Same Old Song

This week we reflect on the readings for this week in year A, which is the third Sunday in Epiphany: Micah 6:1-8; 1st Corinthians 1:18-31; and Matthew 5:1-12.

This week we reflect on the readings for this week in year A, which is the third Sunday in Epiphany: Isaiah 9:1-4; 1st Corinthians 1:10-18 and Matthew 4:12-23.

Show Notes:

Is Christ divided? or, literally, ‘Has Christ been parcelled out?’ (13). Paul is asking the Corinthians, with all their division, ‘Do you suppose that there are fragments of Christ that can be distributed among different groups? If you have Christ, you have all of him. Jesus cannot be divided.’ We cannot have half a person, as though we said: ‘Please come in, but leave your legs outside.’ This, incidentally, throws light on such common phrases as ‘wanting more of Christ’. It cannot be: we should rather be allowing Christ to have more of us. We are the disintegrated ones whom Christ is gradually making whole, so that we become more like him—integrated and entire. The same argument applies to wanting more of the Holy Spirit. If he is personal, a Person, than we either have him living within us or we do not; again, our desire and prayer should be for the Holy Spirit to have more of us.

The phrase “from that time Jesus began” (v. 17) is followed by the infinitive “to preach.” The identical phrase appears again in 16:21, this time with the infinitive “to show” following. Now comes the content of the preaching or showing. Even though the phrase appears but twice in Matthew, it has the look of a formula introducing something of major importance. Some students of Matthew’s Gospel see it as an important indicator of Matthew’s view of the unfolding of Jesus’ ministry.In any case, “Jesus began to preach,” and the public work of Jesus is defined as preaching the nearness of the kingdom of God. In all too many cases today, the term “preaching” has associations with scolding, harping on moral platitudes, or dwelling on the obvious or the irrelevant. In the Scriptures, however, “to preach” (kēryssō) is not to deal in shopworn or secondhand goods, but to announce as a herald (kēryx) the news that is both gut-wrenching and glad beyond all expectation.

Neither religious philosophy nor existence can provide the criterion for the genuineness of Christianity. In philosophy, man discovers what is humanly knowable about the depths of being; in existence, man lives out what is humanly livable. But Christianity disappears the moment it allows itself to be dissolved into a transcendental precondition of human self-understanding in thinking or living, knowledge or deed.

“As we have taken the circle as a symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as a symbol at once of mystery and health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its head a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because is has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.”

This week we reflect on the readings for this week in year A, which is the Baptism of the Lord: Isaiah 49:1-7, 1st Corinthians 1:1-9 and John 1:29-42.

Show Notes:

“It is an item in faith that we are children of God; there is plenty of experience in us against it. The faith that surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness.”

The Church is not exempt from this low an- thropology. It is sadly humorous to ponti cate about the virtues of the early church. e early church was a mess, lled with sinners. St. Paul, in his rst epistle to the Corinthians, points this out. Paul lets them know they are far from a pious community, that there is immorality amongst them that shocks even the pagans.

This is very important to understand: anthropologically speaking, there is no difference between Christians and non-Christians. When the church forgets this truth, she gets herself into all sorts of trouble. Instead of making herself irrelevant, the church that has an N.W.A. anthropology has something to say and can speak to the culture at large. A church with a low an- thropology can see herself as part of the problem and, in humility, share the good news of God’s grace. A church with a low anthropology is not shocked by the sin of the world, but can minister to people—“Dope Man” and “Gang- sta” alike—free of judgement and assumption.

The Christology of John the Baptist:

This week we reflect on the readings for this week in year A, which is the Baptism of the Lord: Isaiah 42:1-9, Acts 10:34-43 and Matthew 3:13-17.

Show Notes:

If, therefore, we treat Christianity under the common name of ‘redemption religion’ we must add that in it a conception of salvation of quite a distinctive sort emerges.  In all other doctrines of salvation, the belief in liberation is founded on the conviction of the ineradicable nobility of mankind, or on a metaphysical likeness of the soul with God.  The god-like in man must come into its own.  Jesus, however instead of this, sees a deep gulf between God and man.  According to Him salvation consists rather in this, That God of His free grace comes down to meet man.  It is the highest degree misleading that the infinite worth of the human soul is stressed as a fundamental doctrine of Christianity.  For this immediately obscures the distinctive significance of Jesus preaching.  With Jesus stress is laid rather on the fact that man has forfeited his worth but that nevertheless God accepts him.  

In this week's episode we discuss the texts for the first Sunday after Christmas: Numbers 6:22-27, Philippians 2:5-11 and Luke 2:15-21.

Show Notes:

As a strictly intellectual matter, I am very confident that God exists. In dark times, though — and this has been a dark year in many ways — I wonder if the Absolute relates to us in the way that my church teaches, if he will really wipe away every tear and make all things that we love new...This is the wager that Christmas offers us, year in and year out. It isn’t Pascal’s famous bet on God’s very existence; rather, it’s a bet on God’s love for us, a wager that all the varieties of religious experience, wonderful and terrifying and inscrutable, should be interpreted in the light of one specific history-altering experience: a divine incarnation, a baby crying beneath a pulsing star...The odds on that wager feel different year to year. They change with joy and suffering, tranquillity and crisis, sickness and health...But I haven’t found better ones. Merry Christmas.

One cannot simply read the Bible like other books. One must really be prepared to put questions to it.… The reason for this is that in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot just proceed to think about God under one’s own steam; instead one must ask God questions. Naturally one can read the Bible like any other book and so study it from the point of view of textual criticism, etc. There is absolutely nothing to be said against this. Only this way of going about things does not unlock the essence of the Bible but only what lies on its surface. Think of how we come to understand something said to us by a person we love not by dissecting it into bits but by simply accepting it as the kind of word it is, so that for days it echoes within us simply as the word of that particular person whom we love; the more we, like Mary, “ponder it in the heart,” the more the person who has said it to us becomes accessible to us in that word. That is just how we should treat the word of the Bible.… Every other place outside the Bible has become too uncertain for me; I am afraid that I will encounter only a divine double [einen göttlichen Doppelgänger] of my own self in it. Is it possible, then, for you to comprehend that I would rather make a sacrificium intellectus by confessing that I do not yet understand this or that passage in Scripture, with the certainty that it too will one day reveal itself as God’s own word. I would rather do that than on the basis of my own opinion declare: this is what is divine in it and that is what is human!? (I make the sacrificium intellectus in just these matters and only in these matters, that is, with the true God in view! Who after all would not make a sacrificium intellectus anywhere in this respect?) I also want to say to you now by way of an entirely personal note, that since I learned to read the Bible in this way—which is by no means such a long time ago—it has become more wonderful to me every day.… In a few days it will be Easter … Resurrection. That is certainly not an idea that is in itself reasonable, an eternal truth. I take it to be what the Bible also takes it to be, of course: resurrection from real death (not from sleep) to real life, from being far away from God [der Gottesferne] and from godlessness [der Gottlosigkeit] to new life with Christ in God. God has spoken—and we know this through the Bible—See, I am making all things new. God made that come true at Easter.

We give our take on the readings for Christmas day, year A. We're talking Isaiah 52:7-10, Hebrews 1:1-6, and John 1:1-14.

Despite the New Testament’s assertion that the coming of Jesus was the fulfillment of ancient Israel’s religious hopes for the future, religious Jews find the Christian celebration of Christmas based on a belief that stands in direct opposition to the most fundamental of Jewish tenets: the oneness of God (see Deut. 6:4). Still, the church continues to find in the Old Testament words of spirit and life. Today’s lesson from Isaiah reaffirms the church’s belief that judgment is not God’s final word. The good news is that God’s movement into our lives is to accomplish salvation (v. 7). The experience of ancient Israel exemplifies that “good news.” The judgment that Israel experienced as a consequence of its infidelity was not God’s final word, for God comes to comfort Judah and redeem Jerusalem (v. 9). The coming of Jesus, then, needs to be understood against the backdrop of ancient Israel’s religious experience. It is the decisive movement of God in the world, insuring that the world will become what God always intended it to be. God will not allow our selfishness and sin to frustrate the divine will for creation. In Jesus, God has become part of creation to transform it from within. God’s self-communication, begun in creation and continued through the experience of ancient Israel, comes to perfection in the incarnation. In Jesus, God has become a human being. That is the “good news” that the church proclaims today.

Let’s think first about the song. During a discussion in his excellent book on preaching Tim Keller uses “Let It Go” as a prime example of the the way contemporary culture “enthrones our passions”:

The song is sung by a character determined no longer to “be the good girl” that her family and society had wanted her to be. Instead she would “let go” and express what she had been holding back inside. There is “no right or wrong, no rules” for her. This is a good example of the expressive individualism [sociologist Robert] Bellah described. Identity is not realized, as in traditional societies, by sublimating our individual desires for the good of our family and people. Instead we become ourselves only by asserting our individual desires against society, by expressing our feelings and fulfilling our dreams regardless of what anyone says. (134)

But we must also think about the movie as a whole, and not merely the song in isolation. As Trevin Wax of The Gospel Coalition has pointed out, the heroine of the movie, Anna, rescues her sister from the selfish, solo life she gives into by Letting It Go. (Greg Forster has made a similar argument.) The movie’s story ends up undermining and then jettisoning the “expressive individualism of the sovereign self” Elsa tries on for size while striding up the North Mountain. I agree. Anna’s love for her elder sister, despite years of apparent coldness from her, is one of the more beautiful redemptive loves I’ve ever seen in film. And in the end, Elsa submits again to “right and wrong,” even “rules,” by taking up her queenly responsibilities in the land of Arendelle. This the movie portrays as good, not as a constriction of her individual rights. I love the love of Anna for Elsa. Romantic love isn’t the only true love, and it isn’t even always true. I want my little girl to know this. It’s the major reason I let my kids watch Frozen.

So what does the song mean? Does it undermine or does it support the expressive individualism of the sovereign self? Was Tim Keller interpreting and applying “Let it Go” according to the authorial intentions of the now-famous duo who wrote it?

The Gospel according to John was written out of the thrill of actual contact with its leading figure, and one senses the tremors of this contact on every subsequent page. John's phrase "full of grace and truth" is exactly synonymous with ancient Israel's frequent celebration of the Lord God's "steadfast love and faithfulness" (hesed we'emet). With the word "grace" one thinks of the wide horizontal beam of the cross and of the wide-outstretched world-embracing arms of the all-merciful, all-compassionate God, the major longing of the human heart. With the word "truth" one thinks of the vertical beam of the Cross going down deep and up high to suggest the power of straight, real, honest truth, the major longing of the human mind. This truth is powerful enough to support the wide horizontal be a of God's Grace that stretches round the world.

In our fifth episode we deal with the Lectionary texts for Christmas Eve, Year A: Isaiah 9:2-7, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2:1-20.

Show Notes:

The first thing to learn in this prophecy of Isaiah is that a child is born to you and is your child…. We must accentuate the word “us” and write it large. That is, when you hear, “A child has been born to us, make the two letters US as large as heaven and earth and say, “The child is born, it is true; but for whom is he born: Unto US, for US he is born, says the prophet.” Luther continues, “God allowed this child to be born for the sake of condemned and lost sinners. Therefore, hold out your hand, lay hold of it, and say, “True, I am godless and wicked, there is nothing good in me, nothing but sin, vice, depravity, death, devil, and hellfire; against all this, however, I set this child whom the Virgin Mary has in her lap and at her breast. For since he is born for me, that he might be my treasure, I accept this child and set him over against everything I do not have.” Luther concludes, “For what can the devil with all his evil tricks do to the Christian who lays hold on these words in all seriousness and firm faith? For though such a Christian be tempted by the devil, he can easily oppose him and say, 'Devil, are you listening? Do you know that a child has been born? Yes, indeed, do you know that he was born for us, that is, for me?' That’s when the devil has to back off.

Only Christ can make our inward heart fit to see God.

But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. […] I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it.” In other words, whenever you enjoy something, you have to praise it. See?

The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside … praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges … children, flowers, mountains … I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least.

The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read. The healthy and unaffected man … could praise a very modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all.… praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.

‘In those days,’ says Luke, ‘there went out a decree from the Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.’ These words have become so well known, through constant repetition in carol services, that we may perhaps be forgiven for not stopping to reflect on what Luke is trying to tell us, here and throughout his work. In one short paragraph (2:1–14) he moves from the great Emperor in Rome to the new King who was to rule the world. There is no question, for Luke, as to which one makes the angels sing. As we look at this story, which we know so well and yet so little, we may catch a glimpse of what we might mean when we say: Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory.

Yes, says Luke, and watch what happens now. This man, this king, this absolute monarch, lifts his little finger in Rome, and fifteen hundred miles away in an obscure province a young couple undertake a hazardous journey, resulting in the birth of a child in a little town that just happens to be the one mentioned in the ancient Hebrew prophecy about the coming of the Messiah. And it is at this birth that the angels sing of glory and peace. Which is the reality, and which the parody?

...prayerful reflection, reading Old and New Testaments in the light of one another, filled this lacuna at a very early stage by pointing to Is 1: 3: “The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.”

Peter Stuhlmacher points out that the Greek version of Hab 3: 2 may well have contributed here: “In the midst of two living creatures you will be recognized … when the time has come, you will appear” (cf. Die Geburt des Immanuel, p. 52). The two living creatures would appear to refer to the two cherubs on the mercy-seat of the Ark of the Covenant (cf. Ex 25: 18– 20), who both reveal and conceal the mysterious presence of God. So the manger has in some sense become the Ark of the Covenant, in which God is mysteriously hidden among men, and before which the time has come for “ox and ass”— humanity made up of Jews and Gentiles— to acknowledge God.

Through this remarkable combination of Is 1: 3, Hab 3: 2, Ex 25: 18– 20 and the manger, the two animals now appear as an image of a hitherto blind humanity which now, before the child, before God’s humble self-manifestation in the stable, has learned to recognize him, and in the lowliness of his birth receives the revelation that now teaches all people to see. Christian iconography adopted this motif at an early stage. No representation of the crib is complete without the ox and the ass. After this brief digression, let us return to the text of the Gospel. “Mary gave birth to her first-born son,” we read in Lk 2: 7. What does this mean?

In our fourth episode we deal with the Lectionary texts for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A: Isaiah 7:10-16, Romans 1:1-7 and Matthew 1:18-25. They're texts that in different ways talk about the significance of signs.

King Ahaz of Judah is in a panic. Israel and Aram have allied to resist Assyria's expansion, and they are pressuring Ahaz to join the alliance. If he refuses, they will overthrow Judah and replace him with another king. The result may be the end of the Davidic line.

Isaiah assures Ahaz that he doesn't have to worry about Israel and Aram (Isaiah 7). The Lord will take care of them, and, besides, Assyria poses a greater danger.

But that’s not the heart of the prophet's message. Like Ahaz, Isaiah knows that the house of David is threatened. He knows that the land of Judah is afflicted. But the threat doesn’t come from Aram and Israel, and it doesn’t fundamentally come from Assyria either. The main threat to the house of David is the king who sits on David’s throne. The one who is really afflicting the land is not Aram or Israel or Assyria, but Ahaz, the Davidic king (7:16).

Ahaz’s is not a political failure. It’s not that he hasn’t played the political game cleverly enough. His failure is a failure of faith.

According to Gowan (1998), the prophets to ancient Israel did not preach a legalistic message of moral reformation but an evangelistic message of faith in the God who raises the dead. From the first days of the human race in Eden, the curse threatened against sin is "dying you shall die," and the same curse hangs over Israel after Yahweh cut covenant with it at Sinai. The message of the prophets is not, "Israel has sinned: therefore, Israel needs to get its act together or it will die." The message is, "Israel has sinned; therefor Israel must die, and its only hope is to entrust itself to a God who will give it new life on the far side of death." Or even, "Israel has sinned; Israel is already dead. Cling to the God who raises the dead." This is precisely the prophetic message of 1-2 Kings, which systematically dismantles Israel's confidence in everything but the omnipotent mercy and patience of God.

Who is “Emmanuel?” Hardly a historical figure of the period. Perhaps a traditional name, or one selected by the prophet, to describe the expected Redemptor-King of the last day, to whom a kind of pre-existence is here ascribed. Perhaps the personification of what the remnant-Israel of Judah understood its God to be, and therefore itself, or according to the prophets ought to have done so. Perhaps both? Certainly a special key to the continual mystery of the history of this people in days of prosperity and in days of adversity, under the hand of God in blessing and in cursing. “God with us” is true when the people is at rest. It is also true when the enemy invades and devastates its land. It is always true, in spite of and in the most irresistible movements of history. It is so because and to the extent that in all these things there is revealed the gracious action of God to His people. No matter who or what is concretely envisaged in these passages, they obviously mean this: Emmanuel is the content of the recognition in which the God of Israel reveals Himself in all His acts and dispositions; He is the God who does not work and act without His people, but who is with His people as their God and therefore as their hope.

We are reminded of this remarkable name in Mt. 1:21f. The reference here is to a single, final and exclusive act of the God of Israel as the goal and recapitulation of all His acts. But this act, the birth and naming of Jesus, is similar to the events in the days of King Ahaz in that once again we have come to a change in the relationship between God and His people. As the Evangelist sees it, it is this time the great change compared with which what took place before was only from his point of view a prelude. And now it is the equally unexpected change from perdition to salvation, from an age-long judgment to a new and final blessing. And the Emmanuel-sign has it in common with the name of Jesus that the latter, too, although this time in the reverse direction, is a sign for both: a sign “for the fall and rising again of many in Israel” (Lk. 2:34), a sign both of the deepest extremity imposed by God (as in Is. 8:6f.) and also of the uttermost preservation and salvation ordained by God (as in Is. 8:9f.). Over and in both it is Emmanuel, “God with us,” and now therefore (ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ κυρίου διὰ τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος*) Jesus, Jehoshuah, “God helps.”

‘Born of the Virgin Mary.’ Once again and now from the human standpoint the male is excluded here. The male has nothing to do with this birth. What is involved here is, if you like, a divine act of judgment. To what is to begin here man is to contribute nothing by his action and initiative. Man is not simply excluded, for the Virgin is there. But the male, as the specific agent of human action and history, with his responsibility for directing the human species, must now retire into the background, as the powerless figure of Joseph. That is the Christian reply to the question of woman: here the woman stands absolutely in the foreground, moreover the virgo, the Virgin Mary. God did not choose man in his pride and in his defiance, but man in his weakness and humility, not man in his historical rôle, but man in the weakness of his nature as represented by the woman, the human creature who can confront God only with the words, ‘Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according as Thou hast said’. Such is human co-operation in this matter, that and only that! We must not think of making a merit of this handmaid existence, nor attempt once more to ascribe a potency to the creature. But God has regarded man in his weakness and in his humility, and Mary has expressed what creation alone can express in this encounter. That Mary does so and that thereby the creature says ‘Yes’ to God, is a part of the great acceptance which comes to man from God.

This is the most necessary conversion for those who have already followed Christ and have lived at his service in the Church. An altogether special conversion, which does not consist in abandoning what is evil, but, in a certain sense, in abandoning what is good! Namely, in detaching oneself from everything that one has done…

This emptying of one’s hands and pockets of every pretension, in a spirit of poverty and humility, is the best way to prepare for Christmas. We are reminded of it by a delightful Christmas legend that I would like to mention again. It narrates that among the shepherds that ran on Christmas night to adore the Child there was one who was so poor that he had nothing to offer and was very ashamed. Reaching the grotto, all competed to offer their gifts. Mary did not know what to do to receive them all, having to hold the Child in her arms. Then, seeing the shepherd with his hands free, she entrusted Jesus to him. To have empty hands was his fortune and, on another plane, will also be ours.

In our third episode we deal with the Lectionary texts for the Third Sunday of Advent, Year A: Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-13 and Matthew 3:1-12. We consider what it means to look to these texts for real words of grace and hope, and what the nature of true joy really is.

Show Notes:

With the words, “This text shouldn’t be here,” my colleague Barbara Lundblad begins a thoughtful presentation on Isaiah 35. After all, as she points out, it’s not just that this text doesn’t address anyone by name. It’s also that it almost immediately follows a poem that’s full of images of creational disaster: “Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur, her land will become blazing pitch … Thorns will overrun her citadels, nettles and brambles her strongholds” (Isaiah 34:9, 13).

Into that promise of environmental devastation, Isaiah says, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy” (Isaiah 35:1-2a).

This text shouldn’t be here...Lundblad notes, “Isaiah dares to speak a word out of place. A word that refuses to wait until things improved.” Walter Brueggemann says something similar when he points out, “Israel’s doxologies are characteristically against the data.”

Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith.

Hardly anything points toward God and calls as urgently for God as the experience of his absence...

Yes, patience is what I consider to be the main difference between faith and atheism...What atheism, religious fundamentalism, and the enthusiasm of a too-facile faith have in common is how quickly they can ride roughshod over the mystery we call God – and that is why I find all three approaches equally unacceptable...

One must never consider mystery “over and done with.” Mystery, unlike a mere dilemma, cannot be overcome; one must wait patiently at its threshold and persevere in it – must carry it in one’s heart … and allow it to mature there and lead one in turn to maturity...

If the signs of God’s presence lay within easy reach on the surface of the world as some religious zealots like to think, there would be no need for real faith.

But I’m convinced that maturing in one’s faith also entails accepting enduring moments – and sometimes even lengthy periods – when God seems remote or remains concealed. What is obvious and demonstrable doesn’t require faith. We don’t need faith when confronted with unshakable certainties accessible to our powers of reason, imagination, or sensory experience. We need faith precisely at those twilight moments when our lives and the world are full of uncertainty, during the cold night of God’s silence. And its function is not to allay our thirst for certainty and safety, but to teach us to live with mystery. Faith and hope are expressions of our patience at just such moments – and so is love.

In contrast to the overblown rhetoric of so many Christian apologists – with their drastic naivety about the ambivalence of the natural world and the intractable difficulties of believing – Halík's account strikes me as a sensitive and realistic articulation of the difference faith makes. The best thing about his book – again, in contrast to the usual apologetics – is that it's actually a Christian response to atheism. Surely anything a Christian says to an atheist ought to arise not from an invincible commitment to being right, but from an understanding of the kindness of God, an awareness that there is room in God's family even for those who doubt – those for whom the word "God" cannot easily be deciphered from the dark hieroglyphics of the world.

The entire Bible can be seen, in fact, as a story of betrayal, beginning with Adam and proceeding through the history of the Israelites, culminating in the cross. In an astonishing reversal the Romans’ cruelest execution device became the ubiquitous Christian symbol. “And I, when I am lifted up from

-Philip Yancey, from the forward to Makoto Fujimura's Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering (Kindle Locations 240-242). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

In our second episode we deal with the Lectionary texts for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A: Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-13 and Matthew 3:1-12. We consider what it means to look to these texts for real words of grace and hope.