The belt

John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. (Mark 1:6)

Baptist John wore his clothing so simply. He put on the belt. Ancient Israelites generally put on the clothes with a belt. John had the simplest food enough to survive. When I was reading John's story living in the wild in the Bible, I remembered the one scene in the Old Testament. That was the ceremony on the eve when Israelites living in the region of Goshen in Egypt did. They killed the lamb and put its blood on the sides and tops of the door frames, and ate the roasted meat and the bread without yeast with the bitter herbs. Exodus chapter 12 verse 11 describes this scene like this:

"This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD's Passover."

Generally speaking, on the table you are supposed to loosen your belt, take off your shoes, put down whatever you were holding on your hands, and you should eat slowly as much as possible. But at the feast of Passover, you should eat on the exactly opposite way. The reason was that they were to leave Egypt as early as possible next morning. Leaving Egypt means that the basis of life changes from the life of a slave to that of a free man. Similarly you cannot be idled at the moment as the center of your existence is about to change.

Exodus 12:11 points out to us the more important thing. The feast in haste stands for remembering the night of Passover. On that night the angels of death wandered around the whole area in Egypt. The first born of man and animal died. It was God's last punishment towards Pharaoh who stands for arrogance of human beings as well as towards the Egyptians who oppressed the minority in their country. Without exception the human beings seems to understand who he is when he faces a critical moment of survival in his existence. The angels of death just passed over the household, who put lamb's blood on the door post. That incident meant Passover. At the moment that the angels of death passed by very close, you cannot have your meal in very comfortable condition.

If you take a look at this world more calmly, we could see the angels of death still visiting us these days also. It happens to the young people, even to the children as well as to the old people. At the hospital, in the war, at the highway, at factories, or at home with domestic violence, all the various kinds of death happen wherever people is living. We just neglect because we are unwilling to face those. How hard we try not to face, we cannot avoid the angels of death coming like nightly fog.

We cannot figure out exactly what the massive death in Egypt, the tenth disaster, was. In ancient world it might not be rare to have this kind of massive death. The most fearful thing to them must be the total destruction of a village, or a nation by natural disaster, or plague. The writer of Exodus explains this as God's punishment. Do not regard this kind of explanation of history as a joke. Without realization this kind of massive death could happen to us. Many different species of living creatures on earth extinguished. One of them is dinosaur. Is it not possible for human beings also belong to this category? You may say we have civilization unlike them. Do you trust that civilization? Do you believe civilization save us from massive death? There is much possibility that human civilization could be cause of extinction of human species. In the long future, 10 billion years later, one very intellectual creature that might be different from a human being might hand in the thesis of doctoral degree that could be the topic of a cause of human species.

If you are the person who can feel a big force of death and life, you have to wear a spiritual waist belt, like Israelites 3400 years ago, who were having a feast of Passover with a waist belt, and like Baptist John who baptized 2000 years ago, with a waist belt on. For the race we are supposed to tie a waist belt, we need a waist belt for our spiritual race.

Oh Lord please help us to prepare a belt on our waist like Israelites who were having the feast of Passover on that critical moment between life and death, and Baptist John who has been living in the wild as a stranger in that dark age. Amen.