Category: Pastors Corner

A Life Well Lived?

It is Lent, so I get to be a little more somber. And Satan’s big lie to Eve is the bald assertion that “you will not surely die.” And it is a completely unfair lie.  Did Eve even have a concept of death?  Or maybe a better way of expressing that would be that Eve only had a concept of death.  The naked reality of it is not something she was acquainted with. So even if she had a concept, she was working in the realm of theory.  And we all know what happens to theory when it meets reality.

I watched a recent interview with former Senator Ben Sasse. He is 54 years old, about the same age as I am. Also has three kids with the youngest being 15.  This past December he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and given a plus/minus of 90 days.  He has not “given up” as the saying goes. A podcast he is recording with another friend is entitled Not Dead Yet.   He has turned himself over to an experimental treatment delivering massive amounts of chemo drugs (i.e. poison) to the cancer. But the reality is still the reality. Unlike my 80-something father whose pancreatic cancer was caught in nascent stages because his appendix just happened to go bad and the surgeon saw something, Mr. Sasse has it all over including in the spinal column which requires massive doses of morphine for the pain. The entire interview is worth your time to watch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8MO-i3CBZQ, Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson) and to listen to what he has to say.  And I don’t pass it along lightly.  He is that exceedingly rare voice who is honest enough with himself, and open enough to share, and verbal enough to express it.  And his message is that most rare of things – good.

It got me thinking about comparable works on grief and death and advice to the living and they are rare. The poets have an advantage: John Donne’s Death Be Not Proud and Dana Gioia’s Planting a Sequoia come to mind. Both of those are by people who have a functional theology and are struggling to live it. From a different place of white hot rage Mary Karr’s Face Down.  “What are you doing on this side of the dark?…” Now Ms. Karr also has a theology, or she did last I knew, but sometimes it takes a while to travel from head to heart.

The prose writers are at a disadvantage. I know quoting C.S. Lewis is getting to be a cliché, but A Grief Observed is without peer.  Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy was maybe the first Christian work on the subject of “A Good Death” or “Advice for Living from those at Death’s Door” written as he awaited the carrying out of his death sentence. Any critique I have of it says more about me than the work, but it’s a bit too much consolation and philosophy, compared to Lewis who truly lets you in the door.   There are some others.  Richard John Neuhaus attempted it in As I Lay Dying.  But he survived, and I always had a feeling he “knew” he would survive.  He was already thinking about the book he could write as he lay dying. Tolstoy fans would put forward A Confession.    Marcus Aurelius has portions in his Meditations. Simone Weil and Joan Didion both attempted and they have their adherents. But it is a hard thing to pull off.  You have to be remote enough from yourself to think and translate, while being close enough to feel.

That is where Mr. Sasse’s interview excels. He has something to say while he is on death’s door. For all of us creatures of dust, who might want to gather our rosebuds while we may, it is worth your time.

Olympic Training

I love the Olympics. I’m happy that the Winter Olympics are the closest I get to snow anymore. But there are two things that only the Olympics portray clearly.  The first thing is a law of the universe. There is always someone faster, and they are probably faster by a lot.  For example take the 1000m speed skating final.  American Jordan Stolz won it rather easily finishing a half second ahead of the silver medalist. That silver medalist himself was a half second ahead of the bronze. Now a half second may not sound like much, but that is roughly 8 meters behind which is 26 feet. The next half second differential brings you all the way down to 8th place. The 2nd best US athlete was 2.2s off or 111 feet. Now think of it this way.  That silver medalist was from the Netherlands, a country of 18 million people whose national identity is based on speed skating – Hans Brinker and the silver skates. That guy had never lost a race in his life.  He spent high school lapping people. Just to finish 26 feet behind the winner. The bronze medalist was from China, a country over a billion people. The fastest skater amongst a billion people about 50 feet in the ice-dust.

Now I point this power law nature of reality out for two reasons.  The first is roughly akin to the 2nd use of the law.  There is obviously a futility built into the law.  Everyone loses. Yes, someone wins.  Jodan Stolz. He even broke the Olympic record.  It might last 4 to 8 years.  Someone will be faster.  Everything won by the law fades.  “All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away (1 Cor. 9:25 NLT).”  But the second reason I point to this power law nature of reality is that not a single skater out there, even Daniel Milagros of Spain, last place 5 seconds or 230 feet behind would say all the preparation all the self-discipline of training was worthless. Yes, the law crushes us.  There is always someone faster.  But there is also something good in it.  We know where we stand.  We have done our duty to the best of our ability. We have run the race.

Now the apostle Paul – himself seemingly a fan of the games – turns our turns out attention from their race to ours.  “All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. (1 Cor. 9:25 NLT)” If those athletes compete with such vigor for something that is gone tomorrow – Eric Heiden was in attendance at Stolz’s race.  Does anyone remember what Eric did? –  if they do it with joy for a prize that will fade away, should we not equal that for an eternal prize?

Now a good Lutheran might be turning this argument back to the futility of the law.  According to the law we all lose. And the apostle has not suddenly become a Pelagian.  His point is more subtle. There is a personal factor in it. “I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified. (1 Cor. 9:27 NLT).” But he universalizes that personal factor.  “I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground,,, (1 Cor. 10:1 NLT).” Paul is pointing to the experience of Israel after the Exodus. God with grace and power and love had freed them from the house of slavey.  They were baptized in the Sea and ate the spiritual food (manna) and drink the water from the rock which was Christ.  Paul’s laying out the similarity.  You were baptized and you have tasted the body and blood of Christ. “Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. (1 Cor. 10:5 NLT).”  They disqualified themselves.

The Corinthians that Paul was writing too were all about their freedom in the gospel.  Yet they were neglecting their training.  “You say, “I am allowed to do anything”– but not everything is good for you. You say, “I am allowed to do anything”– but not everything is beneficial. (1 Cor. 10:23 NLT).”  It is not that the training saves us.  It’s that we want to finish the race. There were two guys in that race who were disqualified (Gabriel Odor and Ziwan Lian). They impeded fellow racers in fact. Ziwan probably enough to deny another man a medal.  The race is long. But we can’t let it sap us of the joy of being there. Because we run not for a wreath that fades, but an eternal one. A weight of glory which we can’t really measure today.  Not the fading strains of the national anthem – which they don’t even show anymore.  But the eternal music of the spheres.

What is a Fast?

Lent is still a little over a week away, but our Old Testament lesson is around the idea of fasting.  Uniquely unsuited as I am to talk about fasting as the scale is long past a number I don’t like and is heading to don’t make me look at it territory. The idea of fasting has always taken up the same space in my head as how fast can I lose some weight?  It’s a two for one deal, right?  I lose weight and I get some spiritual rewards.

Even though I have much easier access to calories than the ancient Israelites, that two for one idea seems to be a human universal.  The lesson (Isaiah 58:3-9) opens up with God quoting back to Israel their prayers.  “Why have we fasted, and you not see?  Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?” Already in the questions you can discern a dual purpose.  The fast is not just a meaningful spiritual practice in itself, nor is it a fulfillment of the law, but it is carried out in order to capture God’s attention or favor.  Hey, I fasted, why didn’t you give me some boon?

And God answers them. He calls out the multiplicity of their intentions. They fast, but they backfill the loss of food with some other pleasure. They give up a meal but take a meal from their workers.  They cover quarrelling and fighting and injury with sackcloth.  I think the modern word for this is virtue signals.

And then God pushes them.  “Is such the fast that I choose?…Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?”  The outward signs are there: Humbling oneself, sackcloth and ashes, bowing with a low head.  But does God want the outward signs?  Does God need the outward signs?  If you want God to see, is this what he is looking for?

The answer is of course no.  Although Jesus might say something like: you ought to have done justice and mercy without neglecting the outward form (Matthew 23:23).  God explains to them what acceptable fasting looks like.  “This is the fast that I choose (Isaiah 58:6):” “loose the bonds of wickedness” which I would gloss as free people from Satan’s tyranny, “undo the straps of the yoke” which would be the proclamation of free grace, to “let the oppressed go free.”  God has a right to eat from his creation. He made the vineyard or the garden.  He has a right to the crop. But the LORD has broken the yoke. He fasts from his return and gives it to us freely.  The kingdom is ours, and if the Kingdom is ours, will God not give us bread?

And since we have been given from the LORD’s fast freely, how should we act?  “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry?…when you see the naked, to cover them, and not hide from your own flesh?” That last phrase I think captures something about our ways.  When we see someone without, not because they are fasting or going without as a means of taming the body but because they just lack, what do we do?  We turn away.  We deny that this is our brother, our own flesh.  We hide ourselves from such because the specter is too grim. It brings up our great fears.  And the need makes demands from us.  We are much more comfortable play-acting humility and obedience than doing it.

But this is the fasting that God is after.  He has given us the largesse of his fast.  And we are to share that with our neighbor. This is the fast that the LORD sees. A living out of the grace that we have been given.  A love of all God’s creatures. A faith to walk humbly with God. “Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say ‘Here I am.’”  

Justice and Mercy

No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. – Micah. 6:8 NLT

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? – Micah. 6:8 ESV

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?  – Micah. 6:8 KJV

If you’ve been in one of my bible studies you’ve probably caught my not-quite-rant about translations. It is a not-quite-rant because all of our translations are fine. You will get the meaning. But they tend to do one thing.  They sand down distinctions.  If you are doing woodwork, sanding things smooth is good.  If you are doing words, it’s the distinctions that matter.  And sometimes I wonder if the translation committees have read the bible. The only one I never wonder that about is the old King James.  Those divines knew their Bible.   They may not have always known their Hebrew or Greek that well.  They certainly didn’t have that great work of 19th and 20th century scholarship – the compilation of every known manuscript. And their language is certainly dated today, but they knew their language which is still ours at a distance.

I fall into this not-quite-rant because our Old Testament lesson this week ends with one of the most quoted lines of the entire Old Testament. But the people who usually quote it, and the circumstances in which it is quoted, are often at odds with its true meaning.

The minor prophets, the 12 works collected at the end of our Old Testament, are compressed jewels from the beginning of the prophetic time until its close. Micah as a prophet overlaps Isaiah.  He starts with the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and by the end is looking at the fall of the Judah.  And the charge in Micah 6 is Judah’s complaints against God. Judah is essentially saying to God, “What have you done for me lately?” And God has decided to respond.  “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!” And the LORD recalls the highpoints of what he has done for them: redeemed you from the house of slavery, lead you to and gave you the promised land, brought blessings out of the mouths of those who wanted to curse you, gave you the sacrificial system yet not made that sacrificial system everything.  “Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? (Micah 6:7).” And unlike the nations around them the LORD never requires your firstborn. The emphasis on all of this is the LORD has bestowed on his people his grace first.  When they didn’t deserve anything, they were given it. And what does the LORD desire?  The LORD insists that he has been clear.

Even if our translators have sanded things down they all get the question: What is good?  “The LORD has told you what is good.”  All the translations get that.  What they mess up is the exquisite balance. The old King James gets it – “do justly, and love mercy.” There is always a tension between justice and mercy.  Able’s blood for vengeance pleaded to the skies, but the blood of Jesus for our pardon cries, as the hymn puts it. And neither side is wrong. The LORD requires doing Justice. Contrary to the rioters in MN, we as a nation have laws that should be enforced – do justice. The LORD requires that we love mercy. Contrary to the harshest voices who would freely say “deport abuela,” we should love to temper that justice with mercy.  And nobody has ever said this tension is easy to live or resolve. When you do not do justice – like leaving the borders open and letting in 20M people who do not have a legal right – you create a mess that compounds.  And without someone desiring to grant mercy, you end up in the lex talionis where everyone loses eyes, or lives. With competing claims of “say her/his name.”

I’m sorry ESV, kindness doesn’t cut it. We are not asked to love kindness, but mercy.  I’m sorry NLT, but “what is right” doesn’t cut it.  We are asked to do justice. We ourselves have been given grace.  What the LORD requires is not like that ancient law that kills. We walk in grace. In that tension of justice and mercy is how we humbly walk with God.

The Preaching of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18

(ESV) For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

(KJV) For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

(NLT) The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.

Did you ever tell your kids to do something. It was somewhat complex so you had them repeat what you said back.  They repeat it back fine and you leave for work.  And then when you get home they have done something so mind bogglingly different you wonder if words mean the same thing?  Maybe that is just a me thing, but I think it is a shared experience.

Even when you speak the same language, supposedly, and you are taking care in communication, exactly what is being said can be understood in different ways.  Now layer on translation from one language to another. And I’m not rehearsing the difficulty to say it is impossible. We reverse the curse of Babel all the time. I’m thinking about this for three reasons.

  1. In the young adult study on the Augsburg Confession, one of them asked a question roughly “why do we Lutherans make it so hard by disagreeing with everyone?” And the answer is not so much that we disagree with everyone, or that we make it rougher.  It is that the Lutheran tradition has thought long and hard in multiple languages, and in our deepest doctrine we are trying to be exact.  Because doctrine is like the answer book.  You may not believe it just yet. You might not understand how you get there. But that is part of life.  We believe things because we are told them all the time, and we set off to understand why or how.
  2. Reversing the curse of Babel is the work of Pentecost. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Word goes out and it does not return empty because the Holy Spirit is at work in the world.
  3. The deepest words are not given to us in words, but in the actions of a person.  The person of Jesus Christ. The Word made flesh.

Up top I’ve put up three different English translations of the same verse.  It’s a verse that is the Apostle Paul’s understanding of the gospel.  It is preceded by Paul’s understanding of his purpose or mission. “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Cor. 1:17 ESV)” Paul was a preacher. A preacher might use philosophy on occasion, but the core of the apostle’s message didn’t need it – “not with eloquent wisdom.” The core of the message is the cross.  The gospel is the message of the cross.

And that message…or the preaching…or the word…of the cross is always paradoxical. You can look at the cross and see another dead peasant who didn’t understand the way of the world. Pilate had rendered his judgement, and this is what always happens when you become inconvenient to power. Empire…power always wins.  The cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.  But if you have ears to hear the preaching.  That cross is the power of God.  The power of God that doesn’t work in a straightforward right-handed way, but it sneaks by with the left hand. It exposes the power of the world for what it is, that which would kill the innocent, even the innocent Son of God.  And it proclaims the steadfast love of God for sinners. Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is power of God.

Meditation on The Law – Psalm 19

Once upon a time, the liturgy started with the Introit. You can probably hear “enter” in Introit. It was that entrance hymn. Confession and absolution were done privately prior to attending service instead of our corporate confession.  Our opening hymn, or processional hymn, is really a duplication of the Introit. Think of it this way. The Psalms were the original hymnbook.  The Divine Service of the Word grew out of the Synagogue worship. So the opening hymn, the Introit, typically comes from the Psalms.  Over the centuries it got handed to the choir to chant.  And in our case has become a call and response spoken act. That Introit is meant to encapsulate the theme of the entire service.  When we didn’t all carry calendars with us in our phones or have them on every wall the weeks of the year were often known by the first word or phrase of the Introit as they were standardized across all of Christendom. After the antiphon, this week might have been “The Heavens Declare” week.

That comes from Psalm 19:1-14.  What do the Heaven’s declare?  And how are they declaring?  According the Psalmist they declare the Glory of God.  And it is the mere existence of the sky that proclaims his handiwork.  The Scriptures are consistent.  We – mankind – can look at creation and know there is a creator.  We can also know by looking at creation that this creator is glorious. And the scriptures are equally as clear that this is not a subtle or hidden speaking. “Day to day pours out speech…there is no speech whose voice is not heard…the voice goes out through all the earth.”  You can call this natural revelation.  You might call it the natural law. Wherever we go we can perceive the natural workings of God.  They are as persistent and as dependable as the sun.  “In them [these naturally proclaimed words] he has set a tent for the sun…and like a strong man runs its course with joy.”

But those natural words that we all live and move and have our being within are not all the words that God has shared with us. He has also revealed to us his law.  “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.  The testimony of the LORD is sure, make wise the simple.” And the Psalmist continue praising and extoling what that revealed law does: enlightens the eyes, endures, shows truth, refines.  “By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.”

But the meditation upon the law – whether that be the glory of Almighty God shown forth in creation, or the perfection of the revealed law, the commandments of the LORD – has a flaw. “Who can discern his errors?” The glory is beyond my understanding. The keeping of the revealed law is deeper than I can understand my own heart. My own heart works against me.  Hiding its purposes. Convincing me of falsehood and foolishness. Hiding the truth from myself.  “Declare me innocent from hidden faults, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.” The meditation of the law leads all of us to that place where we know our sinfulness, even if we don’t know it’s depth or reach.  We need a savior.  One who will ‘declare us innocent..keep us back.”  One who will free us from what has enslaved us.  “let sin not have dominion over me.”

The Psalmist leaves it there.  His petition is to God to deliver him.  And he trusts in God – “O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” He does not know the how, but he has faith that God shall redeem him.  But to you has been proclaimed the fullness of the story. You know your rock and redeemer are Jesus Christ. We share the faith of the Psalmist that God has done this. But we know the how. The cross. And His son who hung on it. As the Baptist will point out in the Gospel lesson.  “Behold, The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Here is the one who has moved us from the dominion of sin into his Kingdom.   

Divine Justice

The book of Isaiah has four sections that get called the “Servant Songs.” They get called that because they all begin with or incorporate the phrase “behold my servant.”  They catch the ear because they make clear the purpose and method of the messiah.  The later ones – Isaiah 50:4-9, Isaiah 52:13-53:12 – are more attuned to the Lent and Easter seasons with that last one practically carrying the season.  “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isa. 53:3 ESV)”  And yet it ends with not only the servant’s vindication, but his deliverance of many. “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isa. 53:11 ESV).”  But the earlier ones – Isaiah 42:1-9, Isaiah 49:1-6 – are more attuned to Epiphany.  The second one is about the servant as “the light for the nations (Isaiah 49:6)” which gets quoted both in Acts and reflected in Simeon’s song, The Nunc Dimittis. Our Old Testament Lesson today is the first of these songs and is clear about the purpose and method of the messiah.

The purpose of the messiah is “to bring forth justice to the nations.”  Now I don’t think what we think about when we hear the word justice is all that different than what those ancient Israelites would have thought.  ‘No Justice, No Peace” as the saying goes.  And there is always clamor in the streets.  And if not in the streets themselves, in the warfare – both the kind with bullets and the kind with ballots. Justice is a word that depends upon whether we want it for ourselves or for others. Justice for ourselves is give us something. Justice for others is take it from them or hurt them for me. And that is not to dismiss the hurts perpetrated that are injustice. Ancient Israel wanted vengeance against the nations.  They wanted the restoration of the Kingdom and tribute to flow to them. So when God promises a servant who will bring forth justice to the nations, sweet catnip to the ears.

But the methods of this servant do not look anything like our justice. Unlike the clamor in the streets, “He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the streets.”  We live in what is often called the attention economy. There are literally millions of people who are shouting into the void for your attention.  I saw I believe a Pew survey of high schoolers asking what they wanted to be when they grew up.  The number one answer was “youtube-er.” The servant sung about by Isaiah is literally the opposite of our influencers. The Spirit that rests upon him empowers the work.  It starts as small as a mustard seed. It starts with calling 12 to follow. When you hear it, know that is your invitation. “The coastlands wait for his law (Isaiah 42:4).”  Everything the servant does, he does in his own time.  And you cannot rush it.

Unlike our justice which is usually lightly veneered revenge or about re-dividing a fixed amount of goods, this servant promises two things.  “The bruised reed he will not break” and “he who created the heavens and stretched them out…will take you by the hand and keep you.”  Our justice is so often about scarcity and fear. We parcel out death.  But the Justice of the servant is bottomless. He brings life. “He gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk in it.” The Spirit that was upon him is given to us.  The eyes that are blind see, the prisoners in the dungeon are brought out.  Those who sit in darkness a light shines. And there is no limit to this uncreated light.

Matthew points out that this is exactly how Jesus worked (Matthew 12 which ends with a quote of this servant song). Our experience of justice in a fallen world is so distorted that this sounds fantastical. We’d never believe it if it came out of nowhere. When Jesus came it still felt like coming out of nowhere.  But that too is part of the method.  “The former things have come to pass and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them (Isaiah 42:9).”  In the life of Israel we can see the workings of God. And God has told us in advance – “Behold – look – this is my servant.” God has told us what he intends to do which is save us.  Bring his justice to the world.  And he has told us what it will look like. It will look like peace and restoration and life. Not in the way of the world, but in the way of the Spirit.

New Year Reflection

New Year as a holiday is something that I struggle to place. It is something of an extra day off in the middle of the 12 days of Christmas. One celebrated by the traditional football games: Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange and Fiesta. (Slipping into the book of American Leviticus 23, “And you shall celebrate this New Year with parades and the blowing of the marching band Trumpet…:.

Somewhat famously the pilgrims, Puritans by religious sect, did not celebrate Christmas.  Compared to the Lutheran Reformation which kept everything that could be kept, which included the liturgical church year, the Reformed tradition went by a strict principle.  If it could not be justified by biblical practice, then it was not allowed.  The Lord’s Day – Sunday – was justified.  The disciples gathered on the Lord’s Day after the resurrection. Christmas somehow was not. It was a deemed a pagan intrusion into the well regulated calendar of Lord’s Days. The Lutheran understanding in these regards is more anything not forbidden is allowed. And God did not say “you shall not celebrate Christmas with a 12 day festival.” But New Year is one of those odd days.  There is a command or biblical warrant about it.  In actual Leviticus 23 it is the Feast of Trumpets.  You get a bit more in Numbers 29.  It is known today as Rosh Hoshana or the Jewish New Year. So the Puritans down to the Presbyterians often held New Years. It is amusing to me how very early in my life many American Lutherans adopted New Year services to blend in with the general American Reformed religious environment, but the secular commercial juggernaut of America has forced everyone into Christmas, which ends the morning of the 26th of December.  All the sharp distinctives of yesteryear become dull.

Maybe my confusion isn’t all that new.  Those ancient Israelites had at least two New Years. The festival of trumpets, Rosh Hoshana, was the first of the civil calendar, but it was in the seventh month of the religious calendar which started in the month of Nisan which held Passover. Every religious year passed through Passover, Pentecost and Sukkot – the travel festivals. Jewish mysticism holds that the Civil New Year is the day the world was created and once a year the Trumpet of God – the Festival of Trumpets – is blown to wake it up again.  It is the day that God decides this old earth gets another year. Which the Apostle Paul picks up in 1 Corinthians 15:52, “and the Trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” The Resurrection as the New Year of the New Creation.  A different Trumpet bringing in a New Life and a New Creation.

Until we all hear that much different Trumpet, the words of a Christmas Hymn that I love reflect for me more a Spirit of New Year. The secular celebration seems to be about new births – the New Year’s baby, the resolutions, the re-upping of the gym memberships.  New births that never really live up to the hoped for new Trumpet when we shall all be changed. The hymn Stars of Glory has a different reflection.

Stars of glory, shine more brightly/Purer be the moonlight’s beam;

Glide ye hours and moments lightly/Swiftly down time’s deepening stream.

Bring the hour that banished sadness/Brought redemption down to earth,

When the shepherds heard with gladness/Tidings of a Savior’s birth.

Mary gathered up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The hours of this old earth glide lightly by, but each adds to a deepening stream. Each brings us closer to that final hour that banishes sadness.  Happy New Year.

Companions of Christ

This year we have two Sundays in the 12 days of the Christmas season proper, but the first falls on a festival day that demands notice.  And it calls us to look around the Christmas season as well.  There are a series of saint days just after Christmas that go back to the ancient church. They’ve been on the church calendar forever. Sometimes they are called the “Comites Christi” or Companions of Christ” – St. Stephen (26th), St John (27th) and The Holy Innocents (28th).  If you stop to think about those names it’s an interesting list for Christmastime.

St. Stephen is the first martyr.  His story is found in Acts 6 and 7.  He was first chosen as one of the seven deacons who were to administer the church’s community chest that took care of the widows and orphans.   But somehow those seven deacons got involved in a lot more than that. The deacon Philip found himself preaching in Samaria and bi-locating by the power of the Spirit next to the Ethiopian Eunuch and then back in Galilee. But Stephen’s story precedes Philip’s.  Acts says Stephen was “full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. (Acts 6:8 ESV).”  And just like the story of Jesus, when one is full of grace and truth and performing signs and wonders, the world does not like it.  Stephen is arrested and eventually stoned after he gives one of the great Jeremiad speeches of all time.  If they treated Christ this way, the disciple can expect no less.  At that stoning is where Saul, eventually Paul, enters the story.  He heard the speech and held the cloaks of those doing the stoning.  And was raised to a fever pitch of zealousness that he would get permission to hunt down the rest.

St. John is the counterbalance to the first martyr being the only one of the Apostles not to be a martyr.  If Stephen’s service lasted but a couple of days from ordination to stoning, John was the youngest of the disciples and lived supposedly until over 100 years old after suffering exile on Patmos, the place of his Revelation.  John cared for Mary during that time as the appointed son.  And his care for Mary was also his care for the Church that his LORD had founded. As the Apostolic age came to a close, John was the final witness who often sorted out the solid word of God from the fake messages that seemed constant. If you read his three letters you will catch his concern over the many antichrists that have already entered the world (1 John 2:18).  But even more importantly his reminders to “love one another (1 john 3:11)” which was the commandment given at the last supper. John is the companion of Christ in a full life of service.

The last of the companions are the Holy Innocents.  We do not know the number.  These are the children killed by Herod when he remembers a couple of years later that the Wise Men did not come back.  So he kills all the male children in the Bethlehem region two and younger. It is a reminder of the fury of Satan and World.  They know their time is short, and they will kill anything that reminds them of the hour. Anyone who reminds them of how they have failed in their callings. In our modern language we might call the Holy Innocents collateral damage. As we go about our lives – lives lived by the dictates of the World and Sin – we cause death. That is what sin and the world are about.

But this is exactly what Christ has come to rescue us from – from sin and death and the power of Satan.  The children killed by the raving of a world are made holy by their association with Christ. And this is so for all of us.  Whether we find ourselves called short like Stephen, called long like John or call unawares like the innocents, the Companions of Christ are all made Holy by Him.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.  

Prophecy and Fulfillment

The Old Testament lesson for today (Isaiah 7:10-17) is the greatest example of how predictive prophecy often works.  And in this case, it is not without its irony. Among the generally impious Kings of Israel and Judah, Ahaz stands out as maybe the most impious.  The book of Kings records that “he even burned his son as an offering according to the despicable practices of the nations (2 Kings 16:3).”  He personally offered sacrifices to various gods at the high places.  And on a trip to Syria to meet the King of Assyria, Ahaz witnessed an altar in Damascus that he so fell in love with he sent his priest to get all the measurements. He then had the priests in Jerusalem built a replica, rip out the Altar of the temple and install his.  He invited the King of Damascus down to preside with him over the inaugural offerings on the new altar.  And he instructed his priests to do all their offerings on the new altar.

But for some reason God is not completely concerned about that blasphemous altar at this time. What he is demonstrating to Ahaz – the worst of them – is His faithfulness to his covenant with David, Ahaz’s lineage.  The Northern Kingdom of Israel has aligned itself with Syria and is attacking Judah, the remains of the Davidic Kingdom.  God sends Isaiah and promises Ahaz “don’t worry, have faith, they will not win, and within 65 years they won’t even be a nation.” And the prophet tells Ahaz to ask for anything he wants as a sign.  “Let it be deep as sheol or as high as heaven (Isaiah 7:10).”  What an opportunity! I can only imagine what I might ask for.  But sticking with Ahaz’s unbelief, when the prophet of God tells him ask anything…Ahaz responds that “I will not put God to the test! (Isaiah 7:12).” Only Ahaz could multiply his impiety by being pious at exactly the wrong time. He’s quoting Deuteronomy 6:16 and Moses’ instructions to not be like Israel immediately after the Red Sea complaining that they had no water (Exodus 17) and that Egypt was better.  But God is telling him to ask!

So even though Ahaz doesn’t believe, and won’t listen to the Word of the prophet and “wearies God” quoting scripture back to him, God is faithful.  And through the prophet Isaiah delivers unto Ahaz a sign of that faithfulness. There will always be a Davidic King. In this immediate timeframe it is you – absolutely worthless Ahaz. “And the virgin shall conceive and bear a son…and before the child is a boy, the land of the two kings you dread will be deserted (Isaiah 7:14-16).” Imagine the impassioned prophet, and I always imagined Isaiah as someone who didn’t suffer fools gladly, of which Ahaz was a fool, imagine Isaiah pointing at some young lady at the royal court.  And to them a child was born and a son was given (Isaiah 9).

That nearer fulfillment is like staring at mountains.  You see the shorter mountains in front, but there are often greater mountains in the back.  From a distance you can really tell how far off.  There might be valleys between the peaks. As the nearer fulfillment was God’s sign about keeping his covenant with David, that there would always be a Davidic King, so also the greater fulfillment. And likewise the miracle of the greater fulfillment is much greater. In that still living Kingdom, one is lead to believe that the young lady conceived in the normal way.  Crossing the valley of the years, Mary would conceive and bear a son, not in the normal way, but by the Holy Spirit.  Not just a young woman, but the virgin. And the Virgin Mary’s son would be the eternal Davidic King.  The child born and given to all of us. After long years, where even the heirs of David – like Joseph – probably chuckled at the claims, God is faithful.  And unlike Ahaz, Joseph, with some angelic help, believes.

All the great prophecies, the signs and wonders of God, find their tallest peak fulfillment in Christ. Now we might often wonder what is beyond those peaks.  The first advent points to the final advent.  And we’d love to know the valley on the other side. But the sign of God keeps us focused on the mount – on Christ himself. Unlike Ahaz, have faith.  “If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all (Isaiah 7:9).” If the promise was good for Ahaz, it will be even more so for the man of faith.