Dwelling Together in Unity: A Meditation on Psalm 133 and John 17, for the 7th Sunday of Easter

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is

for brethren to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious ointment upon the head,

that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard:

that went down to the skirts of his garments;

As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew

that descended upon the mountains of Zion:

for there the Lord commanded the blessing,

even life for evermore.

 

I think most people know intuitively that a community dwelling together in peace and unity is much more pleasant than disunity.  Whether it is the community of family, of a neighborhood, a city, state, or nation, people in unity can accomplish great things when they are not wasting their time and resources at war with one another.  What is true of human community outside the church is also true within it:  it is good for brethren to dwell together in unity, or as Jesus prayed before His passion in John 17, That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.  Yet there is a distinct difference in how the world pursues unity, and how the church receives unity; for the world, unity is pursued by the power of human effort, and for the church it is a gift of grace by the Word of God.  For as Jesus prayed in the same chapter for unity among His disciples, He also asked the Father to sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

 

It is worth noting that worldly unity, pursued by the fallen powers of men, is often also inspired by the fallen desires of men.  Those who seek political unity may find it good for their own fortunes to subject others to their will, to bind up those who disagree with them, and pay off those who support them.  The politics of civil society have been plagued by the passions of evil people in the pursuit of power for millennia even as they are today, with a few governmental structures designed to curtail or impede those aspirations (such as the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution.)  When the world seeks unity, it often intends something far more like the totalitarianism of various regimes, from variations on Marxism to the pure despotism of military dictators and monarchs.  Some of these systems have produced better or worse potentates across the centuries, but all of them tend toward the elevation of one political class over others, so that the pleasantries of such unity are only experienced by the favored or the powerful.  Fallen human thinking is so universally consumed with pursuits of power, wealth, lust, and domination that these patterns emerge across the globe, regardless of individual regions’ cultures or histories.  Likewise, in almost all cultures there are histories or legends of the good kings, the good leaders, who brought prosperity by resisting the evils of their office… but Arthurian-type legends are few and far between the legacies of many wicked despots.

 

The histories of the church share a similar pattern, when ancient Israel and Christendom followed worldly impulses.  Moses was a great leader of the people of God, raised up by God to lead His people by His Word, but in the roughly 450 years between him and King David, there were only a few leaders and Judges of the people who even approximated Moses’ faithfulness.  And though David was noted as a man after God’s own heart, in the nearly 1000 years between him and the Advent of Jesus, only a handful of relatively faithful kings emerged.  After Jesus’ Ascension and the blessing of His Apostles’ non-political leadership, the ensuing 1900 years or so have seen a few decent leaders within Christian lands, but even in the church good leaders were often hard to find.  No later than the 4^th and 5^th centuries, St. John Chrysostom was purported to have said that the road to hell was paved with the skulls of unfaithful clergy, and St. Athanasius was said to be standing nearly alone against the onslaught of politically motivated Arians.  There is no association of people, when motivated by the pursuits of vice to achieve political unity, that has much of a record in producing the good and pleasant unity heralded in Scripture.  But this is because the unity God offers is entirely different than what fallen men devise in their darkened ambitions.

 

God’s unity begins in Himself, and extends outward to all who abide in Him.  While God is all powerful, He does not use His power to coerce people into His fellowship.  Instead, God gives to all people His love and grace, calling them into His fellowship by His Word and Spirit.  What man lost in his fall and has inherited from his ancestry as a fallen mind, a corrupted spirit, and a dying body, God offers to heal and restore through the Vicarious Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ.  Where fallen men chase the ghosts of power and pleasure into the chasms of endless night, God calls all people to turn from the broad highways of destruction into the narrow path of life.  When fallen men yield to motivations of selfishness and pride, God reveals a way of life that is selfless, sacrificial love.  God reveals His Kingdom as one perfect in both Law and Gospel, with absolute Truth and the totality of Grace dwelling together in peaceful harmony.  While God leaves man free to choose a path of destruction and death, to earn the wages of evil and bear them for eternity, God also reveals His love for us by making a way back to everlasting life through His Word of forgiveness and new birth spoken to us by His Son.  In this Eternal Word, the Everlasting Good News of forgiveness, life, and salvation in Jesus Christ alone, we receive what we could never earn, and abide in the unity of God’s people forevermore.

 

Christian unity is not a denomination, or a political movement, or an ecclesiastical hierarchy—it is the very Word of God made flesh who dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.  It is the saving Word given to us freely that none of us may boast over our neighbors, and the Word of forgiveness, hope, joy, and peace we may all speak freely to one another, in Jesus’ Name.  The unity of Christians is not something created or even maintained by Christians, but a gift of grace and faith, in and through the Word of Christ.  Hear that Word come to you today, that you may live together in peace and joy with all those whom the Father has called through the Word of His Son into the fellowship of His Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever, and unto ages of ages without end.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

  

Names and Authorities: A Meditation on John 16 for the 6th Sunday in Easter

And in that day ye shall ask me nothing.

Verily, verily, I say unto you,

Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name,

he will give it you.

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name:

ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs:

but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs,

but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.

At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you,

that I will pray the Father for you:

For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me,

and have believed that I came out from God.

I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world:

again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.

His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly,

and speakest no proverb.  Now are we sure that thou knowest all things,

and needest not that any man should ask thee:

by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.

Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?

Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered,

every man to his own, and shall leave me alone:

and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.

In the world ye shall have tribulation:

but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

 

Like the distinction earlier in this same passage where Jesus promised directly to His disciples that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth (and thus to compose the New Testament Scriptures according to that unique inspiration, the fullness of truth by which the Holy Spirit guides all subsequent Christians) there is also a direct and indirect audience for Jesus’ words regarding prayer.  In Acts we read of the Apostles doing many miracles as they preached the Gospel, and those miracles affirmed the divine authority of their message.  Yet there is also a secondary audience for Jesus’ command to pray in His Name, and the promise that the Father would love them and hear their petitions for Jesus’ sake.  Each generation of Christians since the Apostles has held onto this passage, trusting that faith in Jesus brought them into loving fellowship with the Father, and indwelt them with the power of the Holy Spirit.  While all Christians after the Apostolic Age may not have been given the same concentration of miraculous activity which followed St. Peter, St. Paul, and the whole Apostolic band, the history of the Church is full of myriad accounts of miraculous answers to prayer… as is the Church today.

 

In the ancient world, to act or speak in another’s name was to do so in their delegated authority.  If a king sent an emissary with a message to deliver in his name, that emissary acted and spoke in the authority of the king.  However, the emissary could only act and speak in the king’s authority according to the will of the king; i.e., the emissary didn’t become the king, but only exercised the authority given to him.  Likewise in the text above, when Jesus invited His disciples to pray and ask the Father to accomplish things in His Name (or in Jesus’ Authority as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords) that authority could only be used in accordance with His will.  Fallen men, even Apostles, might be inclined to ask God to do something that should not be done, and there is nothing in this text which suggests that God will do something against His will just because someone asked for it in Jesus’ Name.  There is no way to separate the Father from the Son, nor to divide their divine will against one another.  Thus when the disciples were chided for wanting to call down fire from heaven on those who rejected their preaching, or when St. Paul was denied his request to remove his thorn in the flesh (likely a reference to his failing eyesight), there were times that even the Apostles were not granted their requests because what they asked for did not align with the will of the King.

 

I think this is instructive for us as Christians in our own time and place.  While it is true what St. James writes, that some people do not receive from God because they do not ask, and some do not ask rightly by faith, but rather to satisfy selfish desires, it is also quite possible that we can ask in faith and still be denied our request.  For instance, we may pray for a person to be healed of their infirmity or be spared from death, and the Lord may grant it—but knowing that it is appointed for all people to eventually die, and that all people have a life which is interwoven into God’s plan for all time and eternity, should we expect God to never let anyone we love die?  If God can see every individual who ever was and ever will be, and sees them not only according to their brief few years in this world but for their eternal destiny, we must trust that God knows precisely what each soul needs to endure in this life for their best possible eternity.  And since we don’t have that kind of divine wisdom or perspective, our prayers to God must always be in the humility of knowing we are creatures entreating our Creator, even as we approach Him in His Name.  God does not expect us to know all things as He alone can, but He does invite us to ask of Him freely, and that according to His will, He will grant us what we pray for.  In this way we can be thankful and praise Him when He blesses us with what we’ve asked for, just as we can give Him our thanks and praise when He blesses us by sparing us from what we’ve asked for.

 

As with much of what our Lord teaches us, this encouragement to prayer is both a comfort and challenge.  That we have been given access to the throne room of the Almighty and Everlasting God, to bring our petitions directly to Him by the delegated authority of His Only Begotten Son, is a grace beyond mortal comprehension.  What creature is there in all heaven above or the earth beneath that has been blessed with such honor?  Who else has been washed in the shed Blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, given a new white robe and a new name to signify our adoption as sons and daughters of the King by grace through faith in Christ alone?  Who else has been invited to ask for anything, and to know that God loves us and hears us because we are baptized into Christ?  And even so, we are challenged to keep our faith aligned with the Word of God, to know that as servants we are not above our Master, and that our path through this world under the Cross will reflect our Lord’s walk to Calvary.  We live in both faith and repentance even as we learn to approach the Throne of Grace, to humbly ask of God what we desire, knowing that it is we who must be conformed to His Word and Will, not that God be conformed to ours.  In this way we will learn to walk and live and speak and ask according to our Lord’s will, even as He is refining from us our darkness and dross, so that we might day by day better reflect the Light of His goodness, truth, and love.

 

Be of good cheer, dear Christian, for the Lord of Glory has called you into His presence, and invited you to open your heart before Him.  In His love for you, He has given you the authority to appeal directly to the King of the Universe, even as He places upon you the Name of His Son which is above every name in heaven and on earth.  Your eyes will see miracles you have never dared to dream possible, even as your heart is molded each day into the image of your loving Savior.  He will send you out into the world in His Name and authority to forgive the sins of those who wound you, to bear witness to the Gospel which saves you, to cast out demons who blight the communities around you, and to be His emissaries of life and reconciliation everywhere death and division abound.  Hear the Word of the Lord come to you today, inviting you to stand by faith before the Throne of Grace.  In the love of God Almighty, walk with Him down every road you are sent to travel, raising your petitions to Him in Jesus Name, guiding and lifting those around you to join you on that same wondrous path of grace, faith, and eternal life.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

The Spirit of Truth: A Meditation on John 16 for the 5th Sunday in Easter

I have yet many things to say unto you,

but ye cannot bear them now.

 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come,

he will guide you into all truth:

for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear,

that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine,

and shall shew it unto you.

All things that the Father hath are mine:

therefore said I, that he shall take of mine,

and shall shew it unto you.

 

There are few texts of Scripture that have been abused as regularly and to such great ill effect as our Lord’s words here in the 16^th chapter of John’s Gospel.  Heretics both old and new have leaned on the idea that while some people just couldn’t bear to hear the truth of God in their respective times or places, a time would come when the Spirit would reveal God’s truth fully: usually to them, and often for a tidy profit.  Whether it was the ancient heretics who declared their new revelations that Jesus wasn’t really God, or wasn’t really man, or didn’t really die, or didn’t really rise from the dead, or that there was no Vicarious Atonement for the sins of the world, or that Jesus only really intended to save a special few, or that moral law was no longer binding on Christians, or that Mosaic law was what saved Christians from hell, or that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not really One God in Three Persons, or an endless variation on adding or subtracting from Scripture, presumptive prophets have often relied on the notion that Jesus was just now giving His full truth to them because the rest of us just couldn’t take it any earlier.  This is, of course, a convenient way for people who want to sell books or promote their own causes, but it is worlds away from what Jesus actually said.

 

One of the many ways we know Jesus never intended His words in John 16 to inspire this kind of mess, is by closely reading His Words in the context which He gave them.  Like so many of Jesus’ teachings, there is both an immediate and primary audience to His words, as well as a secondary or extended audience.  In the first case, the primary audience is Jesus’ disciples who were about to witness His betrayal, mock trial, brutal crucifixion, and eventually His resurrection on the third day.  In that specific moment, with those specific Disciples, there was only so much Jesus could teach them that they could bear to hear, and that they would need to know in sustaining them for the dark days ahead.  But there was also the direct promise to those Disciples that Jesus would send the Spirit of Truth (the Holy Spirit) to guide them into the whole truth.  That very specific promise was fulfilled after the resurrection, and the events leading up to and through Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit descended upon the Disciples like tongues of fire and inspired them to preach the Gospel with power and conviction.  The Disciples, then sent to proclaim faith and repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name to every person under heaven, became His Apostles.

 

Not only did those Apostles travel in missionary journeys, perform miracles, preach in cities across the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and as far as Europe and Asia, but they wrote down their witness to the truth in Gospels and Epistles and Revelations.  They weren’t the only ones writing and teaching during this time, but they were the authoritative witnesses of Jesus’ teaching, so their words held greater weight.  In fact, their words held the weight of divine authority, because Jesus promised to guide them into all necessary truth by the power of His Holy Spirit, and thus their writings became the rule (or canon) of the Church, gathered together with the authoritative writings of the ancient Hebrew Prophets who came before them.  The same Holy Spirit who inspired Moses and David and Isaiah, also inspired John and Peter and Paul, which is why there is such supernatural harmony between their writings and their testimony of the Messiah.  No other book, or collection of books, covers such a broad expanse of time and place and culture and authors with one central theme of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, calling all people to turn from evil and embrace life by grace through faith in Him alone.  No other rule or canon of faith holds the same authority or credence, because the Prophets and Apostles of Jesus are unique in their inspiration, as well as their focus, on the One God who comes to mankind to seek and to save the lost.

 

In the secondary sense, Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit’s guidance is also for every Christian who has come since.  But that promise to us is that He will guide us into the Word which He has already given us by His Prophets and Apostles.  We should not be looking for divine revelations that add to or subtract from the Word which has already been given to us by the fulfillment of His direct promise, though we should expect God to keep drawing us toward faith in Jesus through His revealed Word.  The role of the Church after the Apostolic Age has been to listen to the Holy Spirit as He guides us into His Word, not to presume ourselves over it, or to arrogate to ourselves the role of new prophets and apostles.  Ours is a call to faith in every Word which proceeds from the mouth of God, knowing that the Word of God written is a sure testimony to the Word of God Incarnate, Jesus Christ our Savior.  Even in our Confirmation services where we bless and call down the Holy Spirit upon those who proclaim the Apostolic Faith which they have learned through study of the Scriptures, the role of the Holy Spirit is to stir up the unique gifts of each professing Christian that they might serve in faith and power through that same living Word of God.

 

Hear Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit come to you this day, that your faith in Him might be guided and fulfilled in the Eternal Word of God.  Be freed from the tyrannical confusion of trying to come up with new words or novel methods or contrived ideas that can have no lasting value, that you might rest in His Everlasting Gospel.  May the Word of the Living God, proclaimed through the centuries by His Prophets and Apostles and testified to by saints and martyrs in every age, enliven and empower you to rise up in faith through that Word, and become witnesses of Jesus in your own time and place. Amen.

 

 

Hearing Jesus: A Meditation on John 10 for the 4th Sunday in Easter

And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.

And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.

Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him,

How long dost thou make us to doubt?

If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.

 

Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not:

 the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.

But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish,

neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all;

and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

I and my Father are one.

 

There is a recurring error in the history of the Church which is also common in contemporary western Christianity, regarding the nature and origins of faith.  It is tempting to think that faith is something we generate by our own powers, through our own exercise of good works, or that perhaps we’ve received because of our own merit.  On the contrary, Jesus teaches something very different:  faith in Him, comes from Him, apart from any works or merit on our own part.  Those who are made children of God by grace through faith in Christ alone do not make themselves, and thus as St. Paul would later write, no man has any ground to boast in anything save the Cross of Jesus.  In our text above, the Pharisees had been listening to and watching Jesus for some time, yet their demand for more knowledge was not born of faith.  They had chosen not to believe, and in their disbelief, Jesus told them they were incapable of seeing what was right before their eyes.  Furthermore, in the verses immediately following Jesus’ declaration to the Pharisees that He and Father are One, the Pharisees’ unbelief became violent as they sought to stone Jesus to death for blasphemy.

 

While fallen people are incapable of generating faith in God on their own power, or earning faith by their own merit, they are certainly capable of rejecting faith and abiding in their evil.  The Word of God comes to all people, and as God told His Prophet Ezekiel, He takes no joy in the death of the wicked, but desires all people to be saved.  Yet God gives to mankind, even in his fallen state, the ability to receive or reject His Word, and with it the gift of faith which alone receives His grace.  This is how we know that grace—the good, unmerited gift of God—saves alone, because faith itself is a gift carried to us by God’s Word and Spirit.  To hear the voice of God through His Word is a miraculous gift, as God is under no compulsion to condescend in dialogue with sinful men, let alone to give a Word of Gospel which saves evil men from their just condemnation.  God’s love for the world has moved Him to give His Only Begotten Son, the very Word of God Incarnate, that whosoever believes in Him might have everlasting life in Him.  His Word gives us another choice we didn’t have before it enlightened us, so that we become free to either accept it and abide in His light and love and life; or to reject it, sinking back down into our own darkness, hatred, and death.  Either way, God is always the author and finisher of our faith, and if we reject Him, we are always solely culpable in our own destruction.

 

This truth should help us remain calm and balanced as we navigate the world around us.  We know that just as the Word of God has come to us, it has also come to others, calling everyone to repentance and faith through His Law and Gospel.  Each individual faces a daily challenge of faith to abide in that saving Word or to reject it, with the Holy Spirit our only power to choose the good and avoid the evil.  When we fall, that same Word calls us back to faith and repentance, reviving us again in the grace of Jesus which forgives our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.  Yet if we abide in the rejection of that Word, we remove ourselves from the faith which alone receives grace, and eventually our ears and hearts can become dull to the calling of His Word.  Without that Word there is no saving faith, and without faith it is impossible to receive grace and to please God.  It is not by the charisma of preachers, or the talents of musicians, or the trappings of presentation that people are given faith, but by the Word and Spirit of God alone.  This reminds us that as much as we are incapable of saving ourselves, we are just as incapable of saving others.  God alone is both all-powerful and all-loving to seek and to save all souls, that all who will receive His Word will hear His voice, and be raised up to live in Him forever.

 

What comfort this brings to tortured souls!  First to remember that it is not the Church’s job to save the world, anymore than it was of any individual Christian to save himself.  The job of Savior of the World is already taken, and Jesus alone is worthy to occupy it, because He alone was able to give His life as a ransom for every soul under heaven, and to rise up three days later triumphant over every enemy of mankind.  The Church’s job is to be faithful to the Word which saves Her, that through Her faithful witness the Word of God might be carried out to everyone both inside and outside the Church.  Secondly, we know that if the Word of Almighty God has sought and saved us, there is no creature or force in all creation that can snatch us away from Him.  Jesus and the Father are indeed One, just as they are One with the Holy Spirit, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, so that when we are saved by the Most Holy Trinity, we are absolutely and unquestionably saved.  There is no room for doubt or torment or fear, because the perfect love of God casts them all out by the power of His Word, pouring out upon us the incalculable riches of His grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  There we abide by His power and love, living in His fellowship and hearing His voice forever.

 

Hear the Word of Jesus calling to you today, that His Spirit might create in you the faith to believe all that His Prophets and Apostles have testified of Him.  In faith through His Word, may grace abound unto you that you might rise up today, and every day unto ages without end, in an eternal life that reflects His hope and love.  May your ears be opened to hear the voice of your Good Shepherd, and your heart enlivened to trust in Him forever—for there is no other Name given under heaven whereby we must be saved, and no greater power that can keep and preserve you from every peril.  Share the good and saving Word of Jesus with someone today.  Soli Deo Gloria!