The Cross to the Crown - God's Letter Mem

God's Letter — The Mem

The Cross to the Crown Series, Letter Thirteen

April 5, 2023 — Nissan 14, 5783

Thank you for joining us. My name is Chadwick Harvey. You are with Faithful Performance. Tonight we study the thirteenth Hebrew letter — the Mem — on Passover Eve, Nissan 14, the night before the crucifixion of our Messiah. There is no accident in the timing. The letter we are covering tonight is the letter of Living Water, the letter of the Holy Spirit, and the letter of being born again. And tonight is the night that Yeshua sat with His disciples in the upper room and said: if you love Me, keep My commandments, and I will pray to the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.

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JOHN 7:37-39 — THE OPENING SCRIPTURE

During the Feast of Tabernacles, at the appointed time of the water libation ceremony — when the priests descended to the Pool of Siloam, drew living water, returned, and poured it over the altar — Yeshua stood and cried out: if anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. John tells us He spoke this concerning the Holy Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive — for the Holy Spirit had not yet been given because Yeshua was not yet glorified. That is the letter Mem before He even names it. Rivers of living water flowing out of the heart of the believer — that is the Mem speaking from the mouth of the Messiah.

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THE NUMBER THIRTEEN: POSITION IN THE ALEPH-BET

The Mem is the thirteenth letter of God's aleph-bet. Thirteen is the number most associated with rebellion in scripture — Ishmael was circumcised at thirteen, representing the flesh; the kings rebelled in the thirteen year of Chedorlaomer in Genesis 14. But thirteen is also the numerical value of the Hebrew word ahava — love. God took the very number associated with rebellion and filled it with love. The thirteenth letter is the letter of the Living Waters poured out in love — the Holy Spirit given to the rebellious, transforming them from within. Grace at its most radical: the exact number of rebellion becomes the exact number of love.

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THE NUMBER FORTY: NUMERICAL VALUE

The numerical value of the Mem is forty, which represents the number of testing, trial, and probation — but also of completion and new beginning. Forty is the product of five times eight: five representing grace, and eight representing new beginnings. It is not simply a number of difficulty — it is grace multiplied by new beginnings at the end of the trial. The pattern runs throughout all of scripture. Noah endured forty days of rain and the earth was cleansed and made new. Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. Moses ascended Sinai for forty days three separate times — at the giving of the Torah, at the intercession for the golden calf, and at the renewal of the covenant. Yeshua fasted forty days in the wilderness before His public ministry. And after His resurrection, He spent forty days with His disciples before ascending to the Father. In every case, the forty is a time of preparation, of testing, and of ultimate new beginning. The Mem carries that weight: this is the letter of transition, of the deep water that precedes the arrival on the other shore.

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THE ANCIENT PICTOGRAPH: THE WAVE

The ancient Hebrew pictograph of the Mem is a wave of water — the kind of wave that represents not calm water but the deep, the turbulent, the transitional. It is the ocean at the moment of crossing. Psalm 42:7 captures it: deep calls unto deep at the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your waves have gone over me. When we are in the season of the Mem — the season of testing, of transition, of the wave — deep calls unto deep. The only stable thing in the wave is the anchor of the Word of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit. When Peter walked on the water toward Yeshua, he did not sink because of the wave. He sank when he took his eyes off the One who called him. The lesson of the Mem is to keep your eyes on the Shepherd when the wave comes.

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THE LETTER MEM: TWO FORMS

The Mem has two forms, just as the Kaf does. The open Mem appears in the beginning or middle of a word; it has an opening at the lower left. The closed Mem — the final form, or soffit — appears at the end of a word and is completely sealed. We cover the open Mem tonight. The final form of the Mem will be the next teaching in the series.

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MAIM: THE WATER OF LIFE

The Hebrew word for water is maim — mem-yod-mem, beginning and ending with the Mem. Water is the substance most associated with life itself, and scripture consistently connects it to the Holy Spirit, to the Word of God, and to the Living Torah who is Yeshua. Proverbs 18:4 declares: the words of a man's mouth are deep waters, a flowing stream, a fountain of wisdom. The Mem is that fountain — the word that springs up and waters whatever it touches. John 4:14 gives us Yeshua's promise to the Samaritan woman: whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. That fountain is the Mem within us — the Holy Spirit flowing outward from the born-again heart.

The open form of the Mem, with its opening at the lower left, represents God's amazing and abundant grace. The opening says: even if you have fallen, even if you have wandered, there is a way back in. As it is written in Psalm 86:15: But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in mercy and truth. The Mem holds the opening of return at the very bottom of its form. No matter how deep the wave has pushed you down, the grace of the Mem is lower still.

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MAIM, LOVE, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Mem encodes a profound connection between water, love, and the Spirit. Ahava — love — has the numerical value of thirteen, the position of the Mem in the aleph-bet. Once we are born again — baptized in water and indwelt by the Holy Spirit — the Spirit leads us in love toward the truth of the Word of God, and our hearts begin to flow outward for the kingdom. John 16:13-15 tells us exactly what the Spirit does: He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority; but whatever He hears He will speak. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. The Holy Spirit will not lead you away from Yeshua. He will lead you deeper into the Jewish Yeshua — into Passover, the Sabbath, the feast days, the new moon, the appointed times He ordained. That is where the Lord is. He is on His calendar, and the Holy Spirit is pointing us toward it.

The Mem is also composed of two letters we have already studied: the Kaf and the Vav. The Kaf is the palm of God's hand, the bowl that pours out blessing. The Vav is the connector and mediator between heaven and earth. Together they produce the Mem — the letter of the Living Waters poured from the hand of God through the Mediator down upon the earth. And Kaf plus Vav equals twenty-six — which is the numerical value of the sacred four-letter name of God, YHWH. The Mem literally contains the divine name in its construction.

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THE DEVOTIONAL STORY: NICODEMUS

No passage in the gospels more perfectly expresses the revelation of the Mem than the meeting between Yeshua and Nicodemus in John 3. But before we enter that conversation, we must note where Nicodemus ends up. John 19:38-39 records it: after the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Yeshua. And then — Nicodemus, who at first came to Yeshua by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. He anointed the body of the Messiah. That single act tells us that Nicodemus crossed over. He became a believer. A man who was secretly visiting Yeshua in John 3 became a man who publicly anointed His body on Unleavened Bread. His entire journey from the night visit to the anointing is the Mem — the testing, the transition, the crossing, the arrival on the other shore.

The John 3 encounter begins with Nicodemus's acknowledgment: Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him. Yeshua's response bypassed the compliment entirely: most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus was confounded: How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? We should give Nicodemus the grace he deserves here. We have two thousand years of theology behind us. The concept of being born again was entirely foreign to his world — no one had ever said it before. He was not being dense. He was reasoning with the only framework available to him. The fact that he was there at all, and that he would later anoint the Savior's body, tells us everything about the quality of his heart.

Yeshua clarified: most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you: you must be born again. This is the Mem in its fullness — water and Spirit together. The open form of the letter, with its connection to the living waters of the Holy Spirit, is exactly what Yeshua is describing. John the Immerser had already testified to it: I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. He who sent me to baptize with water said to me: upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, that is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. Water and Spirit — John's witness corroborates what Yeshua told Nicodemus. When we receive Yeshua, we are born of water in baptism and born of the Spirit as the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us. Acts 2:38: repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Yeshua the Messiah for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Yeshua then pressed Nicodemus further: are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things? He was not shaming him — He was commissioning him. He was saying: you are one of the great teachers of the Jewish people. You need to go deeper. You need to receive this, because Israel needs to hear it from you. And Nicodemus did receive it. The challeng produced fruit.

Then came the revelation that would have shattered nicodemus's frame entirely: no one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. In Numbers 21:9, Moses fashioned a bronze serpent on a pole, and everyone who looked at it was healed of the serpent's bite. Yeshua took that image — which Nicodemus would have known from the Torah — and placed Himself in it. Whoever looks to Him who is lifted up will not perish. When He said in John 12:32: if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Me — He was speaking the language of the Mem, lifting the wave so that the crossing could be made. Every word Nicodemus heard that night was pointing him forward to the moment in John 19 when he would pour a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes over the body of the One who had changed him forever.

Yeshua concluded: for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. This is the Mem in its ultimate expression — the Living Water of God's love poured out for the entire world. He who believes in Him is not condemned. He who comes to the light, does the truth, and allows his deeds to be seen — that is the person who crosses through the wave and arrives on the other side. That is Nicodemus. That is the Mem.

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THE PSALM 119 SECTION FOR THE MEM

King David's homage to the Mem in Psalm 119, verses 97 through 104:

Oh, how I love Your Torah! It is my meditation all the day. You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word. I have not departed from Your judgments, for You Yourself have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

Oh, how I love Your Torah. That is the posture of the Mem — the deep love that comes from the Living Waters of the Word flowing through a yielded heart. David says he has more understanding than all his teachers because he meditates on the testimonies of God. The Holy Spirit — the same Spirit David received when he was anointed with oil — taught him. That same Spirit will teach every one of us. The Mem promises it: go deep into the Word, and deep will call unto deep, and the Holy Spirit will make you wiser than your circumstances.

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A PRAYER FOR THE MEM

May we receive the revelation and anointing of the Mem as we continue to set ourselves apart on our spiritual purification journey from the cross to the crown. Let us receive a double portion of the anointing of this letter as we pray and meditate upon its symbolic significance in the holy scriptures. May we envision Yeshua's Living Waters covering us in baptism as the Holy Spirit flows forever through our heart, mind, soul, and spirit — transforming us in our time of testing and transition. May we receive His unconditional love, His amazing and abundant grace, and His tender mercies as we cleanse and refine ourselves in the forty — the time of trial and new beginning. If the Ruach is calling you to baptism or to re-baptism, what better time than now? Passover is when He was crucified for all of our sins. Let us dive deep into the waters of the Mem, as deep calls unto deep, and the further we dive into the Fountain of the Word of Elohim, the closer we will get to the Father's heart. As it is written: deep calls unto deep at the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your waves have gone over me. Amen.

May YHWH bless you and keep you. May He make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you His everlasting shalom. My name is Chadwick Harvey. You are with Faithful Performance.