Preamble: When Holiness Asserts Its Rights

Coins clinked on stone floors, animals jostled under the pull of merchants’ ropes, and the Temple—meant to be a house of prayer—buzzed with barter. Then came the Servant King, whip in hand, heart ablaze for His Father’s house. Coins flew, tables tumbled, zeal roared like lions through holy courts.

Far off on Midian’s plains, Phinehas lifted trumpets over swords, bearing the sacred articles of a covenant people who would not share their inheritance with seduction or idolatry.

In both scenes, holiness laid claim to its rightful ground. Tables overturned, cities burned, so that something purer might stand in their place.

Yet the truest Temple was not of wood or stone—it was the Servant King’s own body, destined to be torn down and raised up again. And now we are called to be living sanctuaries, where zeal is yoked with compassion, and holiness is more than rules—it’s a resting place for the Almighty Himself.

Preamble: The Zeal and the Census: When Covenant Shapes the Camp

They stood in rows, tribe by tribe,
names called out under desert sun,
fathers and failures all woven into the roll.
The census ticked forward like a slow drum,
counting breath, counting bones,
measuring who would cross the Jordan.

And somewhere centuries later,
feet brushed through grain on a Sabbath morning,
hands reached to pluck life from the stalk,
while watchers kept tally
of law and line,
marking infractions in ink sharper than mercy.

Pinchas’ spear once stilled a plague,
zeal turned wrath into reprieve.
But here, in this quiet field,
zeal wears another face—
compassion stoops low,
and the Son of Man, Lord even of the Sabbath,
measures holiness by hungry hands and open hearts.

He does not unwrite the census.
He fulfills it,
counts again with gentler ink,
inscribes our names not by tribe or sin,
but by mercy.

So let us stand to be counted—
not only in ranks for inheritance,
but in rows of wheat swaying under breath of God,
where zeal bends toward grace
and every law finds its true completion
in love.

Preamble: The Boy Who Stayed Behind

He did not run,
He lingered—
in shadows of stone, where silence held breath
and questions stretched like tzitzit[a] in wind.

Twelve years grown, but ancient in gaze,
he sat among scribes who danced with the law,
unfolding Torah like a tent over hearts
not yet ready to know who was asking.

They had left—but he remained.
Not lost, but located.
Not defiant, but drawn
to the hush where the Father’s voice still echoes.

And when they found him,
they found themselves undone—
for the child had not wandered,
he had waited
in the place where wisdom grows like almond blossoms in temple courts.

Let the curious sit.
Let the obedient rise.
Let the house become home again.
Wisdom is not a place we reach—
it is the path we walk
back toward the questions
we were once too old to ask.

_{[a.] Tzitzit (צִיצִית) Tzitzit are the fringes or tassels attached to the four corners of a tallit (prayer shawl) or a four-cornered garment, worn as a physical reminder of the commandments of the Torah.}

Preamble: The Stone That Waited

There was no sanctuary, only open air.
No choir, only dreams.
No preacher, only angels stepping between here and holy.

The pillow was hard, the night unfamiliar.
But God came anyway.
Not to a king, but to a fugitive.
Not in Jerusalem, but in the wilderness.

He did not climb the ladder—
He laid beneath it.
And heaven opened above the earth that had once felt so far.

Preamble: The Soil Still Remembers

We come from wells we did not dig,
and we drink from promises made before our names were spoken.
The dust beneath our feet carries the memory
of fathers who walked forward in faith
and mothers who poured out prayers like water in dry places.

Isaac was not the first to be rejected,
but he may have been the first to answer with peace.

When driven out,
he did not curse the ground or crush the seed.
He kept digging.
He kept building altars.
He kept waiting for water.

This week,
we gather in the echo of his patience,
in a world still drawing lines, claiming land,
fencing in blessings and rationing favor.

Yet here comes God,
not in a whirlwind of fire,
but in the night, whispering:
“Do not be afraid. I am with you.”

And here come the very ones who cast us out—
now watching the fruit they could not stop,
the peace they did not plant,
the wells they once filled with sand
now springing back to life.

This story is not just about Isaac.
It is about us—
how we respond when wronged,
how we host when hurt,
how we make room at the table for those who once turned us away.

The soil still remembers those who made peace
not by power,
but by perseverance.

Preamble: The Silence Between the Steps

He rises early.
but because he trusts.
The journey to Moriah is not marked by thunder or revelation,
only footsteps through silence.
Three days of walking,
and the heavens do not speak.

 Tradition teaches:
“God tested Abraham not to discover his limits, but to reveal his likeness.”
To call forth the divine image within dust,
to raise a human soul to the level of holy fire.

It is not Isaac on the altar alone,
but the very promise of the future.
The laughter of Sarah,
the stars and sand,
the legacy that cannot breathe without the boy now bearing the wood.

The sages say the knife never fell,
because it was never about the knife.
It was about the ascent.
It was about the willingness to lay down everything
and still believe the covenant stood.

This is not the story of a father and a son.
It is the story of emunah—faith as action,
faith as offering,
faith as seeing provision before it appears.

And so we arrive with Abraham,
not to answer every question,
but to stand in the tension where heaven meets earth,
where love is tested, and God is named afresh:
Yahweh-Yireh—The Lord Who Will Be Seen.

Preamble: God Remembered

The chaos did not move Him.
The silence did not distract Him.
The flood did not wash away His covenant.
God remembered.

 He did not forget, for forgetting belongs to men.
But God remembered Noah—
as a flame remembers the spark,
as the seed remembers the tree. 

He remembered not just Noah’s name,
but the promise that lived beneath the waters.
He remembered the righteousness that floats when all else sinks.
He remembered the altar before it was built.
He remembered mercy before judgment ran its course.
God remembered. 

The Hebrew word is זָכַר — zachar—
not a memory of the mind,
but a motion of the heart.
It means to act, to restore, to gather near.
When God remembers, the wind begins to stir.
When God remembers, the Spirit begins to hover.
When God remembers, creation starts again. 

He sent a ruach—a Spirit-wind—
just as in the beginning,
just as over the deep.
For the waters were not the end—
they were a womb.
And remembrance is the breath that calls forth life.

This is not memory;
this is mercy.

And if He remembered Noah,
He will remember you.
He will not forget the ark of your obedience,
nor the dove of your hope.
He will not forget the offering you carry in secret.
He will not forget the promise He whispered before the storm.

God remembers what you think is lost.
God remembers before you ask.
God remembers before you drown.
And when He does,
the waters recede.
The wind returns.
The rainbow rises.
And the ground of new beginnings appears.