And I Burn

I am going backwards in time a little bit as far as staying on par with our subject matter in Scriptures I, but this particular subject has been on my mind a lot lately especially since I am taking Scriptures I and II together and finding the infinite parallels that are there in the Old Testament. I guess I should tell those who are not in the know that Scriptures I covers Genesis through II Kings, while Scriptures II covers everything else that is in the Old Testament. Anyways, what I wanted to discuss is the use of fire in the book of Leviticus. Every time I have been reading my bible for one of these classes when fire shows up I write in the margin “ultimate cleanser”. All of the rituals and cleansing in Leviticus are done mostly through fire and with fire being a common element in a theophany (revealing of God) I have to say that fire is the ultimate cleanser. It often makes me think of the Toadies song “I Burn”; I know this is not their particular context per say, but gosh it sure fits well regardless, plus isegeting (probably spelled this way wrong, it’s the word that is the opposite of exegesis if that helps any) into a song is not so bad, ha ha.

"Driftin' upward
Gently lifted
Lazy on the wind

Rollin' over
Turnin' slowly
Beginning and the end

Fire is bright
Fire is clean
Never so alive

Smoke is freedom
Flame is mercy
I am free tonight

And I burn
I burn

Stoke the embers
Cleanse the spirit
A prayer in every spark

Feel the lick of
Bad religion
The finish and the start

In the beginning
We were smarter
And the flame was heaven-sent

Through the ages
We got stupid
Now we must repent

And I burn
I burn

Save the ashes
For reminders
Stony things remain

Tooth and bone
unimpressive
I have left these things

Because fire is bright
Fire is clean
efficient and divine

Tooth and bone
Charms and dolls
I am free tonight

I BURN
THE AIR
YOU BREATHE

I BURN
THE AIR
YOU BREATHE

I BURN
THE AIR
YOU BREATHE

I burn
I burn
I burn

Shameless plug, but this whole album is great, I suggest a heavy listening of it. I digress, skipping ahead to the New testament we have this interesting instance with John the Baptist and some words he says:

John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

This is in Luke 3: 16 and we find a similar verse in Matthew 3:11. When I first heard this I was like “okay I understand baptizing with the holy spirit, that just makes sense, but then I came to ‘and with fire’” and this threw me way off. Fire! Who and why would anyone baptize with fire, isn’t that destructive, well, no, after reading Leviticus I have to say no. There are these commands to completely burn something to cleanse it or offer it, to “turn it into smoke” the text sometimes says. This is very interesting to me. Obviously we think of water as the ultimate sane cleanser to wash away whatever it is that needs washing away. But it is fire that completely burns away that which is bad. We see this when a forest ranger tells us that it is good for the occasional fire to happen in the forest (contained of course) because not only do new trees grow back but they come back even better than before; more rich, more fuller, and more productive. Fire to the sensible mind is of course painful and avoidable, but it seems more often than not that pain is almost always synonymous with really learning a lesson so to speak; hence the reason the bible encourages punishment to children and the like. It just seems to me like there is something to this heavy use of fire all throughout the Bible in a positive light (pardon the pun). It really does come across as the ultimate cleanser in the way that it is presented especially in the Old Testament and even occasionally in the New Testament. To add to that, as scary as it is to think about this also feeds into our western thought of a fiery burning Hell, where an eternal ultimate cleansing would happen so to speak. Something to think about.

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle