If you’ve made it this far in this series, you know about the diamond on the carrot on my 30th birthday in August 2017. You also know about the wild affirmation of God’s “aloha love” in the Jordan River during my spiritual birthday that following October. Now I want to tell you about how I made Bar Mitzvah on an airplane the next August, right before I turned 31. Yes, age 30 was quite interesting. But my hope in sharing this last story is simple. I want to tie together what I believe is a beautiful and inspiring revelation of God’s heart for humanity . . .

A Surprising Question

I was on my way home from a conference in Pasadena flying United Airlines. By the sheer grace and goodness of God, I offered up my window seat to a girl whose boyfriend was sitting in a middle seat in front of us. He was sitting next to a friend of mine who attended the conference with me, so that made the exchange a little easier. Now before I share what happened next, here’s some important context of what was going on in my life that particular summer. 

I’d recently reconnected with my Jewish grandfather on my mother’s side. During the conference I shared the story with people (too much to get into here) and how I’m technically Jewish because this is through my mother’s line. I hadn’t seen my grandfather in many years but we planned a visit (during my upcoming birthday when I turned 31) so he could meet my wife and children for the first time. 

So anyway, I changed my seat and decided to just watch a movie. (It’s important to note that this film had a surprise ending involving the main character learning about their adoption.) As I’m watching this film, I suddenly hear a man’s voice coming from the aisle. He was asking a question: “Are you Jewish?” 

“…Excuse me… Are you Jewish?”

I had my headphones in so it took a moment to register that the man was talking to me. So I paused the movie and looked up to see an Orthodox Jew who had a young child with him. I said… “Um, yes…”

Of course, I thought of all the conversations I’d just had throughout the conference about my family history. The man smiled at me and asked if I ever made my Bar Mitzvah. To this I replied, “No.” To which he replied: “Would you like to have a one-minute Bar Mitzvah?”

A one-minute Bar Mitzvah?

Ok, at this point I started to get a little nervous, but something happened that helped me see God’s hand in this. Since I switched seats, I now had immediate feedback from my friend who happened to have a strong prophetic gift. As a result, they immediately encouraged me to go ahead with the Bar Mitzvah. They felt that God was completely in it. Honestly, I may not have done it if I didn’t have that encouragement because I felt a little strange and didn’t know the full implications of what this was about. 

So, stumbling over my words, I responded to the nice Jewish man with the little child and told him I was willing to have a Bar Mitzvah. I added, however, that I was a believer in Jesus. He said that was fine and proceeded to give me instructions. He told me to stretch out my right arm so he could wrap a special cord around it. (I’m skipping some very funny details of how this all happened somewhat over the lap of another man awkwardly sitting next to me.) As he wrapped the cord around me, he told me to repeat a Hebrew prayer. All I remember of this prayer was the final line where we said together, something along these lines: Mashiach Come!

Messiah, come… 

Once I said that, the man gently took off the cord, smiled once again, and walked away, proclaiming I had made my Bar Mitzvah. And at that moment, I felt the presence of God in an incredibly clear way.  

I turned to my friend and we figured out a way to have communion. It was a holy moment, beyond my understanding at the time. However, I did have an inkling of what was transpiring. God was confirming some deep things I had been wrestling with theologically over the past few years. 

The Full Rights of Sons

Leading up to this point I had been learning about a different way of understanding biblical “adoption” and how it was more like a Bar Mitzvah ceremony than the act of taking in a child who is not of your biological origin. I explained this in the last article. In a Bar Mitzvah (or the Roman ceremony of the “toga virilis”) there is a moment that represents a child becoming an adult and taking hold of mature rights and privileges. When you connect this idea to “the Spirit of Adoption” mentioned in Scripture, a whole new world of understanding opens up. 

Now I share this story of making my Bar Mitzvah (as I watched a film with a surprise ending regarding “adoption”) as the final part of three incredible things that happened during my 30th year of life. When we took communion on the plane afterward, my friend told me that this was a sign of something much bigger than myself. This was something for the entire church. 

The day I turned 30, the day of celebrating my natural birth, God affirmed the beautiful message of “original blessing” and the diamond that lays inside of every single person, even from birth. Then, during the time of my spiritual birthday, I found myself in the Jordan River at 30 years old experiencing a confirmation of the Father’s love (but with Hawaiian handwriting on the wall as opposed to a descending dove). This was an affirmation of what happens in salvation when a person “repents and is baptized.” They were already a child of God, but as they embrace that relationship and receive the empowering love of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit confirms with their spirit that they are indeed God’s child (Romans **8:16**). The Spirit of God comes and makes them into mature sons and daughters. This is what adoption and the full rights of sonship is all about. 

So this reality was beautifully confirmed by a third witness right before I ended my 30th year as I found myself making my Bar Mitzvah on an airplane.

Yes, that really happened. 

As I’ve said before, signs and wonders like these do not create new “doctrines.” When they are truly from God, they help a person open up to what is already in the Word (though perhaps hidden behind religious filters, much like Peter on the rooftop and the ensuing “coincidence” that helped him see God’s heart for the “heathen” of the world). 

The message here is that every person is a child of God. I guess this isn’t that controversial, but in some circles it’s a hard pill to swallow. Many believe you need to be “born again” to become a child of God. But the reality is that you need to be born anew into the fullness of the identity that was already yours before the foundation of the earth (Ephesians 1:4).

This is what the apostle Paul meant when he said it was his aim and vision to “present every person perfect in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). That word “perfect” is really not the best translation for what Paul is saying there. The word really means “mature.” The idea is that everyone in the world is like an “infant” in Christ. We are all in Him, in a hidden way. In Him we live and move and have our being. There is a seed and promise of Christ’s life that lays like glorious potential with diamond-like brilliance in the soil of our lives. But it takes a person turning to God … turning to the waters of faith (signified by baptism) … to awaken that seed and come into mature sonship and daughterhood. THAT is what salvation is. And this salvation is meant to grow into a fuller and richer experience all throughout the “Christian life.”

I share these stories because there is a world that absolutely needs two things. They need the revelation that they beloved children of God, no matter what. I don’t care if they call themselves Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Israeli, Palestinian, American, Martian… They are a child of God, each one, and the diamond of Christ is hidden within.

Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. 
(Colossians 3:11 NIV)

And yet these children of God all across the world have been held captive by darkness and there is only way to find freedom. It comes through the truth that was revealed and redeemed by the world’s Mashiach. 

This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
(1 Timothy 2:3-4 NIV)

In other words, people are called to wake up – i.e. repent! In this change of mind and turning to the Father, a spiritual adoption takes place. A divine Bar Mitzvah unfolds. (*Bat Mitzvah for the ladies!) The Holy Spirit, who was always there, hovering and waiting for the Word to be received, comes and fills a person, empowering them to be their true self; a self that was hidden in the heart of God before the first spark of fire touched the cosmos.

And this is our mandate as believers . . . to go out and awaken the world to this truth so that we might present every person mature and alive in their full identity as God’s children. 

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(For those interested, here is a link to a scholarly article dissecting this particular understanding of the biblical meaning of “adoption.”)