A Human Pillar of Fire ...

How could you miss that?  The signs were all around you.  Everything was right there in front of your eyes.  And still you missed it.  It would seem humanity has perhaps the unique ability to ignore everything and proceed on a course of doomed destination.  Ask anyone who has ever been in a car accident and they can affirm it for you.  The driver at fault, had to have seen so-and-so pulling out in front, or was making a horrible decision to do something ill-advised.  Trees suddenly appear “out of nowhere”, as do parked cars.  And in general, the first response of the driver at fault in an accident is to attempt to find blame elsewhere.  It is almost like clock-work.  And for all the drivers who were victims, not accomplices, or perpetrators, having to argue blame that is clearly assigned in the wrong direction is never fun.  And in the few instances where the victim becomes the perpetrator through mechanisms of faulty insurance investigation, or lying participants, it can get expensive too.  You are left wondering, how could they have missed all those signs and warnings, and proceeded on a course of doom?

At least in a car accident, if no injuries result, you can get on with your life.  Cars can be fixed or replaced.  License points removed through Drivers-Ed, or new insurance rates paid from an ever-shrinking budget.  But imagine when the problem is not tied to an incident that you may be lucky enough to eventually forget.  Imagine if the incident impacted your spiritual life.  Imagine coming face-to-face with God, and then arguing about His existence.  Or worse, rebelling against His directions WHILE you remain in His presence.  Modern Christians have the “luxury” of not sitting in front of Jesus, while they do the stupid things they do – or at least not in His tangible physical presence anyway.  But this was not always so.  And when the people who preceded us, did the stupid things they did, they did them right in the face of God.  It was like shooting the finger at God, while God is there staring at you to see what you did.

It started back in the days of the Israelites.  When the people of Israel went through the plagues of Egypt, they were untouched.  Now get that idea into your head for a minute.  Imagine any one of them.  Imagine having frogs so thick they were everywhere, in everything.  You could not move without stepping on them, even inside your home.  They were in your water (what was left of it).  They were in your food supplies.  Frogs stacked up feet thick on every surface you encounter.  A plague brought by the God of the Universe on Egyptians, but not a frog to be found on anything where Israelites lived, farmed, or ate.  Israelites were free from work during the plague, because the bricks could not be made, no Egyptian could hardly move during them.  And this did not just happen with frogs, it happened with flies, and locusts too.  But you being Israelite, suffered nothing.  Egypt decimated, you untouched.

Now Moses marches you through a Red Sea with water shooting up on both sides of the pathway hundreds of feet into the air.  But the pathway is dry as the desert normally is.  It is dry enough to move cattle, donkeys, wagons, and the old and young.  No mud at all, dry as if it was always that way.  You can touch the water in the sides, but no water spills into the pathway you walk.  You are walking in the breath of the Lord’s nostrils.  You begin to move through the desert, and here is the piece-de-resistance.  By day a cloud covers Israelites so the desert is cool, mild, and not a single scorpion or snake emerges from its hole.  By night, a pillar of fire stands over the camp providing ample light, and warmth against the cold the desert will naturally offer.  Again no scorpions, spiders, snakes, or other bothersome creatures emerge while Israelite feet are nearby.  God has radically altered the word “desert” where you are walking, camping, and taking meals.  You might dismiss the cloud as something nature provided (through willful ignorance).  But there is no way to write-off the pillar of fire at night as anything other than God.  And even with that pillar in full view, the Israelites found a way to disobey God entirely.

Fast forward 1600 years and Jesus is here.  Now “who” Jesus was might have been up for a measure of debate, but Matthew in his gospel to the Hebrews, was about to put a nail in that coffin so to speak.  Matthew was about to identify a Human form of the pillar of fire that would light the way of Israel forever more.  It begins in his gospel in chapter fourteen picking up in verse 13 saying … “When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. [verse 14] And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”  The news of John the Baptist’s death was spreading far and wide across the nation.  The people were sad.  They needed a beacon of hope.  They needed a light.  They were desperate.  Jesus takes a ship across the Sea of Galilee, a distance away from civilization, and the people don’t care, they follow Him there in great numbers.

The pillar lights up.  Imagine this crowd, it contains 5000 men, PLUS women, and children.  So if the average man over 16 was married, and had 2.5 kids per family (remember no birth control, and marriage happened young).  The math on this works out easily to 15-20k people.  But here is the pillar on fire part – Jesus heals their sick.  Not just some of them.  Not just a few of them.  All of them throughout the entire crowd from babies to old men barely able to move.  From diseases none of us can see, to amputee’s with restored limbs everyone can see now.  The blind see.  The deaf hear.  It is the prophecies fulfilled in their entirety.  A day of preaching and healing such as has never been before.  The words preached on that day were not recorded for us – Oh what a loss!!  We know what He did, but nothing about what He said.  None the less the pillar was lit up.  NO ONE ever healed like He healed, or preached the way He preached, or loved the way He did.  No one, ever. 

The day could have ended right there, and definitive proof of His identity had been offered in what He had just done.  But not yet.  Matthew continues in verse 15 saying … “And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.”  And here is where loopy logic sets in.  If it is a desert (check); and there is no food nearby naturally (check); then where will the stores be for this size crowd to shop at, and how will these imaginary stores be stocked or prepared for this size of demand?  There are no stores for this.  Sending the people away, means sending them home hungry.  Now the crowd could have taken it.  They were all just restored to perfect health that day, so a little hunger is not going to kill anyone.  But let’s be honest, there are no stores for food.  The disciples were looking to pass the responsibility for feeding this crowd back to the people themselves.  Jesus sees through that right away.

Jesus responds in verse 16 saying … “But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.”  Hey guys, you can do this.  This is the God of the Universe, stating what is possible, and giving direction to them to get it done.  The pillar is burning brightly, and the chief servants of the pillar say in verse 17 … “And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.”  No can do boss.  Math says 15k to 20k people, our inventory says five loaves and two fishes (which they borrowed from one of the children whose mother packed him a lunch before he went to see Jesus – yay mom!).  But the kicker is not what Jesus does next, it is what the disciples failed to do first.  Jesus was offering to spread out His power through them, and their miniscule faith.  Jesus had said – feed this crowd, do not sent them away.  The pillar is burning as brightly as it can – every single person healed that day.  Their response, was no can do.  This is all we have.  Epic fail – right in the face of the human pillar of fire.  And how many times do we give Jesus the exact same answer to His calls for us to minister – no can do boss, this is all we have and it is not enough – math says no.

Jesus had to have sighed.  I would have given the eye-roll.  But then, He is way more patient than me.  So Jesus answers and says in verse 18 … “He said, Bring them hither to me. [verse 19] And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.”  This is a miracle tutorial 101 for those not paying attention.  He told the disciples to get this done.  And He had them serve the entire crowd, from the inventory they offered.  The strength of Christ is not to be underestimated.  The pillar burns brighter still.  And perhaps this provided more tangible proof as to who He was as math and physics could not get this done.  But a crowd of restored 20k fully healed folks should have already known that.  This event is recorded like a big deal, but the big deal were the words we missed out on.

Matthew records the epilogue in verse 20 saying … “And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. [verse 21] And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.”  Everyone ate, not just a little, not a ration, but a belly full.  And beyond that, 12 baskets of food left over were collected and likely sent home with the crowd to feed the poor in the cities they came from – evidence of the human pillar of fire in Jesus, who was in fact, the light of all Israel.  I ask you, who in that crowd of attendance that day, who came sick, and left healthy and fully restored; who came depressed of soul, and left restored of soul; who could argue this was not the Christ, long foretold of the prophets?  To argue against this God, was to argue in the time of Moses against the pillar of Christ that stood over them at nightfall.  It was the same God.  Matthew’s crowd saw in human form, what that pillar really looks like.  And Jesus warmed that camp for 40 years plus night after night never missing a night, never taking a vacation, never forgetting His people even when they forgot He was there right in front of them.

And what is it like in your life today?  I know that Jesus has already been a part of it, even when He is uninvited (by you), He is often invited through the prayers of others on your behalf.  Are you seriously able to tell me that you have seen no sign of Jesus in your life?  Or more likely, you have many stories in your testimony you cannot explain.  Things you have witnessed that math and physics could not have gotten done.  The pillar of fire may not hang over your home at night warming the night air for you, but the pillar of fire still looks to enter your heart, and bring you a life you can scarcely imagine.  He is just as real as the God who kept feet-thick frogs from covering your home.  He is just as real as the Jesus who cared too much to see a great crowd go home hungry, after a day of awesome ministry.  He is the Jesus who longs to see your life, become something you would want to live.  Can you ignore the signs?  Can you look away from His flame?  Call it luck, call it coincidence, call it “blessed” without any understanding of that word.  It is more.  It is a Jesus on fire for you, to see you reconciled to Himself.  Never let those signs go unnoticed, or unembraced.  That fire is coming straight for you, and it is going to light up your life in ways beyond all comprehension.  Same Jesus, different “you”.