Water Fight

There is nothing better on a hot day then a water fight. Taking out the hose, water balloons, and buckets and drenching each other. Each day we are involved in our own water fight of what to chose Roman bath or mikveh?

When looking at them they look the same. They both hold water,  the water is placed in stone structures, and people enter into both. But when you really look at each you notice they are completely different.

A Mikveh is a ceremonial bath where a person immerses themselves to become ritually clean according to Jewish Law. The water was often piped in from cisterns filled by

aqueducts that were connected to rivers or streams, necessary to provide “living water” to ensure purity. Jews would wash their head, heart, hands, and feet as a symbol of purity before God. The mikveh was used by worshippers who immersed themselves before entering worship and the presence of God. I picture the mikveh at Gamla (picture on the right) a place where all are welcome. A place  where you are stripped naked both literally and physically before God. You are to enter the mikveh to offer yourself as new and clean an offering of repentance before you go meet with God. A beautiful picture of water that shows your surrender and leaving behind of what is not good to have more of God.

The mikveh at Sardis (the picture on the left) is a place that offers a cup of cold water to the wanderer, traveler, lost, or outcast. A cup of cold water is the minimal requirement for what the Scripture calls hospitality (or xenophilia) love of the stranger.  Jesus says that  whoever gives a cup of cold water to the stranger will receive their reward. 

The Roman bath on the other hand represented the worldliness,  pleasures, and vices of the Romans. The Roman bath was a time of nakedness and lust. Roman baths normally included denunciations of luxury and immorality. Roman baths became a visual representative of how far  Rome had fallen into decline.  I picture the people in Bible times who visited the Roman bath wanted to be noticed. This was the high class social country club everyone wanted to be a part of.  If people were at the bath it meant they were rich, higher class, and well good enough to be at the Roman bath. The Roman bath screamed elegance, rituality, and set apartness.

When I look at the mikveh and the Roman bath I see similar venues with different meanings. I also see glimpses of our own daily battle. Each day we have to make the decision Roman bath or mikveh? Sure in our own culture we may not find ourselves in the Roman bath, but we do have our own pleasures and vices. Our pleasure and vices may come in the all different forms.  Satan so badly want us to chose the Roman bath life. God wants us to be set apart a holy priesthood,  holy and dearly loved. The kingdom of priests need and want to put God on display.

So as we go throughout normal everyday activities we have to ask ourselves mikveh or Roman bath? Where are we in our own lives? Which are you mikveh or Roman bath? Are you making the conscious decision to change, repent, and be different after entering the water of mikveh? Are we offering the cup of cold water? 

I find myself asking am I going to conform to the patterns of this world and live in pleasure or am I going to stripe myself bare before Jesus enter the living water and allow him to make me new, repentant, and transformed. When we chose mikveh we are choosing redemption/repentance over immorality. We are allowing ourselves to be pruned by God rather than pleasurable life. But most importantly we are choosing to be transformed rather then conforming.

The biggest challenge I find myself wanting is to take a cup of cold water out of the mikveh and march it through the gymnasium of Sardis (picture above) over to the bath behind it and offer it to people that chose Roman bath over mikveh. May we live shalom and put God on display so others will desire to chose the mikveh.

Blessings and Shalom as we engage in the water fight ourselves and for others.