My favourite television show in the late nineties was the science fiction series, Space: Above and Beyond. I was such a huge fan I even wrote fanfic! Lots of readers liked one particular story, Icarus Walking—a story of truth, honour, heroism and sacrifice. In fact one person resonated with it so much she asked me to mentor her as a writer.

As I worked my way through her manuscript, I started to notice repeated ash tree symbolism. I quizzed Melissa about it. She insisted it was unintentional. This was really early days in my investigations about names but I was already suspicious. Could there be a connection between the name Melissa and the ash tree symbol?

Now any book of names will tell you that Melissa means either bee or honey. Not deterred, I looked up words for ash trees. And there I discovered the story of Melias, the nymph of the ash tree, and the saga of how the name Melissa, over millennia, changed in meaning from ash tree to bee.

The intriguing consequence of this exercise was the discovery that ‘melissa’ is also a name for the North Pole. That odd finding led to deeper digging into other ways the North Pole could be symbolised. In no time at all, it became obvious to me why Melissa had resonated so much with Icarus Walking: it was full to overflowing with obscure polar symbolism. All sorts of mysterious arctic icons spilled out of just about every scene. In particular, I seemed to focus on an idea I’d never heard of previously: a cynosure.

‘I didn’t do anything illegal.’

Over the last few years, as various officials in high office have been accused of criminal behaviour, I’ve listened carefully to their language.

Their defence is never ‘I didn’t do it.’ Instead it’s the subtly nuanced ‘I didn’t do anything unlawful.’ Or some variation on that theme which emphasises legality rather than morality.

This reaction is fascinating. No one has been prepared to add public lies to secret sins. There’s obviously a paramount desire to retain some personal integrity through a carefully–edited version of the truth. In fact, I’m sure many of the officials concerned would feel able to state with perfect conviction that they are scrupulously honest!

These situations highlight the importance of individual perception when it comes to the law.

Oftentimes I’ve read that the Ten Commandments are not substantially different from a multitude of ancient (and earlier) legal systems such as the Code of Hammurabi, Code of Ur–Nammu or Laws of Eshnunna. That the laws Moses gave the Israelites had precedents all the way across the Middle East.

Joel Hoffman, however, in his significant book, And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning (with which I disagree passionately in parts) makes a very shrewd point. The Ten Commandments are unique. They are one–of–a–kind because they simply say: ‘Don’t lie.’ ‘Don’t kill.’ ‘Don’t steal.’

Because it’s wrong. Period. No arguments. No excuses.

Cleopas is only mentioned once in Scripture. He and an unnamed friend are walking to the village of Emmaus. It was the morning of the Resurrection and you’d be forgiven for expecting Jesus would be in Jerusalem, reassuring His disciples. They’re in disarray, they’re suffering from the betrayal of Judas, they’re frightened and uneasy. You’d think He’d go to His closest friends first.

But no. He headed off for a village more than ten kilometres away, intent on a rendezvous with Cleopas. Who is completely unaware he’s got a divine appointment.

Not long previously, Jesus had spoken with Mary Magdalene. At least we know a little of her background. However, we’ve never even heard of Cleopas before in the gospels and we’ll never hear of him again.

So what’s the significance of this event for Cleopas himself? Why did Jesus choose him?

I knew something was seriously wrong when I couldn’t find the keys.

Not the keys to my house, but the keys the Holy Spirit gives us to unlock the door of destiny. Every other part of an entrance makes its appearance in Paul’s description of the Armour of God so, by my reckoning, keys should be there as well.

The words for door and threshold both turn up without any mask or disguise. Thureos, the word for shield, comes from the Greek for door while belos, the word for fiery darts, is identical to belos for threshold. They’re not hard to identify. In addition, there are transparent allusions to pillars or doorposts, hinge, lintel, gate and mezuzah (the memorial box devout Jews affix to their doorways), some of which we’ve already looked at in this series.

But no keys.

Has God ever told you to do something so strange you doubted your own mind?

Some years ago I was researching material for a novel set west of Alice Springs. Although I’d lived in Alice for several months a decade ago, I wanted to refresh my memory of the area.

Enter Google Earth.

As I was panning around, I zoomed in on an area just north of those ‘painted caterpillars’ which form the MacDonnell Ranges. Suddenly I felt an immensely strong compulsion to pray God’s will would be done at one unnamed hill near the junction of two remote outback roads.

It was a stupendously strong feeling, the like of which I’ve never encountered before or since. To pray for a smudge of a flyspeck in the middle of nowhere? Sure, I knew God is interested even in the fall of a sparrow but why would He be interested in a hill without a name in a place where almost no one goes?

The story of Samson is a cautionary tale about the consequences of presuming on God’s grace. Although it’s often couched as a salutary story on the wiles of sultry temptresses like Delilah, she is in fact only the agent of the judgment that inevitably befell him. The incident immediately prior to her introduction is the real turning point of his career:

One day Samson went to the Philistine city of Gaza, where he met a prostitute and went to bed with her. The people of Gaza… waited for him all night long at the city gate… ‘We’ll wait until daybreak, and then we’ll kill him.’ But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up and took hold of the city gate and pulled it up—doors, posts, lock, and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them far off to the top of the hill overlooking Hebron. Judges 16:1–3 GNT

Now the next time we hear of Gaza it’s when Samson is defeated and taken there as a slave. There he died, between two pillars. The chronicler clearly meant the reader to see a cause-and-effect sowing-and-reaping relationship between the two events.

However let’s examine this tantalisingly brief story in more detail. It sheds so much light for us as to how and why we can be presumptuous about God’s gift of protection through the breastplate of righteousness.

Just over eighty years ago, on Saturday 5 August 1933, our local newspaper ‘THE COURIER-MAIL’ printed this fascinating article equating the rose of Sharon with the narcissus tazetta. Although many websites identify this particular narcissus as the Biblical rose of Sharon mentioned in both Song of Songs and Isaiah, I have not found any other document which explains why the two are linked. This article also mentions marriage customs involving the narcissus which I have not seen recorded in any other place. Thank you, Dr Goddard!

The Rose of Sharon
An Ancient Legend about the Narcissus and its Symbolism in Christianity
By DR W.G. GODDARD.

AMONG the ruins of Geba, where murmuring waters flow from Mount Ebal to the sea, the excavation of an ancient city of Israel has begun. Here it was that tradition has placed the vineyard of Naboth. Here it was that Elijah stood as “a fury slinging flame” and hurled his anathemas at King Ahab and his proud consort.

Among the first treasures brought to light is a fragment of a slab on which is cut the flower of a narcissus, and under it the words in ancient Hebrew: “The bulb of Sharon.” There is no indication as to what this stone stood for, as the upper part is missing and could not be traced. Probably it has been ground to powder, as Geba was destroyed to form the foundation of a Roman city.

But there is a wealth of story and probably biblical commentary in this bit of ancient stone. In the “Song of Solomon” in the Old Testament we read of the “rose of Sharon” and “the lily of the valleys.” The ancient Hebrew word for “bulb” is the same as that for “rose,” and it was not till the artificial introduction of vowel points that the two words could be distinguished. This fragment recovered at Geba strongly suggests that this passage should read as follows:

I had a great idea. At least it seemed like one at the time.

It’s possible to identify seven hidden references to wildflowers in the Paul’s description of the armour of God in Ephesians 6. It might be tricky to translate the ancient names into modern botanical terms but we can be reasonably sure of the majority.

‘What if,’ I thought, ‘an anointing oil were created from the extracts of these flowers?’ An armorial oil, as it were, which uses the floral symbols of divine armour. I liked the idea immediately because oils generally mix together and that would also convey the idea of covenantal oneness.

The hunter-gatherer instinct in me kicked in and I began to scour the internet to see whether this was a viable idea. A web search was definitely an easier proposition than heading out into the fields and woodlands, looking for rare and hidden herbs that might be peeping out from the grass. Woods and fields in suburban south-east Queensland are in short supply anyway.

In her compelling book Permission to Speak Freely, Anne Jackson says this: ‘The Pharisees knew the Messiah was coming. They knew people needed a Saviour. They just didn’t believe they were the ones needed saving. This quote from The Prodigal God has been haunting me: “Pharisees only repent of their sins but Christians repent for the very roots of their righteousness too.”’

Now this was the only statement that, in an otherwise superb book, took me completely aback. I sincerely hope that, in context, the quote from The Prodigal God comes across differently. I’d be disturbed to find righteousness and self-righteousness had effectively collapsed into each other and that, for many of us, there is no longer any functional difference between them.

Christians repenting of righteousness suggests a deep core illness in the modern mindset. When we start to equate righteousness and self-righteousness, the spiritual zeitgeist has gone too far: it has started to deify Mercy. We’ve actually started to make a god out of Grace.

This is just as bad as deifying Righteousness—and that’s what the Pharisees’ problem really was: they had elevated Righteousness to the Godhead and seen that as the totality of His being. Depending on the century, the prevailing culture, our own personal inclination, we are apt to do this with other attributes of God’s nature: honour, integrity, truth, love, peace, order.

If you were stunned by multi–layered intricacy of the allusions in the helmet of salvation mentioned in the last post, it’s time to strap on your seatbelt. This is just the first sparkle of the treasure trove. Before we go on, it’s worth asking why — why the flowers, the gemstones, the kiss of heaven, the threshold, the covenant and all the rest of the dazzle?

In my view, it’s because the epistle to the Ephesians was written to a city of sorcerors. They knew about curses and charms, agreements with demons, gemstone amulets, the power of words, incantations as songs or musical invocations, arcane spells hidden in mathematics or within seemingly nonsensical phrases.

Before the riot in Ephesus instigated by the silversmith Demetrius which is recorded in Acts 19, many people turned to Jesus and burned their books of magic. This happened because the seven sons of the Jewish chief priest Sceva tried to cast out demons in ‘the name of Jesus whom Paul preached’.

In a town like Ephesus where magic was a way of life, there were no doubt many opportunities for a deliverance ministry such as that offered by the sons of Sceva. However they wound up seriously wounded and having to flee naked from a house when a man with an evil spirit jumped them and demanded, ‘Jesus I know and I know about Paul—but who are you?’

As a result of this notoriety, Paul was able to spread the gospel message much more widely. Many Jews and Greeks repented of dabbling in the occult and threw their scrolls of magic on a huge bonfire. The value of these spells was a staggering fifty thousand drachmas—around 150 years’ wages for an average labourer.

Meantime, down in the Ephesus CBD, the silversmiths were getting agitated.

As we approach the Jewish New Year—Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year—it seems appropriate to look at the armour covering the head which Paul wrote about his letter to the people of Ephesus.

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:17 NIV

The word Paul used for helmet is perikephalaia. Strictly it isn’t a helmet, just something that goes around the head. I guess it’s translated as helmet because Paul was talking about armour. Perikephalaia is formed from the prefix ‘peri-’, around, and from kephale, meaning head. It’s probably related in Paul’s thinking to the Aramaic word karbela’, a helmet, turban, mantle or robe—just something you wrap around yourself.

In fact, all these wraparound things were meant to remind Paul’s Ephesian readers of this nifty verse from Isaiah: He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head; and He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.

Isaiah 59:17 NAS

Still, perikephalaia does specifically mention the head, ‘kephale’. But kephale goes further than just meaning head: it also encapsulates a sense of supreme, chief, principal, prominent and even cornerstone.

Surprise! Surprise! We’re back on one of my favourite topics and I didn’t even have to try hard. In ancient times, the cornerstone was not only the first part of a building laid down, it was also a most sacred place, the threshold. In Hebrew it is kaph, a word associated with atonement, but in this case meaning a shallow basinstone to catch the blood dripping from the lintels and doorposts when a guest was welcomed with a fatted calf or sheep.

Ever had that moment when the scales fall off your eyes? When the veil falls away and it strikes you the situation is not what you think it is?

I had such a moment recently when I was digging (yet again!) in Ephesians 6. As I noted in The Story of a Cover, there’s an allusion to the rose of Sharon in the armour of God. Actually, upon further investigation, it transpired there are—surprise, surprise!—seven flowers.

What’s an entire layer of subtle references to Israel’s flora doing in the Armour of God? Good question. But it’s not the only layer:

1. Surface layer: the accoutrements of Roman armour—helmet, breastplate, belt, sword, shield, shoes—plus an extra bit of protection in prayers and hymns.
2. Sub-surface layer 1: the elements of a threshold—pillars, lintel, gates, threshold stone, mezuzah, seals, door. These do not correspond in a one-to-one fashion to the Roman armour, but are based on puns. For instance, the word for ‘darts’ (as in fiery darts of the Evil One) comes from belos, threshold while the word for ‘shield’ doubles as a word for door. With a single exception, these are Greek puns and I have no doubt the average reader would have spotted them immediately.