1517 Blogcast

The full arc of our path through Lent and our final arrival at the Resurrection lie hidden within Isak Dinesen’s short story “Babette’s Feast,” upon which the Oscar-winning film was based. The story takes place in a Norwegian coastal village where two spinster sisters, Martine and Philippa, spend their days in plentiful prayer, generous good works, and ascetic living.

Mephibosheth was the victim of circumstance and timing. He was the grandson of Saul—the man who tried to kill David. When Saul and Jonathan died in battle against the Philistines, power shifted to David. Mephibosheth “was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came ... and his nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame” (2 Sam. 4:4).

Over the past 125 years, a destructive force to the Gospel in American churches has spread among academics and lay people alike. This force is the use of the assumptions and methods of an approach to biblical interpretation known as The Historical-Critical Method, or Higher Criticism. While practitioners often vary in their interpretative conclusions, they uniformly deny the divine authorship of the text of the biblical writings.

While waiting to pick up our kids from school one day, I sat with a friend who is a devout Muslim recently immigrated from Pakistan. We happened to pick up a discussion on the particularities of our religious communities. We know each other as broadly representative of our respective religions for no other reason than proximity and school zoning, so a deeper conversation, however brief, was welcomed by both of us.

Psalm 121, is as Luther says, a psalm “written to exhort believers because it contains the doctrine of faith. However, faith is the recognition of things that cannot be seen and must be hoped for, things that depend on the promise of the word of God.”

Where do we get our courage to believe the Gospel? Who leads us to the font? Who supplies us with Jesus' body and blood? Who provides us with the strength and ability to meet the needs that arise as we do the work God gives to us to do? Who supplies us with the right habits, toughness, and perpetual alertness to keep our eyes trained on Jesus, even when we cower before death and doubt in His resurrection? Who issues us the belief in ultimate victory over sin, death, and hell?

I couldn’t understand why she smiled today. I recognized her blue dotted dress as it brushed past the pew hurriedly on the way to the front of the church. Her hands were clutched together tightly and shoulders uncomfortably hunched.

Christ Jesus, not the Law, is revealed in the Gospels as the one Mediator between God and sinners. Christ, the God-man, communes with sinners who remain sinners their whole life long but now through faith, for Christ's sake, have no sin credited to them.

Scripture records the fasts of numerous people and groups of people. Moses, David, Elijah, Hezekiah, Jesus, and Paul fasted (Deut. 9:9; 2 Sam. 12:16; 1 Kings 19:8; 2 Kings 18:6; Matt. 4:2; Acts 9:9). Jehoshaphat called for the nation of Israel to fast (2 Chron. 20:3).

Imagine how silly I felt, sitting there repeating this self-help mantra over and over.  As silly as it felt, and still feels, I have followed my psychiatrist's instructions and again learned the power of speaking truth. And I know that when it starts to feel like the life is being sucked from me, I can confess all the truths. I am worthy of basic dignity. I am baptized. I am not worthless or a burden. I am forgiven.