I wanted it to be true. . .

I will admit a love for books and stories and, when it happens, for movies that demonstrate the same almost mystic invitation into another world and another set of lives.  It is most engaging to read a book of fiction and at the end to regret the final words and period that bring it to a conclusion.  It is most encouraging to the author who has the ability to weave a story in words that we want to be true even if it is not.  Such is the power of imagination.  It leads us beyond ourselves and builds for us a new world in which we can be observers if not participants and it leaves us with a better sense of our selves because we got to know the characters borne of an author's creative skill.  

In the past I have enjoyed the great works of the mighty authors as well as the spy craft of Tom Clancy and the mystery of Agatha Christie along with the imagined world of a Dune planet.  Along with these I have loved the works of Shakespeare, the poetry of Auden, and the complexity of Dostoevsky.  But I can also say I have loved the romance and intricate portrayals of people and places in the Merchant and Ivory films and the great histories re-imagined in such movies as Operation Mincemeat.  We have so enjoyed the small releases such as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society along with period pieces such as Cranford.  It is such a wonder to enter into a place and a plot with people you have never met until they become friends you cherish and fierce enemies you must battle.  Such is just a small part of my love for books, for words printed on a page.

While it is certainly not literature in the same sense as these works, Scripture is writing with a compelling story, great characters, and a plot whose resolution awaits an unnamed day when the Savior shall open the clouds and return in His glory.  There is something to be said about an appreciation of this.  No, it does not mean that you treat the Scriptures as any other book or that you discount its story as something less than real history but it does mean that the words are more than merely a set of facts recounted or doctrines unfolding for information.  The Bible is meant to engage the imagination.  There is something wrong with our reading if we do not build in our minds the face of a Moses or a Peter the way we would imagine how a character in fiction looks.  Movies can aid in this or they can disappoint us when they give faces to the people we have learned to know well that do not at all look like the images of our minds.  Perhaps that is why so many Biblical movies seem to fall short -- they make small what the Bible makes grand and so they disappoint us with something that is less than what the words on the page actually say.

In the old TV world of Dragnet, Sergeant Friday is said to have opined, "Just the facts, ma'am.  Just the facts."  I am told he never actually said it or did not say it in those words anyway.  Could it be that we are disappointed by Scripture because we want to distill the book down to quotes or because the stereotype lingers longer in our imagination than its reality?  Could it be that we have rendered the riches of the stories of the Bible into rather wooden accounts that not only lack in faithfulness to the Bible but make the authors and the Word whose words they are into something shallow and one dimensional?  One of the things I have loved doing over the years is to use the stories of the Bible in catechesis -- telling the stories of Scripture and letting the details and the whole landscape of the prose unfold to both engage and inform.  You cannot read the account of the Creation and Fall without being drawn into the story -- unless you are also dull and of single dimension.  You cannot read the stories of Abraham and Sarah or David and his kingly history and family and fail to be drawn into their stories as spectator and even participant.  Or, if you can, you have succeeded in turning God's divine drama into something pedestrian and bland.  If that is the case, it is a shame indeed.

Children's Bibles can sometimes rob the urgent and intricate stories of the Bible of their wit and elegance by presenting them not simply briefly but in the most spartan of prose.  Details matter. The details of the Bible stories matter.  Preaching involves unpacking these stories in such a way that it does not devolve into mere truths postulated so that someone gives ascent to these proof-texted propositions drawn out of context and out of sequence. What a shame when that happens.  A long time ago I got a Bible without verses or chapters and set in single column paragraph form.  It remains my favorite way to read God's Word.  It may not work for study but for the pure enjoyment of reading God's Word it cannot be matched.  This format allows my imagination to work, creating faces to the characters and building scenery for the words of the Lord that are His works as well.  I highly encourage it.  The Bible I use is also a King James version, with an elegance of prose and poetry that too often seems lacking in modern versions that seek to explain God as well as give testimony to His voice.  This has nothing to do with the downplaying of the truth of God's Word and everything to do with the engagement of the mind to assist that Word to make its home in our imagination as well as our hearts.

What Jesus did not say. . .

I read the insightful and humorous tirade on a piece David French wrote regarding the politics and religion of the Texas senate race.  You should read it also.  The whole thing is a good read but the individual points of this critique are spot on.  They illustrate the problem that confronts the orthodox Christian in the face of the liberal or progressive distortion of Christianity as well as the secular complaint against the faith.  That is that if Jesus did not say it, it must not be wrong and should not be part of the theological or moral stance of any individual or church body that is intent upon being Christian.

In the piece, the liberal Christian in this race, defended by David French, complains that "the evangelical focus on abortion and homosexuality in politics” is a betrayal of the Christian doctrinal and moral position precisely because these are seen as “two issues that Jesus never talked about.”  There you have it in a nutshell.  If Jesus did not say anything against it, it must not be wrong.  Since Jesus did not explicitly mention abortion or any one of the letters of the LGBTQ+ plethora of sexual desires or condemn them, it must mean that Jesus intended to support and accept them as both legitimate for the Christian to hold and moral.  Now that is a joke.  Nevermind that Scripture does address the sacred character of life and may, actually, address abortion -- though not exactly recorded from the mouth of Jesus.  

Let me explain.  

The original meaning of the Greek word porneia is “to prostitute” or “to sell.” However by the time of the New Testament, porneia had a very broad meaning that included sexual behavior such as prostitution, extramarital sexual intercourse or adultery, paedophilia, promiscuity, homosexuality, lesbianism, incest, premarital sex and bestiality. The Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament states,

Πορνεία means “prostitution, unchastity, fornication,” and is used “of every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse” (BAGD s.v.). . . . Since in Rom. 1:26f. Paul clearly alludes to homosexuality as sexual immorality, πορνεία can also refer to homosexuality as sexual immorality, as does εκπορνεύω. in Jude 7 (cf. Genesis 19) ¹

The lexicon’s message is not that porneia occurs in Romans 1:26f, but that the sexual sin in Romans 1 is included in porneia. For more discussion about Jude 7, see below.

Kittel, Bromiley and Friedrich  provides a very complete meaning of porneia stating that its meaning includes “adultery, fornication, licentiousness, and homosexuality.”^2,3 Harper’s Bible Dictionary states that porneia also includes “bestiality.”⁴

Colin Brown states this about porneia,

porneia (Dem.  onwards, rare in cl. Gk) harlotry, unchastity (also of a homosexual nature).⁵

This highly acclaimed Greek-English dictionary points out that porneuo, pornos, and porneia are part of the same word group. Then it states,

The word group can describe various extra-marital sexual modes of behavior insofar as they deviate from accepted social and religious norms (e.g. homosexuality, promiscuity, paedophilia, and especially prostitution).⁶

Colin Brown also tell us that porneia occurs in the “Testament of Benjamin.” The word is used to refer to homosexual behavior. In the following quote from the “Testament of Benjamin,” porneia is translated as fornication. Yet, it is referring to homosexual activity since Jude 7 is about homosexuality.

And believe that there will be also evildoings among you, from the words of Enoch the righteous: that ye shall commit fornication with the fornication of Sodom . . . ⁷

Verein D. Verbrugge in the  New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology writes . . .

[Rabbinical Judaism] frowned on any kind of prostitution or extramarital sexual intercourse. Incest and all kinds of unnatural sexual intercourse were viewed as porneia. ⁸

^{Yes, it is true that Jesus did not say the word we use in an explicit reference to such behavior but it is also true that Jesus did not stand outside the Biblical world with its overt approval of marriage between a man and a woman as a life-long relationship of love and fidelity along with its disapproval of any sexual behavior that contradicted or violated this context.}

In the same way, though the Bible may not specifically mention the word abortion, but it does speak volumes about the value of human life and its source in God alone. Throughout Scripture, we see the sanctity of life upheld. Verses like Psalm 139:13–16 and Jeremiah 1:5 show that the source of life is from God alone and reveal God’s intimate care for the unborn from creation to life's end.  Jesus does not stand outside this tradition but stands within this doctrine and moral stand in all His words and actions. 

The absurdity of the liberal and progressive stand is obvious: that Jesus wants you to have a lot of gay sex and abortions because he never mentioned these explicitly or condemns them clearing.  Jesus very clearly acts in violation of the accepted moral and theological stand of the day with respect to the treatment of women (in speaking with unclean women and in His refusal to take up the accepted side against the woman found in adultery while leaving the man off the hook) and does so in ways that arouse His opponents.  Jesus does this with respect to the laws of the Sabbath as well.  But somehow, it is presumed that by silence Jesus infers that either the sins of abortion or homosexuality are not so bad or that they might even be good means that Jesus apparently was unwilling or unable to own His approval of these in the same way He owned the rules concerning the Sabbath or violated the norms for His relationship with the women of the day.  How odd!  You might then infer, as the original piece suggests, that Jesus by His clear teaching condemns adultery unless, of course, you are having extramarital sex with some of the same sex or that you can abort all the babies you want as long as you treat those who actually survived to birth with dignity.  It would be a hoot and a funny joke indeed except that there are actually Christians and people who think they know Jesus who are saying exactly that.

________________________________

1. Balz and Schneider. Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament. Eerdmans Publishing Com. 1993. vol. 3., pp. 137-139.
2. Kittel. Theological Dictionary of the new Testament. Eerdmans. 1968. vol. vi., p. 581-595.
3. Bromiley, Geoffrey W. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Eerdmans Publishing Com. 1985. VI, pp. 918-921.
4. Achtemeier, Paul J. “Fornication.” Harper’s Bible Dictionary. Harper & Row & Society of Biblical Literature. 1985, p. 319.
5. Colin Brown. Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Regency Publishers. 1975. vol. 1., p. 497.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid. p. 499.
8. Verlyn D. Verbrugge.  New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Zondervan. 2000. pp 486. 

Too quickly. . .

When I was full-time, I will admit that Sundays were exhausting.  I typically got to the church by 5 am on Sunday so that I had some quiet time for sermon prep, teaching prep, and private devotions.  It was usual for me to get done with Sunday morning about 1-1:30 pm -- unless, of course, meetings and other activities were scheduled when that would extend to 4-6 pm!  I was tired.  In my foolishness I feared that my schedule was seen as exhausting by those in the pews.  For a few that was certainly true.  The cantor was there early and left at least as late as I did.  Others were also there for many hours on Sunday mornings and afternoons.  But I have discovered something in retirement.  I was wrong.  Nearly everyone in the congregation is there for a few brief hours and the worship service lasts at its longest 75-90 minutes.  Sitting in the pews and assisting in the distribution has taught me that the time spent together around the Word and Table of the Lord is not long at all but passes too quickly.  It is over in the blink of an eye.

It seems like I am just getting settled in the pew and the liturgy is already to the readings from God's Word.  It seems like I have just found my comfortable spot and the sermon is winding down to its Amen.  It seems like I am just beginning to say I believe and we are already confessing the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.  It seems like I am just starting to pray and already the petitions are done and we are in the Offertory.  The Eucharistic Prayer that seemed wordy at one point is too short to give me a real opportunity to meditate on the riches of God's grace soon to be placed upon my lips.  The distribution that once seem too long is over so fast and almost seems rushed.  I am just back in the pew and already we are being encouraged to bless the Lord, be blessed by the Lord's benediction, and being the final hymn.  Where did the time go?  It is all over too quickly.

I am not saying that 75 minutes or 90 minutes is too short but that when one enters into the presence of God around His Word and table, it is over far too fast.  Churchill said that they had barely begun to fight.  God has barely begun to deliver His gifts to my mouth and to address my mind with His wisdom and truth and to take from me the heavy weight of my sin and it is done.  I suspect I am speaking more here of the attitude of the heart than clock watching or the actually time spent in the pews.  I have rediscovered awe.  That is perhaps the biggest change for me on Sunday morning.

This is not about how wonderful the preaching is or the choir or the music.  They are fine.  It is about the renewed sense of awe at the simple privilege of being in the presence of the most high God who comes not to condemn sin but to bequeath grace upon grace.  It is the renewal that comes from listening again to every word of the liturgy, to hearing God's Word spoken into my ear, and to kneeling to receive the flesh of Christ upon my tongue and the blood of Christ upon my lips.  Amazing grace!  It is awesome.  It is too quickly over, the sacred vessels cleansed and put away, the echos of the hymn fading in the ear.  Wow.  It is the rediscovery of awe.  I always had some of it but the labor of Sunday, repeating everything twice, looking forward to the inevitable meetings or congregational activities always set for Sundays worked against this sense of awe and made me labor against this simple appreciation and joy of being in the presence of our gracious Lord.

I hope and pray that if you are leading worship from altar or organ bench, you still enjoy this wonderful awe.  I hope and pray that if you are sitting in the pew you think with me the wonder of where the time went and how you barely had a moment to consider the miracle of it all in the God whose voice lilts into the ear and whose heavenly food is tasted on the tongue.  Awaken to the awe of being in the presence of God.  Worship is not drudgery but awe.  The preacher or organist or choir do not make it so but God who comes to us, down to us, with heavenly grace and favor to bestow upon us His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation week after week after week.  In the blink of an eye He is there before we realize it and in the blink of an eye it is done before we appreciate its majesty.  We need to awaken to the awe of what happens on Sunday morning because that is the foundation of everything that flows out of it through the rest of the week and the rest of our lives. 

 

An oddly missing hunger. . .

Orthodoxy in doctrine is supposed to lead to orthodoxy in practice.  That is the lex of ancient wisdom -- not simply a tie between the two but a causal connection in which right praying leads to right believing and right believing leads to right praying.  There are those who say there is no causal connection and, while both are good, either alone can exist for at least a while without the other.  Though I wish it were not so, I suspect there is truth in this.  I have no formula for estimating how long either can exist apart from the other but I know for a fact that it happens.

There are those who rightly worship in doctrinally stalwart sermons but in worship that is painfully cerebral and lacking in the earthy concreteness of the Sacraments.  We see it in seemingly orthodox Protestant bodies where the sanctuary is largely a lecture hall and the table holds money more than the bread of heaven or the cup of salvation.  There are also those whose worship is evidently Sacramental but whose homilies are barely moral encouragements without a hint of teaching or doctrine.  We see it in Rome with liturgy done competently if not well but without much time spent or expectation of teaching in the sermon.

We really do not need to look all that far away.  I grew up in an orthodox Lutheran congregation which was conservative in every way and proudly Lutheran but there was a mere tolerance of things liturgical and an absence of the Sacrament from Sunday mornings as well as from the piety of the people.  This was not the worst that could be but there was definitely something missing.  The orthodox preaching and teaching should have manifested itself in a hunger for the things of God in the Holy Eucharist.  They did not.  Many folks left after the offering on the rare (quarterly) Morning Service with Holy Communion.  There was no hint of discussion about much less interest in private confession.  There was certainly moralism but it was accompanied by an appreciation for orthodoxy of doctrine, especially in the realm of justification by grace through faith.

That era is gone.  Nearly every Lutheran congregation celebrates the Sacrament more often today than they did in the 1950s.  Weekly has become normal.  I am happy about that and am not complaining.  But it is worth noting that the more frequent Eucharists and the more sacramental preaching and teaching that is also typical of a confessional Lutheran congregation that this has not exactly been accompanied by a hunger and thirst for even more frequent communion or confession.  Why not?  The lex of ancient wisdom suggests that it should lead us to more rather than to less -- more frequent Communion, more frequent confession, more and deeper devotional piety, etc.  Has it?

My own history was to add the Eucharist so that at least three or four times a week the Sacrament was offered and a sermon preached on the texts -- independent services and not copies of a Sunday service and sermon merely repeated at a different time.  Yet as often as I tried to offer the Eucharist more frequently, I did not find a groundswell of people to welcome such.  I preached about the Sacrament in the hopes that such hunger would arise and it did not.  Honestly, I would have thought that a daily Eucharist would have been the norm in my parish a long time ago.  It would have been a taxing demand upon my time and energy but I would have welcomed it.  It did not happen.  I could have gone ahead and scheduled them but I know from attempts that the attendance would have been very small indeed.  I regret that I talked myself out of this discipline and piety.  I should have tried harder.

Perhaps we have hit a plateau.  Perhaps the demands of work and home and leisure are too great to find time for a daily Eucharist.  Probably most folks in the parish would not have thought it was a good use of my time as their pastor to hold such daily Eucharists.  Or, I am afraid, perhaps we did not encourage such a hunger as we might, as I might.  It could have been that this was a step too far -- the awkward move from orthodoxy to enthusiasm?  Zealots are not exactly welcome in our churches -- especially zealous pastors!  Could it be that this is what is lacking among us confessional Lutherans today?  Have we come up against a wall, so to speak, going so far with our orthodoxy of doctrine and our catholic practice but not so far that it would actually suggest that our lives needed to reordered toward such a hunger and expectation to hear more sermons and receive the Sacrament more often than weekly?  I leave it out there for your to ruminate upon and to help me find an answer to my question.  Have we quenched the Spirit but stopping at one point where we should have gone further?

When sin is merely weakness. . .

The Bible is filled with strong words for sin but our modern mind does not hear them.  What passes for sin in private confession and public litany is an apology for our weakness more than it is an admission of our complicity with evil, our complete failure to do good, and our refusal to stop doing what is wrong.  It is tiresome to listen to but it is more of a problem than its sound in our ears.  When sin is merely weakness, our need for God is lessened and God is made smaller in the process.  When sin is merely weakness, we are no longer utterly dependent upon God but He is made a small nicety in a world with other niceties.  When sin is merely weakness, forgiveness is rendered even weaker and grace is made politeness rather than power.  When sin is merely weakness, mercy is impotent and the God of mercy is equally impotent.

In times gone by when I was hearing confession more regularly, a penitent once confessed a litany of things that could have or should have been done better.  These failings rightfully troubled the conscience of the penitent but were they really sins?  I prodded.  What did you do wrong?  The failing was never enlarged beyond what could have or should have been done more or better or differently.  These were sins of weakness and fragility.  They were the small mistakes of someone who knew better and who had succumbed in a moment to what that person now regretted.  It passed as sin in the mind and heart of the penitent but was it really sin in the way the Scriptures speak of sin?

The absolution being sought was more akin to understanding than mercy.  Of course, you could have and should have done better but we are all guilty of these inadequacies (and, therefore, if we are all guilty, none of us are really guilty!).  They were seeking not the powerful absolution that flows from the blood of Christ but the affirmation that they were merely human, like everyone else, and to be sent away with the dutiful expectation to try harder next time.  Is that what sin has become?  If so, it is certainly what absolution has become.  Not the strong Go and sin no more but the more reasonable Go but try harder next time to do better.  

I realized at the time what was happening and how I was also victim to the same minimization of what sin was and therefore the weakening of what grace was but I could have and should have handled it better.  When it did happen again, I stopped the person and turned them to the Ten Commandments to read them aloud and to frame their sin in the context of this Law and not the limited guilt or complicity of what might have been done better.  Perhaps the reader will suggest that this is the familiar path of those on the liberal or progressive side of Christianity but I think it is more likely the temptation of us all.  We want to minimize what sin is because then we do not need God or His grace so desperately but we want to make sin into weakness largely because it puts the ball back in our court instead of His.  It comes right back to us what we could and should do next time as opposed to what we actually did and how only the profound and powerful mercy of a crucified Savior can rescue us from what our sins have done.

Worse, when sin is merely weakness, we are largely victims instead of the perpetrators of evil.  The strong popularity of victimization in politics and culture has eroded the power of confession.  I am a sinner.  I have done the evil God condemns and have not done the good God requires.  I have loved myself above all, lived as if I mattered most, and failed to love God above all or my neighbor as myself.  It is not by weakness or fragility or accident but by will and deed I have sinned in thought, word, and act.  I am fully incapable of finding a way out of this mess of death or atoning for the evils in my mind, on my heart, or by my hand.  When we make a strong confession of real sin, God is not only enlarged in this act of confession but His mercy and grace are made great indeed.  Our appreciation for the cross is magnified.  Sin required a Savior and required a Savior to die.  Forgiveness is not some inconsequential word that understands our human frailty but the powerful blood that cleanses us from all our sin.  When we lose the idea that sin is more than weakness and fragility, we lose the idea that grace is powerful and mercy is a gift bigger than any other.   

Policy based confusion. . .

Policy based governance and, in particular, the version developed by John Carver, has taken hold across the boardrooms of America and, it should be noted, in churches as well.  Designed to address governing boards that err on the side of micromanaging executives while neglecting their particular duties, we see the evidence of this all across congregations, districts, and agencies of the Synod. Its ten core principles include:

1. Ownership: The board is the legitimate voice and agent of the organization’s owners.  All owners are stakeholders but not all stakeholders are owners.  Go figure.

2. Position of the Board: The board is fully accountable to the owners for the success of the organization.

3. Board Holism: The authority of the board is collective with individual members having no independent authority.

4. Ends Policies: The board defines everything in terms of the outcomes expected.  The concern is ends or strategic priorities and secondary to the means.

5. Board Means Policies: Such policies are the way the ends are to be achieved through the governance process and delegation policies.

6. Executive Limitations: The board governs through policies and the means policies are limits on the employees/CEO/staff (they shall not fail to...).  It is negatively stated.

7. Policy Sizes: Policies are framed in the broadest possible terms with specifics defined only as necessary; these are exhaustive in the limitations the board places on the corporate staff.

8. Clarity and Coherence of Delegation: Authority is delegated unambiguously with the broadest possible freedom given to the CEO/corporate staff to accomplish the ends the board has defined.

9. Any Reasonable Interpretation: The CEO/corporate staff are allowed any reasonable interpretation of board policy.

10. Monitoring: The board monitors and evaluates performance, comparing actual results (success or failure) against the Ends and Executive Limitations stated by the board. 

Policy Governance is a precision governing system that conditions success with following the model without variation.  In Policy Governance, all the above pieces are required for Policy Governance to be effective. Only when all are brought to bear on the organization can there be owner accountability. 

In typical adaptation for church usage, the senior pastor functions as the CEO or the pastor who is elected or appointed for other levels of church governance.  Elders/board members in the congregation are policy makers and monitors of compliance.  Congregations hold their leaders accountable through policies rather than the direct exercise of authority. 

Such is the entrepreneurial model of both governance and the pastoral office at work.  Sometimes it seems to work okay, perhaps even well.  There are, however, things that tend to happen as a result of policy based governance.  One thing is that it confuses spiritual responsibility and authority with physical responsibility and authority for property.  When this happens, it is not unusual for the spiritual to become second to the physical ends or indicators of success.  

The other big problem is that it tends to make lay leadership weak (on the congregational side) and to make for limited input to the governance of the organization except to set ends and make policies.  Even worse, it tends to elevate weak leaders and infuriate strong lay leaders.  

Finally, it tends to turn even the corporate leaders (in this case, the pastor acting as CEO) to comparing statistical results with ends envisioned without really leading at all.  The focus is on doing what the Board has directed and the evaluation is based on fulfilling the ends directed by the board through the policies it has established.   What happens if they are not the real ends or the policies are simply bad policies?  In this way, the governance tends to muddy things up and encourage mediocre leaders.  What happens when a pastor’s primary accountability is measured by whether or not he follows the policies the board has established and achieves the organization outcomes the board has defined but that comes at the cost of the values, doctrine, and confessional integrity of that organization?  What about the faithful proclamation of the Word and the faithful administration of the Sacraments?  

There was a time when we probably had too many boards acting independently of each other and too many committees with overlapping responsibilities.  Maybe there was a time when we functioned rather disjointedly and probably somewhat inefficiently.  But have we over corrected --  effectively throwing the baby out with the bath water all in the name of shorter meetings, transparency, clear expectations, and defined objectives?  Fewer people in governance in an church organization and those few people with less responsibility except to define outcomes and establish policies can be a recipe for disaster.  Furthermore, when everyone is concerned with the physical side of things and no one is paying attention to the spiritual, the Church is definitely in trouble.  And, I am afraid, we are already there.  It is less a problem of pastors wanting to take over what rightfully belongs to the laity than it is nobody wanting do what they are supposed to do.  It also has the problem of judging everything in the church by the wrong set of values and defining success in every way except that which God would judge faithful.

Heaven and earth are full of Your glory. . .

The danger of secularism is the idea that life is independent and solitary, that the only real association is choice and that it only has the meaning we attach to it all.  Stuff.  It is all just stuff and accident and nothing organized or ordered.  The world has for a long time embraced the idea that there is a way to secularize everything in such a way that it has nothing to do with the notion of God. But things are not just things. “Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory,” is the revelation of Scripture, the song of the Church, and the affirmation of the faithful.  Not just heaven but earth.  All the earth is filled with beauty and all things declare the wonder of Him who made all things.  The earth is also the revelation of God's glory.

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of your glory.”

The eternal song of the angels who surround the throne of God in Isaiah's vision of heaven (Is. 6:1-4) is given also to earth to sing. The splendor of that song was lost to us in the Fall but not the splendor God has woven into the fabric of all things.  It had to be revealed to us and so it was and is.  It might seem that the glory of the earth was nothing compared to the miracle of God in flesh, the death that paid for every sin, the resurrection for all who live under death's shadow, and the ascension to the right hand of the Father.  Is it nothing?  In the Holy Eucharist, the God who made all things and entered into our world prepares for us a table to give us the gift of life. 

Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.  Heaven breaks into the world until both heaven and earth must display what cannot be hidden. Oddly enough, Luther proposed moving the Sanctus after the Words of Institution precisely because the reality of these words and their fulfillment in the bread now His body and the cup now His blood.  Here we confess in the blessed song that the earth is full of God's glory and that this is part of the proclamation every bit as much as the heavenly redemption.  It is the end of any neat distinction between sacred and secular, of the lie that it is all just stuff.  It is the end of everything the world wants to believe about religion, about the ability of mankind to deny the spiritual character of our identity and of the image of God placed in us though distorted by sin yet not obliterated.

We sing it in the Te Deum and in the Sanctus and we read it in the Scriptures.  It is our statement that the earth cannot deny the reality of this everlasting truth.  The world battles emptiness and depression with all the wrong remedies.  Stuff is just stuff.  Things are just things.  People are just people.  As much as I hate to speak of it this way, the affirmation that heaven and earth are full of God's glory is therapeutic -- not in the sense of some patient listening to feelings but real therapy that gives honest consolation, comfort, and peace.  The answer to our longing is not a conversation about feelings but the affirmation of the truth.  Heaven and earth ARE full of God's glory.  His glory is His saving love, His merciful countenance, His sin-forgiving heart, and His gracious disposition.

Reason says. . .

A few months ago many of us were gathered in a church somewhere while a finger dusted with ash traced a cross on the foreheads of those who came forward.  The words were shocking enough for an adult to hear, Remember, O man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.  But there will be moms and dads bringing small children with curious faces and infants so seemingly innocent to get the same odd anointing.   In the cold reality of reason, this all seems to be an empty gesture for the children and babies carried up in loving arms.  Reason says these are innocents who have no guilt to carry, no shame to hide, and no sins to confess.  But that is the problem.  We were born into this sin that does not seem to be apparent on the smiling and joyful faces of children and babies.  They belong there because of what choice was made not by them but for them when, in Eden, we were all one in Adam.  If they do not belong there, then none of us do.

The same unthinkable reason that brought infants and small children to the rail for ashes is what brings them to baptismal water.  Need.  Whether that need is expressed in formal words and sentences or whether it is attested to by faithful parents who know what is on the faces of their children as well as what it means to be born into sin, need compels us.  No one can reason themselves into a baby being brought to water meant for sinners who have some guilt to confess, some shame to admit, and some sin to own.  Reason says the child is innocent until they reach some age of accountability, some awareness of right and wrong, some culpability of will and desire.  But infants and children are also born into a world of death, with a will compromised by the inclination to evil, and in their own helpless state to deliver themselves from all of this or even part of it.  

Reason tells us that the resurrection is the hope of those near death and not the baby in the arms of mom or the children carried by their dads.  After all, they have their own lives ahead, full lives with chapters waiting to be written.  That is the illusion.  Reason usually deals with black and white, the clear and the concrete.  In this case reason is wrong.  It clings to a dream while the reality is marked in death upon the flesh even of a child.  We all need what the promise of Easter offers.  We cannot predict when death will come and we dare not presume that the seemingly innocent faces of children are immune from it.  If we come to the empty tomb both out of need and of desire, the infants and children have the same need even as we wait to hear from their lips the words of desire and faith.   

I don't get it. . .

So it would seem that Christianity poses an existential threat to the world.  There is a growing backlash against the Church as if somehow the Church was vibrant and powerful enough to compel unwilling unbelievers to either abide by the tenets of Christianity or to convert.  At least that is how it reads.  Our society is replete with warnings about Christian nationalism, about a Christianity enforced by government and aided by law, or about the imposition of a willing faith upon unwilling people.  Except where is that happening?  Where is Christianity rising up to become the kind of social or political force that would cause liberals and progressives to issue warnings?  At least in the West?

It would seem that the Church is actually at its weakest today than ever before.  Christians do not seem to have played a pivotal role in the ruling which made abortion no longer a constitutionally protected right.  Christians seem to have lost the war against the diversity of sexual desires and gender identities which we perceive as normal.  Christians have watched as marriage has dropped in popularity and children virtually disappeared in the homes of most of us yet some are warning against the Church somehow taking away the freedoms so jealously afforded by the liberal and progressive forces in our land.  Indeed, the whole of the West seems to be on the same page in this.

But somehow those same liberal and progressive folk seem content with Islam.  According to the evidence and the state of affairs in the Middle East (though not alone), Islam appears to be the greater threat to the great American way of life but you would not know it.  Muslims have done a profound job of compelling or forcing the hand of those on the forefront of culture war yet liberal and progressive Christians have little to say in protest to this.  On the other hand, Christians are positively demonic in the eyes of the liberal West.  Who represents a greater threat to the status quo of the world?  Is it Islam with its militant repudiation of all the liberal and progressive values OR is it Christianity, which, by and large, has seemed to accommodate the secular values that it is supposed to reject?  The world has decided that Islam is a victim that needs to be protected from the big, bad Christian demon -- just like all the liberal and progressive values that Western culture holds dear.

Honestly, I wish that Christianity acted like the institutional threat it is generally seen to be by liberal and progressive Western culture.  Of course, there are pockets of threat but Christianity has hardly provided a uniform and solid front against the liberal and progressive secular culture.  Yes, I do believe that Christianity is an existential threat to the values and ideals held by secular progressivism and even the shallow and tepid Christian form of the same thing.  I just don't see how the world around us can judge us to be such a threat since so much of Christianity has capitulated to those values and positions.  That is my sadness.  I wish we were something to threaten the world with a real difference and not just a lukewarm version of ourselves.  Oddly enough, I guess, the stereotype of Christianity feared by the liberal and progressive West is actually worse than the reality.....

 

His wounds are our healing...

Remembering eleven years ago this sermon preached for Easter 2B, on Sunday, April 12, 2015

    Jesus dies and rises again and the best He can get from His disciples is them huddling behind locked dears with hearts closed off from joy by their fear!  Shouldn’t Jesus have expected more?  The locked doors did not stop Jesus but the fearful hearts – well, that’s another story.  The disciples were as afraid of believing in Jesus as they were fearful of the Jews.  Either way their lives were held captive by fear and doubt.  What would bring them peace?  What would comfort them?  What would restore their joy?  What would turn them to hope?
    No one would expect that the wounds of Jesus’ suffering and death could become the healing wounds of our grief and the comforting scars that would teach us hope.  No one but Jesus.  Into their turmoil, Jesus came and all He had to show them were the wounds in His hands and feet.  But it was enough.  And to fearful people, His wounds are still enough.
    Peace be with you. . . said Jesus.  Jesus spoke of peace to calm the real fears of people who have enemies, who face temptations, and who deal with the trials of daily live.  Jesus spoke of peace to bring forgiveness to the guilty consciences of sinners – even those sinners who betrayed Jesus and denied His resurrection from the dead.
    Jesus spoke of peace to turn the sorrows of the grieving into joy and to turn the sadness of their loss into the gladness of salvation.  All this Jesus spoke to them but still they were not ready to give up their fears or surrender their sorrows.
    The disciples who told Thomas they had seen the Lord had already seen His wounds and put their hands in them.  Now Jesus allows Thomas to do the same.  In the wounds of Jesus, Thomas’ doubts and fears melted away.  “My Lord and My God,” he cried.  And his heart finally knew rest, comfort, and peace.
    Jesus said, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed...”  Now you might think that was a rebuke to Thomas.  We might be angry if people did not believe us but Jesus is remarkably patient with doubters and the fearful.  Thomas’ refusal does not anger Jesus.  Our Lord does not turn Thomas away but draws Him into the wounds that impart His promised peace.
    You and I worry about being afraid, doubting, sadness, and about fear.  These things only have power over us if we hide them!  It is true.  We face many enemies in this world.  We endure many tests.  We suffer many trials.  But own doubts and fears do not anger Jesus.  But, like Thomas of old, until we surrender our fears, doubts, and turmoil to the wounds of Jesus, we are frozen by them.  But in them we are free.
    Just as Jesus invited Thomas to touch Him and know the full comfort of His presence and His peace, so do we come here today.  Bidden by Jesus to find healing in His wounds, the Spirit works to muster the courage to confess our doubts, to surrender our fears, and to give up our distress.
    What our eyes cannot see, God gives us faith to see.  Faith becomes the eyes that see when the ones in our head see only dead ends, fear, doubt, guilt, shame, and upset.  Through the clear vision of faith, we see Jesus and His promised peace calms our fears, eases our doubts, and invites our trust.
    We wonder what age we will look in heaven.  Like those pictures of people in their youth that accompany obituaries, we dream of glory without scars and wounds.  But Jesus scars and wounds are not His shame; they are His glory. In those wounds is our peace, our forgiveness, and our hope. Far from hiding them, Jesus shows off the marks of His suffering that we might know what His wounds have accomplished for us and for our salvation.  His wounds are not His shame but His power to address each of us with His peace.
    The waters of baptism flows to unlock hearts closed by fear. It is the Spirit’s work, working through the Word, to break through the locked doors of our fears and our closed hearts.  It is the Spirit who moves us to confront our fear and doubt.
 The Word breaks through and in the very place of our doubts and fears, the Spirit plants the peace of Christ.  Where we were once held captive by fear and doubt, eyes of faith see the wounds of Christ and enter into freedom and hope.
    It happened for the ten disciples who first met Jesus after Easter. It happened a week later for Thomas, too.  And it happens for us every Sunday we come to behold the wounds of Jesus that heal our broken lives, forgive our shameful sins, erase our guilt, ease our fears, and answer our doubts.  The wounds of Christ are not His shame but His glory. . . and OUR glory.  Easter does not make them go away but allows us to see those wounds as the means of our salvation and invites us to trust in them always.
    Easter’ hope is not that we forget what Jesus suffered but that we glory in the wounds that have bought us back from sin and death and overcome our fears with hope.  So that in the midst of the worst of life’s troubles and trials, we too might see Jesus with eyes of faith and joyfully proclaim: My Lord and My God.  Amen.  Christ is Risen.  He is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia! 

Birthright citizenship and Roman moral teaching. . .

So the USCCB (US Conference of Catholic Bishops) sent a friend of the court brief on the issue of  “birthright citizenship” -- a longstanding policy ended by a Trump executive order.  Their concern is  “whether the law will protect the human dignity of all God’s children.”  The oddly curious question here is whether or not birthright citizenship applies beyond the US and if it is reflection of Roman Catholic moral teaching overall.  And, if that is the case, why does it not apply to the Vatican?

Only a fool would suggest that there are not valid arguments on both sides but the USCCB has framed this in moral terms and that it evidence of the incoherence of their brief.  Birthright citizenship has flown from the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”  While it was meant to grant citizenship to freed slaves, it has been applied universally ever since -- other than the exceptions to the birthright-citizenship policy such as children born to foreign diplomat or born to members of an invading army.  But whether it was meant to be applied as universally as it has been, that is a debate.

The bishops insist that “children do nothing wrong by being born in the United States” but that does not necessarily lead to the claim that “depriving an innocent child of his citizenship based upon his parents’ immigration status would be an especially outrageous punishment.” Roman Catholic moral teaching has always allowed states the authority to set their own standards for citizenship.  According to their logic here, everyone has an inherent right to citizenship.  “Birthright citizenship,” say the bishops, “accords with the Church’s teachings concerning the State’s obligation to uphold and protect human dignity because it treats birth within a community as a sufficient and objective basis for political belonging.”  If this is the case, then what about other countries?  That is why this is either odd or incoherent.

We can argue the wisdom on both sides of this issue but to claim the moral high ground in favor of birthright citizenship is a bridge too far even for Roman Catholic bishops. 

The elephant in the room. . . .

Across the discussion of seminary vs online, non-LCMS vs official seminary, SMP vs "general" pastors, there is almost a mantra of talk about the shortage of pastors in congregations with 50 or less on Sunday morning.  It is as if the whole conversation is being driven by this one particular situation.  But is it?  According to the stats provided to us by the Synod, the vast majority of these small congregations are being served not by SMP clergy but by retired pastors who are serving part-time or pastors who have another income source who are also serving a small congregation on the side.  Indeed, the big dust up over rule changes to the SMP seems to imply that it is these smaller congregations who will be forced to go without a pastor because the requirements for the program are being changed.  Is that the case?

It would seem that much of the growth in the SMP and much of the impetus in the desire to find a go around for the Synodical seminaries residential path is to raise up local pastors within congregations which are not small and struggling but large enough to look for and fund additional part-time or full-time clergy for their own staff.  It has less to do with a concern for the small parish in the Dakotas or Montana that cannot find a retired pastor or another pastor living close enough to serve them part-time than it does a congregation with a couple of hundred in worship that wants to expand its own staff and is utilizing the SMP for that purpose.  While that was not the intended scope or place for the SMP program when it was sold to the Synod, it is nonetheless technically allowed by the rather broad bylaws and requirements of the program.  There has arisen a deep desire to have local clergy, formed locally and raised up and formed for a specific local setting and although this could include that small and isolated parish somewhere on the plains, it is more likely a suburban parish trying to grow its staff (and, I might add, on the cheap).  I get it and understand the desire but I do think we need to separate the need for pastors for these smaller congregations from the desire of these other parishes to have locally grown pastors serving them part-time or even full-time.

It would also be helpful to separate the training debate from the SMP program.  The SMP is about the establishment of a particular path for a particular need and the hubbub over online and non-Synodical seminary routes is less about that specific situation than it is about pastoral formation overall.  While there are things in common in both perspectives, there are also differences.  Those who advocate for the online option to be normative along side the residential seminary route and who believe that other seminaries besides the official ones should be allowed to train our clergy are talking about general pastors and how they are raised up and how they are formed -- not SMP.  It is helpful if we distinguish the smaller points of the debate while having this conversation in Synod.  

Lastly it is also true that the desire of some to simply regularize SMP with a stroke of a pen and remove all current restrictions on their placement, call, and arena of service have another issue which is related to the two above but not quite the same.  In their minds, these voices are insisting that if a pastor is ordained and conferred with the authority of the Word and Sacraments, there can be no further restriction upon him or any limitation of his jurisdiction.  That is another line of debate and one which we ought to have but it is not quite the same as online, non-LCMS seminary, SMP in small congregations, and localized pastoral formation.  In other words, we have a lot of conversations going on in the Synod and while some of them are related, they are not exactly the same.  From time to time we need to admit this and make the necessary distinctions.  

Reclaiming temperance. . .

Though we speak more often of the seven deadly sins, the seven heavenly virtues are also an ancient Western Christian tradition describing how God would have us live. From the fifth century onward, these seven heavenly virtues have served as a guide to many Christians, holding forth to the virtues of chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. These virtues were displayed in a virtuous and God-fearing life. Though I could, and probably have, written on these before, I wonder if the word temperance might be worth a look.

There are several definitions of temperance in the dictionary.  I fear that most of the time we are content to define it as abstaining from alcohol or acting moderately so as not to do anything to the extreme.  These are not at all helpful in understanding the word.  I think temperance is less moderation than it is self-control -- the determined moderation of passion or natural desires.  In other words, it is just about the opposite of our world of whims, passions, and indulgences.  The world is in love with the moment and with the indulgence in the moment that disdains consequences in favor of a moment of satisfaction.  Whether in words or deeds or passions, we have become a rather self-indulgent people and most intemperate.

• Abstinence from or moderation in drinking alcoholic beverages.
• Moderation and self-restraint, as in behavior or expression.
• Habitual moderation in regard to the indulgence of the natural appetites and passions;
• Moderation of passion; patience; calmness; sedateness. 
• State with regard to heat or cold; temperature.  
• One of the seven heavenly virtues. 

Oddly enough, we have some collects that actually teach us to pray for this:

Hear us, Almighty and merciful God, and favorably grant us the gifts of salutary temperance; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. 

Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that the dignity of the human condition, which hath been wounded by excess, may be renewed by the pursuit of healthful moderation; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

This temperance, or self-control, as a heavenly virtue presents as an inward spiritual inclination both outwardly controlling one's words and actions while inwardly controlling one's thoughts and desires.  This self-control is not just about being submissive but in actuality exerting dominance -- being in control of your emotions, words, and actions.  This is also not simply a gesture to express mastery over such whims and impulses but to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you so that you do not sin.  How truly out of step in a world in which whims define everything from truth to sexual desire to gender identity!  And here are Christians praying the Lord not to accept them as they are or to bless their mess.  No, indeed, these same Christians are praying the Lord to help them step out of the realm of uncontrolled desire and want and to explore by the power of that Spirit the life of control of self.  Or are we?

Could it be that we are not at all interested in giving up the reigns of our lives from the whims and fancies of feeling, desire, want, and justified need?  Could it be that we simply want the Church around to bless our reckless abandon at giving in wholly and fully to the whims and fancies of such desire?  We come to God less with sins to confess and be wiped away with the blood of Christ than we come with a taunt that unless God approves of all that is disordered or simply wrong in us, we will not allow Him to be God at all!  The calm that is associated with such temperance is not that desire has finally been satisfied but desire has been reordered and shaped by the voice of God and the example of Christ.  This would seem to be exactly what St. Paul seems to commend -- along with the giving up of undisciplined lives of indulgence to become the new man of God that the Spirit declares we are in baptism.  Surely this is also Jesus' command when He calls us to deny ourselves and take up the cross to follow Him.  Surely this is not simply a Lenten prayer but the constant prayer of a people whose passions and willful desire indulged is the very definition of sin?

An amazing video. . .

If we have to have AI, at least it can help us imagine things like this.  HT William Tighe

What is the outcome of therapy?

Having more than a passing acquaintance with the mental health industry, I speak with more familiarity than I ever wanted to the disappointment out there for those with mental illness, in emotional distress, and in with psychological wounds.  A diagnosis is hardly the answer.  It helps with the medical billing but it does not cure the patient.  Diagnostic codes seem of the greatest importance to the medical establishment for it is the key to what kind of therapy and what kind of meds get covered.  But it does not seem that all of this promise is actually curing people.

We think that diagnostic codes and the path through the medical maze we have constructed has a real track record when it comes to the mental health industry.  Does it?  We have more meds available than ever before but are those meds dealing with symptoms or actually treating causes?  We have more kinds of mental health resources to choose from -- including online providers to non-profits -- than ever before.  But the therapeutic arm of it all seems only there to bridge a crisis and not exactly to address the root of the problem.  In the hospital ER, the most important question is whether or not the patient still seems to be an urgent threat to themselves or anyone else.  If that standard is met, it is highly likely the individual will be sent home with a promise to find help with their current or a new provider.  That often seems like the entire mental health industry -- bridging one crisis after another without actually fixing anything.  I know I am being harsh but this is from the prospective of an insider.  The avenues of hope for those I have dealt with most intimately were helped not by government or an agency of a health care provider but by non-traditional sources understaffed and underfunded but often doing incredible work.  Actually fixing the problems or simply helping the wounded to be the walking wounded and not littering up the ERs of this world.

Therein lies the problem for a church with offers a religious version of therapy.  Therein lies the problem for a God who offers therapy.  Therein lies the problem of a therapeutic deism that replaces Christ and Him crucified.  We have turned God into a vendor for our mental health industry, a God who is willing to listen to us, encourage us to make peace with our demons, be true to ourselves accepting who we are with all our warts, and smile our way through the crap as if it were all good.  But the one thing that this God cannot do is actually save us, fix what ails us, and offer us something more than a reconciliation we have with what is wrong with us and around us.  Imagine pretending that sin is not sin or death is not death.  Is that all this therapeutic deity can offer us?  

This God is, as Anthony Esolen reminds us, a smiley face deity who smiles with us through it all but has no legs to run to us or arms to lift us up.  An emoji God who is little more than a cute picture.  We need more than this kind of false god.  We need a real God who can offer real help.  We don't need a God to address symptoms but one who can reach into the core of what is wrong and offer us a remedy, a rescue, and a real redemption.  That is why we got a God who came in flesh to have real arms and real legs to do something more than smile away the days of disappointment and despair.  The therapeutic part of this is in reality no therapy at all and it just might appeal to us because we would rather have our hands held and be told lies than to hear the truth that saves.

Another waiting day. . .

Holy Saturday is the odd day of Holy Week.  It is a day when seemingly nothing happened.  The Gospels are largely silent about this day, the Sabbath Day whose coming pressured the faithful to rest Jesus' body in the grave as quickly as they could.  Well, I guess you could say we do know something about this day.  It was a day of worship.  The faithful went to church (synagogue?).  They found refuge where they knew they would -- in the community of the faithful, around the Word of the Lord.  Perhaps that is the first lesson of this day.  Those who think that doubts or troubles or anger with pastors or parishioners will dissipate because they stay home from church find no support from the faithful long ago.  They knew that the only rest anyone can find is the rest that flows from God's promise and our faith in that promise.

So they went to church. . . and they waited.  We have a lot of trouble waiting for things.  We are generally not very patient as people We have fast food, drive up windows, and self-check out lines because we don't want to wait.  It should not surprise us that waiting is the hardest part of faith.  Yet waiting is an act of faith.  We do not wait as the aimless whose restless hearts live in anxiety and fear.  We wait upon the Lord.  We know this Lord as the one who loved us that He gave His only-begotten Son who was born in our flesh and blood to suffer and die in our place upon the cross.  We are not waiting for the unknown but for that which we know in the promise of Christ.

On this day the Church has historically welcomed new people to the faith through baptism and confirmation.  The dark night of Holy Saturday gives way to the bright morning of Christ's resurrection and this has been a symbolic moment rich in imagery and meaning for the newly baptized and confirmed.  You might say that the whole life of the baptized is a life of waiting, of joyful expectation not complete until we close our eyes this side of glory and awaken them to see Jesus face to face.  I think of my Dad who we buried only a week or so ago and of the fulfillment of the baptismal promise given to him so long ago.  I think of my own wait for the blest reunion with those who have gone before, who died in Christ.  I think of the restless character of the soul searching for place and belonging that is not stilled or met until we rest in Christ.  Yes, whether you like it or not, Christian life involves much waiting.

Easter is not a surprise ending for us but the ending we know and for which we hope.  This day is sort of like the children waiting for Christmas morning to see what gifts were brought.  We wait because we know there are gifts given, blessing awaiting us, and a future prepared.  Such a wait is not drudgery even when it may seem long.  It is how we anticipate in this life the promise of the life to come.  So wait with me. . . what is to come is beyond imagination and far beyond our expectations -- what God has prepared for those who love Him.  And it all starts with an empty tomb.  Shhhhhhh.... Easter is coming! 

The Friday we call Good. . .

Again, from O. P. Kretzmann:

A great number of tragedies have come over the church during the past two thousand years, but none more terrible than the fact that our own generation has come to consider the Christian re­ligion something soft. It has no place in the mod­ern world. It can offer nothing to the most ruthless civilization of money and power which the world has ever known. The reason for this is undoubt­edly the caricature of the person of Christ to which so many pulpits have devoted their ener­gies during the last thirty years. Instead of the world-conquering, world-dominating Christ who two thousand years ago walked from the Cross to the throne, they have given us a dream-haunted wanderer far from the ways of men who walked about Judea two thousand years ago, pathetically trying to do good to a few people, and who then finally died on the Cross, a failure - beaten' by His enemies, beaten by life, beaten and crushed by a Cross.

This picture of the conquering Christ is a lie.

It ignores the majesty of the Cross. Look at Him for a few moments as He went down into death. The three hours of darkness have ended. The scene has become more quiet. The crowd has been awed into silence by the darkness and by the words of the dying Man on the cross. The Roman soldiers look on with indifference, glad that the whole mean business will soon be over. Suddenly He raises His head once more, looks far out over the crowd and cries in supreme, absolute triumph, «It is finished." To the Pharisees at the foot of the cross, the scribes and elders and the Roman soldiers these words must have sounded like the crack of doom. They did not understand them, but there was something wrong. Had they after all failed? They were killing Him. But He seemed to feel that He had won a victory. Had they lost? They had lost. Their last defeat was written in the face of the thorn-crowned Sufferer into whose eyes there had now come the glow of another world and the light of eternal victory.

If those men and women standing at the foot of the cross had but eyes to see, they would have seen every thorn in His crown become a shining gem in His diadem of glory. If they had but ears to hear, they would have heard the voices of wit­nesses, ten thousand times ten thousand"trium­phant with God-given power, hurling into the world the message of the conquering and domi­nating Christ who has the keys of hell and of death. God the Father reaches down from heaven and touches the cross. The arms of the glorified cross reach out and cover humanity. Under them stands the royal apostle St. Paul crying: "Because He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, therefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that He is the Lord to the glory of God the Father." Under the arms of the cross stands St. John saying: "He is the first­-begotten of the Father and the Prince of the kings of the earth."

The cross grows until it becomes the vision of the Lamb enthroned in the midst of heaven, brighter than the sun and more glorious than an army with banners. The hands that were pierced with nails wield the sceptre of the uni­verse. On the brow that was thorn-crowned and bleeding are the many crowns of universal king­hood. Here is the world-conquering Christ who even today carries a heart-demanding and heart­-searching power to which only the best and no­blest in Christian manhood and womanhood can respond.

It is time for the world to become afraid of Him. He has a strange and terrible way of coming back into a hostile, sin-loving world and a cold, indifferent church and throwing down the candle­sticks as He did two thousand years ago. On the evening of that first Good Friday thousands went down the hill and promptly forgot all about Him. It was so easy to forget. Thirty-four years later, almost to the day, our Lord Christ came back again in the noise and confusion of war, and be­fore His crowned head and uplifted arm Jerusalem crumbled into dust and ashes. Where one cross had stood there now were thousands. They had shouted, "We have no king but Caesar," and they had no king but Caesar...

There is still no room for defeatism and weariness in the Kingdom.  But we shall never know it until we hear His voice saying quietly and assuringly: "Fear now, I have overcome the world..." 

No drama for show. . .

One of the pitfalls of the modern liturgical movement has been its pursuit of the sources not simply for information or explanation of the present but as something to be reclaimed and reenacted in our own times.  If the earliest liturgy was simple, then simplicity is our goal today (even though there is little more than a presupposition that the early Christian liturgy was simple).  If the earliest liturgy was celebrated around a table, then an altar gets in the way.  If the earliest liturgy was a communal meal, then a communal meal is what we must have.  It has reduced the whole of Christ's legacy and testament to a mere even to be remembered or, more profoundly, reenacted.  That is precisely NOT what we do tonight.

Reenactors we are not.  We are not here to mimic what Christ did as if that were the appreciation He desires nor are we here to imagine what the Upper Room must have been like (so much different than our gathering).  No, that is not our goal or our purpose.  We come tonight as the called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified by the Spirit.  We are a people washed in baptismal water and a people who have heard in our ears the living voice of the Son of God.  We are the guilty who have been forgiven and the unclean who have been made righteous.  We are not here to remember a mere event but to receive what was given to the disciples first that they might give to those who come after them.  

The meal is not ours to play with (one of the reasons I am not a fan of Seder meals held by Christians).  We are here to receive what Christ has placed in this blessed Sacrament -- His flesh and blood given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.  We are not actors but those who receive, who humbly receive in repentance and faith, what Christ has pledged and promised.  On this Holy Thursday, it is not about us but for us.  On this Maundy Thursday, it is not about a new law to love as Christ loves us but about a sacrament so filled with grace that it transforms our hearts and wills.  The love we have received moves us to love others -- not to earn or merit anything but simply as the response of faith.

 This solemn but joyful night begins with absolution to the sinner.  This is not some perfunctory rite that must be done but the privilege of grace upon those unworthy and undeserving of such kindness.  God comes to us sinners but He does not leave us in sin.  Where Christ is (in His Word and Sacrament), there is forgiveness, life, and salvation.  What we receive is not only the fulfillment of the Passover but the foretaste of the eternal feast to come.  Christ is the center of it all.  From this absolution, we hear the Word of God place this night in the context of His Passion.  Then we are bidden by Christ to come and eat believing His Word -- This is My body and This is My blood. 

 This mystery is not meant for the mind to comprehend or the explanation to simplify its majesty.  No, indeed, we meet the mystery on the ground of faith, praising God for doing what He promised and acknowledging that the Lamb of God is not an image to impart understanding but bread that tastes of His flesh and wine that tastes of His blood.  In the face of this mystery, we kneel, give thanks, adore, and feast.  This night is not its own but part of a sacred three day service and the benediction will have to wait until the alleluia is back and Easter has dawned.  Until then the body we eat is Christ's flesh for the life of the world and the blood we drink is His blood that cleanses us from all our sin.  The service will pause until it begins anew on Good Friday.  It will continue in the waiting of Holy Saturday.  But the end will not come until the Vigil and its Eucharist -- the first of many to announce that He who died is risen!

640 Thee We Adore, O Hidden Savior

1 Thee we adore, O hidden Savior, Thee,
Who in Thy Sacrament art pleased to be;
Both flesh and spirit in Thy presence fail,
Yet here Thy presence we devoutly hail.

 2 In this memorial of Thy death, O Lord,
Thou dost Thy body and Thy blood afford:
Oh, may our souls forever feed on Thee,
And Thou, O Christ, forever precious be.

3 Thou, like the pelican to feed her brood,
Didst pierce Thyself to give us living food;
Thy blood, O Lord, one drop has pow’r to win
Forgiveness for our world and all its sin.

4 Fountain of goodness, Jesus, Lord and God:
Cleanse us, unclean, with Thy most cleansing blood;
Increase our faith and love, that we may know
The hope and peace which from Thy presence flow.

5 O Christ, whom now beneath a veil we see,
May what we thirst for soon our portion be:
To gaze on Thee unveiled and see Thy face,
The vision of Thy glory, and Thy grace.
Amen.

Text (sts. 1, 4–5): Public domain; Text (sts. 2–3): © 1998 Concordia Publishing House. Used by permission: LSB Hymn License no. 110004930

 

A day of silence. . .

Holy week... The most important seven days in the history of man... Although the exact sequence of events is not always clear to us, we can discern, even now, the straight lines of divine order... Sunday: The garments in the dust - the Hosannas as the prelude to the "Crucify."... Monday: Sermons with the urgent note of finality - the withered fig tree - Caesar's coin... Tuesday: The terrifying wrath of the Lamb over institutionalized and personal sin among the Scribes and Pharisees - the fire and color of His last sermon to the city and the world - the sureness of justice and the coming of judgment... Night and prayer in the light of the Easter moon on the Mount of Olives...

Wednesday is silent... If anything happened, the holy writers have drawn the veil... Everything that God could say before the Upper Room had been said... It was man's turn now... Perhaps there were quiet words in a corner of the Garden, both to His children who would flee and to His Father who would stay... Wednesday was His... The heart of that mad, crowded Holy Week was quiet... Tomorrow the soliders would come, and Friday there would be God's great signature in the sky... Thursday and Friday would belong to time and eternity, but Wednesday was of heaven alone...

Silent Wednesday... If our Lord needed it, how much more we whose life is the story of the Hosanna and the Crucify... Time for prayer, for adoration... Time to call the soul into the inner court and the Garden... In our crowded world we are lonely because we are never alone... No time to go where prayer is the only sound and God is the only light... We need more silent Wednesdays... In the glory of the Cross above our dust our silence can become purging and peace... God speaks most clearly to the heart that is silent before Him... 

 [from the devotional writings of O. P Kretzmann, published in The Pilgrim, pp. 27, 28]