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| my christmas sermon
Opening Reading 1: Isaiah 52:1-3
1 Awake, awake, O Zion,
clothe yourself with strength.
Put on your garments of splendor,
O Jerusalem, the holy city.
The uncircumcised and defiled
will not enter you again.
2 Shake off your dust;
rise up, sit enthroned, O Jerusalem.
Free yourself from the chains on your neck,
O captive Daughter of Zion.
3 For this is what the LORD says:
"You were sold for nothing,
and without money you will be redeemed."
Responsive Reading 2: Adapted from Psalm 97
Reader: The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad;
Congr: Let the distant shores rejoice.
R: Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
C: Righteousness and justice are the foundations of His throne.
R: Fire goes before Him and consumes His foes on every side.
C: His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles.
R: The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth.
C: The heavens proclaim His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory.
All: Let those who love the Lord hate evil
For He guards the lives of His faithful ones
And delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
R: Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart.
All: Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous, and praise His holy name.
OPENING PRAYER
I. Introduction
I despise the Oakland Raiders, spiced gum drops, melodramatics, 7:30 Greek class, boy bands and pop princesses, and movies inspired by video games, but my hatred for waiting exceeds even these things. Patience is not one of my virtues. In the dining commons I get food from the shortest line even if I do not like the food. During my younger years I sat on a bench in a water park, because I refused to wait in line for the water slides. As much as I wish it were not true, I am impatient.
Three years ago Christmas Eve, I boarded a plane in my hometown of Bloomington-Normal fully intending to arrive in San Jose, Costa Rica at 7 pm that night, allowing me to spend Christmas and the following week with family and the beauty of that country. Instead St. Louis received a white Christmas delaying my connecting flight there 2 hours, which in turn led to my brother and I sleeping on the floor of Miami International Airport on Christmas Eve. I had been waiting for this trip for half a year, dreaming of the rainforests and beaches, preparing my bags, looking forward to an experience I would never forget, and there I lay in a deserted terminal anxious for the night to be done, looking to the next morning when I would finally depart from this limbo.
But the night dragged on, a public service announcement repeated itself every 2 minutes in both English and Spanish, random workers vacuumed the carpets and cleaned the bathrooms, taxing my health and spirits. My hope, my joy which sprung from knowing I would soon be in Costa Rica dwindled with each passing “Bienvenidos a Miami” blare over the loud speaker. Yet when the day came and we circled around San Jose, the foretaste of my hope in the promise of this trip became realized joy in the fulfillment of my expectation.
All across this nation, indeed the world, millions of people spent the last month in ardent expectation of December 25. Outside the church we organize parties and festivals, arrange decorations and set up Christmas trees, drink eggnog and watch holiday movies. Members of the church, in addition to holiday traditions, spent the last month embracing the spirit of Advent by anticipating the coming of the Lord. Over the past four Sundays, sermons meant to prepare us for this day have been preached, confronting the Church with: the expectation of the Light; the proclamation of the Word; joys of God’s promises; and finally last week, purity through the cleansing of the Holy Spirit. This endeavor, shared within the body of Christ, seeks once again the invocation of Christmas where the promises of God are accomplished. Advent, like my night in Miami, is like birth pangs when delivering a child, an excruciating pain prior to immense joy, a place that challenges the mettle of promises, a time when hope seems futile but is not extinguished.
II. Old Testament
We are not alone in this experience; in some degree this advent feeling confronts everyone at some point during their lives. Preceding every victory and advancement are struggles and setbacks, events which stir up doubts, fears, and also a great longing. The people of Judah knew this advent feeling well, which can be found in our text:
Isaiah 62:
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet,
till her righteousness shines out like the dawn,
her salvation like a blazing torch.
2 The nations will see your righteousness,
and all kings your glory;
you will be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will bestow.
3 You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand,
a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called “Delight of the Lord”
and your land “The Bride of God;”
for the LORD will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
5 As a young man marries a maiden,
so will your sons marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.
6 I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;
they will never be silent day or night.
You who call on the LORD,
give yourselves no rest,
7 and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem
and makes her the praise of the earth.
8 The LORD has sworn by his right hand
and by his mighty arm:
"Never again will I give your grain
as food for your enemies,
and never again will foreigners drink the new wine
for which you have toiled;
9 but those who harvest it will eat it
and praise the LORD,
and those who gather the grapes will drink it
in the courts of my sanctuary."
10 Pass through, pass through the gates!
Prepare the way for the people.
Build up, build up the highway!
Remove the stones.
Raise a banner for the nations.
11 The LORD has made proclamation
to the ends of the earth:
"Say to the Daughter of Zion,
'See, your Savior comes!
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.' "
12 They will be called the Holy People,
the Redeemed of the LORD;
and you will be called Sought After,
the City No Longer Deserted.
You see, the Davidic dynasty had ended; Zion was ravaged; the Temple dismantled; and the People of God were taken into captivity. All of the promises found in God’s covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David seemed proven null and void in the Babylonian victory. All that God blessed Judah with was ripped from them, leading them to believe that YHWH, the God of their fathers and of them, had disowned Judah. The faithful Lord who guided Abraham to the Promised Land, who led the nation of Israel out from under the hand of Pharaoh, who strengthened David in all Israel’s victories, simply disappeared due to their fickle and adulterous relationship with the Lord. For 70 years they bemoaned their state and cried out to God for forgiveness and salvation to no avail.
But then something happened, the Lord began to work. Persia, under Cyrus, rose up and defeated the Babylonians, the oppressors of the Jews. Cyrus, the great pagan messiah, decreed that the Jews should return to Israel and rebuild the home they once had; creating an opportunity to restore all that was lost and taken from them. The God of Moses once again led an Exodus, this time from Babylon; and once again the people of God were led into a wilderness, waiting for the fulfillment of the Promise Land. This is the context of our passage, not during devastation or splendor, but in a grey area in between hope and fear, joy and sadness, longing and expectation. It is here that the Lord makes a new covenant of restoration and glorification, promising a reward for faithfulness and compensation for sufferings. It is here that the Lord announces Israel’s oppressors will be overthrown. It is here that the Lord foretells of the new names that He will bestow upon Israel, which tell of God’s love for them. And it is here that we find Israel waiting for their savior.
The last four weeks, this advent season, has been a time when our lives and longings have mirrored those of Israel. All of the trials and frustrations of our lives in the last year, the broken relationships, the loss of loved ones, times of persecution and oppression, eras of depression and loneliness, as well as our own sin, hatred, and tyranny over others reaches the forefront of out minds as we look to a savior. As we search for one who will overcome these things.
III. New Testament
Today, however, is Christmas. Today is the day of days. Our road traveled through perdition and purgatory, and now we have reached the Promised Land. We have crossed the Jordan and left our wanderings in the wilderness behind, because today the Savior has come. We find this good news of great joy in Luke chapter 2:
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
Today a Savior has been born who is Christ the Lord. Today the oppressors will be overthrown and a kind ruler will take their place. Today the People of the Lord will be glorified, and the kings of the earth will see our glory. Today new names will be given to us from the very God who named all things in the beginning. So often our imaginations are so very unimaginative, and much of the time we cannot conceive the extent of the Almighty’s power and the depths of our Creator’s love. We look at this savior and see someone who will depose Rome and set up a Jewish kingdom in the line of David once again. We see a man who will merely provide food and drink and heal disease. This savior, Jesus of Nazareth, will do these things; he will heal every disease brought to him and feed 5000 with 5 loaves and two fishes.
A greater problem existed, one that had been brewing for thousands of years. Originally, God created mankind in His own image, the most glorious of all His creatures with the ability to reason and create, but sin corrupted man through selfishness and pride, abusing and objectifying the creation. Man sinned, contemplating not the goodness of God but evil of their own devising, bringing them under the law of death. The law of death, a clause of justice written into creation, robbed the God of Life of His creatures with a great divide, creating a great dilemma. As Athanasius wrote:
“The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth both monstrous and unfitting. It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. As, then, the creatures whom He had created reasonable, through the Word, were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being Good, to do?”
You see, through presidents and kings nations will rise and fall; doctors can heal and revive the body from the process of death; famines will follow bumper crops; but that which is dirty cannot cleanse itself. Those things corrupted cannot restore themselves. Man which is mortal through sin does not have the ability to defeat sin and death, only God, who is holy and eternal, can accomplish this.
IV. Concluding
So today is the day of days. The holy and eternal One has become incarnate. The Infinite Word takes on a finite flesh. Today, the Son, the second person of the trinity, who creates and sustains all things has become man, or as John wrote:
John 1:14
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
And John 1:3-4
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of man.”
Today the Salvific process dawns, the wheels of motion have begun to turn. Soon Satan will overstep his bounds and attempt to bring death to one who is pure and has no transgressions. Soon Satan will seize his chance to kill the one in whom all life exists. Soon all of creation will die in the death of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, but life cannot stay dead for long. In turn all creation will be resurrected with the rising of the Christ, and then death shall die. Then all will be restored, all will be uncorrupted, and all will be saved. Today a great miracle has taken place, an incredible process has begun. Today a Savior has been born, who is Christ the Lord.
We celebrate this day every year, and I understand how quickly it passes and how easily we forget what has happened. But I beg you not to let this pass from your mind so easily. An unmatched sacrifice, a debt we could never begin to repay, an exploit of bewildering compassion and grace has been enacted on our part by the Divine, and soon it will be fulfilled. Do not forget this act, do not forget your identity in this, for soon you will be given a new name from the mouth of the Lord. No longer will you be known as Deserted and Desolate, instead you will be called:
-The Redeemed of the Lord
-A Crown of Splendor
-The Bride of God
-A Holy Person
-The Delight of the Lord
-Sought After
-Sons and Daughters of God
So go this day in the peace of the Savior who has been born, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
Please join me in the closing prayer from a poem by John Donne:
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity
This is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. | | |
| before the throne of God above
i have a strong and perfect plea, a great high priest whose name is love~before the throne of God-anathallo
first sermon for homiletics class.
Secondary Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
I. Introduction
Henry Kissinger was not and is not an attractive man by any stretch of the imagination. He has thick, horn-rimmed glasses, a receding hairline, a large nose, and the onset jowls, but despite these aesthetic deficiencies women flocked to him for his approval and love. These were gorgeous women, too. Most were movie stars or big-time socialites with the ability to attract nearly any man they wanted, but they wanted Henry. When asked about his uncanny ability to entice women, Dr. Kissinger did not point to his Harvard educated intelligence or quick-witted charm, but instead said this: “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”
You see, Henry Kissinger was the Secretary of State for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and he was a man many would argue was the most powerful man in the world during that period. He had President Nixon’s ear allowing Kissinger to control executive decisions, particularly in regards to foreign policy. So this was Henry Kissinger’s magnetism, his ability to shape the world and control people. This is the mind of the world, obsessed with power, money, and status, always with the idea of bettering oneself in the happenings of life. Today we will be taking a look at the mind of the world in comparison with the mind of God.
Our primary text today is Zephaniah 1:7-13 and 18, and it reads:
7 Be silent before the Sovereign LORD,
for the day of the LORD is near.
The LORD has prepared a sacrifice;
he has consecrated those he has invited.
8 On the day of the LORD's sacrifice
I will punish the princes
and the king's sons
and all those clad
in foreign clothes.
9 On that day I will punish
all who avoid stepping on the threshold,
who fill the temple of their gods
with violence and deceit.
10 "On that day," declares the LORD,
"a cry will go up from the Fish Gate,
wailing from the New Quarter,
and a loud crash from the hills.
11 Wail, you who live in the market district;
all your merchants will be wiped out,
all who trade with silver will be ruined.
12 At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps
and punish those who are complacent,
who are like wine left on its dregs,
who think, 'The LORD will do nothing,
either good or bad.'
13 Their wealth will be plundered,
their houses demolished.
They will build houses
but not live in them;
they will plant vineyards
but not drink the wine.
18 Neither their silver nor their gold
will be able to save them
on the day of the LORD's wrath.
In the fire of his jealousy
the whole world will be consumed,
for he will make a sudden end
of all who live in the earth."
Please join me in prayer.
II. Unpacking the text
In this passage, in fact in the whole book, Zephaniah concentrates on the Day of the Lord, which he forewarns was quickly approaching. On this Day of the Lord, God will act in the world to judge the sins of man, bringing wrath upon the earth which will destroy it. Imagery throughout the book is violent, with the Lord claiming in chapter 1 verse 3 that on the Day of the Lord:
3 "I will sweep away both men and animals;
I will sweep away the birds of the air
and the fish of the sea.
The wicked will have only heaps of rubble
when I cut off man from the face of the earth,"
This day of God’s judgment, this day of the Lord’s wrath is a common theme throughout the Bible, particularly in the writings of the prophets. Zephaniah’s destructive depiction of the Day of the Lord does not stray from those put forward by the other prophets, but the recipients of Zephaniah’s message, those he calls upon to change, are a strange group to highlight. Zephaniah does not condemn the thieves, murderers, and rapists of the world, per se; instead he refers to the respectable members of society as the scum. It is the princes, priests, and noblemen that God will bring wrath upon. It is those who lead the nation and make decisions that will be judged harshly. On the Day of the Lord, Zephaniah writes that the powerful, wealthy, and famous will suffer.
Not all on the top rungs of the societal ladder are damned. Zephaniah, the bearer of this news, is a nobleman. The first verse tells of how he is the great-great grandson of King Hezekiah, which would make him the second cousin of King Josiah, the current king of Judah. But in this entire oracle Zephaniah’s righteousness is not called into question. Neither is King Josiah’s.
But why are some of the rich and powerful saved a tongue-lashing, while others are regarded as the greatest offenders in society? It is not simply their birth into nobility, or the position in government they have come to hold. Rather it is these people who have so much that are most tempted and most obvious when following the mind and heart of the world. We see this in the indictment of wrongs in Chapter 3:
1 Woe to the city of oppressors,
rebellious and defiled!
2 She obeys no one,
she accepts no correction.
She does not trust in the LORD,
she does not draw near to her God.
3 Her officials are roaring lions,
her rulers are evening wolves,
who leave nothing for the morning.
4 Her prophets are arrogant;
they are treacherous men.
Her priests profane the sanctuary
and do violence to the law.
This spirit of oppression, rebellion, and defamation found in the lives of the people springs from adherence to the mind of the world. The mind of the World preaches that we are our own. It tells us that we hold ownership over our existence, and as such we reject God’s will for us and dominion over us. Attempting to order our lives, we set ourselves up as kings and queens, rulers over all that we do and have. This mindset conditioned in us by the world leads us to seek to better ourselves through our actions, always asserting ourselves while subjugating others. Independence and autonomy from God leads to rebellion and captivity, binding ourselves, as well as others to our cravings and desires. In this lies sin. In this lies slavery. In this lies hatred, jealously, apathy, strife, and pride. In the mind of the world lies suffering and death. These things cannot be what God intended. After creation He looked upon all that He had made and pronounced it to be good, and yet we have this.
As a result of this corruption of God’s good intentions, God seeks to restore what He made. In all the destruction and chaos of the Day of the Lord, the purpose is to resurrect what God had originally created, breaking apart a flawed earth to reveal a perfect and pleasing creation made by God in the beginning. On the Day of the Lord, the mind of the world which corrupts all of creation through brazen pride and unchecked appetites will be overcome by the mind of God which submits oneself to others for the betterment of others. The mind of God, as Ellen Charry writes, leads to “self-restraint in order to strengthen others.” With the mind of God we come to believe that we are not our own, rather we are God’s.
Zephaniah wrote this book with the Babylonian captivity in mind as the Day of the Lord. This monumental event in the history of the Jews acted as a judgment day, spawning a righteous remnant to return to the mind of God and the ways the Lord had shown them. Despite the effect the captivity had on the remnant of Israel this was not the Great Day of the Lord, it was not the definitive action by God that called all of humanity into judgment and released the full grace of God upon the world allowing all people to share the mind of God. That happened 500 years later with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
On that day the world was turned upside down, or as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, the wisdom of the wise was destroyed and the intelligence of the intelligent was frustrated. The mind of the world which wanted to prove itself through military prowess and political power was stymied by God who seeks humility and spiritual nobility. God not only became incarnate as a lowly Jewish carpenter, but He rejected the mind of the world to be crucified like a common criminal. There is no self-glory in such an existence, and yet this is what the Sovereign Lord, maker of heaven and earth chose. God’s message of the cross of Christ, which is one of selflessness, suffering, and death, confuses the world which looks to dominate and oppress everyone and everything for the benefit of the individual.
Today we live in an era when every day is a continuation of the Day of the Lord, a time in which the Holy Spirit is actively at work in the Church bringing about a fuller realization and adoption of the mind of God. The Church, which makes up the physical body of Christ on earth during this period, must conform itself to the mind of God which is perfectly illustrated in Jesus’ actions, especially his death. Regardless of Christ’s example, I fear that much of the Church continues to live and act out of the mind of the world, seeking to empower itself through politics and personal gain. This, however, should not be the case. Chistians must understand that we are not our own. We, who glorify God must not glorify ourselves. We, who proclaim Christ as Lord must not set ourselves up as our own rulers. We who claim to be “little Christs” must act as Christ did. We must realize that we are not our own, rather we are God’s. The Holy Spirit, if only we will listen, will teach us the ways of God, purifying our hearts and minds of the taint of what the world has taught us, taking steps to humble ourselves and allowing us to serve one another as the least of all.
Please pray the Lord’s prayer with me.
| | |
| Oh what good is it to live
with nothing left to give, forget but not forgive not loving all you see~swallowed in the sea-coldplay
its been so long since ive written in this thing. partly busyness, partly writers block, partly weariness/depression. something is itching my mind lately. we continually question. we analyze and scrutinize the existence of everything until it no longer is anything. we deconstruct until what we were trying to understand has no structure to tear apart. we beat the hell out of things until they fall and then expect the pieces to grant us some great fulfillment. the shards of glass will never hold water that the cup did. meaning is not found in the makeup, but the whole. in the struggle to rationalize our existence so that we might understand, we have lost our imagination and creativity. at least the general population has. we limit the imagination and creativity to specific people, such as artists and musicians. i am beginning to despise this life of meaninglessness. i want to tell stories. i want to paint pictures. i want to create symbols which will bring meaning to this life. yet everything i do and hear reinforces that this is irresponsible and irrational. i no longer care. i want to be inductive. i want to bring about meaning, not destroy it. destruction is chaos and i just want a safe place. a sacred place.
sean | | |
| ill be cavalier
ill be yours my dear, and ill belong to you if you just let me through~as lovers go-dashboard confessional
im getting old. just a fresh realization. yesterday i played football, flag no less, and today i can hardly move. my legs are tired and my back aches. it sounds like ive just fought a war, but i played an hour of flag football. hhhh. im not getting any younger i guess. video games are a lot easier on the body. anyways.
Last week I wrote on the idea that the old becomes new through Christ. With the death and resurrection of Jesus, everything is broken and restored to hold greater meaning than originally. Lathrop specifically applied this to the weekly meeting, and how scripture and the sacraments are broken to reveal greater meaning when juxtaposed to the belief in the life of Jesus. In the second chapter of Holy Things, Lathrop seeks to identify and explain the ordo, “the ritual ordering and shape of the liturgy” that has been passed down through the centuries as a tool for teaching the Christian faith (Lathrop). Here Lathrop argues through juxtaposing past ritual with new acts of worship, a new and fuller meaning is brought to the elements.
Lathrop starts by looking into the time, particularly the chosen day of worship, a thought I never really entertained. I knew that the Jewish Sabbath was on Saturday, while Christians met on Sunday. My perception was that Christians worshipped on Sundays to remember the resurrection of Christ. While this is part of the teaching we receive from Sunday worship, Lathrop points toward something deeper. He calls Sunday the 8th day of the week, which combines with its place as the 1st day of the week. In doing this Sunday becomes the bookends of the week, spurring us to thank God for the past week, as well as praying for guidance and protection in the coming week. This causes Sunday to become other worldly, outside the boundaries of time, consecrated for us to meet in the presence of God.
However, it is not Sunday as a day that sets it apart. In the meeting of the believers, we look towards the Christ, who like the eighth day is beyond the world yet saves it. Lathrop writes, “God has made his death to be our life and his presence here in the gathering is God’s own presence. The meeting is the meaning of the Lord’s day” (Lathrop, 40). By juxtaposing the eighth day and the meeting, we garner a better understanding of our faith.
In the second half of the chapter Lathrop focuses on the ordo of the service, which is composed of 2 main parts, word and table. In the service, we juxtapose these 2 components bringing greater meaning to each. Most often services begin by teaching the congregation through the word, or scriptures, which contains the gathering, scripture readings, singing, praying, and preaching. In this time we learn and explore God through his actions and promises in the Bible and our own world. After gathering around the Word of God, the service moves to the Table of God. At the table of God we prepare the food, offer thanks, distribute the body and blood, include the absent, and look to minister to the world as Christ ministered to us. By juxtaposing the Word and the Table during our meetings, we connect the words that witness of the Christ to the Christ. If we separate Word and Table, they will be unable to speak the love and power of God, but when joined both “are broken to speak the Christian faith, the resurrection, the encounter with God in the crucified Jesus, the new vision of the world (Lathrop, 50).”
What purpose does this play? Why is what Lathrop says important? Man has the ability above all the animals to be eloquent and capture many things in language. However, man does not have words strong enough to contain the Christian faith, nor thoughts deep enough to conceive of God’s amazing grace and love. Our attempts to fully grasp and pass on the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus leaves us wanting for a better expression. It is through juxtaposition that our words and rituals combine to offer a deeper understanding, one that cannot be captured by words.
sean | | |
| i do believe its true
that there are roads left in both of our shoes, but if the silence takes you then i hope it takes me too.~soul meets body-death cab for cutie
The first chapter of Gordon Lathrop’s book, Holy Things, truly blessed me. What Lathrop writes in this chapter is delightfully simple, (which makes me question whether I actually understood,) yet incredibly profound. He focuses on liturgy, but the truth I came to understand more deeply applies to everything in relation to the gospel, including corporate worship. I found that in Christ, all that is old becomes new. This Bible verse that I have quoted since I was a child actually started to make some sort of impact. No longer does God annihilate or discard the old. Instead through the death and resurrection of Christ all that was old is broken and restored. God transforms this remnant into a vessel to speak an unspeakable new grace into the present situation (Lathrop, 30). Through the death and resurrection of Christ, God brings about something from nothing, creates life out of death, and restores something new out of the old (Lathrop, 32).
Lathrop takes this principle and applies it specifically to liturgy, or corporate worship. Liturgy, as Lathrop put it, is marked and largely determined by the Bible, because the practices and teachings are based in the scriptures. The scriptures, however, were written by men who were confined to a certain time, place, and circumstance. Not only that, but all of the writers of the scriptures are dead. It would only make sense that their writings would die alongside of them, but every time we gather together in worship we hearken back to their writings. “We are not Israelites, nor are we early Christians. We do share with the biblical writers and characters, simply because we are human beings, both the sorrow and the hope that mark the human situation that is expressed in these texts (Lathrop, 17).” Though the prophets and priests who wrote the scriptures are deceased, we identify with the struggles, convictions, emotions, and thoughts that spurred the authors to produce these records so many millennia ago. In joining with the Psalmist in his joys and sorrows the Psalms come alive with new meaning for us today. Uniting with the prophets in their passion for the downtrodden and the chastity of the soul brings their proclamations to life in our own. All these dead words are brought to life in the love of Christ.
The sacraments join scripture to form liturgy, but instead of being the affirmation of faith through scripture, the sacraments are the affirmation of faith through ritual. All rituals, including baptism and the Eucharist, are meaningless acts apart from that which grants them meaning. (I know that wording is rather pathetic, but I could not find another way to convey the idea.) Both of these acts existed prior to the life of Christ. Baptism was a ritual cleansing of sin, especially in preparation for coming Messiah (Lathrop, 22). The Eucharist reproduces the meal of any observing Jew by giving thanks to God, the meal itself, and a lengthy blessing over the cup at the end of the meal (Lathrop, 23). Jesus took common ideas the masses participated in to convey deep meaning. Under the crucifiction and resurrection of Jesus, the common rituals were broken and restored to “enable our hopes for order, salvation, and God (Lathrop, 27).
Why does this matter? I find the answer in the last part of worship, which I believe Lathrop pays too little heed, our everyday life. Faith and deeds are like the glow and heat from a fire, impossible to divorce from one another. In our actions all that we learn through liturgy plays out. Though normal activity is not a special time or place set aside, through the death and resurrection of Jesus our entire being is consecrated. As a result we are not merely saved, or a new (different) creation, but we are fundamentally changed. In the nothing that we were, God brings about something. In the death we resided in, Christ brings about life. In our old selves, we are restored to become something new.
sean | | |
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