Living Water: A Meditation on John 7 and Psalm 25 for the Day of Pentecost

In the last day, that great day of the feast,

Jesus stood and cried, saying,

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,

out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

 (But this spake he of the Spirit,

which they that believe on him should receive:

for the Holy Ghost was not yet given;

because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

 

…

 

Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

 O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed,

let not mine enemies triumph over me.

Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed:

let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.

Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths.

 Lead me in thy truth, and teach me:

for thou art the God of my salvation;

on thee do I wait all the day.

 

Jesus’ teaching in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles was significant, and His declaration on the last day of the feast was instructive.  While ancient Israel gathered on this feast to re-affirm the Covenant of Sinai, the God of our Salvation which David wrote about a thousand years earlier, was in the midst of the people that day.  The Word of the Lord Incarnate stood and spoke the Word of the Lord to the people, and taught them that life and salvation came by no other means than faith in the God who spoke to them.  The living water of which Jesus spoke, which would flow out of those who believed in Him, was that very Gospel Word which brings life and refreshment to all who will receive it.  It is also noteworthy that this pouring out of the Holy Spirit by the Word of the Lord came when the people of God were surrounded by their evil enemies, and when all hope in human strength was shown pointless:  as Noah saw salvation through the flood, Abraham in the giving of the Covenant, Moses before the Egyptian army or the wilderness wanderings, David living on the run in the desert, Elijah before the priests of Baal on Mt. Carmel, or the disciples huddled first in a dark room on Easter then only 120 huddled on Pentecost, Jesus standing in the midst of the Pharisees who sought to kill Him was a demonstration of divine power.  No matter how much evil people surround the people of God, when God is in their midst, His people are always preserved by His Gospel Word.

 

This principle is good for the Church to remember in our own times, as evil rises in every quarter of society.  It would be easy for Christian people to despair in the face of public schools corrupting youth, politicians selling out the nation for private gain, academics embracing the dreadful delusions of Marxism, celebrities advocating for nihilistic hedonism in every medium, and family structures crumbling under the encouragement of selfish ambition.  Indeed, who would think that human strength will prevail against the powers of wickedness in high places, who have now moved broad swathes of Western society to define Biblical Christians as terrorists, purveyors of hatred and intolerance for daring to resist homosexuality, transsexualism, adultery, fornication, the murder and mutilation of children, the freedom of individual conscience and mind expressed in word, speech, and worship, and the equal moral accountability of all people before their Maker.  The rising tide of evil in the world should make it clear that salvation will not come by human power or strength, but by the Word and power of God alone.  God’s people have never been their own saviors, as much as the devil might woo fallen minds to believe otherwise.  On the contrary, whether it is the life of His Word which He spoke into the void to bring forth Creation, or the Word of forgiveness and grace He speaks into the fallen world to bring forth Redemption, it is always God who saves.

 

And if it is God alone who saves by the power of His Word, then the fundamental principle by which we receive that salvation is faith.  Only faith can stand alone in the darkness, surrounded by evil and deadly machinations, and show forth the power of God unto salvation.  Only faith upheld Noah as he stood alone before his evil generation, he and his family saved through the flood which swept multitudes away; only faith upheld Moses before the mightiest empire of his time, so that the people of God might be rescued from slavery and death while Pharoah’s chariots sank into the sea; only faith upheld David before the pagan giant Goliath, the murderous psychosis of King Saul, and the nations which beset him with war from all sides; only faith upheld Elijah before the evil aspirations of Queen Jezebel and her army of pagan priests bent upon his destruction, even as the fire of the Lord came down upon Mt. Carmel to prove only Elijah’s God truly reigns; only faith upheld the Disciples of Jesus while He hung dead upon that Roman Cross, betrayed by the rulers of His own people, but revealed alive again that glorious Easter morning; only faith gathered them together on that first Pentecost, and received from the Lord His Holy Spirit to testify to the eternal life found only in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.  It is faith alone which receives the Word of God, and the Word of God alone which pours out upon His faithful people the grace and power of His Holy Spirit to drive back the darkness, putting all evil to flight.

 

Thus it is that salvation for mankind must be by grace alone, in Jesus Christ alone.  For there is no other Name given under heaven whereby men must be saved, and there is no other Champion who has stood in the midst of every gathered evil, of death, of hell, and of the all the power of the devil’s horde, and stood alone victorious.  Only Jesus conquered all the enemies of mankind, because only Jesus is the Divine Word of God made Flesh to dwell among us, that we might behold His glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.  Just as there is no other God through whom the whole universe has its existence, so there is no other God through whom the whole cosmos must be saved, and no other God to whom all creation is accountable.  Those who embrace evil have nowhere to run, for they cannot overthrow the Word of God anymore than they can overthrow God Himself, and they cannot escape the reality of their own nature as creatures in a created universe.  Those who stand with God by grace through faith in Christ alone, stand in the awesome power and presence of the King of the Universe, gathered into the yet unseen ranks of a countless and mighty host, all with tongues of flame upon their heads and rivers of living water flowing out from the midst of them.  The darkness of this little world might rise and fall in little times, but the glory of the Lord endures forever, across and beyond all time and space.  The evil in our land is dwarfed and doomed before the majesty of the Eternal King, and the more it rises in impudent arrogance upon our small globe, the more it calls forth the brilliance of Christ and His Spirit poured out upon His faithful people.

 

Be of good cheer, dear Christian, for you do not stand alone in this time of trial.  You are washed in the Blood of Jesus, baptized into His death so that you might rise into His eternal life.  You have been given His Word of Law and Gospel, that by faith in His Word you would receive His forgiveness, life, and salvation, even as you stand in His victory over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  You are surrounded in this grace by a countless host of witnesses, who live forever in the company of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and who cheer you on in this day of valiant struggle.  You are the people saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ and His Word alone, and upon you has been poured out the omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit, that you might live forever, testify forever, sing forever, in the Name of Jesus.  Rise up, O People of God, for the strength that saves you is not your own, but that of the Almighty Lord of Hosts.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Keep My Commandments: A Meditation on John 14 and Acts 17 for the 6th Sunday of Easter

 

If ye love me, keep my commandments.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,

that he may abide with you forever;

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive,

because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him:

but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more;

but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father,

and ye in me, and I in you.

 He that hath my commandments,

and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me:

and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father,

and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

 

…

 

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said,

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions,

I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God.

Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

 

Jesus’ teaching to His disciples in John 14 continued with a theme of both faith and revelation:  to love Jesus is to keep His Word, and by that love will the Holy Spirit be given to reveal Jesus ever further.  As Jesus is the Eternal Word of the Father sent to us, so abiding in Jesus is to abide in His Word, and abiding in the Word of Jesus is to also abide in the Father who sent Him.  That restored relationship of mankind with God by faith in His Word creates all the renewal of life man had lost by his fall into sin and death, because in Jesus alone is the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation from the judgment all men earn by their evil.  Added to this, Jesus noted that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive in unbelief, would be not only given to those who believe in Jesus, but that Spirit would indwell all those who believe.  The economy of God’s salvation of man reunites him again in the fullness of his Maker, restored by the Word to the Father, and empowered by the Spirit to live forever in His Trinitarian fellowship.  The fullness and unity of God in His Holy Trinity, is brought forth to mankind that all people might be restored in Him, taught by Him, enlivened by Him, empowered by Him, and preserved in Him forever.

 

Yet if this inestimable gift is brought to man by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, what remains for those who are without faith?  St. Paul’s sojourn into Athens, recorded in Acts 17, is a fitting example:  superstition, misdirected religious piety, and esoteric philosophical speculation.  Paul started by debating with the Jews in Athens, where some believed, and many did not, despite having the testimony of the Old Testament Prophets which all pointed forward to the Christ.  Outside the Jewish synagogue, the majority population of Athens were devotees of the pagan gods of Greece and Rome, or of a philosophical school which gravitated either toward the lustful living of the Epicureans, or the rigorous discipline of the Stoics… or some blend of all three.  It was these Athenians who brought Paul before the Areopagus—a council of philosophical and religious judges who heard disputes and debates among the people for centuries prior to Paul’s arrival.  Educated and aware of the perils of Athenian debate, not the least of which were described in the trial of Socrates some four centuries earlier, Paul began his proclamation of Jesus and His Word.  Not lost on him was that he stood on Mar’s or Ares’ Hill, the gods of war to the Romans and Greeks respectively, in full site of the magnificent Acropolis not far away, with all its idols and statues to the Olympian deities.

 

Paul met them where he found them, which is to say, he engaged them in language they understood and the context in which they lived.  He identified among the vast number of idols one that was dedicated to the Unknown God, as if something in the back of the Athenian mind knew that for all their vaunted education and history, there was something very important they still could not see.  Paul declared that Unknown God to them, beginning with the Creation of the universe, the nature of man made in God’s image, and culminating with the redemption of all mankind through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Paul’s witness to the Gospel was more than fanciful legend cast forth by poets, morality tales that supported a political or social order, or philosophical school that tortured logic and reason to justify a desired lifestyle.  Paul’s Gospel was one that happened in real time, with real people, and had real consequences for all mankind, because the God whom Paul proclaimed made it clear that He alone was the one and true God from whom all things came forth and to whom all things shall return.  Some of those Athenians received Paul’s Word of Jesus, and many did not… at least at first.  Dionysius the Areopagite, one of the judges gathered to hear Paul, followed him together with others.  Celebrated now as a saint in both eastern and western churches, Dionysius is often remembered as the first Bishop of Athens, in a country that would later become synonymous with eastern Christianity in the whole Greek speaking world.

 

Our world is not so unlike the first century AD, with rising tides of pagan religions and philosophical confusion bringing increasing darkness to many cities around the world.  But the Light of Jesus and His Word still shine forth, dispelling the demons who cloud men’s minds and enslave their souls.  Yet it does not come by speaking to pagan audiences as if they were well schooled in the Hebrew Prophets and the Apostolic faith set forth in Holy Scripture, because this is simply not where they are.  Neither does it come by watering down the Word of God until it is indistinguishable from the sophistic soup of modern intelligentsia, like one other path to therapeutic moralism or political utopia.  Rather, what cuts to the quick of our modern malaise is the reality of the world as God has made it, which testifies to the nature of the Creator and His creatures; the reality of good and evil, of truth and error, of life and death, of time and eternity; the reality of the only One who could conquer all darkness by His life, death, and resurrection, so that He might offer forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation to all who would trust in Him.  The inescapable reality of Jesus and His Gospel stands by the divine power of His Incarnate Word, and moves all people to either receive Him in faith or reject Him in unbelief.  Yet by that Word works the Holy Spirit, so that all who believe do so by the grace of God, and in that faith which itself is a gift of grace, receive grace in abundance together with the indwelling of God’s Spirit to lead, enlighten, empower, and preserve them in God’s fellowship forever.  The task of the Christian in evangelism is not to seek out new and crafty words to woo people into the church, but rather to present to Living and Eternal Word to all people, that all who might repent and believe in Jesus would live in Him by His Word.

 

We must not be daunted by the peculiarities of our age, nor the hills upon which we are called to testify.  The same Word which gave life to the world at creation, is speaking and breathing life into the world today, and shall continue to do so until it speaks in judgment on the Last Day.  That Word of Jesus is the Means by which He has sought and saved us, and the Means by which He continues to seek and save all who will put their trust in Him.  Have no fear to stand atop the war-god’s hill and proclaim the saving reality of Jesus, for there is nothing in all creation that can overthrow the Eternal Word of God, and that Word alone is the fellowship of life to all who will abide in it.  Solid Deo Gloria.  Amen.

 

 

The Way Through: A Meditation on John 14 for the 5th Sunday of Easter

Let not your heart be troubled:

 ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions:

if it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again,

and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest;

and how can we know the way?

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:

no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

 

In John 14, Jesus was offering consolation and teaching prior to His betrayal.  Soon Jesus would be whisked away by an armed mob, and natural questions would arise among His disciples about whether or not Jesus really was who He claimed to be.  Knowing the darkness that would descend upon them, He gave His disciples clear guidance about how to navigate the ups and downs of the world.  Where the world would create confusion, Jesus would be the Way.  Where the world would spew lies and deceptions, Jesus would be the Truth.  Where the world would offer up only death and destruction, Jesus would be the Life.  And where the world would invent a myriad of ways for people to work in vain for God’s favor or present themselves as their own impotent gods, Jesus would remain the only means by which fallen men could be reconciled to the Father.  That Jesus would be leaving them through death, and after the resurrection by His ascension, was not to leave His disciples abandoned as orphans.  Rather, Jesus was going to prepare a place for all His people in the presence of His Father, and would be sending the Holy Spirit to abide with and empower His people for their lives of service in this world until He comes back at the End of Days.  No matter how crazy the world would become around them, the disciples were taught to follow Jesus.

 

To modern ears, this might sound ridiculous.  For all the complexity in the world still being unveiled, and for all the variations on evil that continue to surge forth in each new generation, one Man declaring Himself the solution to it all and for every person would be sheer folly—if that Man were not, in fact, fully God.  We have physicists today who think they have figured out the cosmos, and biologists who think they have figured out life; computer scientists who think they have created artificial intelligence, and politicians who think they have perfected the recipe for earthly utopia; gurus who think they can lead a select few to inner enlightenment, and philosophers who think that questions are better than answers.  We have rising terrors of Marxist dictators on the warpath, tyrants who murder their political adversaries, drug cartels that invade countries with deadly poisons, human traffickers who would bring forth a new age of slavery and oppression, and leaders who are traitors to their oaths of office and the people they were called to serve.  There are global economics with trans-national corporations and banks rising and falling, interwoven supply chains that bind adversaries and allies alike into tense relationships over critical resources, and there are academics and executives who promote themselves as luminaries while demonstrating themselves to be the worst synthesis of ignorance and greed.  Surely the solution to our problems is more than Jesus?

 

Yet for all the complexity of our times, the truth always remains radically simple.  There may be, and almost certainly is, a beautiful prism of variety in the Truth which reflects the grandeur of the world as it was fashioned, but that Truth is always united together in a harmony which cannot be broken.  Truth is fundamentally simple, because it forms a unity—just as God is one who cannot be divided, so is the reality which comes forth from Him.  It is only the lie which gives rise to complexity and incoherence, because it is divorced from the Truth and from reality.  Our generations are not confused today because the world is too complex, but because they no longer seek Truth which unites reality in the universe, preferring instead a cacophony of deceptions which pander to personal proclivities.  It is the Word of God which framed the cosmos, and the Word of God which continues to sustain its existence, so why should it be any surprise that the Word of God is the Way to navigate through it?  Jesus as the Incarnate Word spoke to His disciples and fulfilled the teaching of His Word to the Prophets whom He inspired before them.  His Word of Law, particularly summarized in the total love of God above all things and the love of neighbor as one’s self, eliminates all the confusion around the duty each person has in this life.  Where the Law teaches obligation, it also sends dark shadows of confusion to flight.  The world is not shades of grey ethics and moral quandaries, but one of light and love and truth.

 

But this Way and Truth of the Law are also complimented and fulfilled by the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way nothing else can do.  Only Jesus could give His life as a ransom for the world, so that by His Vicarious Atonement upon His Holy Cross, all people might be absolved of their sins before the obligations of His Law.  The universe stands by Law and Grace, and so does every soul which would be reunited with God.  This is the Life which no evil can take away, and which no confusion can muddle.  There is no wicked machination of men or demons which can do away with the work Jesus accomplished on our behalf, nor make void the Promise of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  The world of wicked ambitions and deceptions might try to hide Jesus from others, or obscure Him through false teachings, or declare Him irrelevant by the puny powers of their fallen minds, but Jesus still remains the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Apart from Him there is only the endless plurality of paths leading to destruction, where lies and deceit would steal even what little life people have in this world before guiding them into eternal perdition.  It is Jesus alone who seeks and saves us when we are lost, and Jesus alone who brings us through the maelstrom of this fallen world to be reconciled again with the Father.

 

And this reconciliation is the Way in which we approach God in Truth and receive eternal Life.  God cannot be divided, and neither can He be corrupted.  His perfect justice must be satisfied, and the penitent heart must be made whole again if it is to dwell in the presence of God.  It is true that the Kingdom of God holds many mansions in which the saints now live who went before us, and into which we shall one day press by the grace of Jesus Christ.  When Jesus went to prepare a place for us, He also went to prepare us for that place, taking all our sin upon Himself so that we might instead be given His righteousness.  It is not a perfection we have earned, but one we can only be given through the merit and work of the Son of God.  In Jesus there is no judgment, because Jesus has born all judgment so that we might be made free.  In Jesus there is no death for us, because He has conquered death to give us eternal life.  In Jesus there is no fear of being suddenly found unworthy, because He was laid bare for us.  There is no mystery or confusion left in the Promise of the Gospel, because where the forgiveness of sins flows out upon faithful and repentant hearts, there is grace and life and victory everlasting.

 

And so, dear Christian, when the world seems to be so complex as to be unnavigable, set your eyes once again on Jesus.  Hear Him speak to you the Law which guides you into virtuous action, and the Gospel which heals you of all your faults.  See Him ascend to the Cross for you, descend to the dead for you, and rise again for you, that you might live in Him forever.  Receive from Him the Holy Spirit to embolden and empower you in His service, that you might work the works He has ordained for you from before the foundation of the world.  And remember that He is coming back for you, that He will take you to be where He is, in the fellowship of God the Father forevermore.  Let the darkness clear away from your eyes and your mind, that you might trust now and always in the One who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life for us all.  Soli Deo Gloria—Amen.

 

All People Need a Good Shepherd: Meditation on John 10, for the 4th Sunday in Easter

Verily, verily, I say unto you,

He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold,

but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice:

and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.

And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them,

and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.

And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him:

for they know not the voice of strangers.

This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not

what things they were which he spake unto them.

Then said Jesus unto them again,

Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.

All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers:

but the sheep did not hear them.

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved,

and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy:

I am come that they might have life,

and that they might have it more abundantly.

 

In John 10, Jesus helped His disciples understand the distinction between good and evil shepherds of men.  Evil shepherds crept in, used subterfuge and trickery to achieve power over the people, and spoke with wicked words that well catechized people did not accept.  Jesus, on the other hand, was the Good Shepherd whose voice the sheep would naturally receive because His Word was the same Word spoken to them from the beginning, passed on to each generation through the writings of the Prophets.  Jesus did not sneak into the fellowship of Jewish people, but approached them directly, taught openly, and confronted the lying shepherds of God’s people with the truth of His Eternal Word.  The people of the Word heard and recognized that Word, while the people who rejected the ancient Word, rejected Jesus also.  As Jesus continued this teaching on good and evil shepherds, He drew the distinction of evil seeking only to dominate, kill, steal, and destroy, while He came to give His people abundant life.  Like so many of the truths Jesus taught His disciples, the reality of the world reveals the true nature of those who act within it:  evil people bring forth evil fruits in league with the devil who inspires them, and good people bring forth good fruits inspired by the God who indwells them.  Evil shepherds abuse and fleece the flock, while the Good Shepherd abides with them, protects them, and even lays down His life to save them.

 

I had a conversation this week with a friend that made me bristle, when he suggested (in a non-religious context) that we were like sheep just being led around.  I countered that people had the ability use their God-given reason to think and act according to their convictions, and need not be so passive.  As I reflected on that conversation this week, it occurred to me that I bristled at the notion of being compared to a sheep because it struck at my own sense of personal pride, and the pretense that I am captain of my own life.  In reality, I may be in little more control of my life than an ant riding a cork in a raging river, thinking that my leaning, fretting, paddling, research, observations, or bouncing around bears much significance at all on my course.  My life and my times are given to me as they are to all people of all times and places, as no one moves the universe to cause their own existence.  And like all people, I find that my powers of mind, body, and soul, are radically inadequate to controlling the outcome of a single day, let alone a lifetime.  The truth is that I need a Good Shepherd, because I neither know how to navigate the universe into which I have been placed, nor do I have the power to control it.  Without a Good Shepherd, we are left to fend for ourselves like sheep in world full of predators, with a destiny that can only end in tragedy.

 

I also find it odd that so many people present themselves as shepherds of others, as if they have figured out for their neighbor what they could not figure out for themselves.  Perhaps as a natural inclination of our fall into sin and evil, with minds darkened and turned toward pride, the world is full of those who would lead others into calamity.  These blind guides sell voluminous books, wind their ways into halls of secular and ecclesiastical power, weaving tales and myths to deceive others into subjugation.  They lie their way into elected offices, drawn to money and power, all so that they might take from others their wealth and freedom.  Some deceive people into violent mobs who will take from others what they could not as effectively take as lone criminals, all while ensuring the leaders of these movements get rich off public and private coffers.  Some evil shepherds will pit one group against another to foment revolution, where everyone other than the leaders will end up victimized in myriad ways.  And what may be more odd still, is the fallen proclivity of masses to yield to such evil shepherds as if they idealize a self-idolatry to which all evil minds aspire, perhaps willing themselves to hope in the empty promises of evil because they cannot tolerate belief in the enduring reality of the good.  Evil minded shepherds are always like wolves in sheep’s clothing, and the sheep who embrace them eventually find their teeth.

 

Jesus provides the solution to such a frightening and chaotic landscape:  His Word.  His Law provides the right window into what is authentically good and holy, as well as the proper mirror by which to observe our own inadequate relation to what is good and holy.  That Law forms a curb for rampant evil in society as well as the Church, and informs the renewed conscience of true duty and obligation before God and neighbor.  But what the Law cannot do to make us holy, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus accomplished by His own blood poured out for us on Calvary.  The grace of forgiveness and eternal life, of victory over hell and the devil, are all given to His people by His Word, that whoever believes in Him will live in Him.  He is the Good Shepherd who is both the door to His people’s sheepfold (the Church) and the One who abides with them, calls them, leads them, and saves them from every evil which hunts them.  In a world full of wolves seeking power over people to make meals out of them, Jesus uses His true and authentic power as the Only Begotten Son of God to serve His people and feed them upon Himself.  Jesus’ Word repels those who would sneak in by some other route, who use politics or philosophy or vice to ensnare the witless, and provides them a Voice which rings deep inside their soul.  When the Word of Jesus reaches a heart to turn it from unbelief to faith, that same resurrected heart now hears the Voice of Jesus and will listen to no other.  The dark appeals of evil shepherds are revealed for what they truly are in the light of His Divine Word, and the Church of Jesus Christ abides safely in His Word of Law and Promise.

 

We need the Good Shepherd, because without Him, we are more than lost—we are doomed.  Yet with Him, we are made victors over every evil machination of wicked men.  No dark plot of politicians nor noxious proclamation of false theologians can separate the people of God from their Savior, just as no evil shepherd can overthrow the King of Glory who has become for us our Good Shepherd.  Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you today, that you might hear His voice alone, and casting aside the wicked ambitions of evil men, live by grace through faith in Christ alone.  Soli Deo Gloria—amen.

 

 

Gird Up Your Mind: A Meditation on 1st Peter 1, for the 3rd Sunday in Easter

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end

for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts

 in your ignorance:  But as he which hath called you is holy,

so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

 

 And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth

according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things,

as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,

but was manifest in these last times for you,

Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead,

and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit

unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,

by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

 

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.

The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.

And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

 

The epistle readings this week and last splits 1^st Peter 1 into two sections, which are best understood when read together.  St. Peter addressed his fellow Christians by appealing to the common faith, grace, forgiveness, and life they had received in the same resurrected Jesus Christ.  It was not a peculiar or mysterious faith for the Apostles and something general or watered down for the rest, but one Gospel which enlivened all who would hear it, believe it, and live by it.  Unlike an abstract philosophical consideration, or a fanciful mythology of Olympian gods woven out into moralistic tales, the Gospel of Jesus Christ was to St. Peter the power of God to transform and give new life to everyone who would receive it, and he knew this was true because he saw the Risen Christ transformed from death to life on Easter day.  This wasn’t a moldering Socrates who could not rise from his hemlock cocktail to continue witty banter with the ignorant, nor a Caesar self-proclaimed god who could not rise from the stab wound of a traitor to resume his Roman throne, but the actual Author of Life whom death could not hold down in hades.  Unlike every other material thing in the universe which will fade or burn away, the Incarnate Word of the Lord endures forever, gathering into Himself by grace through faith all who would abide in Him.  This Gospel Word is one of power and action, able to create what it declares, and to give life to all who trust in it.

 

Such power and transformation has real consequences in a real world.  The Word of Jesus’ forgiveness, life, and salvation quickens dead hearts to beat again, restored to harmony with their Creator; it opens blind eyes to see what had previously been hidden by self-idolatry; it opens deaf ears to hear the music of the spheres in nature which testify to their Maker, and the testimony of those whom the Maker has sent to speak unto dead and dying men; it invigorates minds to perceive the righteousness of divine law, the riches of divine grace, and the unavoidable choice each soul must make between which of those two standards will judge him.  It is in this context that St. Peter encouraged his readers to gird up their minds for action, to be sober and temperate in disposition, to place their full hope in the Risen Christ whose resurrection will be made manifest in them on the Last Day, and to strive each day for the holiness which reflects the holiness of God.  This is what St. Peter meant when he directed us to conduct our lives here on earth in reverent fear, knowing that it is not we who save ourselves, but God alone who seeks and saves the lost.  We are not called to follow cunning fables or cleverly composed myths, but the Risen and Returning Christ who abides with all who trust in Him.

 

Of course, it is the curse of fallen man to fixate on the wrong things, and to covet that which kills him.  Each soul is given its brief time to sojourn here below, and then an eternity either in the joyous fellowship or horrifying judgment of their Maker.  Like grass which grows today and dies tomorrow, or flowers which arise in spring and disappear before the summer heat, human life in the world is like a fleeting moment compared with our eternal destiny.  We were not made to live only in this time, to span a few days or years or decades, but to live forever.  It is easy to get lost in the minutia of a day, in the struggles of family and livelihood, in search of toys or pleasure or revelry.  But in reality, each of our days in this world is given to live in the grace of our God and Savior, to reflect Him into the world around us, and to carry His life-giving Word to every soul we meet.  Like a soldier on deployment to the front of a war, who knows his time of service is limited, the Christian is called to do their duty according to their vocation each and every day—to discipline their minds for action, to train their hands for work, and to condition their bodies for sacrificial labors.  Each soldier on the front leans on the faithfulness of their fellow soldiers, their conviction and their zeal, maintaining the war effort together as they press forward toward the victory the Captain has promised.  Except this war is not about the slaughter of enemies, the conquest of land, the enrichment of contractors or the pride of politicians, but the rescue of souls from the crippling delusions and slavery imposed upon them by demonic hordes.  It is a war the Church has been empowered to conduct since the Word of God first came to men for their salvation, and it is a mighty host into which every Christian is enlisted to serve.

 

And as good soldiers of our Lord of Hosts, it does not become us to be infatuated with the deceptive baubles that blind the eyes of those we’re sent to rescue.  Our minds, if they are to be made ready for faithful action, must be made so by the Word and Spirit of the Living God.  Since our minds are still fallen in this world and inclined toward the evils we abhor, that Word must be poured out upon our intellect over and over again to beat back the evil inside us.  And thanks be to God, that He has given us His Word so freely with the power of His Holy Spirit, to do for our minds what we could not do for ourselves.  No program or system of our own devising can shape our minds like the Word of God, because only the Incarnate Word brings eternal life.  Jesus alone is the Author of the Scriptures because He is the Word to whom every Prophet and Apostle points, and He is in Himself the fulfillment of every prophesy and promise they make.  By His Incarnation, by His Cross and Passion, by His Resurrection and Ascension, and by His Return on the Last Day, it is Jesus alone who is the LOGOS of God which enlivens, transforms, and prepares for service each mind which trusts in Him.  Only by His Word can our minds be girded up for lives of service and good works, as only by His Word can we be made holy as He is holy.  It is the Word of God which conforms our mind to His mind, that our whole life of body and soul might be conformed to His good and gracious will.

 

Be of good courage, dear Christian, for He has not left us orphaned.  To us is given His Word of Law and Gospel that we might be transformed as He is, that our hope might fully rest on the revelation of Jesus Christ in our resurrection on the Last Day.  Though our sojourn here may be short, our life is secure in Him forever, because the Word of the Lord endures forever.  Let the grass and the flowers come and go, along with all the shiny things which vie for our attention, and be girded up in your mind for action by the grace and forgiveness the Risen Jesus speaks to you.  For today you are called, and today you are chosen, to carry that life-giving Word to every blind, deaf, and enslaved soul you have been ordained to meet, that they might live forever by grace through faith in Christ alone, just as you do.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

The Power of Forgiveness: A Meditation on John 20 for the 2nd Sunday in Easter

The Power of Forgiveness:  A Meditation on John 20 for the Second Sunday of Easter

 

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week,

when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews,

came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side.

Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.

 

 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you:

as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them,

and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them;

and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

 

One of the greatest distinctions between the Church of Jesus Christ, and the fallen world around it, is the gift of forgiveness.  On that same Easter Sunday in which the Lord arose from the dead, the disciples were huddled behind a locked door for fear that the Jewish authorities would do to them what they had just done to Jesus.  In the Roman mind it would be justice to have the followers of Jesus executed the same way He was, if indeed they considered Jesus a rival king to Caesar.  And the Jewish leaders already demonstrated their murderous vindictiveness by trumping up charges and fomenting mobs to betray an innocent man to a tortuous, humiliating public death.  Further, the disciples had abandoned Jesus to this fate, and despite their protestations a few days earlier, showed plainly that they were not really committed to dying with Jesus for His cause.  The disciples rightly feared the dark brutality of justice from the Romans, the power-hungry vindictiveness of mob-wielding Jewish leaders, and even what Jesus Himself—if He had truly risen from the dead as the women at the empty tomb reported—might visit upon them for their betrayal of Him.  What terror must have been relieved in that locked room, when Jesus arrived in the midst of them with words of peace and forgiveness, and a commission to be sent as He was sent in the power of the Holy Spirit to forgive the sins of others.  As St. John began his Gospel with the distinction of Light and Darkness at creation, so he brings that distinction into the clearest possible focus with the Risen Jesus:  a world of self-righteous evil and death, invaded by the Light of divine forgiveness and eternal life.

 

The world today is not much different than it was in the Mediterranean two millennia ago, with the machinations of political leaders wreaking havoc in countless places.  There are those who demand a brutal justice according to their own skewed law, using twisted reason to destroy all who will not fall into obedience with their psychotic disordering of the world.  There are those who are vindictive, full of malice and violence toward others with whom they disagree, particularly against those who stand in the way of their aspiration to, or retention of, power.  And there are plenty of people who, whether they have power or not, seek vengeance upon others for some perceived wrong done to them, either in the present or by their supposed oppressors’ ancestors.  The rapid emergence of these phenomena in America are not unique to world affairs, as they have destroyed societies with war, murder, and treachery in Africa, Europe, Asia, and anywhere else people have gathered into community.  If the only light of man in a society is the darkness of their own twisted nature, how great will that darkness swell, until it inspires neighbor to devour neighbor in fire and sword.  We see it in our cities, in our schools, in our universities, and in our halls of power, where people who have lost sight of the Risen Jesus unwittingly bring forth a preview of hell on earth.  Societies of men without forgiveness are dead men walking, murderers who hate their neighbors and scratch out their lives in fear, trying to avoid the one who will eventually murder them in the same reciprocal hatred.

 

Consider then what a great light forgiveness is to a fallen world.  Forgiveness begins with a right understanding of what true Justice really is, and the honest culpability of a fallen soul before that righteous Law.  It is not a false acquiescence to some man-made prudence, nor a self-flagellation for purported ancestral improprieties now unfashionable in the present zeitgeist, but an honest repentance before the Law of God.  It is the failure of men to love God which drives them to hate their neighbors, and the failure of men to love their neighbors which impels them to embrace an atheistic will to power, working out all sorts of evil upon those around them.  Forgiveness begins with an acknowledgment that Truth and Justice and Reality are inseparable from God Himself, that they are built into His Creation by the Providence of Natural Law, and revealed even more clearly by His divine Word given through His Prophets and Apostles.  Forgiveness illumines the darkness of fallen minds to see the reality which is before them, dispelling the delusions of self-centered vainglory.  Before this holy Law all people shall give account, in this world and the next, and no amount of self-deception or self-justification will release them from it.  It is this Law, the true Law, which reveals every man a sinner worthy of destruction, whose accountability is first and foremost to their Creator as the giver of all life.  It is only the Forgiveness of Calvary which meets the Judgment of Sinai with satisfaction for all, not because the Gospel abolishes the Law, but because it establishes and fulfills it.

 

The Light of Forgiveness doesn’t stop there.  With the Blood of Jesus poured out for the sins of the whole world, His Word of Forgiveness creates the Peace which He offers to everyone who will receive it from Him by faith.  When the Risen Jesus met His disciples in that locked room, their fear was displaced by the love He poured out upon them, as their peace with God and with each other was made reality by His forgiveness.  Jesus’ forgiveness not only rightly ordered their thinking to what love authentically commands each soul before their Maker and their brethren, but absolved them of their failure to love as God commanded them.  What the Law could not do to convert the hearts of fallen men before the clarity of its divine mirror, the Gospel of Jesus’ Forgiveness made reality by the work of His sacrifice for all men.  The disciples gained a capacity for divine love because God first loved them, pouring out the riches of His peace and forgiveness upon them, so that they might become emissaries of this same divine love.  Forgiveness is the manifestation of love in action, the highest and most holy satisfaction of the Law.  Such love as this, empowered by the Eternal Word and Omnipotent Spirit, transforms the receiver of this love into the image of the One who sent it, and makes of him a messenger of that same divine love.  It is not an abstract love or a theoretical love, but a real and powerful love that is manifested with the transformative grace of forgiveness.

 

This light that we hold is what makes us new, makes us different, makes us like Jesus.  It is Jesus who breathed out the Holy Spirit upon us, and sent us to proclaim forgiveness freely to all, that all who might receive it by grace through faith in Christ alone, might live forever in the peace it creates between God and men.  This gift of Forgiveness in Jesus is the power to dispel all darkness, to cast out all demons, to tear down all unrighteous facades, to transform fallen sinners into righteous saints, and to turn the world upside down.  This Forgiveness is eternal life reconciled to God, the sole Author of Life and Love and Truth.  This Forgiveness is the power of love in action which our neighbors need as much as we do, that they along with us might bear witness to a better world, a better society, and an eternal Kingdom which has no end.  Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you today, and receive the Forgiveness it offers for Jesus’ sake—then bear it out to everyone you meet, in Jesus’ Name.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

  

I Know You Seek Jesus: An Easter Meditation on Matthew 28

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,

came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

And, behold, there was a great earthquake:

for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven,

and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:

And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

 

And the angel answered and said unto the women,

Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said.

 Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead;

and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee;

 there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.

 

And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy;

 and did run to bring his disciples word.

And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail.

And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

Then said Jesus unto them,

Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee,

 and there shall they see me.

 

This is a big deal.  There aren’t many times in the Scriptures where holy angels are recorded as having come with a proclamatory message, but when they do, it is of profound significance.  They sang and proclaimed Jesus’ Incarnation at His birth, where God and Man were united uniquely and irrevocably in the indivisible Person of the Son.  Now, after the unfathomable work of Jesus on the Cross just three days prior, where in a moment of time He took upon Himself the eternities of hellish suffering due for every one of the trillions of souls that would ever enter upon this fallen world, so that satisfaction would be paid and they might all be reconciled to God, the holy angels again came to proclaim His Resurrection.  The work now done that no man could do, Jesus was risen from the dead, and would show Himself alive to His disciples.  The tomb was empty, the Roman guards shocked into a death-like stupor, the stone rolled away, and the grave clothes set aside.  Death was conquered, hell was invaded and pillaged, Satan with his demonic hordes were cast into utter subjection, and the Eternal Word of Good News was to ring throughout world:  Christ is Risen, we are forgiven, and for His sake all men may live forever by grace through faith in Him alone.

 

Since the creation of the cosmos, there has not yet been anything in the history of men like the Resurrection of Jesus.  His Resurrection was the fulfillment of a Promise made by God to our first parents in the Garden of Eden immediately after our fall into sin and death.  His Resurrection was the declaration that every Word given to Noah, Abraham, and Moses was just as sure as the Word that was given to every one of His Old Testament Prophets and His New Testament Apostles.  His Resurrection was proof positive that He was who He said He was—the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, apart from whom no one can come to God reconciled.  There have been some resurrections recorded across history, but none of them were accomplished by the power of the one who was dead—only Jesus’ Resurrection was accomplished because the Author of Life could not be held subject to death, anymore than the divine Light could be suppressed by darkness.  Jesus’ Resurrection is the undeniable verification that His Word is true, and that His Word to us life everlasting for all who abide in Him by faith.

 

Of course, there are plenty of people who choose to ignore this truth.  There are those who flippantly discard the uniquely authoritative Holy Scriptures, with all their Law and Gospel and prophecy fulfilled across millennia, so they don’t have to surrender their darkness to the Light of Christ.  There are those who reject the moral implications of an ordered universe created by the Word and Will of the Lord God Almighty, so that they might ignore the duties of love and fidelity which derive from it, chasing instead their own distorted passions.  There are those who shut their eyes and plug their ears from the history of a world turned upside down by the One who conquered death, and gave His victory over sin, death, hell, and the devil, to all who would follow Him, so that they might indulge a while longer in the vapid narcissism of demons.  But regardless of how fallen men respond to the objective reality of Jesus and His Resurrection, the unfaithfulness of man cannot induce unfaithfulness in God.  Whether we hear Him or not, whether we follow Him or not, He is still who He is, and there is no other god beside Him.  There is only one Creator, only one Redeemer, only one Sanctifier, of the whole human race, and the reality of this Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity cannot be unmade by the creatures He has brought forth.  Those who deny Him do not change Him anymore than those who receive Him in faith; His Word to those who believe is the sure promise of eternal life, while His Word to those who refuse to believe is the sure promise of eternal life abandoned.

 

Yet either way, the Word of the Lord endures forever, and Jesus’ Resurrection stands irrevocable like an eternal sign in the heavens.  It is a sign that is further written on every one of those who follow Him, first in the waters of Holy Baptism, and then in every moment of one’s life consecrated to the Savior.  It is a sign that rings out from the fellowship of saints here below, when they gather around the risen Jesus to hear His Word rightly preached, and His sacraments administered according to His institution.  It is a sign that is sung in the halls of glory until the end of time, where the saints in light celebrate together the victory and life of the risen Lord given to them by grace through faith, even as they celebrate the arrival of each sanctified soul into their eternal revelry.  It is a sign that shall be proclaimed on earth until the Lord’s return, where the faith of the Church Militant continues to resist the forces of evil until that great Day when all people shall see the Lord our God with their own resurrected eyes, and standing on their own resurrected feet, upon a new earth resurrected and purged of all sin and death.  It is a sign that mysteriously transforms the Christian into the likeness of their Savior day by day, where the power of the Holy Spirit works through the Eternal Word to bring faith and repentance meet to receive His transformative grace and life.  Jesus’ Resurrection is the sign which calls all people to Himself, that all might partake of His lifegiving Gospel, and live in Him forever.

 

Easter is come, and there is now no question left under heaven whether God loves and saves His people.  There is nothing left to doubt, and there is no one left behind, for the Creator of all has become the Savior of all, that all who will trust in Him might live as He lives.  Let the darkness of doubt wash away, and see once again the marvelous sign of God’s love and victory given to you.  For Jesus Christ is risen today, and no power of hell which was conquered at Calvary can ever presume to assail and dislodge you from His omnipotent, pierced hands.  Rejoice, o saints, of every time and place, for the Lord of Glory reigns triumphant over the grave, and because He lives, we shall live also.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.