Hiddur Mitzvah

My wife just called me and gave me some awesome news. She told me that a woman that is new to our church, and brand spanking new to this whole "Jesus-Loving" thing, came to our Christmas Eve worship service. If you remember that night, the weather outside was frightful - sleeting ice and snow had put many folks, brave enough to drive in it, in ditches and worse. However, we were all warm and toasty inside the Worship Center, and we worshipped our guts out to the One Who deserves it most. Afterwards, this new-Believer went out to her car, only to find another D.C. lady scraping her windshield for her. Apparently, this unknown "angel" had done this for every car in the parking lot. Again, it was FREEZING cold and absolutely miserable conditions outside!

My wife asked me if I knew who this was. I do not.

Exodus 15:2 - NLT
The LORD is my strength and my song; He has given me victory. This is my God, and I will praise Him - my father’s God, and I will exalt Him!

From this line, rabbinic thinkers saw the words "I will exalt him", and asked the question,
"How can mere mortals hope to exalt God, the Creator of the entire universe?"

In the same way we could ask,
“How can we bring more glory to Someone as infinitely wonderful as God's own Son, Jesus?”

The rabbis had a wonderful answer. They said humans can bring more glory to God,… Who had all the glory in the heavens,… by doing His will on earth in the absolute best and most beautiful way possible. They called this "hiddur mitzvah", meaning to beautify God's commands. In the same way, we can do what Jesus commands in the absolute best way possible.

Christians may be surprised that the word mitzvah, meaning "command" or "commandment", is positive rather than negative in Jewish culture. The word is found in many verses, like the following: >"Keep my commands >(mitzvot, pl.) and follow them. I am the LORD." (Lev. 22:31) We tend to assume it refers to burdensome regulations, but the usual Jewish usage of mitzvah is that it is an opportunity to do something good that God told you to do. People say things like, "I had a chance to do a mitzvah today when the elderly woman asked for my help." The word is always used in a positive way, suggesting that doing what God has asked is a joy and a spiritual opportunity, not a burden.

The idea of hiddur mitzvah (beautifying the command) goes even beyond this - that if God tells us to do something, we shouldn't just do the minimum, but to perform it in the best way possible, sparing no expense or trouble.

Even if it's freezing outside.

We can see Jesus describing this behavior of hiddur mitzvah, going far beyond the minimum, in His story about the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan man obeyed God's command to love his neighbor by personally caring for the wounded traveler, carrying him to the inn on his own donkey, and investing a large sum of his own money to care for him. Because he was a Samaritan in Israel he even risked his own life, because as an enemy of the Jews, he could have been accused of being the attacker (Luke 10:33-35).

There are so many of Jesus’ commands that have to do with physically showing love to someone: Whether it’s giving water (Mark 9:41), giving away your clothes (Matt. 5:40), visiting the sick or imprisoned (Matt. 25:36), or just carrying their bag a bit further than they originally had asked (Matt. 5:41). May you and I be those that scrape windshields and ‘beautify the commands’ of Jesus, by going far beyond the minimum, and thus, may we bring our Lord massive amounts of glory!

And to the unknown, ice-scraping 'angel'... I want to say that you were Jesus to a brand new Believer, her two-week-old-in-Jesus husband, their small children... and their appreciative, humbled, and blown-away pastor.

A big 'thank you' to Lois Tverberg, who's book I'm reading currently. Her insight into the Hebrew Scriptures has been so exciting to me. Most of this information comes from her book, "Sitting At The Feet Of Our Rabbi Jesus".