Sunday, May 27, 2018

How can these things be? A Meditation on John 3 for Holy Trinity Sunday


Marvel not that I said unto thee, 
Ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
and thou hearest the sound thereof, 
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: 
so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus answered and said unto him, 
How can these things be?

Jesus answered and said unto him, 
Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; 
and ye receive not our witness.
If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, 
how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

John 3 makes for a deep reflection on Holy Trinity Sunday, when the Church pauses to contemplate what God has revealed about His own nature through His Scriptures.  In this passage alone, God the Father is said to love the world so much that He sends His only begotten Son that all might live through Him, and that being born again by water and the Spirit is necessary to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  All three are distinct in their actions and their persons, and yet all three are God, sharing the same divine nature which is both worthy of worship and at the center of our salvation.  We see in this testimony of St. John to the words of Jesus, that our God is One in essence, and yet three in Persons— a mystery that set Nicodemus’ mind reeling.

If Jesus’ words here were the only ones we had in Scripture, it would be enough for us to come to this conclusion, but they are not.  This testimony that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God runs throughout the Old and New Testaments, even as the declaration that there is only One God resonates from the beginning of creation.  The Scriptures provide a testimony of heavenly things that are very difficult for human beings to conceptualize when it comes to the nature of the One who creates, saves, and sanctifies the world.  With the ancient Hebrews we confess the Shema— that the Lord our God is One— noting that even in this formulation, the Hebrew word for God (Elohim) is a plural declared to be a unity of one.  That plurality in unity continues to be revealed through the Prophets after Moses, who identify the Holy Spirit acting and moving in full accordance with the will of the Father, even as they move through history and time to bring forth the divine Messiah.  At each turn, we find that the Father is infinite, all mighty, omniscient, and eternal, just as the Spirit and the Son are, yet there are not three infinites, eternals, omnipotents, or omniscients, but One.

It should not be surprising that finite people with fallen intellects have great difficulty wrapping their minds around the nature, essence, and persons of God.  Many very bright people have stumbled at trying to reconcile this revealed mystery in the language of philosophy, theology, or science.  While the testimony is clear, that God is revealed as one essence in three persons is outside the experience or observation human beings have of anything else in the universe— there’s really nothing else exactly like God.  People are composed of body and spirit, dual natures making up one person, which is pretty easy to observe (when a person has a united body and spirit, they are alive, but when their natures are separated, they die). Animals seem to have a similar construction, but without the mysterious Image of God given to humanity in creation.  The universe seems to function with laws which govern matter and energy that are somehow united into one great cosmos.  But all these things have a beginning, which means they are not precisely speaking, eternal.  While there are echoes of plurality in unity throughout creation, nowhere other than in God Himself do we hear a testimony to the idea that the foundation and origin of all things, the pre-existing and truly eternal, infinite, and everlasting King of the Universe is Himself a plurality in unity.

But then, I think we should be happy to know that our God who made us, saves us, and sanctifies us in His eternal life and grace, is something far more than the imagination of a created human mind.  While nothing in our logic and reasoning tells us that God’s witness to His plurality in unity is illogical or irrational, we quickly surmise that His testimony reaches beyond the limits of our finite logic and reason.  The God who gave us an ordered universe of laws and logic is the architect of law and logic, and His infinite Mind is infinitely beyond that of His finite creatures, even those made in His image.  We may approach God on His terms, and He may approach us, but our God is always God, and we are always His creatures.  What God declares of Himself to His creation helps us see His fingerprints upon the clay, while remembering that there is a fundamental difference between the Sculptor and His handiwork.


But of course, that handiwork of God is something only He can do.  Only God can create us, save us from our sins, and sanctify us in His grace to eternal life in Him.  No human being could create the cosmos, anymore than a mere creature could sacrifice himself for the satisfaction of divine justice for the fallen world.  Likewise, no human being could give birth to himself by water and the Spirit, creating saving faith in the unbelieving heart.  This mystery of God’s testimony to who He is— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever— is what the Church calls the Holy Trinity.  While we cannot fully explore it due to the limits of finite human minds contemplating the eternal and infinite God, we can confess it as it is given to us, observe its echoes in the universe around and within us, describe it in action as God manifests it throughout human history, and declare its necessity in the divine work of saving the whole world.  The doctrine of the Holy Trinity reminds us that our God is not a creation of human imagination, but the only One who creates, saves, and sanctifies those who will repent, believe, and live in Him.  Hear Him, as the Father calls you through His Word and Spirit to the salvation which is in His Son alone, that your life and fellowship may abide in blessed communion with His plurality in unity forever.  Amen.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Numbered with the Apostles: An Eastertide Meditation on Acts 2


And they appointed two, 
Joseph called Barsabas, 
who was surnamed Justus, 
and Matthias.
And they prayed, and said, 
Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, 
shew whether of these two thou hast chosen,
That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, 
from which Judas by transgression fell, 
that he might go to his own place.
And they gave forth their lots; 
and the lot fell upon Matthias; 
and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

In the last half of Acts chapter 2, we have recorded the first ordination of an Apostle after Jesus’ ascension.  The eleven remaining Apostles, together with the blessed Virgin Mary, the other women noted in the Gospels, and a group of believers which numbered in all about 120 persons, were gathered in an upper room in prayer and fellowship.  Then Peter, moved by the Holy Spirit, rose up and addressed them all to say that they needed to fill Judas’ vacant office (literally, his bishopric) which had been vacant since his suicide after his prophesied betrayal of Jesus.  Knowing that their Apostleship was a peculiar eye witness to all that Jesus had said and done, with similarly peculiar promises about what their ministry would entail and the power with which it would be endued by the Holy Spirit, they selected two candidates who had been with them since the days of John the Baptist, through the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension.  This period of roughly three years of study and discipleship with Jesus and His Word in the fellowship of His disciples is noteworthy, as it became an enduring model for what later emerged as formal seminary training (the traditional education for the formation of a pastor, a Master of Divinity degree usually takes three to four years to complete including a supervised practicum, similar to that which Medical Doctors (MD) and Lawyers (JD) receive).  Knowing that the care of souls was of eternal significance to the people they would influence, ordaining a formal witness and teacher of Jesus and His Word was not taken lightly.  Even after the Apostles set the minimum terms of experience and education which Judas’ replacement should have before taking his office, they still took the matter before God so that the decision was His.  Only after all this, in the fellowship of the faithful believers, was Matthias numbered among the 12 Apostles (what would later be called ordination, or literally, to be set in order regarding the pastoral office.)

Later practices of ordination are found throughout the book of Acts, and particularly in Paul’s epistles to his young protégés Timothy and Titus.  While the placing of Matthias into Judas’ vacant apostolic bishopric was somewhat unique, given that eye witnesses to all that Jesus had said and done would eventually be gone, Paul helps us understand how the transition would occur so that the fellowship the Apostles shared with Jesus would continue through all those who would be united to them by faith in Jesus.  This principal later become known as Apostolic Succession, reflected in the ancient Creeds as the fellowship of the one, holy, catholic / universal,  and apostolic Church—a fellowship in the Apostle’s teaching which they received from Jesus and which they wrote down in the New Testament, handed down within the fellowship of the faithful believers, and entrusted to those who would be ordained into the Apostolic office Jesus established for the preaching, teaching, and administering of His Word and Sacraments.  The examples we have in the historical narratives of the Gospels and Acts, are expounded by principle and application the Epistles, so that every generation to follow might know how to share in the unity and fellowship which Jesus and His Apostles lived by Word and Spirit.

Across the Christian Church and throughout history, many Christian communities have attempted to emulate this Biblical tradition, some doing better than others at different times and places.  Some put all their emphasis on the ordination process, as if the right people in the right funny clothes using the right formula, apart from fidelity to the actual Apostolic witness to the Word of Jesus, would create the unity of fellowship Jesus prayed for in John’s Gospel—too often misidentifying  bureaucratic unity for the unity of authentic faith.  Others disregarded any sense of order or ordination in the church, attempting to achieve unity of fellowship through “everyone a minister,” each with their own bibles, opinions, and feelings about the Apostolic Word of Jesus— generating the easily anticipated result that chaos, ignorance, schism, sectarianism, and heresy abound.  And yet, all along, there have always been those who have tried to keep the balance of properly forming candidates for ordination into the pastoral office, who within the fellowship of the faithful cling to Jesus’ Word in the Scriptures recorded by His Prophets and Apostles, and hand on from one ordained teacher to the next the duty of being a faithful witness to Jesus and His Word.  This is the true Apostolic Succession, neither abandoning the pastoral office Jesus established, nor the Word by which He established it within the fellowship of His holy Church.


Have you been scandalized by Christian fellowships which have promoted bureaucracy over faithfulness, some of whose ministers fail to be faithful witnesses to Jesus’ Word handed down through His Holy Scriptures?  Have you been tossed bout by every wind of doctrinal opinion in Christian fellowships where some have valued the unstable ignorance of individual opinion over the historic witness to Apostolic Christianity?  Hear the Word of Jesus come to you again this day, piercing the confusion born of prideful and ignorant men.  Jesus’ has never left the world without witness to His Word and Spirit, and never left His people without His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation which He won for them through His life, death, and resurrection.  Jesus still works saving faith by grace in the hearts of all who will repent and believe in Him, and He still raises up faithful witnesses in every generation who will courageously proclaim His Word and administer His sacramental gifts according to His institution and command.  The witness of the Prophets and the Apostles is alive and present today, because Jesus, whose Word and Spirit are the only true and enduring unity of His Church, continues to make it so— that everyone might hear Him, believe, and live in Him forever.  The sinful people who Jesus saves by grace through faith might look like a mess in their various churches, denominations, congregations, and fellowships, but wherever Jesus and His Word are at work, there His Spirit is working, too, that in every generation there may be those who are numbered with Him and His Apostles by grace through faith in Christ alone.  Amen.

Sunday, May 6, 2018

What God has made Clean: An Eastertide Meditation on Acts 10


Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, 
Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
But in every nation he that feareth him, 
and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, 
preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)
That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, 
and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached;
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: 
who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; 
for God was with him.

And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, 
and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:
Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly;
Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before by God, 
even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.
And he commanded us to preach unto the people, 
and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God 
to be the Judge of the quick and the dead.
To him give all the prophets witness,
 that through his name, whosoever believeth in him 
shall receive remission of sins.

While Peter yet spake these words, 
the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.
And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, 
as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles 
also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.
For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. 
Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, 
which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. 
Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.

In the 10th chapter of the book of Acts, we have recorded a tremendously significant event in the life of the Church.  Cornelius, who is described as a just man, devout before God and active in good works for the care of the poor, was visited by an angel of God despite being a Gentile.  While Jewish tradition going back to the words of Moses commanded Jews to be hospitable and just with Gentiles while keeping themselves distinct (due to the promise of the coming Messiah through the decedents of Abraham,) by the time of Peter such distinctions had given way to open prejudice and condescension.  Not only did many of the Jews, guided by the complex traditions of the Pharisees, look down upon Gentiles as inferior and unclean, but many Gentiles of Roman and Greek heritage thought the same of the Jews.  Prejudice and animus went both ways, such that Jews and Gentiles did not eat with each other, visit each other’s houses, or participate in the same social events— they might share business and political dealings, but everything else was out of the question.  Many pagan Romans would despise the Jews and their God as conquered and weak, and many Jews would contemptuously view the pagan Romans as ignorant and soiled by their worship of false gods.  The chasm between these peoples was vast, despite their geographic proximity in the Mediterranean basin.

And yet, God sent a holy angel to Cornelius, a Roman.  Likewise, He reached out to Peter in a vision, befuddling him with a command not to call unclean what God Himself has cleansed.  Eventually, the Word of God brought Peter to Cornelius’ house, and by Peter’s preaching, all those assembled were given the gift of the Holy Spirit— which is forgiveness, life, and salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.  They spoke in tongues just as the Apostles and other Jewish converts did, inspiring Peter to ask what should prevent them from being baptized, since they had received the same Holy Spirit?  A chasm between people so wide that no man could breach it, was closed by the work of Jesus’ sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  No longer were Jews and Gentiles to be separated, or to look down on each other in derision, because each was saved by the same grace through the same faith, sealed by the same Holy Spirit into the same Body of Christ which is the one, holy Church.  As God Himself cannot be divided, but lives forever as the perfect unity in community of the Most Holy Trinity, so too would all those grafted into Him by grace through faith live in unity with each other through Him.  The blood which Jesus poured out on His cross was for the sins of the whole world, and His Word was sent out to the whole world— first by His Apostolic witnesses, and then in every generation by those ordained after them to preach their Apostolic message— that the whole world might be reconciled through Jesus.

Sadly, divisions between people still plague the world, and do so even within the visible boundaries of the Church.  People for whom Jesus has died are called unclean, made to feel the bitterness and prejudice of those who would look down upon them, abuse them, condemn them, or refuse to associate with them.  Outside the Church, people resort to brutish tribalism to assert superiority of their tribe over others in the realms of race, politics, economics, and myriad other divisions.  Inside the Church, that same tribalism manifests as denominationalism and powerful bureaucracies, each waving their banner of superiority over their fellow Christians, holding hostage the gifts of Christ’s fellowship and His means of grace from those who don’t wear the same team jersey, or bow to the same tyrannical bureaucrat.  Such manifestations of our fallen nature reveal our pride and malice, greed and covetousness toward each other, breathing out a hatred and division which is alien to the Spirit and work of Christ our Savior.  Such sin masks and occludes the deeper reality which was revealed to Peter and Cornelius:  that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.


Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you this day, calling you away from your wicked pride which deceives you, and creates humanely insurmountable chasms between you and your neighbor.  Hear the Law as it pierces your heart, and opens your eyes to all the ways you have been guilty of fomenting division, schism, and triumphal tribalism of your clan over another, calling you to repentance.  Hear the Gospel as it comes to heal your separation from God through the blood of Jesus Christ by grace through faith in Him, and then heals your divisions from your neighbors, as you all learn to live in the light of the same Word, by the power of the same Holy Spirit, united into the one Church which is the indivisible Body of Christ, now and forevermore.  Having been made clean by the grace of God, see your neighbor through the same crucified and risen Jesus who has cleansed you, that embracing your brothers and sisters, you might never again call unclean that which Jesus has washed in His own holy blood.  Amen.