Category: Pastors Corner

Apocalypse Now?

As a kid I always loved looking at the pictures that you often could find in the back of bibles.  There would be the maps, but there would also often be representations of things like the Ancient Temple.  Encoded into space (architecture) would be a certain meaning. The entire place was to be holy, a place for prayer, so when the Jews made the court of the gentiles into a marketplace, Jesus gets properly mad.  Because right in that architecture was the idea that the gentiles were not to be excluded, even if they were not priests. All Israel was a nation of priests.  That nation itself would have divisions.  There would be the court of the women which also contained the place the Levites – the priestly tribe – sang as the gateway into the court of the Israelites which included the Altar.  The sacrifices were a public thing.  Then you had the temple proper with a court of priests – Levites and Aaronic.  The Holy Place – only Aaronic priesthood – with the table for the showbread, the lampstands and the altar of incense. And finally the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest would go containing the Ark of the Covenant. The encoded meaning wasn’t that each group was holier than the rest.  The encoded meaning was that we all need a mediator with the Holy God.  The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.  And upon the cross, when the veil of the temple was torn, we found our mediator in Jesus Christ. “Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? (Ps. 24:3 ESV)” The incarnate son.

Most churches still keep some of that old architecture.  Even modernist sanctuaries like ours have their nods.  The pulpit, lectern, and table are all a step up. The nave or ark of the church is separated from the narthex or the courtyards by doors.  The reason I’m thinking about these things is two-fold. The first is they help me make some distinctions. There are things I would write in this corner that I would probably not bring into a Bible Study.  And there are things that I’d bring into a bible study to ponder that I would not bring into the pulpit. There are appropriate places for business and rank speculation. The second is a bit of speculation from personal mediation that feels impossibly old.

We often say that our enemies are the devil, the world and our sinful nature.  And we have plenty of problem with these.  But if you read the Old Testament or study the BC world it feels like something else is different. I’d posit that the “something else” is what Jesus says in Mark 3:27 where the strong-man is bound, or in Luke 10:18 where Satan falls like lightning.  Apocalyptic Revelation talks about Satan bound with his only power being deception (Rev 12:13ff). Paul would say our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the powers and principalities (Eph 6:12), but those dark forces have been hampered for a long time.  The history of Israel and the ancient world shows us what happens when those forces are unbound. Paul reminds us in Romans 1 that the wrath of God revealed is when “God gave them up.”  When we exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship the creature instead of the creator.

The three “gods” – the unholy trinity if you will – were Baal, Molech and Asherah.  The ancient world was syncretistic, so those names would morph, but the symbols and offerings would often remain. Baal being the worship of pure power. Molech being the worship of destruction and death.  And Asherah being better know as Venus or Aphrodite, the worship of eros. When you see things like the statue recently installed over the Appellate Court building in NYC (I’m not putting that image here) something has changed.  When alongside Moses, Maimonides and other law givers is installed a golden image with horns and tentacles, something new-old is being worshipped.  Architecture and public art tell you how those in charge of a society would organize it.  For a long time we were organized on Christian principles.  What comes in when we turn our backs on those is not John Lennon’s Imagine.  What comes back are the spirits once cast out (Matthew 12:45).

But such things are the very purpose of books like Revelation or Jesus’ sermon in Matthew 24.  “See, I have told you beforehand.”  Christ is already victorious.  Your life is already hidden away with Christ.  Whatever comes we have no reason to fear.  Those old powers can do nothing but flail impotently against that. They are judged, the deed is done. We only await the final word that sends them away forever.

A Penitential Season (A Reflection on Lent)

Seasons and Holidays always have a chicken and the egg effect.  Is the season or holiday where it is because something happened then, or was there already a celebration of some sort that was infused with theological meaning?  The classic atheist taunt that Christmas was originally the Roman Saturnalia is an example. Which I’ve always taken as just strange.  What if it was, who really cares.  Add onto that the question of how strong must the theological meaning of the birth of Christ have been to completely take over a pagan festival?  The cynic might reply, “you think Santa Claus and black Friday aren’t a pagan celebration?” Yes, yes.

This type of question goes back to the OT feasts. There were three primary ones: Passover, Pentecost or Weeks, and Sukkot or Booths. The theological meanings are rather clear.  Passover was God bringing Israel out of bondage in Egypt.  Pentecost or Weeks was when Moses received the law on Mt. Sinai.  Sukkot’s theology is rooted in the wilderness wonderings and God’s providence for all Israel.  All three holidays also have an agricultural basis that the bible acknowledges.  Passover planting, Weeks the early wheat harvest (the Holy Land being a place of multiple harvests) and Sukkot the big harvest.  We live in a sacramental world. Everyday things are infused with the Spirit.

Lent’s chicken and the egg is something that we moderns probably forget. Your grand-parents, maybe your great-grandparents, certainly further back didn’t. By late February what had been stored for the winter was probably getting repetitive. Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras was the day you took out the last of the really good stuff from the larder, if you had any left.  Did you start the Lenten fast because of the theological meaning, or because all you had left in the pantry was wheat for bread and scraps for soup?

Living in a sacramental world I think can go both ways.  The material reality of our existence can point toward spiritual meaning.  Likewise a Spiritual truth can suggest a material practice.  In our world of material abundance I’m not exactly sure we’ve worked out what a penitential season means. Fasting can be meaningful, but it is certainly better when the entire community is doing it.  And not even Rome seems to have the ability to mandate the fast. The Spiritual truth that Lent captures is that we have all fallen short of the Glory of God. What a fitting material practice would be escapes me.  I’m often tempted to say we are all living a long lent. We are surrounded by a material abundance unimaginable to most of human history, yet far from being fat, dumb and happy, we are collectively the most medicated and depressed society ever. Man lives not by abundance, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  And when God withdraws his word, no amount of abundance can replace it.

Lent as a season not to give things up, but to pick things up anew would strike me as better. What practices have our abundance squeezed out? Has Netflix eaten our prayer?  Return to prayer.  Has the BMW payment squeezed out charity? Recommit to alms giving. Has fast food and business ended the family meal? Make room at the table for something from scratch that begins with prayer.  And if your family won’t join you, ask your neighbors, until someone accepts.  Lent as a season to choose the things that truly feed might be a meaningful material practice. If you try, let me know.

The End of the Epiphany Journey

I truly hope I am not stealing any of Pastor Kalthoff’s thunder here.  So I’m going to zoom out from the textual specifics to the end of the season. Transfiguration is the end of the season of Epiphany.  It starts back on the 12th night of Christmas staring at a strange star that has risen in the east.  That star asked the Magi a question: do you want to see what this means, or are you comfortable here?  Their journey is one of knowing something – a king has been born – but not knowing what that means.  And lots of things they assumed must be changed.  They head to Jerusalem and Herod, to be told to go to Bethlehem.  They are given a map, but they instead follow the renewed star, possible angel, that guides them. They offer gifts for a King, to peasants in a stable. They return home a different way.  The season of Epiphany is a season of seeing exactly who this Jesus is: Babe, Israel reduced to one, stand-in for us in the Jordan, miracle worker, preacher, Son of God.  And it ends with this eschatological vision of the Glory of the One and Only Son, full of grace and truth. In the season of Epiphany we have heard and seen and have come to know.

But so what?  This is one of my favorite phrases of all time.  Don Draper in Mad Men says it to his protégé Peggy who has found herself pregnant and unmarried in the late ‘50s.  Counseling her to get rid of it he says, “You will be surprised at how fast this never happened.”  And Peggy’s character, like her mentor Don, lives that out. The events of life seemingly never leaving a mark on either.  It is that way with many spiritual experiences. It’s the mystery of the seed that falls on rocky soil.  It springs up for a short time, but soon is gone. It has no root.  There is a list of once famous people who detailed their experience and their turn away from it: Paul Verhoeven (director), Barbara Ehrenreich (author), AJ Ayer (atheist philosopher).  In an instant they all knew something, and then left it and went back to their current lives. Knowing doesn’t mean willing to live. Epiphany leads us from the baby in the Manger to the Mountaintop experience.  We know.

And then Jesus hits us with the question.  Are you following me down this mountain?

The hymn I slotted as the sermon hymn is one of my favorite modern ones. Stanza 1 sings the story.  All hymns start in the biblical text.  With our voices we remember, we recall the experience, we make it real before us. Stanza 2 starts to step beyond the story.  Knowing and walking down from the mount, what does Jesus mean for us?  Mountaintop experiences are things we ponder in our hearts.  We don’t live in them like booths.  They live in us.  And if we have truly gained and kept their truth – not surprised at how fast they didn’t happen – they help us walk the valley in faith. And that valley is always the shadow of death. It is always the valley of the cross.  The only way out is through.  And you wouldn’t want to miss it.

The last stanza is the one that gets me every time.  It’s the prayer.  Lord, we have come to know.  We leave this mountaintop for Calvary. And we know this is good if not exactly how.  We also know that we would not move from this spot, not without your help.  Lord, transfigure our perception with the purest light that shines.  Recast our life’s intentions to the shape of your designs.  Let us find no other glory than what lies past Calvary. Guide our steps, our living, and our dying, and our rising, by your will.

We know. Do we follow?

(FYI: The Hymn Referenced is LSB 416 Swiftly Pass the Clouds of Glory. I’d post a link, but you are better off searching it yourself. Or coming to church to hear and sing it! The copyright prevents easy sharing.)

Rectification of Names

I understand that it can be tedious.  But somewhere between High School and my ordination I became a big fan of Confucius. Why you might ask.  Seems odd for a Lutheran Pastor. The biggest reason was his answer to the question: If you were made Emperor, what would be the first thing you would do?  Confucius’ answer was: the rectification of names.  What did he mean by that? All words being used would be clearly defined before they could be used.  In a united and functioning society nobody thinks about this because they all roughly share the same definition. Even in an early stage Weimar Republic people share enough definitions to communicate.  But then you get to the stage where people start electing Nazis to fix it.  Different groups have their own dictionaries.  Smart people learn to “code switch” knowing which dictionary to use by which group they are in. Which of course penalizes the less verbally adaptable.  And you find yourself in hot water because the dictionary changed overnight and you didn’t get the update.  Ancient China in the time of Confucius was at that point. And instead of electing Nazis to kill everyone not using the correct dictionary, Confucius thought there was a better way – the rectification of names.  Call things what they are with clear definitions first for to the good of everybody.

The second generation of the Lutheran Reformers – names like Chemnitz, Andrea and Chytraeus who you probably haven’t heard about – were good Confucians. Not only did you have a Roman Catholic dictionary and a basic Lutheran dictionary, you started to have Calvinist Dictionaries, and Radical Reformer dictionaries, and more important for them intra-Lutheran splits.  Their answer is something called the Formula of Concord.  The Formula is the last confessional work that all Lutheran pastors subscribe to as part of the Book of Concord.  It is the last binding dogmatic work of the Lutheran Church.  And it is almost completely a work of Rectification of Names.

Every place where Lutherans were fighting Lutherans would have its own article to address the argument.  The first part of every article is “The Status of the Controversy” which was a paragraph that defined words used and captured the basic argument between all sides engaged.  The Concordists would not allow disagreement to fester through the use of squishy terms that meant different things to different people.  Nor would they allow any group to not recognize their position.  After everyone agreed upon terms and what the argument was, they addressed the argument in two ways.  First, they made affirmative statements.  One of the famous Lutheran phrases comes from these, “We believe, teach and confess…”.  They set forward on the basis of scripture and plain reason what the doctrinal teaching of the church should be in regards to the controversy.  This usually took a few steps to really address it, but the point was concord – a true peace between people arguing, an agreement on truth.  After they affirmed what the true teaching should be, they condemned various false teachings in the air (“We reject and condemn…”).

How do we find ourselves in Weimar?  We allow people to change definitions and use private dictionaries. Instead of positively putting forward in the best way possible what we believe, teach and confess, we rely on tribal markers to sort good guys and bad guys.  (Oh, you aren’t using my dictionary, you go on the bad guy list.) Our politicians and church-politicians today, instead of saying “I’m for X” all compete to say nothing, hoping that you read into whatever they do, say what you think, and so vote for them. And maybe more importantly we never clearly state what is out of bounds.  Why do we find ourselves here?  Because saying things like “deeds, not creeds” sounds like a warm fuzzy. And for a while you can coast off of previously shared understandings or at least known boundaries. Because Weimar, at least early Weimar, is profitable to the powerful who can surf the dictionaries and attempt to enforce theirs. Making everything a power game of who has the biggest megaphone helps the powerful.

None of that is the Way of Jesus Christ who said things like: “whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. (Lk. 12:3 ESV)” and “have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. (Matt. 10:26 ESV)”  and “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. (Matt. 5:14 ESV)”  The way of Christ is the way of all hidden things being brought into the light.  The way of Jesus includes clear teaching, not the soft lights of Weimar to hide the things done in the darkness. 

What About My Dead Cat?

Our mid-week bible study was on the flood this week, so the combination of two by two and recently putting down a pet cat had me thinking about the animals.  It is a cliché question, “will I ever see my beloved pet again?”  And that question is usually treated in one of two ways.  The elder being questioned might simply answer “yes” from a caring but ultimately patronizing place.  It is what the questioner wants to hear, so you say it.  The flip side of this elder is the one who has read Aquinas and thinks it the height of spirituality to tell the questioner, “no, animals have a lessor spirit” thereby initiating them into higher spiritual knowledge.  But let me suggest that the biblical picture is more nuanced.  I’m still going to say yes, but this is more about the reasons why.

The first reason is that God created them and declared it good. “And God said, ‘let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds – livestock and creeping things and beast of the earth according to their kinds…and God saw that it was good.” To do away with something that is good would itself be an evil act. That is ultimately what Satan wishes to do, negate every good thing.  The good has its own existence from God.  All evil can do is attempt to negate it. But one day, that last evil, death, shall be put away and the Good shall be crowned.

The second reason follows that act of creation.  As Luther would add to his explanation to the first article of the creed, God not only made me and all creatures, but “he still preserves them.” The bible is full of passages about God’s care for the creatures of the earth.  My two favorites are from Jesus and Jonah.  Jesus takes the sparrow as his example.  I think he takes it because of its complete humbleness.  Nobody goes, “oooh, a sparrow.” Yet Jesus says, “are not 5 sparrows sold for 2 pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.”   A little bit later he will talk of the Ravens who have always had an air of woe about them long before Poe took up his pen.  “Consider the ravens, they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.”  God remembers even the sparrow and feeds the haunting raven.  But the one that sticks in my mind is from Jonah.  Jonah is sitting outside Nineveh, the work of preaching done, wanting and hoping for its destruction. The last line of the book is “should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many cattle.”  One gets the sense that Nineveh’s deliverance might be more because of those cattle than anything.  The animals are part of God’s continued providence.

But all of that simply points at stuff within this world.  What gives me a sense of the animals’ spiritual worth?  The funny story of Balaam gives me one point.  We talked a bit about that story in last week’s sermon.  Balaam’s donkey eventually prophesies to Balaam.  But before that there is this humorous scene of Balaam riding the donkey and an angel appears holding a sword.  The donkey can see the angel and it stops. Meanwhile Balaam is blind to the spiritual reality. The poor animal tries to save Balaam by turning aside.  Balaam responds by beating the poor beast.  But the donkey persists in trying to warn Balaam in multiple ways.  The animals can at times be more spiritually aware than we are.

When you layer on top of that potential spiritual awareness two other things.  First being that God’s covenant after the flood is not just with Noah, but is “an everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”  The animals are worthy of the covenant. The Apostle Paul talks in similar ways in Romans 8.  “All creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.”  All creation waits with eager longing for the revealing.  Those animals that are part of the Noahide covenant wait with longing for the final revelation and the freeing of our bondage. All creation has this hope.  If you aren’t going to be there, why hope for it?

I’ll finish this mediation by returning to Jesus’ word’s about the sparrows.  “They are remembered.  Not one of them is forgotten before God.” In this sense all those animals are very much like us.  Our hope is in God remembering his covenant. He has engraved us on his hand and will recall us from the pit.  The same type of statement is given about the sparrows sold for pennies for sacrifice.  God remembers them.

So I think that simple “yes” is correct.  But there are some mighty good reasons behind it.  Reasons that go to the heart of the Gospel.  The entire world is Gods, and he’s going to remake it all good.

How to Have an Argument

The season of Epiphany this year gives us a continuous reading from the book of 1st Corinthians.   Our Sunday morning bible study is using that as a springboard to study at least some of that letter a bit deeper.  The context of at least the first four (4) chapters of 1 Corinthians are divisions or arguments in the church.  And I’m not writing this up because I think or feel coming a great argument within Mt. Zion.  I’m writing this up because the time to think about arguments is when you aren’t having one.  When you are having them, all we sinful humans think about is winning them.

What Paul does in the first two chapters of First Corinthians is make a clear distinction between how arguments in the world take place and how they should take place within the church.  How they take place in the world is that we run to various forms of power.  We make appeals to authority: “I follow Paul…Apollos…Cephas…Christ.” And in making appeals to authority, we seek to trump whoever else has been claimed.  But in our claiming of these various authorities, we assert that they would disagree with each other.  Within the church this is out of bounds.  Paul does not disagree with Christ. We might not yet understand how they actually agree, but the fault is with our understanding, not the scripture or the apostles.  “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?” The answer is no.  The task is to understand why, repent and reform our lives together.

Anselm would call that “faith seeking understanding.” Paul in 1 Corinthians would just call it life under the cross. In the world, if we do not have an authority to invoke, or if all authorities are hopelessly corrupted, we would turn to a couple of other arguments: reason and practicality.  “Jews demand signs and Greeks wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.”  Now signs could be demands for miracles, but they are also just the pragmatic question “does it work?” If it does you should be able to show me something.  Likewise, we should be able to reason together.  The problem with these things in spiritual matters is that we are sinners and our vision is hopelessly clouded.  What is wisdom to us is foolishness to God.  Our natural ways will never bring us to God.  “No human being might boast in the presence of God.” Instead “we boast in the Lord.” Anything we know spiritually comes first as a revelation of Jesus Christ.  And the greatest revelation is that cross.  “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.  God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” Strength usually works. Wisdom is a good thing. But in spiritual matters? They will fail you.  Lean not on your own understanding, but have faith that Christ is the way and the truth.

Why is this the case?  Because “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.”  The indwelling of the Spirit is necessary.  Which you have from your baptism.  Faith is a prerequisite to arguing with each other correctly in spiritual matters.  Why? Because we then share the same Spirit.  We then “have the mind of Christ.”  If we are worldly, what we want to do is win the argument.  And the ultimate way to win is to destroy the other.  If we are spiritual we want together to receive the gifts that Christ has given us.  You have received the Spirit from God such that under the cross we might together remain reconciled to Christ and to each other.  Reconciliation, which is foolishness to those who have the Spirit of the World.

That basically brings you up to where we are in our study.  I’d invite you to join us on Sunday morning after snacks.

Three Points and a Poem

The old, by today very old, cliché about preaching was: three points and a poem.  I haven’t researched it, I’m too lazy to really establish it, but having read a lot of old sermons it strikes me as gaining its form in the late 19th century – a time when poets were still an important part of life.  And not just to egg-heads like me or emo-theater-kids, but the Psalms from the King James, and the Romantics (Byron and Shelley), and the occasional line from Virgil or Homer (or if you were more naughty from Martial’s epigrams) would be part of the common man’s existence.  They didn’t have TV to distract or the NFL to take away the day the church used to own. Those 19th Century divines, mostly Anglican, the Lutherans were still in German which I can’t read, would preach for an hour and wrap it up with a poem.  The form became the cliché in the mid-20th century.  By which time the preachers no longer had as much poetry memorized at their predecessors nor did they have a willing hour in the pulpit.  That and the demands of the parish itself were changing. Even if they were given an hour, the study necessary for that was no longer available.  The reasons are numerous, and we live after the deluge.

Personally I can’t imagine trying to create three points. As a homiletics prof said in an unguarded moment, “all we can handle is one.” And my stock of poetry is even less than my mid-century peers. I was only forced to memorize two poems in all my schooling plus the scattered verse I’ve assinged myself.  But I do have this stack of poems that I’ve saved along the way.  Saved dreaming of putting together a collection. But making no claim to being from a wide choice.  Most poetry, like most creative works, has meaning to you, your mother and maybe your wife. Editors of lit mags have favorites and favors to repay and sinecures to grasp hold of.  And my taste and desires are decidedly not the current lit mag editor’s taste. But a Dana Gioia, or a Mary Karr, or especially an A. E. Stallings occasionally passes through the filter simply on the power of their verse. 

And what is that power?  I’d say the same as the power of Scripture, capital T Truth.  Luther in his Heidelberg theses posits, “A Theologian of the Cross says what a thing is.”  He contrasts that theologian of the cross with a “theologian of glory” and the defining trait of the theologian of glory is to “call the bad good and the good bad.”  Why did poets fade from importance?  I’d say the same reason as pastoral theologians.  They stopped being vessels of truth.  They became masters of a colloquial phrase: polishing a…oops, I almost didn’t receive the call over things like that.  They put forward very pretty lies, because their faith in the Cross, and their faith in their audience to hear it, wavered.

A cry of the reformation was “Ad Fontes” – to the sources. To Luther and the boys that meant scripture and the original languages which they felt had been obscured by the pretty words of Philosophers and Scholastics and Prelates more concerned with paying for St. Peter’s than preaching the gospel.  I’ve spent more time than I’d like to say pondering what we’d say stands in our modern way.  What pretty lies do we tell ourselves?  And are we willing to grasp our cross, and call a thing what it is?  Or does the recently departed Christine McVie still have the anthem of the age, “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.”  Or as an old poet said, “humankind cannot bear very much reality.”

Solar Array (An Object Lesson)

The house that we bought had installed a rather large solar array.  Unfortunately, we learned about a month after moving in that something was wrong and it wasn’t working.  We learned this when the new electric bill came and there was a zero on produced electricity.  The frustration was doubled when the supposed fix was delayed for another month when the scheduled repairman bailed out on the initial date.  Other than the occasion to sin as several words got taken in vain over that time, it was also an occasion to learn a few things.  I did manage to learn that the installation was still on warranty, who the company was and how to contact them.  I learned that they provide both a website and a phone app that monitors and reports on solar production, to which I am now addicted checking the status.  I also learned a bit about the actual physical installation which I think is a possible if flawed object lesson in two types of righteousness or the righteousness of the law and that of the gospel.

I’ll say the solar array has three parts: the panels up on the roof, the wires and gauges, and something called an inverter. The panels produce direct current (DC).  The electricity that comes from APS is alternating current (AC). The DC produced has to be converted to AC to be used.  That is the purpose of the inverter. What was out on my array was the inverter.  So, when I got access to the reporting app, I could see Watts being produced by the panels, but it all went nowhere.  They were being sent into a non-working inverter.

Luther would talk about moral and civil righteousness.  Moral righteousness is that vertical standing with God.  Civil righteousness is our standing with each other. The only way we receive moral righteousness is by faith in what Christ has done.  The reason we can stand is because Christ has given us his righteousness that covers all our sin.  Civil righteousness works much differently, and it has some interesting quirks.  Civil righteousness is active.  We do it.  The real question is if what we are doing is truly righteous or just what we or our society think is righteous.

The law of God, like those solar panels, makes use of the light given.  The law is good and wise and tells us what is truly righteous.  But like those panels, the law by itself has no ability to produce usable power.   And what it does produce can be wasted.  We know what is right, but we don’t feel like doing it, or worse we twist it to support what I want to do.  By ourselves we are like those DC solar panels.  The light of the law wasted.  A direct current to nowhere good.

It is only by the indwelling of the Spirit creating faith in the work of Christ that creates something usable. That inverter is able to make two useful things out of the law. First is it able to make us aware of our sin.  When we look at the cross we become aware that however we have been counting righteousness, it doesn’t work.  Our righteousness with God is something that only comes through Christ.  The second thing it can do is start to move what we receive from God into the right directions with our neighbors. Without faith in Christ we might be producing a lot of DC current, but it does nothing.  It is only by that great inverter that the light of the law can be turned into righteousness.  We receive passively the moral righteousness of Christ, and we are then empowered, producing the right current, to love our neighbor.

Like all object lessons, it isn’t perfect.  I could pick it apart and probably declare myself heretical. But it does strike something core: “One thing is needful”. And without that faith everything is lost.

A Faintly Burning Wick He will Not Quench

There are these series of “songs” in the book of Isaiah often called the servant songs.  The most famous is the one most associated with the passion in Isaiah 52 and 53.  “Behold, my servant…shall be high and lifted up…he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows…”  Our Old Testament Lesson for this week (Isaiah 42) is another one of the servant songs.  And it contains one of the most fascinating descriptions in the Bible of the way that God will operate with men.

The first thing it does is make sure that we understand who and what we are dealing with.  “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.”  There are three unique things here that we should absorb.  The first is that the mystery of our election is tied up in the mystery of the Trinity.  The son is the only-begotten of the Father.  This is the one in whom the soul of the Lord delights – soul here meaning being or essence.  The delight of the Lord being with his people has always been tied up with his people being connected to the only-begotten son.  And from where does this delight come?  The choosing. This one is my chosen.  And this chosen has chosen his own.  As John says at the start of his gospel, “given the right to become Children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (Jn. 1:13 ESV),” And for what have they been chosen?  They are servants of the most high.  Now it is the paradoxical nature of this God that he raises up his servants.  And the one who is the servant of all now sits at the right hand of God.  The church is the servant of Christ, his chosen, and the delight of his eye in an analogous way to the son and the Father.

How is this made known?  “I will put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations.” The Spirit was placed upon Jesus in his baptism.  There is a long-standing fight between the Western and the Eastern churches over the Nicene Creed.  The Eastern one confess that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.  The Wester adds: and the Son.  The Spirit placed upon Jesus in His baptism then proceeds from the Son to us in our baptism.  He took our baptism, so that we might receive his.  Just as Jesus was anointed by the Spirit for his service, we have been anointed by the Spirit for our service. And what is this service? To make known to the nations what the justice of the Lord is.

And all of that brings us to the toughest verses.  How is this done?  Can we bring this justice to the nations by brute force? What about by the wisdom of the world?  “He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.”  All of the straightforward ways of power and authority of the world are to be shunned.  The gospel proceeds by “left-handed” ways. It is not that the gospel denies truth and justice.  No, “he will faithfully bring forth justice.  He will not grow faint or be discouraged.”  This is the same God who “created the heavens and stretched them out.” His law stands.  But that rule is to be accepted and longed for.  “The coastlands wait for his law.” Because Christ will not have the might of the law crush the weak. Christ has chosen us and his election is sure.  That “left-handed” way is by faith.  The Servant has chosen us and the will of God will not be confounded.  Our faith is not in vain.   The One who made all things, will make them all new in due time.  “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.”

God operates with us by telling us exactly what he has done.  By giving us His servant “as a covenant for the people.”  And all those who have faith in this covenant are the chosen, those in whom the soul of God delights.

A Christmas Season

“Love sought is good, but given unsought better.” – Olivia, Act 3, Scene 1, Twelfth Night

That line is from Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, otherwise known as Epiphany. You might have been forced to read it usually as a sophomore.  The play has two themes that play on Epiphany.  The first is wisdom and foolishness, or what is wise and what is foolish.  The second – like most of Shakespeare’s comedies – is about the true nature of love.  Olivia thinks she is being wise playing a “courtly love” game which ends with her foolishness of falling in love with a woman dressed as a man.  And it is all played as a farce. Shakespeare’s comedies have all kinds of troubles today.

I guess I blame Reformed Protestantism.  If you followed Calvin or Zwingli, they more or less ditched the church year.  Every Sunday was the Lord’s Day.  Elevating any day as a Holy Day was Judaizing (using Paul’s term from Galatians.) And while they have a point, every Sunday is a little Easter, life is not quite that flat.  Romans 14: 5-6 should have solved that.  But the United States was largely a Reformed Protestant project, so we get Christmas Day and grudgingly Easter (although that is disappearing into Spring Breaks not always around Holy Week), but we’ve lost the seasons.

The season of Christmas is twelve days, Dec 25th – Jan 5th.  The carol The Twelve Days of Christmas is an echo of that.  It might also be a Roman Catholic crypto-polemic against the Reformed erasing.  And the entire 12 days were often something of boozy hazy time ending with a big party on Twelfth Night when gifts were exchanged.  After all, it was the coming of the Magi that brought the gifts.  Hispanic Cultures still maintain a bit of this as Tres Reyes.  The Protestant Work ethic couldn’t imagine 12 boozy days, so we pack up the tree the day after.

But that’s enough dissembling, or maybe I’m just in a Christmas Season mood and can’t think straight. Olivia’s middle of the play statement captures something about the Christ child and the love of God.  It is good that we love God.  For God has sought our love.  But the better is that he has loved us unsought. When we were lost in darkness, God sent His light.  Whether that light is the fuller light of prophetic revelation, like “out of Egypt I have called my son” which ties the entire story of Israel to this Israel reduced to one, or a light given in a star to a bunch of foolish astrologers, God sought us out wise and foolish, while were all in the dark.  He gave us His love unsought.  When we were still sinners, Christ loved us.

The church built in a season, and then a fuller Epiphany season, to absorb the immensity of that truth.  She can proclaim the reality in an hour.  Your head can hear the message.  But the heart doesn’t always work on the same timetable. And lots of wisdom and foolishness happens as love moves from head to heart.