Of Words and Bread: A Meditation on John 6 for the Season of Pentecost

Jesus therefore answered and said unto them,

Murmur not among yourselves.

No man can come to me,

except the Father which hath sent me draw him:

and I will raise him up at the last day.

It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God.

Every man therefore that hath heard,

and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God,

he hath seen the Father.

 Verily, verily, I say unto you,

He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

I am that bread of life.

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven,

that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven:

if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever:

and the bread that I will give is my flesh,

which I will give for the life of the world.

 

 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying,

How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,

Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood,

ye have no life in you.

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life;

and I will raise him up at the last day.

For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,

dwelleth in me, and I in him.

As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father:

so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

This is that bread which came down from heaven:

not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead:

he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.

 

These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.

Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said,

This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it,

he said unto them, Doth this offend you?

What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:

 the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

But there are some of you that believe not.

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not,

 and who should betray him.

And he said, Therefore said I unto you,

that no man can come unto me,

except it were given unto him of my Father.

From that time many of his disciples went back,

and walked no more with him.

Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?

thou hast the words of eternal life.

And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ,

the Son of the living God.

 

It should probably not be surprising that the 6^th chapter of John’s Gospel has fueled controversy and offense down through the ages and into our own day, since it records controversy and offense when Jesus had this actual dialogue with the people who followed Him.  Today as in 1^st century Judea, the people who fall into the orbit of Jesus are of mixed hearts and motives, just as any group of people tend to be who gather around anything.  People in this world are never really monolithic in their hearts and minds, because every person has a unique consciousness, an individual existence, and a particular history which has led them into their present moment.  No two people are ever exactly alike, even though many people can share some likeness or conviction or ambition or hope.  When Jesus spoke to the crowds around Him, He was unraveling some of these individual distinctives and group dynamics, piercing to the heart of every person around Him, clearing away false conceptions and calling them into a deeper engagement with Him.  Then, as now, Jesus’ Words work to strip away our confusion and lead us to Truth.

 

What is important when hearing Jesus, is to believe Him.  Sometimes He says things that are easy or pleasant to accept, as He did with this crowd just a day prior when He fed the multitude on bread and fish by the power of His Word.  Sometimes He says things that are hard or disconcerting to contemplate, as He did when He said that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we have no eternal life in us.  Such hard sayings revealed in the people around Him hard hearts unwilling to believe Him, and thus unwilling to follow Him where He was leading them.  Many would ask then, as they do today, how could Jesus give Himself for the life of the world?  How could a man in ancient Judea have actually come from and be God?  How could someone like Jesus, destined to die at the hands of manipulative and treacherous men, be Himself the hope of a dying world?  And how exactly could a specific Judean man of whatever his particular height and weight was, feed a countless multitude of people across all the ages of history by his own body and blood?  They are questions people still ask today, together with a host of others like them, that are fundamentally intended to insulate the individual from Jesus... to keep Him at arm’s length or further away, so that their encounter with Jesus might not make them uncomfortable.

 

Regardless of our rationalizations and sophistry, Jesus’ Word is still true, and it still calls all people to Himself.  And though His Word calls to everyone just as they are, as the old hymn goes, it never leaves anyone just as they were.  To hear the Word of the Lord is to be enlivened by it, convicted by it, challenged by it, inspired by it—the Word of Jesus is alive, empowered by His Holy Spirit to accomplish the task for which He sends it.  To those who hear Him and believe, turning from their sinful and confusion filled lives to embrace Him, Jesus becomes their Savior by grace through faith, feeding His people by His Word and Spirit so that they will never hunger again through all eternity.  For those who reject Him, His Word which they have rejected becomes their judge, leaving them in their sin and confusion, forever gnawed by a hunger they can never satisfy.  Jesus and His Word always accomplish what they set out to do, and our response of faith or unbelief, of embrace or rejection, is a fate the Holy Spirit enlivens each hearer to take.  Thus it is always true that whoever is saved by grace through faith in Christ alone is never saved by his own works or merit, but all those who are condemned shall burn forever by their own most grievous fault.  To each the Word of Jesus remains eternally true, either as beloved Savior or as terrifying Judge.

 

In this context, the endless debates about just how Jesus can be the bread of the world, how He is present in His Supper, how He is consumed by those who eat and drink the bread and the wine, and how exactly Jesus will raise all these people up on the Last Day, fall into distant insignificance.  What remains of tremendous and eternal significance, is that He is in fact the bread and life of the world, that He is actually present in His Supper, that He certainly is consumed by those who partake of the bread and the wine, and that He shall raise up all who have done so on the Last Day.  It is not the Sacrament of the Supper, nor the transient elements of bread and wine, which accomplish these things, but the Word and Spirit of the Living God.  We are not magicians nor alchemists, seeking some potion or ritual which will transform us into what we are not, as if prancing about in fancy vestments and genuflecting at the proper moments could achieve through our works the salvation of souls.  To the contrary, Christians approach Jesus in faith as their Savior, believing what He has said, because like St. Peter we believe in who He is:  the Son of God, the Messiah who takes away the sins of the world, and the only One who has the Words of eternal life.  The detailed how of our salvation where the transcendent omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience of the Lord God Almighty converge in unfathomable love through a Roman Cross and break forth from a Jewish tomb, are likely beyond the contemplative power of any finite mind.  But the what and the who of our salvation, the Vicarious Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of the world, which opens wide the portals of heaven to all people through faith and repentance by the present and unconquerable power of His Word and Spirit, this means everything.

 

Hear the Word of the Lord as He encounters you this day.  Feel His Spirit pierce your own, carving away the false pieties, self-justifications, rationalizations, and sophistries you have composed to shield you from the light of grace.  See Jesus for who He really is, and hear Him for what He really says, knowing that our flesh profits nothing, but His Word and Spirit give eternal life.  Approach His table in faith and repentance, receiving what He freely offers according to the terms which He has set by His own Eternal Word.  Let His Word and Spirit fill you even as you consume such humble elements as bread and wine, knowing that the Word of Jesus has made Him present to you, that He might raise you up this day just as He will on the Last Day.  Amen.

 

Jezebel and the People of God: A Meditation on 1st Kings 19 for the Season of Pentecost

And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done,

and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying,

So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life

as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.

And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life,

and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah,

and left his servant there.

 

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness,

 and came and sat down under a juniper tree:

 and he requested for himself that he might die;

and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life;

for I am not better than my fathers.

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree,

behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.

And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baked on the coals,

and a cruse of water at his head.

And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.

And the angel of the Lord came again the second time,

 and touched him, and said, Arise and eat;

because the journey is too great for thee.

And he arose, and did eat and drink,

and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights

 unto Horeb the mount of God.

 

This vignette from today’s lectionary describes a depressing low in Elijah’s ministry immediately after a triumphant victory.  In chapter 18, Elijah had just been called out of the wilderness to demonstrate the Lords’ power on Mount Carmel, putting the pagan priests of Baal to shame who had led the children of Israel into apostasy, and resulted a widespread public conversion of heart of thousands of people back to the one, true God.  The judgement of God’s famine and drought was lifted, and the people were restored by faith and repentance in the grace of God their savior.  Victory seemed absolute, as Elijah led the people to capture the 450 priests of Baal and have them executed for their horrific crimes against God and Israel, and for their previous murders of nearly all the prophets of the Lord.

 

Yet Jezebel, the vicious pagan queen of King Ahab, in the face of inescapably miraculous public works of God to save and restore His people, vowed instead before her impotent gods to hunt Elijah until she killed him.  No demonstration of God’s love or redemption would convert Jezebel’s heart, as her mind and soul were twisted into a diabolical lust for demonic power.  Like Satan himself, knowing full well the measure of her failure and the weakness of her infernal masters before the Lord God Almighty, she chose to curse God and His people even as she faced her own judgment.  Jezebel’s thoughts and actions were not rational, but contorted by evil, malice, lust, and pride, into a murderous impulse to wound God through harming God’s people, and to do as much damage as she could in the time she had left.  Under the threat of Jezebel’s insane vendetta, Elijah fled once again for his life into the wilderness, hunted by wicked political leaders and their pagan servants.  His despair was so great that he prayed for God to take his life, that his work might be done, and that he could finally rest outside the fury of such luciferian influences.

 

There are plenty of places around the globe today, where the people of God continue to flee and hide from demonic powers in places of high earthly authority.  The underground churches of Communist Asia and the lands dominated by Islamic forces, bear testimony in martyr’s blood nearly every day to the foul and dangerous work of modern Jezebels.  Even in historically Christian lands, where pagan, Marxist, and secular forces press for ever greater totalitarian control of the levers of power, persecution is arising against the people of God to stamp out any authentic witness to Him and His Word.  Whatever their shades and variations across history, dark forces are always gathering and amassing in various places in a suicidal quest to rebel against the Creator of the Universe.  As in the time of Jezebel, the real influencers of this pattern aren’t human, but demonic; she is just as dead and gone as Stalin, Moa, Hitler, Pol Pot, or various other terrorists and dictators who have come and gone.  What remains is a fallen humanity that too often eagerly follows these dark interlocutors into paths of broad destruction, giving their already twisted minds and souls into the full embrace of hell.  Wherever fallen people remain until the Last Trumpet sounds, there will be fertile ground for blood thirsty Jezebels among us.

 

God answered Elijah’s despair through His Word and presence, as He has done for the people of God across history, and as He shall continue to do until the end of time.  The miracles and the context may change, but the Word and Spirit do not—the same Almighty God who converted the hearts of thousands on Mount Carmel, was reconciling the world to Himself on Mount Calvary, and shall come once again in the flesh as Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead.  This is the same God who walked in the Garden of Eden with our first parents, settled Noah’s ark on the mountain after the Flood, thundered with His Law and Covenant on Mount Sinai, marched with Joshua in the conquest of Canaan, stood with David against the Philistine monster Goliath, sent the Apostles and their successors into far flung lands to heal the sick, forgive sins, cast out demons, to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus alone, and to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come.  This is the God who has preserved for Himself a remnant in every age, a communion of saints who cannot be destroyed by fire or sword, by intrigue or mischief, or by any power under heaven.  This is the God who abides with us by His Word and Spirit, calling all people to faith and life, and empowering those who follow Him such that the gates of hell cannot withstand them.

 

The pain of persecution and social rejection can make it feel like the forces of darkness are winning, that the devil is stronger than the Creator, and that the powers of death wielded by wicked fiends is more powerful than those who cling to life.  But the truth is that evil flares and rises across times and places, and those who embrace it go to their place, never to return from the flames of their eternal prison.  God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, abides forever, as do those who put their trust in Him.  Reconciled and forgiven, the saints abide in the life and love of Jesus Christ, His Word and Spirit enlivening them forever.  Jezebel is dead and gone and will never torment the people of God again, while Elijah lives on, able to show up on the Mount of Transfiguration together with Moses, living in peace and joy with all the saints and angels in God’s Eternal Kingdom.  The insanity of evil persists from age to age because fallen people allow it to do so by embracing rather than rejecting it, but the life-saving power of God in Jesus Christ endures by His Word and Spirit among us unto ages without end.  Do not be discouraged or despairing in the face of modern Jezebels, but hear instead the Word of the Lord which comes to seek and to save you, to empower and enliven you, so that death is no longer your foe, because Jesus is your unconquerable, ever-present Victor.  Amen.

 

Striving for Peaceful Unity: A Meditation on Ephesians 4 for the Season of Pentecost

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you

that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering,

forbearing one another in love;

Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit

in the bond of peace.

There is one body, and one Spirit,

even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

 One God and Father of all, who is above all,

and through all, and in you all.

 

There’s a lot of distance between the unity St. Paul called for in his Epistle to the Church at Ephesus, and the way unity is popularly discussed today.  Politicians call for unity, as do theologians, bureaucrats, coaches, administrators, corporate executives, neighborhood gangs, international crime syndicates, intelligence agencies, financial institutions, professional associations, craftsman guilds, and likely a myriad of variations in between and beyond.  In much of the way worldly organizations speak of unity, it is a means to an end, or a stepping stone toward some other objective angling toward power, money, pride, or influence.  When a politician calls for unity, they often want consolidation of power to implement their policy against the will of their adversaries; businesses want growth and profit; team leaders want victory and prestige.  I’m not sure the average person, when they hear a leader call for unity, thinks of themselves as a manipulable pawn coalesced to solidify the leader’s ambitions for power, wealth, and influence, but sitting for a while in many political, economic, or theological strategy sessions will make it hard to miss the point.  Worldly calls to unity often come with ephemeral promises for the people who rally to the leader, but unity oriented as a means to power usually works out much better for the leader than it does for the followers.  The Pharaohs lived much better than the unified slave labor force who built their pyramids; kings lived better than their unified serfs who tended their land; most military leaders live far better than the troops in the trenches; Stalin and Mao lived far more sumptuously than their brutally unified populations; Popes and denominational leaders often live lavishly while their unified members struggle against rising secular and apostate forces which harass and wound their congregations and communities.  Unity as a means to a worldly end, rarely works out well for those people turned into a means for some other power-hungry leader’s goal.

 

This is worlds away from the unity St. Paul is talking about.  Rather than calling for unity as a way to pad his wallet, build his Apostolic prestige among the other Apostles, or become a sectarian leader who could bend all congregations to his political will, Paul started the chapter by noting his personal role as a prisoner—a captured slave—of Jesus Christ.  As a servant of Jesus’ Word and Spirit, Paul called the Christians at Ephesus to start with lowliness, meekness, and a longsuffering forbearance in love toward one another.  With that, he could enjoin them to strive toward keeping their unity in the Spirit, bonded together in a fellowship of peace—a hard work of focus and devotion which did not create unity as a means to an end, but sought to keep unity as a gift to be cherished.  Such unity was a reflection among them of the deeper reality that in fact there is only One Body of Christ which is His Church, only one Spirit who calls and sanctifies that Body, only one Lord who leads and saves that Body, only one saving faith in that one saving Lord, only one Baptism that He established for uniting all people through His new covenant of justification by grace through faith in Him alone, and only one Father who is above and within and among all His people.  This was not a unity born of man, but of God—a gift of unity and fellowship in Jesus which connects all those who put their trust in Him.  This unity does not bolster the pride, power, wealth, and prestige of any man, but makes everyone who will repent and believe the Gospel a joint heir of the Kingdom of God.  Such unity is not a means to another end, but an end in itself:  the establishment of a renewed human community made one with each other because they have been reconciled to God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  This reality rings through eternity to the glory and praise of God alone, so that as St. Paul would say, no man may boast, regardless of whatever individual gifts or callings or talents they might be given to live and serve in God’s Kingdom.  No matter our individual diversity within this blessed unity, to us all is grace, and to God is all the glory.

 

Like so many of the good gifts of God, they give us opportunity to recalibrate our thinking, and to examine ourselves in light of them.  Christian unity is not something we make, but something we are given, and that is very good news.  In our fallen condition, with our inclinations to pride and the whole host of sins which mark our fallen race, we should not be surprised that human attempts to build unity on promises of utopia tend toward dystopia, where sinful people use other sinful people to accomplish sinful ends and leave vast scenes of human wreckage everywhere in their wake.  We learn from God’s good gift of unity accomplished in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and given freely to all people by the power of His Gospel Word proclaimed, how far our human attempts at unity fall short of His everlasting righteousness.  Such a Law’s polished mirror should drive us to acknowledge and repent of our depravity, to turn from the paths of destruction and evil which can only lead to death and despair.  And like all of God’s Law, it is a faithful tutor to drive us to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

The gift of God’s unity in Jesus also empowers us by His Word and Spirit to keep what He has freely given us.  Not a work we do to save ourselves or to preserve our salvation, but the loving call of God’s redeeming grace which unites us to Jesus, continues to call us to live in that same faith which He gave us in the beginning.  What begins by grace through faith, continues by grace through faith and is found in Jesus alone, as Jesus alone has finished the work of our salvation from beginning to end.  The lowliness and meekness and longsuffering and forbearing love needed to strive for keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace are gifts given to the people of God through faith in Jesus, so that our work in keeping what He has given us is actually His work ongoing through us.  We do not build the Kingdom of God nor its unity by human efforts, but God continues to build His Kingdom among us by His Word and Spirit, through means of grace which pass through human mouths and hands.  The Kingdom is His, the Salvation His, the Glory all His, while to us is given freely the inestimable riches of His forgiveness and everlasting life.

 

If you are disheartened by the world’s disastrous forays into variations of unity, and the echoes of those sinful ambitions reverberating even through ecclesiastical halls, be of good cheer, for Christ has overcome this world by His own shed blood on Calvary.  What man has pursued and failed to achieve in his fallen powers, Jesus has accomplished by His omnipotent love.  What we have often failed to reflect in our own communities and congregations and even within our own hearts, Jesus continues to create and sustain in, with, and all around us.  What man cannot do, God has already done, establishing His everlasting Gospel in Jesus Christ and drawing all people unto Himself by grace through faith.  The Kingdom is come, the Word is proclaimed, the feast is prepared, and the banquet hall rings with the joyous acclimation of Jesus Christ as our Saving and Victorious King.  To you this day, and everywhere hearts long for unity with their God and neighbor, the endless chorus of the Living God with all His saints and angels and every redeemed soul of every time and place calls out across the expanses of heaven and earth to welcome you home, and into the unified, finished work of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

Strengthening the Inner Man: A Meditation on Ephesians 3 for the Season of Pentecost

For this cause I bow my knees

 unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,

That he would grant you,

 according to the riches of his glory,

to be strengthened with might

by his Spirit in the inner man;

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;

that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

May be able to comprehend with all saints

 what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,

that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Now unto him that is able to do

exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,

 according to the power that worketh in us,

Unto him be glory in the church

by Christ Jesus throughout all ages,

world without end. Amen.

 

It strikes me that one of the foibles of our social media age, is a growing fascination with what other people think is true, right, or salutary.  People have sought to know other’s opinions over the course of history by both speech and writing, but never have so many individual opinions at the moment of their genesis, been so broadly published and consumed by so many others.  With the underlying software and hardware technologies of the social media age, enormous efforts are made to typify, normalize, or project value on this sea of popular opinion, which in turn becomes the source of much of what passes as journalism and education today.  Surveys of opinion in various media become the subject of research and analysis, turned into political and economic policies, speeches, or articles… all of which are re-imbibed by those who generated it.  Below the surface of noble intentions to connect people and data, social media as a construct caters to at least two native flaws in a broken humanity:  prideful narcissism, and communal insecurity.  Pride, in that everyone has a platform on which to publish their opinions regardless of their opinion’s relative value, and insecurity in wanting to be liked and accepted within a group.  The result is an emerging form of selfish tribalism which can tear apart families and long time friends, all over who shared what meme, or who laughed at what post.

 

Lost in this outward fascination with other people’s opinions, is the concept St. Paul writes about in Ephesians 3 regarding the “inner man.”  Philosophers of many stripes had advocated for centuries before St. Paul that people should live an examined life of introspection, refining the mind and building character from the inside out—a point not lost on Hebrew Prophets and Philosophers like David and Solomon, who themselves wrote centuries before thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle broadened Greek perspectives.  This inner life, or inner man, was broadly conceived as the seat of reasonable thinking which shared something with a rational universe and a rational creator which could help align a person’s physical actions and feelings with what was objectively true, good, right, and salutary.  Such an approach was intended to lift human beings above the emotions and instincts of mere animals, or the unthinking flora and fauna all around them.  Even among pagan philosophers, an alignment of the inner man with the world around them and their reasonable Creator gave them the best possible attempt at a good life in harmony with Natural Law and the Natural Law Giver.  Like so much of the better thinking in the pagan world, it is not far from the truth St. Paul offers to the Church at Ephesus—it just doesn’t have sufficient power to accomplish what it sets out to do.

 

St. Paul does not throw away the concept of the inner rational man, but shows its fulfilment in Jesus Christ, the Logos of God.  In concert with the ancient Hebrew Prophets who themselves were filled with the Holy Spirit and testified to the coming of Jesus, Paul invites the Christians at Ephesus to be renewed inwardly by the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus.  Only then can the inner man perceive the length and width and depth of the wisdom of God, being transformed by the love of Jesus into a new creature restored to harmony with God and all creation.  What the pagan philosophers hoped for but could not attain through their own fallen powers of intellect and perception, Jesus accomplished by his life, death, and resurrection, then gave freely to everyone by grace through faith.  The restoration of the inner man, therefore, is not fundamentally a human work but the work of Jesus and His Spirit transforming a fallen person into a child of the Living God.  Such children of God never need fear death, nor evil, nor any calamity that might approach them in this broken world, because the restored life inside them is as eternal as the Creator who has saved them.  Thus the strengthening of the inner man, of the soul and mind of a person, can be aided by human attempts at logic and reason, but is only fulfilled and made truly strong in Jesus Christ.

 

Such a pursuit of inner strength does not preclude interaction with those around us, but it centers us amidst the tumult of raging popular opinion.  Regardless of what someone says or does across the vast backdrop of social media, or what artificially intelligent bots might aggregate into surveys and conglomerate as data sets, or what marketers and political action committees might curate to feed your narcissism and insecurity, your inner man formed and strengthened in Jesus is impervious to the vicissitudes of human corruption.  With a mind and soul enlivened by God’s Living and written Word, empowered by the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit, and in harmony with God the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, pride is swallowed up in grace and insecurity is scattered by love.  No longer does such a mind or soul need to aggrandize one’s self through ceaseless public proclamations, nor does it feed upon public opinion to satiate personal insecurity through tribal affiliations.  Rather, that soul which is born from above by Water and Spirit walks in the eternal life and wisdom of Jesus through every passage of the world, secure in the love and mercy of God.  This is the truly free man who cannot be manipulated by fear or pride, but offers to everyone around them the free gift of saving grace which has promised to set all people free.

 

In a world awash with new technologies which seek to enslave and distract countless people by both pandering to and enflaming our fallen weaknesses to pride and insecurity, there is an eternal and liberating truth which transcends every age of man:  the Man, Jesus Christ.  It is Jesus who restores our inner man, who builds our virtue and character from the inside out; Jesus who takes away our sinful pride and who heals our insecurities by His grace; Jesus who sends to us His Holy Spirit that we might be empowered to victory over every evil and deception; Jesus who expands and enlivens our intellect to perceive the width, and depth, and height of His wonderous grace.  All glory and honor be to Him forever, who is always and everywhere that which is most fully true and right and salutary, and the highest aspiration of every inner man.  Amen.

 

Built Together Upon the Prophets and the Apostles: A Pentecost Meditation on Ephesians 2

For by grace are ye saved through faith;

and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

For we are his workmanship,

created in Christ Jesus unto good works,

which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

 

Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;

That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:  And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.

 

For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners,

but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

 

St. Paul, in his address to the Christians in the city of Ephesus, maked a strong appeal to unity between Gentile and Jewish followers of Jesus which is sorely needed in our day.  Not because we have the same specific social dynamics of the ancient church in Ephesus, hybrid together from Jews in the local synagogue with their Hebrew culture and converted pagans with their Greek patrimony, but because the principle which unites pagans and Hebrews is the same principle that unites every person under the sun.  Paul makes the universal claim that everyone is naturally under the burden and judgment of God by virtue of their own fallen nature—not only of their peculiar acts of evil they physically do or have done, but also of the hearts they carry which are constantly inclined toward all sorts of evil they never get around to acting out.  In this common tragedy Hebrews and Gentiles were united, even if many pagans were less aware of the nuance of their situation, having leaned more upon their darkened intellect, traditions, or intuition, than the Word of God.

 

And of course, even though the Hebrews had inherited that Word of God through the Prophets, they were also the ones who persecuted and murdered the Prophets repeatedly throughout their history, often ignoring that Word and inviting calamity upon themselves.  The Hebrews were beloved of God and a special people because of the Covenant which God had made with their forefathers, not because they were any better in nature than the pagan cultures which surrounded them.  It was the Hebrews, after all, who murdered Jesus through intrigue, plots, and deceptions in partnership with the occupying pagan Roman authorities.  The people born of Abraham were of the same fallen nature as those born by patriarchs in other cultures and other lands, because eventually they were all descended of Adam and Eve’s corrupted parentage, inheriting the same darkened hearts and minds which were inclined toward evil.  This is the universal plight of man, and somewhere deep in the recesses of every world culture is a knowledge that everyone stands before their Creator as inferior and corrupted creatures destined for an inescapable judgement and death.  The universal judgement of God upon the fallen human race is death, and deep in every human heart is the knowledge that we are worthy of this condemnation by the twisted nature we find inside ourselves.

 

And so, as a humanity united in our common Fall and judgment, we are in need of a common Savior and a universal grace.  Paul is clear that Jesus came not just to save fallen Jews, but fallen pagans, as well—a message the ancient Prophets declared hundreds of years before Jesus’ Advent.  The fallen Hebrews of antiquity who lived by grace through faith in God’s Word looked forward through history to the day in which God would reconcile the world to Himself through His Messiah, even as many pagan cultures floundered in the darkness of their fallen intellect to find hope in their lives relative to their Creator.  Pagan cultures devised numerous systems of religious ritual and philosophy to explain the corruption within themselves, their destiny to die, and their perception of virtue before God in a Natural Law which they could never fully achieve.  So when Jesus finally came to be the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the whole world, He gave to His Apostles a universal grace and salvation that was for Jew and Gentile alike—for relatively faithful and faithless Hebrews, and for relatively noble or evil minded pagans.  The curse of sin and death was the same for all, as was the promise of salvation made open to all through the Blood of Christ.  Jesus came to save all sinners, no matter where they came from, their parentage, their patrimony, or their culture.

 

This is the faith which is built upon the Word of God handed down by His Prophets and Apostles, of whom Jesus Christ is the Chief Cornerstone.  It is not a system of philosophy, a cultural morality, or a ritualistic practice.  It is not the product of human reason, or of political actors, or of celebrity endorsement.  It is not a fiction of poets modern or ancient, nor a tale told around campfires to keep the shadows at bay.  This Word of God which framed the universe has been with mankind from our beginning, calling us to faith and repentance that we might find life instead of death, grace instead of judgement, reconciliation instead of war, and communion instead of alienation.  This is the Word which comes in the power of His Holy Spirit to create faith in the hearts of those who hear it, to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, and to begin the transformation of a fallen nature back into harmony with the Divine Nature.  It is not a Word which is contradictory to logic or reason, but a Word which fulfills and surpasses all human attempts to find God on our own—a Word born of the Supreme Rational Being who once gave to mankind a rational nature in His image, which we twisted and marred through our own evil intent, and who in love beyond fathoming reached down to rescue us all from our self-induced depravity that we might be restored to His eternal fellowship.

 

This is how the walls which separate and divide mankind are pulled down, not by the powers of man but by the grace of God.  We are built together not by philosophy or culture or ritual, but by our common salvation in Jesus Christ, declared to the whole world through His Word given to His Prophets and Apostles, empowered by His Spirit to accomplish the task for which it is sent, to the eternal glory of God the Father.  It is a household of faith composed of every tribe and tongue under heaven, of refined intellectuals and roughneck pragmatists, of engineers and farmers, of masters and apprentices, of captains of industry and craftsmen of endless variety.  It is a household composed of young and old, of saints and sinners, all with a common malady and a common salvation.  Here, in this eternal household, we are built together in the Word and Promise of God, where the best of humanity’s thoughts, words, and deeds find their fullness, and the lesser works of mankind are set aside.  Here our Good Shepherd leads His people into green pastures, through the valley of the shadow of death, securely past every evil foe, and into life everlasting in a blessed fellowship with all the saints from the beginning of time, unto time without end.  Glory be to God on high, and peace, good will toward men.  Amen.

 

 

Politicians and the Word of God: A Meditation on Mark 6 for the Season of Pentecost

And they went out,

and preached that men should repent.

And they cast out many devils,

and anointed with oil many that were sick,

 and healed them.

 

And king Herod heard of him;

(for his name was spread abroad:) and he said,

That John the Baptist was risen from the dead,

and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.

Others said, That it is Elias. And others said,

That it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets.

But when Herod heard thereof, he said,

It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead.

 For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John,

and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake,

his brother Philip's wife: for he had married her.

For John had said unto Herod,

                                       It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife.          

 

The 6^th chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel begins with a description of how Jesus’ preaching among his own kin in his home town was generally disregarded, reflecting the old aphorism that Jesus shared which said that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country.  Next Jesus commissioned his 12 disciples to go out and preach repentance, heal the sick, cast out demons, and to shake the dust off their feet in testimony against anyone who refused to hear them.  And while the disciples worked many wonders in the Name and power of Jesus, they must also have met resistance, too, for Mark includes a parenthetical story about the persecution and death of St. John the Baptist.  John the Baptist was not one of Jesus’ 12 disciples, but the last of the line of Old Testament Prophets who was sent to proclaim the coming of the Messiah, to declare the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  John told his own disciples to follow Jesus, teaching them that with the coming of the Messiah, the old Prophetic ministry was coming to an end as Jesus was come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.  John rejoiced as the friend of the Bridegroom, noting that his prophetic influence must decrease as Jesus’ saving Gospel must increase to fill the whole world.  And as Jesus told his own disciples, that of those born of women, none had arisen in the history of the world, who was greater than John the Baptist.

 

But there were similarities in the preaching of John the Baptist, Jesus, and Jesus’ disciples.  They all called for repentance and faith, to return to God by the power of His Word and Spirit.  They condemned sin in every human heart, regardless of the trappings of power and prestige the hearer may have wrapped around themselves, from poor to rich, weak to powerful.  They taught that faith and repentance was the path to reconciliation with God, because only by faith and repentance could the saving grace of forgiveness and life be received.  Trusting in the Word of the Lord, empowered by His Spirit to turn from evil and strive for the good, was the only way to be at peace with God.  This same message rang down through the centuries in every ancient Hebrew Prophet, from Moses and Joshua, to Samuel and David, to Isaiah and Jeremiah, to Amos and Malachi, and every other Prophet in between.  John the Baptist preached it, as did Jesus and His disciples, until Jesus as the very Incarnate Word of God died for the sins of all people so that His grace might pour out upon every faithful and repentant heart in every age of the world.  And just to ensure no one missed the point of Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, He rose from the dead three days after His crucifixion, ascended into heaven, made Apostles of His disciples and sent them in the power of His Word and Spirit to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to every tribe and tongue in every corner of the world, in Jesus’ Name alone.  The Church of Jesus Christ has continued this mission until this day, and will continue it until the Last Day, when Jesus returns to consummate all history by His final judgement of the living and the dead.  Ever since the Fall of Adam and Eve, the Word of the Lord has been calling all people to faith and repentance that they might receive forgiveness, life, and salvation from Him by the grace earned only by the shed Blood of Jesus.  The ancient Prophets looked forward to it, and the Apostolic Church looks backward toward it, even as we all look forward to the final removal of all evil from the world at the Last Day.

 

As one might expect, and as history has recorded, there are a lot of people who don’t appreciate a message of faith or repentance.  Many people, particularly those in positions of political power, don’t like being told to stop doing some evil they enjoy.  From evil King Ahab with his despicable Queen Jezebel who hunted the Prophet Elijah in the deserts of Israel after having killed most of the remaining prophets in their land, to King Herod who imprisoned and beheaded John the Baptist for pointing out his adultery, to Jesus who was sentenced to death by the offended Jewish and Roman authorities, to the Apostles who all suffered persecution and most suffered a martyr’s death, to Christian pastors murdered by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, or imprisoned in Communist Chinese slave labor camps to this day, those who bear the Word of God often find themselves attacked by politicians, ecclesiastical and secular.  As persecution of the preaching of God’s Word grows in previously Christian western countries, we will continue to see those in positions of power and authority using their resources to persecute God’s messengers.  This isn’t new—it’s been happening since Cain rose up to kill his brother Abel, and according to the Prophets and Apostles who were granted visions of the End of Days, it will get much worse as we approach the Last Day.  But until then, these cycles of peace and persecution, particularly by those in positions of power and authority, will continue just as the wickedness in every human heart continues to wrestle between faith and unbelief.  We might mourn the transition from peace to persecution in our times and places, but it should not shock us, as Jesus Himself told us that we would have trouble in this world even as He has conquered it.

 

But notice the pattern which emerges in the text of Mark 6:  where persecution of the Word increases, the proclamation of the Word increases even more.  With the imprisonment and execution of John the Baptist, came the preaching and discipleship of Jesus Christ.  With the persecution and murder of the Apostles, came the great missionary journeys of St. Paul across the Mediterranean basin, of St. Mark to North Africa, of St. Thomas to India, of the converted Ethiopian Eunuch to East Africa.  Out of the crucible of rising persecution by Roman emperors and local governors, came the emergence of the great Christian Creeds and the beginning of the great Ecumenical Councils.  Out of the persecution of corrupt popes and emperors in the West came the various Reformers, Monastics, and Missionaries who eventually brought the Light of Christ to the Americas, the Pacific Islands, and the Far East.  Everywhere the power of tyrants and bureaucrats have tried to suppress or remove the Word of God by attacking those who proclaim it, God has sent even more messengers with His call to repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  While John’s prison cell with the executioner’s ax falling upon his hallowed neck may have looked dark and conquered by evil, the countryside exploded with the proclamation of Jesus and His disciples, bringing many to new life reconciled with God.  As the sun grew dark during Jesus’ crucifixion, the powers of hell were sent reeling as the Lord of Life took from them the power of death, returning to give His Apostles the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven.  Wherever the blood of Apostles and martyrs were spilled, the Word of the Lord broke forth in the conversion of many hearts and souls.  Even today, the courage and heroic faith of martyrs from Middle Eastern sands to African jungles, from Communist slave camps to Islamic torture cells, from cosmopolitan cities to rural villages, the Word of the Lord is not stopped.  To the contrary, every drop of martyrs’ blood fuels a new explosion of evangelism, and the Lord of Hosts sends even more messengers with His life-giving Word of faith and repentance, grace and salvation, in Jesus Christ alone.

 

It is tempting to despair of the persecutions growing in our day, in lands which used to ring with the freedom to preach the Gospel to every creature, to make disciples of all nations in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to teach everyone who will listen all that the Lord Jesus taught us by His Word.  We may rightly lament that so many of our secular and ecclesiastical leaders have not only abandoned the Word of God, but seek to write laws and inspire mobs to attack those who bear that Word today.  Yet our calling has not changed to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all people in Jesus’ Name alone, from home and hearth to the public square.  And whether we see times of peace or persecution, we may remain confident that the Word of the Lord endures forever, that no political force of man or demon can withstand the Lord of Hosts, and that even if our faithfulness to the Word of God costs us our lives or livelihoods, every persecution of the faithful eventually becomes even greater conquest over the kingdom of darkness.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Strength and Weakness: A Meditation on 2nd Corinthians 12 for the Season of Pentecost

For though I would desire to glory,

I shall not be a fool;

for I will say the truth: but now I forbear,

lest any man should think of me

above that which he seeth me to be,

 or that he heareth of me.

And lest I should be exalted above measure

through the abundance of the revelations,

there was given to me a thorn in the flesh,

the messenger of Satan to buffet me,

lest I should be exalted above measure.

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice,

that it might depart from me.

And he said unto me,

My grace is sufficient for thee:

for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities,

 that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities,

in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,

in distresses for Christ's sake:

for when I am weak, then am I strong.

 

The ancient city of Corinth, sitting on the isthmus between northern mainland Greece (home of Thebes and Athens) and the Peloponnesian peninsula (home of the Spartans) had a 1000 year history before St. Paul ever set foot there.  It had gone through wars and alliances, economic rises and falls, cultural explosions, and a couple hundred years before Paul showed up it had been destroyed and rebuilt as a Roman colony.  Given its location, it was blessed with a profusion of trade and the rich international culture that comes with it, together with agricultural, artistic, and military exploits.  It was a Greek and Roman center of culture and politics in the 1^st century AD, and the church which was planted there through the preaching and missionary journeys of St. Paul took on an air of sophistication—perhaps even arrogance.  The people who composed the church at Corinth were, after all, Corinthians, and like most sophisticated, erudite, and wealthy societies, they seemed to think themselves intellectually and politically above most everyone else.

 

And why wouldn’t they?  They were strong in every worldly measure.  They had plenty of food to eat, theater to watch, philosophy to imbibe, political clout both locally and throughout the Empire, and a roaring economy.  They had their battle scars, and were still a major international player.  Of course, in their opulence, they also had a number of sins and debaucheries to which they were accustomed, but being as enlightened as they were, they couldn’t believe these things were really all that important.  Why would God really care about who slept with who, with adultery, incest, homosexuality, prostitution, public displays of pornography, and the consequent waves of abortion or infanticide that came with all those inconvenient children born of their parents’ self-indulgent play?  Obviously, the city of Corinth was a successful metropolis, and their strength was a sign of their superiority over any backward religious teachings that stood in the way of their enlightened progress.  The letters of St. Paul to Corinth seem to reveal this prideful spirit within the cosmopolitan church, which were echoes of the sentiment commonly held among the people of the city.  This is likely why St. Paul had to finish his second letter to them by resisting appeals to pride, position, or earthly power, relying solely on the power of God’s Word and Holy Spirit to convict them of the truth.

 

And the truth was then as it currently is, and as it has always been:  the Word of the Lord endures forever, as do those who abide with Him by grace through faith in His living and eternal Word.  Kingdoms of the world large and small rise and fall across the expanses of time, together with their opulence, and all the trappings of their cultures which made them believe they were somehow superior to the Lord of Hosts.  Today, the ruins of ancient Corinth contain the shattered remains of their economic, political, artistic, and religious affairs, including several Christian basilicas.  Is it so hard to imagine what the great modern cities of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle will look like a thousand years from now?  Cities known for their opulence, cultural superiority, economic advantage, political clout, and their general disdain for the Word of God upon their public morals, have much to learn from the example of ancient Corinth—as do the churches within and allied to them, who have drunk more deeply from those poisoned wells of popular opinion than they have from the living waters of the Holy Scriptures.  Should the Lord tarry another thousand years, how shall the archeologists of future generations behold the shattered remains of such once great cities, entombed as ancient Corinth with the wreckage of their cathedrals, missions, and churches which fell through their common embrace of what seemed so reasonable in their times?

 

Yet it is the common curse of every generation see themselves as the pinnacle of progress, and the height of human history.  To us, in our times and places, in our cities great or small, the Word of the Lord through St. Paul reminds us that the Lord’s strength is made perfect in weakness—that His measure of what is worthy of eternal endurance is not the dark machinations of prideful men, but the harmony of faith and repentance in His grace for Jesus’ sake.  The Words of ancient Prophets and Apostles, who have testified across millennia to the will and work of the Lord God Almighty in this world, may seem like the smallest and weakest of things when compared with the mighty words and works of modern titans of industry, politics, or academe.  But it is this Word which brought forth the world, which has sustained it to our day, and shall bring it to its close.  It is this Word which reveals to us who we are, where we came from, and where we are going—of the unseen heavenly or infernal company we keep, depending on the present company we keep either in the Communion of the Saints or in the nefarious cabals of the world.  It is a Word which not only declares to us the futility of our vacuous pride, but heals us through forgiveness and grace unto eternal life.  It is a Word which has already passed from life, to death, to life which never dies again, so that all those who trust in that Living Word shall do the same.  It is a Word which does not build mansions and reputations and glories in this transitory world, but walks on streets of gold in the Kingdom which never ends.

 

This simple Word of Law and Gospel in Jesus Christ is the sure hope of the faithful in every age and place, no matter the convulsions of the world all around it.  Like St. Paul we might pray for the thorns in our flesh and in our societies to be taken from us, but to us also the Lord declares that His grace is sufficient for us.  For if we could but see the eternity which stretches out before us, the trials and tribulations of our short years of sojourn in this world would fall away into insignificance, together with the corrupt trappings and accolades of tempestuous mankind.  For we stand today in the Eternal Kingdom of the King of Glory by grace through faith in Christ alone, with the future mystery of the resurrection made present to us in the waters of our Baptism, the Holy Supper which we share, and the Absolution which we speak in Christ’s Name to one another.  These are the weak things which the Creator of the Universe has established to show forth His redemptive power, and we are the even weaker things in which He works the perfection of His saving omnipotence.  Gory be to our Saving King forever, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God, now and unto ages of ages.  Amen.