Her 102 year old eyes lit up you could see the understanding of the passage roll across her face then she quickly rose to her feet and announced, “I coming to devotions today!” Why Miss Beck did you put on your Helmet?
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I wrote this a couple years ago, and I intend on writing much more about Miss Beck this week, but for now this is a fond memory…
As I greeted Miss Beck that morning she was startled by my knock on her door it must have awakened my 102 year old friend who had been sitting in her chair, perhaps napping a bit. Who could blame her at 102. I come to see Miss Beck every Thursday about this time. For years and years she was the leader of the devotions at Somerset Assisted Living Center in Mocksville, NC. Every Thursday morning she played the Piano and I would speak but the last couple of years she is no longer up and about much. She will tell me, “I’m just not feeling very good I’m just lazy I guess.”
Yet I would never miss a chance to visit this old saint, her Bible understanding and walk with Jesus would astound anyone. I will admit lately it kinda breaks my heart she doesn’t come but I will always go to her room in hope of her attendance and at minimum a short visit.
This morning I wanted to ask her if she had ever wondered about the helmet of salvation from Isaiah 59. I asked her “Why would Jesus need a helmet of salvation?”
Isaiah 59: 15-17 NIV “Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
She quickly started to quote the passage, in the King James, naturally, “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:”Miss Beck then got a puzzled look as she pondered the question and she responded, “I don’t believe I have ever though about that.”
I went on to explain, that a friend of mine and I had puzzled about that question earlier and that day both of us almost at the same time recalled the movie, “The Passion of The Christ” and the scene where Jesus was being flogged and the assailant seemed to be driven on by Jesus’ resolution his “Hardheadedness Perhaps”. The soldier could not break him and that quality appeared to infuriate the soldier and drive him further in the beating. That hardheadedness, that resolve was not the helmet of Jesus’ personal salvation but Jesus had me on his mind he had you. That helmet was a helmet of vengeance to take back his beloved that had been stolen by the powers of darkness. The very man who was beating him, the soldiers that drove the nails, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” More love more devotion more than my heart can bare. WHAT A HELMET, WHAT A MIND SET.
This begs another question then. Is the helmet Paul instructs us to put on in Ephesians 6 something to wear of our own salvation? I believe that same helmet that Jesus put on we can put on as well. Stephen so clearly illustrated that helmet in Acts 7 when they were stoning him, he too was so hardheaded as to the Sanhedrin’s Salvation that he cried out, ““Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”.
Is it possible that Paul was thinking of Stephens’s helmet and the answer to Stephen’s prayer as he penned Ephesians 6? No doubt Stephen saw heaven open up and his own salvation but so much more than that; his hard headed resolve was for those who had been duped around him, including (Saul/Paul).
Later Paul’s hard headed resolve for the nations would also bear out my thoughts that Paul’s hard head was stoned and beaten as he too wanted the Kingdom to come in the hearts and minds of Jesus beloved, that’s us. Right, Miss beck?
I then saw Her 102 year old eyes light up as you could see the understanding of the passage roll across her face then she quickly rose to her feet and announced, “I coming to devotions today!” Why Miss Beck did you put on your Helmet? I put mine on and we headed for devotions.
You can not choose your battlefield God does that for you. But you can plant a standard where a standard never flew. (Natalie Crane)
Tags: #helmetofsalvation, The Full Armor
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