How good it is to dwell in unity; a meditation on Psalm 133

                The Psalmist notes something that should sound natural to us—that unity is a good and pleasant way to live.  We find this in our families, our communities, our nations; we find it in our groups of friends, our associations, and our pubs.  We know that it is far more pleasing to live together with those we share a common unity, than to strive with those who are divided from us.  Further, we know that division is often painful, resulting in conflict and strife.  Anyone who has ever seen the scourges of war, knows that no one wants to live that way forever—we only fight wars when they are most necessary, and always with the intent to return to peace.  No one wants to invade the beaches of Normandy every day forever, anymore than we would want to fight the battles of Gettysburg again, and again, and again.  War and bloodshed, conflict and strife, are awful things, even when they are most necessary.

                If this sounds intuitive in other spheres of life, we should not be surprised by the preference of peace and unity over discord and strife in the Church.  Anyone who has spent time in a Christian congregation that is rent asunder by conflicts and contention, can tell you what a draining and unpleasant experience it is.  While there is a time and place for conflict, when truth must triumph over error, or good over evil, living in a constant state of contention is withering to both body and soul.  This is not the way Christ intends His congregations to live, as noted in His High Priestly Prayer (John 17.)  Jesus prays for His people to remain one, in the way that He and the Father are One, bound together in a unity of those hear and believe His Word, with a common love, and a common hope, born of a common baptismal grace.  It is this unity St. Paul would mention later, as he reflects on the reality of there being only one faith, one baptism, and one Father of us all.  For there is only One Church, with One Head, who is Jesus Christ—a Church which is composed of those who are truly the disciples of Jesus, hearing His Word and keeping it.

                So if the peaceful unity of the Church is such a good and precious thing, why is it so hard to find?  Why do we find Christians verbally eviscerating each other all over the internet, and in print publications ad nauseum, all to the delight of a growing secular atheistic public who would like nothing more than the Church of Jesus Christ to consume itself and leave them be?  What is it that really divides Christian brothers and sisters, one from another?  The answer, is evil.

                Evil plays itself out in the Church, because the Church is entirely populated in this world by sinners.  We, who have been baptized into Christ and are born from above by Water and Spirit, have most certainly been raised up into a new life in Christ—but so long as we are in this world, that new life struggles against the old life, both locked in mortal combat, knowing that in the end, only one of them will endure.  The old life, or what St. Paul called the Old Adam, seeks to glorify the self, and is hopelessly twisted toward evil desires, away from the Word of God.  The new life, or the New Adam created by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, is one that lives by the Spirit and seeks to produce the fruits of the Spirit—a love which fulfils the whole of the Divine Law, oriented toward the Word of God.  St. Paul tells us that if we live according to the old, fleshly Adam, we will die, condemned to eternity in hell, with the devil and the evil angels, where all evil will eventually be contained forever.  If we live according to the Spirit, the new Adam who is conformed to the image of Christ, we will live forever in Him.  While we struggle in this world between our two natures, the one fallen and the other enlivened, we often yield to our darker nature and fail to keep the Word of the Lord.  Whenever we fail to keep the Word of the Lord, we fail to maintain that godly unity between ourselves, which forever exists between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

                And so, what is the Church to do?  We return to the source of our life and our hope, which is the very Word of Christ.  When there is conflict between Christian brothers and sisters, we seat ourselves under the Word of God, and let our old Adamic nature be submitted to it.  Do I feel a need to glorify myself, to worship my own “felt needs,” or prefer myself over my neighbor?  Then I need to hear the Law of God which calls me to repent, and believe the Gospel, that my sins may be forgiven, and I may live again unto Christ.  Have I been wounded by my neighbor’s sin?  Rather than seeking vengeance or justice, I must hear the Word of God, which has forgiven me my every trespass, and commands that I also forgive my neighbor.  If there are those who are ignorant of the Word of Christ, in whole or in part, then those with knowledge must teach them, patiently and kindly, in all humility and compassion, loving every sinner as Christ loves them, with all longsuffering and endurance.    If there is one in the Body of Christ who refuses to hear the Word of the Lord, refuses to believe and repent, then he is put out of the Body until his time of repentance comes—and if he does return in faith and repentance, he is received with joy and gladness.  It is a simple unity of the faithful around the Word of Christ, and it is the way the Church remains One, as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are One.

                The call of Christ to every Christian, is to repent and believe the Gospel.  Thus every Christian throughout the world, regardless of the organizational divisions we have created for ourselves, is called to hear the Word of Christ, turn from our own selfish evil, and believe together what Christ has taught us.  There is nothing of Holy Scripture that we leave behind, explain away, or disregard.  There is nothing we add to the Word of Christ, so that doctrines of men might be taught as if they were doctrines of God.  We sit at the Master’s feet, receiving His free gifts of grace, life, forgiveness, and salvation through His Eternal Word—and alive in His Word, we love each other, extending to each other the love of God in Christ Jesus.  We are patient with each other, bearing one another’s burdens, preferring rather to be abused and afflicted than to wound or retaliate against our neighbor.  We are conformed into the image of our Savior, who suffered all things at the hands of sinful men, that He might win salvation for sinners like us.  May the Lord grant that we begin again to hear His Word and keep it, together in the unity He has called us to maintain, living into our baptismal grace—together in Faith, Hope, and Love.  Amen.

Meditations on Psalm 148: Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord!

Have you ever stopped to think about what this phrase means?  It falls so easily off the tongue, that one could speak it without ever thinking about what it actually means—like so many other things we say without thinking about them.  Like, “Good morning,” or “How are you?” or “Bless you,” or any of dozens of others.  If you ever want to test this phenomenon (and be forever branded a social weirdo,) try answering any of these phrases with something other than a standard response.  You’ll find out that people don’t really think about what kind of “good” they are wishing you for the morning, that they really don’t care to hear “how” you are doing anything, and they have no idea what kind of “blessing” you require after a hearty sneeze.

Praise the Lord!  So, what does this phrase mean?  It’s sprinkled all over the Scriptures, and begins nearly every line of the 148^th Psalm.  Beyond Holy Scripture, Christians bandy this phrase around all the time, sometimes using it in ways that if you really thought about how it was used, you’d be really confused.  So… just how do you “praise” the Lord?  What is “praise?”  Who should “praise” the Lord?  When should we “praise” the Lord?  Does saying the words, “Praise the Lord!” actually “praise” the Lord?  Yep, I know… I just branded myself as that social weirdo for even asking the questions.  I can hear someone saying even now, “Geeze—it’s just a Christian phrase!  Stop analyzing it.”  But of course, you know I can’t.

Praise the Lord!  As this phrase is found in Psalm 148, it is a command… which means that from a Lutheran perspective, this is Divine Law.  We are commanded to praise the Lord, because it is good, right, and salutary for all created beings to praise their Maker.  Furthermore, it is right for all creatures to praise the Creator for all His good and glorious works that ring throughout the universe.  For everything that God does, and for everything that He permits to occur in His universe, we are commanded to praise Him.  Getting nervous yet?  It means that for everything that has ever happened in your life, for every painful and depressing and self-deflating thing you have ever encountered, you are commanded to praise the Lord.  If your track record is as good as mine, I bet you fail pretty miserably to praise God, when disasters both small and great befall you.  Failing to praise the Lord when we don’t feel like it, is a symptom of our cursed, twisted, and fallen nature—it is sin, and it is damnable.  This is just one aspect of the Divine Law we fail to keep, failing to at all times in all places, give thanks and praise, worship and laud and honor to the Almighty and Ever-living God.  Poor, miserable sinners we are, that our pain and selfishness stops our minds, and hearts, and mouths from giving God the praise He is due at all times, in all places, and in every situation.

Praise the Lord!  The Law is painful, isn’t it?  Harsher than we often think, when we throw it around so casually—and when we throw it at our neighbor, often without thinking.  What hope is there in this phrase, this command?  None at all.  It does its work well, and points us to our twisted depravity.  But from our bended knees, as we confess our sinfulness and failure to give God the praise He is due, another voice rings out to us, this time, from the Cross.  Jesus Christ, who always praises His Father, even as He hung dying on the tree for the sins of the world, speaks a word to His people:  I have fulfilled the Law—I have gloried the Name of God in Myself, and it shall be glorified and praised forevermore!  I have paid the price for your twisted and selfish pride, for your lack of just praise.  And with My Blood, I absolve you of your sins, that you may live forever with Me—forgiven and free.

Praise the Lord!  Ah, now the Gospel rings out in all its glory!  Now the people of God hear these words as Gospel, for Christ is our praise where our own has failed—Christ is our Victor and our Savior, where we have fallen.  What the Law could not accomplish by command because of our own sinful and fallen nature, the Gospel brings forth by faith working in love.  The Christian knows that he has not and cannot praise God rightly of his own resources, but enlivened and empowered by the Holy Spirit, that same Christian sings out glory, laud, and honor to our Redeemer King—a fulfilling of the Law by the love of God in Christ Jesus, poured out into and through His people who live by grace through faith in Him.  The Christian sings out praises of God in Christ Jesus our Savior, as faith in Him and His saving Gospel, causes the divine love of God to erupt from His justified and sanctified people.  Here now, in the light of the Gospel, the whole Christian life is turned into one eternal song of praise and thanksgiving to God, who has done all things well.  We are grafted into Christ, so that His death is our death, and His life is our life—and together with our Savior we sing forth the praise He is due.  Alive in Christ, by His power and His victory over sin, death, and the devil, our sins forgiven and our whole person reconciled to God now and for eternity, Christ Jesus accomplishes in us what we could never do of ourselves:

Praise the Lord!  Amen.

Thoughts on Marriage

Thoughts on Marriage:  Scripture and Natural Law

A Primer as SCOTUS Prepares to Rule

The Supreme Court of the United States is set to hear two important cases in the ongoing litigation regarding Marriage in our nation.  The first is relative to Proposition 8 in California, the second is relative to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA.)  While the press, politicians, and various action groups are jousting in the public square, it is important that Christians take some time to reflect on this issue, regardless of how the culture or the Court conclude their thinking.  The two primary categories summarized below belong to the classical categories of Special Revelation (Holy Scripture) and General Revelation (Laws of Nature.)

Summary of Biblical Witness to Marriage

            Genesis 1-2.  The creation of the world by God, with design and intent, undergirds the whole of Christian understanding of the coherence of reality.  God, who is a God of order, imposed order upon the creation, so that it would no longer be formless and void.  This order includes the way in which God created man and woman in His own image, and created them to live complimentarily while bringing forth and shaping the next generation of people.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”Gen. 1:26-28, NKJV

            Matthew 19.  Lest we miss the centrality of the doctrine of creation given in Genesis, and of the order instituted by God for the relationship of men and women, Christ comments on this text while answering a question of the Pharisees:

⁴ And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”NKJV

            Man and woman are created particularly for each other, and complete each other in the order of creation.  As they are joined together, they become one flesh, such that no one should attempt to separate them—for what God accomplishes by joining them, ought not be undone by the will of man.

            Ephesians 5.  The Apostles continued to reflect Christ’s understanding of marriage in the order of creation, as they reflected that image forward into the Church.  Christ referred to Himself as the Bridegroom, and His Bride as the Church.  St. Paul makes this point clear, when discussing marriage with the Church at Ephesus, when he writes:

³¹ “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. ³³ Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. NKJV

Some Biblical Conclusions Regarding Marriage

Marriage is established by God at the creation

Order of Creation includes the order of Man and Woman

People recognize God’s order—they are not free to change it

Marriage is ordered toward the intention of procreation

The blessing God gives to Marriage is related to the order and purpose of Marriage

The union of one flesh, is related to the created order and purpose of Marriage

The order and purpose of Marriage, foreshadows Christ and the Church

Christian Marriage is a sacred mystery, reflecting Christ and the Church

Christ (Bridegroom) is head of the Church (Bride)

Christ sacrifices Himself to save and sanctify His Church

The Church submits to her Bridegroom in all things (hears His Word, and keeps it)

The order and purpose of Marriage is given to the Church by Christ

The Church is not free to change what Christ has created and ordered

The Church is not free to bless what Christ has not blessed

Summary of Natural Law Related to Marriage (General Revelation)
            Natural Law, or the observable laws of nature, bear witness to the fundamental nature of human marriage as distinct from all other relationships between people.  While friendship and camaraderie can be shared by people of all cultural and genetic distinctives, the procreation of children and the furthering of the human race are only accomplished by the union of a man and woman.  There is no other mechanism given in nature for the continuation of the species, though laboratory experimentation with the genetic material of human beings may attempt to prove otherwise.  Every person alive today, and alive since the dawn of our race, has come into being through the agency of a father and a mother.
            Natural Law also shows that while any combination of men and women may result in the procreation of children (cf. polyamory and polygamy, serial monogamy, and even rape, incest, and pedophilia) the observation of cultures east and west over millennia have found that the most healthy environment for the care and maturation of children, is by a single father and mother devoted to this cause.  Thus, cultures have attached their children to their parents through law, and encouraged the most natural and healthy environment for the formation of the next generation, knowing that the continuation of the culture and the society depends on the link between generations.  Poorly or insufficiently formed children become destructive to the cultural order (crime, disturbance, ignorance, low productivity, etc.,) and make for poor citizens.  Insufficiently formed citizens undermine the society, and eventually cause it to fall under either its own weight (society no longer able to support itself) or under the weight of a stronger foreign culture (society no longer able to defend itself against attack and domination.)
            Further, a society that desires to continue from one generation to the next, must curb the desires of the current generation, in order to protect the formation of the next.  Thus sexual ethics in many world cultures restrain the passions of adults, in order to preserve the best possible environment for the formation of youth into fully developed adult citizens.  This is recognized by many great thinkers of human history, but is well summarized by the ethical maxims of the 18^th century philosophical giant, Immanuel Kant, when he articulates his Categorical Imperative in the Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.

            Like many other observers of Natural Law, Kant perceived that we do not act as a society based on the limited morality of personal observation and opportunity, but on the moral deliberation that extends that personal action out into community.  If a society embraced a sexual and marital ethic contrary to natural marriage, in which the best potential environment for developing the citizens of the next generation is abandoned for something else, this new universal law would weaken the society and eventually bring about its fall.

 Natural Law Conclusions Regarding Marriage

n     World cultures, across time and place, recognize the utility of natural marriage

n     Modern sociological studies recognize the utility of natural marriage

n     Only a union of man and woman, can produce new human beings

n     Only a single father and mother household, is best for the healthy formation of children

n     If the replacement population of a society is insufficient, it will collapse

n     If the formation of children into sound citizens is insufficient, the society will collapse

n     The society has a vested interest in the multigenerational continuity of the society

n     The society ought to bound the freedoms of the adult citizens, to protect the formation of the youth into the next generation of fully developed citizens.

Concluding Thoughts

            While society in our time and place may have little regard for Holy Scripture, the Holy Scriptures form the source and norm of Christian society and culture.  The Church exists through the Word Made Flesh who saves her, and gives to her His Word Written that she may continue in communion with Him forever.  Inside the Church, the debate about Marriage is settled doctrine, because it is clearly taught in the Holy Scriptures, with a distinct order, purpose, and sacramental mystery.  The Church stands alone on the Holy Scriptures, because they alone are breathed out by God, and useful for teaching the faith.  This is the Special Revelation of God to man through Jesus Christ, which is received by faith, and lived by grace.

            If the world will not hear the voice of God in His Special Revelation of Holy Scripture, the Church may also bear witness to the world from General Revelation.  That which God has crafted into the very fabric of His creation, is manifest for all to see, whether they are of the household of faith, or not.  Any rational person may observe the Natural Law, and in so far as General Revelation reveals the Law of God, they may heed or discard it at their own peril.  To ignore the Laws of gravity is a fine academic experiment, until one steps off a cliff, where the Law shows its supremacy over individual delusion.  The same can be said of Marriage and the procreation of society—Natural Law makes clear what is both necessary and best for the multigenerational continuance of a society.  The society may heed or discard Natural Law at its own peril, but the Laws of Nature will continue to exert their dominance over individual delusion, if the society decides to step off the cliff into oblivion.

            The Church must make her witness (a martyrdom, of both General and Special Revelation,) in our time and place.  If our society is to survive, the Church must speak truth into the darkness of error, in every possible way.  For if we, who have the clear Word of God, in both Scripture and Nature, do not speak and warn the erring to turn from their error, they will indeed perish according to the Law, but God shall hold us accountable for their fall.  If we speak truth to them, and they turn from their folly, then let God be praised that our society has been spared a plunge off the cliffs of insanity.  If the world refuses to hear our witness and plunges into darkness, then their fall is on their own hands—though we shall all share in our society’s collective suffering.

            Let the Church pray for the nation, and intercede for her to God.  And let the Church bear witness to the truth God has given us, that our nation may yet turn, and live.  Amen.