1517 Blogcast

God can hardly wait to fix the problems in your life.

God can hardly wait to fix your sore throat. God can hardly wait to fix your cancer. God can hardly wait to fix your achy back.

God can hardly wait to fix your relationship with your child and bring them back to you. God can hardly wait to fix your relationship with your parents, even if they are dead.

God can hardly wait to fix your sexuality. Your frigidity. Your wandering eye. Your same-sex attraction.  Your pornography addiction.

No matter what "doing our best" means to us, we all know from experience that our best isn't good enough. It's never good enough, because no matter how much we love, or argue, or worry, or laugh, and as much as we treat each other as if we are permanent, death comes for us all.

When we think of the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Christ alone, the book of James isn’t the first to come to mind. James is no Galatians or Romans when it comes to that. But James does have something to teach us. James holds up a mirror, and we do well not to look away.

I woke up a few days ago with the gnawing feeling that I was forgetting something. It was an important date, I knew, but why? I checked multiple calendars, thinking that maybe I had forgotten a friend’s birthday. I checked my appointments schedule—perhaps it was a doctor’s visit I had overlooked.

Yet what is true about all self-made credos is also true about theirs and mine and yours: They can sound good in the moment, but given enough time, if they are false or lacking, they will be shown for the shams that they are. In the case of these three young people, when one of their number was in trouble the other two very quickly set aside wishful thinking that true life isn’t about responsibilities and hard choices.

Like Luther, the radical reformers recognized the corruption of 16th-century church doctrine and practice, but the manner in which they brought about reform meant leaving behind core Biblical teachings and intentionally exiling faithful believers.

For Martin Luther, the question of the church’s identity was all about election. Instead of voting for future office-holders, God is the one who chooses.

As creatures enshrouded in the concept of time, we tend to like the idea of clearly delineated dates. We mark our years and our lives through important events that happen to us or have happened to our forebearers throughout history. In this act of remembering, nothing makes us happier than celebrating a nice, even-numbered anniversary; one that shows how far we’ve come and turns us toward reflection, celebration or both. Yet on the 501st anniversary of Reformation Day, the observed day where the Catholic friar Martin Luther probably nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church and in turn set off one of the largest schisms in church history, what is left to celebrate?

Recovery, escape, and consolation. These are the essential elements of a good fairy story, writes J.R.R. Tolkien. As air, water, and food are to humanity, so are recovery, escape, and consolation to the fairy tale.