, I am looking at the writing of my script about the offering of the sponge. And, I hit a minor crisis. Because I identified myself (and all the Bride-Church along with me) as like the sponge in the prayer-scenario I mentioned previously, I hit a very personal distress when a verse from another Gospel was brought to my attention:
Mat 27:33-35
And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,
They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted [thereof], he would not drink.
And they crucified him...
This seemed to contradict what I read in John, where He almost seemed to be asking for a drink--"I thirst," He said in that Gospel. Furthermore, my personal anthropomorphization of the sponge naturally ran me toward a new self-perception of one reaching the apex of self- rejection. (This temptation was easily presented to me, considering the thoughts I blogged yesterday--ugly self-images I'd fanned back to life so I could deal with them.) How easy to make me think that I was foolishly believing things that, though they seemed so "real" and "interactive" between Thee and me, were really just so much pomposity on my part. Again, I fell shame-faced at Your feet and begging wisdom, for I would never want to dishonor You.
But I felt compelled to persevere in my reading. (In fact it was a thing I felt prompted to pray in this very morning's prayer time: ask for knowledge.) Now, wonder of wonders, I find the story of the sponge was not finished in that verse.
How many times have I read the story of the Crucifixion? Many!
How many times have I noticed that the sponge is offered twice and accepted only on the second, purer offering? None!
But it is in plain print. (Text given below.)
In fact, looking back I see that the drugged sponge might very well have been offered before He was even nailed to that cross. An anesthetic sponge is offered to lessen His pain--and thus once more Satan needs to be told to get behind Him. He tastes it to discern what is on it, but this one He rejects. Afterward, the Pharisees mock Him, the sign calling Him King of the Jews is posted above His head, the thieves are mentioned, darkness falls over the land from the 6th hour to the 9th hour,...then at last He cries out that quote that begins Psalm 22, and to starts a series of events that make that Psalm almost an exact pre-telling of the events of the Cross. But the people around Him did not understand.
Mat 27:46
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Mat 27:47
Some of them that stood there, when they heard [that], said, This [man] calleth for Elias.
Mat 27:48
And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled [it] with vinegar, and put [it] on a reed, and gave him to drink.
Mat 27:49
The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.
Mat 27:50
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
So how did I miss this second sponge for these last 43 years that I have been present in this world to hear this story of the Cross? That sponge that carried only the sour wine/vinegar, and not the drug, gall; this second one lifted on hyssop, said John (and hyssop was a branch used symbolically for things involving purification.)
But more startling is my discovery of some of the rest of that pre-telling Psalm.
I've already mentioned the common references:
His quote right before receiving the sponge:
Psa 22:1
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? [why art thou so] far from helping me, [and from] the words of my roaring?
The words of the Pharisees, foreshadowed centuries earlier:
Psa 22:8
He trusted on the LORD [that] he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
The one He fulfilled in speaking of His thirst:
Psa 22:15
My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
And this:
Psa 22:18
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
But because of the sponge-thing, I can hardly condemn the Pharisees for missing all these ways that He fulfilled all these things prophesied about His death.
And I must ask, are we missing things still?
For now I come to the part that makes me tremble as I read over with new eyes even more things that I haven't noticed before today, things new that should not be new, for my eyes have traveled over these verses time and time again.
As preface, I must review that I dreamed (and have blogged here about the dream) that dogs chased me to the gate of a special garden, a holy place where He fed me the fruit of wisdom and life. I dreamed that the dogs could not reach me in that place--and this was the point of the dream. I already connected that dream with imagery in Revelation, and I already recovered from the shock of "dreaming scripture images."
Now I must add that the other night, I had another dog dream...actually the creature was a cross between a bulldog and a horse. It was spotted, black and white, with a black mane and nose like a horse, but the shoulders and build of a bulldog.
(An aside to easily skip:
Even as I proofread this, I remember and look up the story of a vision of the prophet, Zechariah that makes reference to grisled--translate spotted--horses pulling chariots coming to earth from heavenly dwelling places, and this as an event to occur right before the revelation of one called the Branch. This lead me to the little book of Jude which talks in verse 23 of ones saved with fear, pulled out of the fire, their garments "spotted" by the influence of their flesh, which then returns me to another one of the visions Zechariah had of God rebuking Satan for trying to condemn a chosen one, one described as a brand plucked from the fire--whose filthy garments are exchanged by an Angel for rich robes, and this exchange being precursory to the coming of that same one called the Branch. The chase I make through Scripture to track these parallels leads me to realize I've tapped another one of those wells that is larger than a quick read will explain to my mind. I haven't had one of these guided reads for a long time, but I do remember telling God, "Slower please. My mind can't accept where we're going and what You're explaining as quickly as You can offer it." No wonder I prayed for knowledge! Just an aside to record the mechanics of such an interchange.)
But as to my own dream of a spotted horse, this animal and I stood in open fields on either side of a fence. The animal was trying to break through a breach in that chicken wire fence. Somehow, I received a tool that I could use to re-attach the fallen piece of fencing, keeping the animal on its own side of the fence.
Now I read this verse:
Psa 22:12
Many bulls have compassed me: strong [bulls] of Bashan have beset me round.
Psa 22:16
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
and most importantly, this one:
Psa 22:20
Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.
And I find my prayers and these dreams that I dreamed coming together to take on a meaning that makes me almost stop breathing. Even as I try to minimize, explain away and second guess the motivation and imagery of these moments I share with Thee, You do not permit me to lessen our relationship to something coldly analytical or to mere subconscious reactivity. I cannot speak much to the ways You call Your other elect to walk with Your Word alive within them, but I do see how through the channels of this one small heart of mine, humanity's reach for You can be realized. You prayed for me, even me, and for all who come to this place where I stand.
As I soak in the meaning of that knowledge, I feel flung backward to the OT, when Jezebel is eaten by dogs. Flung forward to the visionary ending of the NT, when the spirit of Jezebel revisits this world, and finally to another "Chapter 22" but this time not in Psalms, but in Revelation where a last reference is made to dogs, protection, a last message is given to the Church involving the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star. (And as I read this quote, I am reminded that two days ago, we took a spring-break outing, the boys and I. As we drove, we noticed the fact that we kept seeing stars mounted everywhere we went. Metal ones near door posts, ones made of Christmas lights still hung high on barns, even painted ones in the signs set out to advertise mom-and-pop businesses, so many stars that we laughed and commented on its oddity.) Finally, coming full circle, the quote is about the Spirit and the bride saying Come, and--it is about thirsting. How fitting that the bride would say come, with a quenched thirst being what follows.
Rev 22:14
Blessed [are] they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
Rev 22:15
For without [are] dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Rev 22:16
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, [and] the bright and morning star.
Rev 22:17
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
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