BY HIS DUST

“May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.” This is an ancient Jewish blessing.

What this blessing means is that one should walk so closely behind their teacher that the dust from his sandals is kicked up and covers your clothes. It is a full commitment to not only learn your Rabbi’s ways, how he eats, how he speaks, how he lives, learning the full breath of his teachings but also to become intimate with the very rhythm and pulse of his heartbeat.

Jesus was the Rabbi of the twelve and they were covered in His dust.

It wasn’t only the dust of the road, but it was the dust of long and lonely paths. They were coated in the dust of joy but also in the thick of heartbreak and of forgiveness and resurrected life.

They learned to do from what they had seen Him do.

They learned to receive by watching Him receive.

They learned to give by watching Him give.

They learned to move as one with their Rabbi, even after He had left them to walk their own roads.

We long to be about that life, but we are concerned by being made dirty by the dust. We want His power but not the deep breaking process that is required. We want victory but not the vulnerability that precedes it.

From those days to today, His paths have not changed. He still walks the same roads and He kneels in the same dust and loves the broken and the weak in it. He made mud from the dust so that a blind man might see. His steps were ordered but were slow so that the lame might keep step with Him.

It is one thing to watch the Rabbi walk by and it’s one thing to know about the Rabbi but it is something entirely different to walk intimately behind the Rabbi. To become covered in His dust and to walk the rocky and broken paths.

Come, be clothed in His dust. And may you today and all your days be covered in the dust of your Rabbi.