Gather my broken fragments
by George MacDonald
Gather my broken fragments to a whole,
As these four quarters make a shining day.
Into thy basket, for my golden bowl,
Take up the things that I have cast away
In vice or indolence or unwise play.
Let mine be a merry, all-receiving heart,
But make it a whole, with light in every part.
Selah.
Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. Psalm 86:11, NIV
Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. Psalm 86:11, ESV
And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them.
Selah.
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Jesus Map
And a little child shall lead them...
A father wanted to read a magazine but was being bothered by his little girl. She wanted to know what the United States looked like. Finally, he tore a sheet out of his new magazine on which was printed the map of the country. Tearing it into small pieces, he gave it to her and said, 'Go into the other room and see if you can put this together. This will show you our whole country today..'
After a few minutes, she returned and handed him the map, correctly fitted and taped together. The father was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly. 'Oh,' she said, 'on the other side of the paper is a picture of Jesus. When I got all of Jesus back where He belonged, then our country just came together.'
Selah.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Acuerdate oh Señor -- Holy Week
I'll share this video with you all, created for use in our special Tenebrae service. Part of my ordination vows say to serve the people with "intelligence, imagination, creativity and love." Well, this service [including video slideshow] took every ounce of that! Lots of effort and imagination, finding, creating, choosing pictures and then choosing the right song: my first attempt at creating multi-media for worship. But I absolutely couldn't have done this without integral help from Patrick. He was the technical brain behind this video. He worked so hard to make the Tenebrae service a success: thanks, Patrick! Way above the call of duty -- heavenly.
So, friends, enjoy this prayer song and video.
Make sure to click the full screen version, second button from the right.
God bless you this Easter season!
Loy
p.s. Translation of Acuerdate oh Señor
Acuerdate oh Señor
Acuerdate oh Señor
De las naciones de la tierra acuerdate
Que tu favor y tu amor
Sean derramados sobre el mundo oh Señor
En tu bondad acuerdate
En tu bondad acuerdate
Remember, oh Sir!
Remember, oh Sir!
For the nations of the earth remember
That your favor and your love
Are spilled out on the world, oh Sir!
In your kindness remember…
In your kindness remember…
Selah.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Jesus laughing with Mary in the carpenter shop
Jesus had the best sense of humor ever: it was perfect, loving life, seeing irony without cynicism, bringing others into the fair dance of Life.
If you know Him, you just have to love Him. If you don't know Him, what better time of year to make His acquaintance? He's smiling and laughing, beckoning you onward and home!
Selah.
Monday, April 06, 2009
The One who brings prisoners out of darkness
Servant of Yhwh, the Chosen One
Isaiah 42:1-7
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
Selah.
Isaiah 42:1-7
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
Selah.
Grace is free but not easy
God in Christ: teleology and theodicy
There was an occasion when Christ was asked a question of theological curiosity—if the goal of salvation would include few or many. And His answer, nationally viewed, was disappointing—as if for Him such an inquiry was academic, or only inquisitive. He convened it at once into a religious occasion. He turned it into the central and primary theology, where we are not merely curious but concerned. He said that such inquiries could only be solved practically only if a greater question were first settled for our own soul; that eschatology was a matter of soteriology, and soteriology a matter of personal salvation; that we had no key to the eternal future of others except what we had for our own; that our interest in the saving of the world might be perverted to submerge our own salvation; that, in the desire to know, or even in our haste to effect, the destiny of the race, we might miss in our soul the certainty which was the root of all other.
‘Are the saved few?’ ‘Few enough to make you afraid you may not be there. See to your entry. The religious inquisitives may be eternal failures. So may the religious bustlers. You must taste salvation to discuss it. You must experience the world’s salvation to deal with the saving of the world’ (Luke xiii. 23). As if He should say: ‘Acquaint yourself with what God has done. Immerse yourself in it. The consummation will not come by man’s gradual organization under a law of love, but by the consummating Act and Gift of God in His Kingdom and its righteousness—by that and each man’s part in it.’
But that Act it was far from easy to take home. Grace is free but not easy. It was not in the growth of man’s delectable breadth and charity that Christ found the way to heaven; He cast His inquirers upon a narrow way ending in a strait gate. It was not to a wider knowledge or a larger vision that He looked for the central and final theodicy. The only final theodicy He knew was God’s saving Act, in which He Himself grew more and more straitened till it was accomplished. To know and taste that was everything. The world’s history did not make for Him the world’s final judgment; it worked up to such a judgment, where He is Himself on the bench. Love’s straightening for a tangled world was a cure for its sin – it was propitiation, the mercy of the Cross. ‘Herein is love—that He gave His Son as propitiation.’
Love that meets need finds that to be the chief need. Its first and last gift to man is the Cross. This Cross became not only a rescue from a strait but the principle and measure of the whole world. The Lord of the Cross is the final trustee of universal judgment. The whole purpose of history, if we are to believe Christ, was something more than the disentangling of a moral muddle, the evolution of a moral order, or even the growth of a moral personality; it was the redemption of that personality. Its final ethic is that involved in faith with its justifying, regenerating power. It was to bring every man to deal with Him as Savior, to plant every man at last before the judgment-seat of His Cross and Grace, to work in every man the supreme conviction of belonging to Him, and finding in Him his own new soul—new, yet his own. So that no man comes to himself till he come to Him, and the world does not’ arrive’ till it settle to rest in Him.
That is the Christian teleology of history, whether we accept it or do not. Christ, judge and justifier, is the one theodicy. The whole race says, ‘for me to live is Christ.’ Everything exists for Him—love, culture, war, tragedy, glory. He is the one moral touchstone of God and man for ever, the crucial point of the eternal and immutable morality of the Holy.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, The Justification of God, 54-44.
There was an occasion when Christ was asked a question of theological curiosity—if the goal of salvation would include few or many. And His answer, nationally viewed, was disappointing—as if for Him such an inquiry was academic, or only inquisitive. He convened it at once into a religious occasion. He turned it into the central and primary theology, where we are not merely curious but concerned. He said that such inquiries could only be solved practically only if a greater question were first settled for our own soul; that eschatology was a matter of soteriology, and soteriology a matter of personal salvation; that we had no key to the eternal future of others except what we had for our own; that our interest in the saving of the world might be perverted to submerge our own salvation; that, in the desire to know, or even in our haste to effect, the destiny of the race, we might miss in our soul the certainty which was the root of all other.
‘Are the saved few?’ ‘Few enough to make you afraid you may not be there. See to your entry. The religious inquisitives may be eternal failures. So may the religious bustlers. You must taste salvation to discuss it. You must experience the world’s salvation to deal with the saving of the world’ (Luke xiii. 23). As if He should say: ‘Acquaint yourself with what God has done. Immerse yourself in it. The consummation will not come by man’s gradual organization under a law of love, but by the consummating Act and Gift of God in His Kingdom and its righteousness—by that and each man’s part in it.’
But that Act it was far from easy to take home. Grace is free but not easy. It was not in the growth of man’s delectable breadth and charity that Christ found the way to heaven; He cast His inquirers upon a narrow way ending in a strait gate. It was not to a wider knowledge or a larger vision that He looked for the central and final theodicy. The only final theodicy He knew was God’s saving Act, in which He Himself grew more and more straitened till it was accomplished. To know and taste that was everything. The world’s history did not make for Him the world’s final judgment; it worked up to such a judgment, where He is Himself on the bench. Love’s straightening for a tangled world was a cure for its sin – it was propitiation, the mercy of the Cross. ‘Herein is love—that He gave His Son as propitiation.’
Love that meets need finds that to be the chief need. Its first and last gift to man is the Cross. This Cross became not only a rescue from a strait but the principle and measure of the whole world. The Lord of the Cross is the final trustee of universal judgment. The whole purpose of history, if we are to believe Christ, was something more than the disentangling of a moral muddle, the evolution of a moral order, or even the growth of a moral personality; it was the redemption of that personality. Its final ethic is that involved in faith with its justifying, regenerating power. It was to bring every man to deal with Him as Savior, to plant every man at last before the judgment-seat of His Cross and Grace, to work in every man the supreme conviction of belonging to Him, and finding in Him his own new soul—new, yet his own. So that no man comes to himself till he come to Him, and the world does not’ arrive’ till it settle to rest in Him.
That is the Christian teleology of history, whether we accept it or do not. Christ, judge and justifier, is the one theodicy. The whole race says, ‘for me to live is Christ.’ Everything exists for Him—love, culture, war, tragedy, glory. He is the one moral touchstone of God and man for ever, the crucial point of the eternal and immutable morality of the Holy.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, The Justification of God, 54-44.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Blackout: A metaphor of spiritual darkness
A parable for Lent
A prophetic word by Emil Brunner
During wartime blackout practices we noticed what life would be like without light, how weird everything was, how one took uncertain steps, how quickly one lost his way, how easily one collided. The blackout is said to have cost more lives in England than the war.
That may be a parable for us of what darkness in the spiritual sense means in the individual life of man and in the life of nations. You know, indeed, how it is when it is simply dark in us and around us, when we do not know in and out, when it is like a devilish darkening over our mind, and we ourselves think, feel, and do what the light shuns. That the Bible calls 'wandering in darkness.' But it can happen that one becomes accustomed to this darkness so that he does not notice how terrible, how inhuman, how contrary to sense all life then becomes. And as in individuals, so in the life of nations. Now is a blackout time in the whole world of nations, as perhaps never at all before.
For earlier one still knew that there is a God, that there is a righteousness, that finally a retribution comes, that there are holy laws and orders. But today there are millions and millions of Europeans – about the others I do not wish to speak – now who no longer know all that, who have radically struck God from their hearts and lives and who therefore live entirely in darkness and who do the works of darkness.
We see today and thank God; many who did not see it are now finally beginning to see it that one cannot live without God. But perhaps it is already too late; perhaps the darkness of godlessness must first give vent to its fury before better times can come. The power of darkness seems today to have received a free night from God that it may crush to pieces what it wills so that the nations realize to what place one comes when he abolishes God.
Selah.
Emil Brunner, I Believe in the Living God, 43-44.
A prophetic word by Emil Brunner
During wartime blackout practices we noticed what life would be like without light, how weird everything was, how one took uncertain steps, how quickly one lost his way, how easily one collided. The blackout is said to have cost more lives in England than the war.
That may be a parable for us of what darkness in the spiritual sense means in the individual life of man and in the life of nations. You know, indeed, how it is when it is simply dark in us and around us, when we do not know in and out, when it is like a devilish darkening over our mind, and we ourselves think, feel, and do what the light shuns. That the Bible calls 'wandering in darkness.' But it can happen that one becomes accustomed to this darkness so that he does not notice how terrible, how inhuman, how contrary to sense all life then becomes. And as in individuals, so in the life of nations. Now is a blackout time in the whole world of nations, as perhaps never at all before.
For earlier one still knew that there is a God, that there is a righteousness, that finally a retribution comes, that there are holy laws and orders. But today there are millions and millions of Europeans – about the others I do not wish to speak – now who no longer know all that, who have radically struck God from their hearts and lives and who therefore live entirely in darkness and who do the works of darkness.
We see today and thank God; many who did not see it are now finally beginning to see it that one cannot live without God. But perhaps it is already too late; perhaps the darkness of godlessness must first give vent to its fury before better times can come. The power of darkness seems today to have received a free night from God that it may crush to pieces what it wills so that the nations realize to what place one comes when he abolishes God.
Selah.
Emil Brunner, I Believe in the Living God, 43-44.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Let my heart become more consciously Thy home
Thou whose Name is called Jesus
Words: Jean S Pigott (1845-1882)
Tune: All Saints (Darmstadt)
Thou whose Name is called Jesus,
Risen Lord of life and power,
O it is so sweet to trust Thee
Every day and every hour!
Of Thy wondrous grace I sing,
Savior, Counselor and King.
Thou canst keep my feet from falling,
Even my poor wayward feet -
Thou who dost present me faultless,
In Thy righteousness complete;
Jesus, Lord, in knowing Thee,
O what strength and victory!
All the sin in me, my Savior,
Thou canst conquer and subdue;
With Thy sanctifying power
Permeate my spirit through;
Let Thy government increase,
Risen, crowned, Prince of Peace.
Thou canst keep me upward looking,
Ever upward in Thy face;
Thou canst make me stand, upholden
By the greatness of Thy grace;
Every promise of Thy Word
Now I claim from Thee, dear Lord.
O what joy to trust Thee, Jesus,
Mighty Victor o'er the grave,
And to learn amid earth's shadows
Thine unceasing power to save!
Only those who prove Thee know
What the grace Thou dost bestow.
Make my life a bright outshining
Of Thy life, that all may see
Thine own resurrection power
Mightily put forth in me;
Ever let my heart become
Yet more consciously Thy home.
Selah.
Words: Jean S Pigott (1845-1882)
Tune: All Saints (Darmstadt)
Thou whose Name is called Jesus,
Risen Lord of life and power,
O it is so sweet to trust Thee
Every day and every hour!
Of Thy wondrous grace I sing,
Savior, Counselor and King.
Thou canst keep my feet from falling,
Even my poor wayward feet -
Thou who dost present me faultless,
In Thy righteousness complete;
Jesus, Lord, in knowing Thee,
O what strength and victory!
All the sin in me, my Savior,
Thou canst conquer and subdue;
With Thy sanctifying power
Permeate my spirit through;
Let Thy government increase,
Risen, crowned, Prince of Peace.
Thou canst keep me upward looking,
Ever upward in Thy face;
Thou canst make me stand, upholden
By the greatness of Thy grace;
Every promise of Thy Word
Now I claim from Thee, dear Lord.
O what joy to trust Thee, Jesus,
Mighty Victor o'er the grave,
And to learn amid earth's shadows
Thine unceasing power to save!
Only those who prove Thee know
What the grace Thou dost bestow.
Make my life a bright outshining
Of Thy life, that all may see
Thine own resurrection power
Mightily put forth in me;
Ever let my heart become
Yet more consciously Thy home.
Selah.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Teach us to number our days
A scene for Lenten meditation
Here's a scene for Lenten meditation. Study its quiet message. What does it say to you this season, to humble your heart?
Verse for thought: Psalm 90:12 -- So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Selah.
Thy perfect beauty see
O Savior, may we never rest
Words: William H Bathurst (1796-1877)
Tune: Cheshire
O Savior, may we never rest
Till Thou art form'd within,
Till Thou hast calm'd our troubled breast,
And crush'd the power of sin.
O may we gaze upon Thy Cross,
Until the wondrous sight
Makes earthly treasures seem but dross,
And earthly sorrows light:
Until, released from carnal ties,
Our spirit upward springs,
And sees true peace above the skies,
True joy in heavenly things.
There as we gaze, may we become
United, Lord, to Thee,
And, in a fairer, happier home,
Thy perfect beauty see.
Alleluia!
Selah
Words: William H Bathurst (1796-1877)
Tune: Cheshire
O Savior, may we never rest
Till Thou art form'd within,
Till Thou hast calm'd our troubled breast,
And crush'd the power of sin.
O may we gaze upon Thy Cross,
Until the wondrous sight
Makes earthly treasures seem but dross,
And earthly sorrows light:
Until, released from carnal ties,
Our spirit upward springs,
And sees true peace above the skies,
True joy in heavenly things.
There as we gaze, may we become
United, Lord, to Thee,
And, in a fairer, happier home,
Thy perfect beauty see.
Alleluia!
Selah
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
For Christ, through whom all things were made
The glory of these forty days
Words: Latin, sixth century
Tune: Erhalt uns, Herr
The glory of these forty days
we celebrate with songs of praise;
for Christ, through whom all things were made,
himself has fasted and has prayed.
Alone and fasting Moses saw
the loving God who gave the law;
and to Elijah, fasting, came
the steeds and chariots of flame.
So Daniel trained his mystic sight,
delivered from the lions' might;
and John, the Bridegroom's friend, became
the herald of Messiah's name.
Then grant us, Lord, like them to be
full oft in fast and prayer with thee;
our spirits strengthen with thy grace,
and give us joy to see thy face.
O Father, Son, and Spirit blest,
to thee be every prayer addressed,
who art in three-fold Name adored,
from age to age, the only Lord.
Selah.
The glory of these forty days
we celebrate with songs of praise;
for Christ, through whom all things were made,
himself has fasted and has prayed.
Alone and fasting Moses saw
the loving God who gave the law;
and to Elijah, fasting, came
the steeds and chariots of flame.
So Daniel trained his mystic sight,
delivered from the lions' might;
and John, the Bridegroom's friend, became
the herald of Messiah's name.
Then grant us, Lord, like them to be
full oft in fast and prayer with thee;
our spirits strengthen with thy grace,
and give us joy to see thy face.
O Father, Son, and Spirit blest,
to thee be every prayer addressed,
who art in three-fold Name adored,
from age to age, the only Lord.
Selah.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Lenten prayers for Thursday, March 6
Psalm 141:1-3, 8
O Lord, I call to you; come to me quickly;
hear my voice when I cry to you.
Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord,
and guard the door of my lips;
let not my heart incline to any evil thing.
But my eyes are turned to you, Lord God;
in you I take refuge; do not strip me of my life.
O Lord, I call to you; come to me quickly;
hear my voice when I cry to you.
Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord,
and guard the door of my lips;
let not my heart incline to any evil thing.
But my eyes are turned to you, Lord God;
in you I take refuge; do not strip me of my life.
Selah.
Psalm 143
Lord, hear my prayer,
and in your faithfulness heed my supplications;
answer me in your righteousness.
Enter not into judgment with your servant,
for in your sight shall no one living be justified.
For my enemy has sought my life
and has crushed me to the ground;
making me live in dark places
like those who are long dead.
My spirit faints within me;
my heart within me is desolate.
I remember the time past;
I muse upon all your deeds;
I consider the works of your hands.
I spread out my hands to you;
my soul gasps to you like a thirsty land.
O Lord, make haste to answer me; my spirit fails me;
do not hide your face from me
or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning,
for I put my trust in you;
show me the road that I must walk,
for I lift up my soul to you.
Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord,
for I flee to you for refuge.
Teach me to do what pleases you, for you are my God;
let your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
Revive me, O Lord, for your name's sake;
for your righteousness' sake, bring me out of trouble.
Psalm 143
Lord, hear my prayer,
and in your faithfulness heed my supplications;
answer me in your righteousness.
Enter not into judgment with your servant,
for in your sight shall no one living be justified.
For my enemy has sought my life
and has crushed me to the ground;
making me live in dark places
like those who are long dead.
My spirit faints within me;
my heart within me is desolate.
I remember the time past;
I muse upon all your deeds;
I consider the works of your hands.
I spread out my hands to you;
my soul gasps to you like a thirsty land.
O Lord, make haste to answer me; my spirit fails me;
do not hide your face from me
or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning,
for I put my trust in you;
show me the road that I must walk,
for I lift up my soul to you.
Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord,
for I flee to you for refuge.
Teach me to do what pleases you, for you are my God;
let your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
Revive me, O Lord, for your name's sake;
for your righteousness' sake, bring me out of trouble.
Selah.
A Song of Repentance: 1 John 1:5-9
This is the message we have heard from Christ
and proclaim to you:
that God is light,
in whom there is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with God
while we walk in darkness,
we lie and do not do what is true.
But if we walk in the light
as God is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another.
And the blood of Jesus, the Son of God,
cleanses us from all our sins.
If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins,
the One who is faithful and just will forgive us
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
A Song of Repentance: 1 John 1:5-9
This is the message we have heard from Christ
and proclaim to you:
that God is light,
in whom there is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with God
while we walk in darkness,
we lie and do not do what is true.
But if we walk in the light
as God is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another.
And the blood of Jesus, the Son of God,
cleanses us from all our sins.
If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins,
the One who is faithful and just will forgive us
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Selah.
Psalm 148
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights.
Praise him, all you angels of his;
praise him, all his host.
Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, heaven of heavens,
and you waters above the heavens.
Let them praise the name of the Lord;
for he commanded and they were created.
He made them stand fast for ever and ever;
he gave them a law which shall not pass away.
Praise the Lord from the earth,
you sea-monsters and all deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and fog,
tempestuous wind, doing his will;
Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars;
Wild beasts and all cattle,
creeping things and winged birds;
Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the world;
Young men and maidens,
old and young together.
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name only is exalted,
his splendor is over earth and heaven.
He has raised up strength for his people
and praise for all his loyal servants,
the children of Israel, a people who are near him!
Psalm 148
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights.
Praise him, all you angels of his;
praise him, all his host.
Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, heaven of heavens,
and you waters above the heavens.
Let them praise the name of the Lord;
for he commanded and they were created.
He made them stand fast for ever and ever;
he gave them a law which shall not pass away.
Praise the Lord from the earth,
you sea-monsters and all deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and fog,
tempestuous wind, doing his will;
Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars;
Wild beasts and all cattle,
creeping things and winged birds;
Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the world;
Young men and maidens,
old and young together.
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name only is exalted,
his splendor is over earth and heaven.
He has raised up strength for his people
and praise for all his loyal servants,
the children of Israel, a people who are near him!
Selah.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Thy offering still continues new
O thou, before the world began
Words: John and Charles Wesley, 1745
Tune: Das neugeborne Kindelein
O thou, before the world began,
ordained a sacrifice for man,
and by the eternal Spirit made
an offering in the sinner's stead;
our everlasting Priest art thou,
pleading thy death for sinners now.
Thy offering still continues new
before the righteous Father's view;
thyself the Lamb forever slain;
thy priesthood doth unchanged remain;
thy years, O God, can never fail,
nor thy blest work within the veil.
O that our faith may never move,
but stand unshaken as thy love,
sure evidence of things unseen;
now let it pass the years between
and view thee bleeding on the tree:
my Lord, my God, who dies for me.
Selah.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Kierkegaard on repentance
True repentance is not momentary sorrow
True repentance does not belong to a certain period of life, as fun and games belong to childhood, or as the excitement of romantic love belongs to youth. It does not come and disappear as a whim or as a surprise. No, no. There is a sense of reverence, a holy fear, a humility, a pure sincerity which insures that repentance does not become vain and overhasty.
From the point of view of the eternal, repentance must come “all at once,” where in one’s grief there is not even time to utter words. But the grieving of repentance and the heartfelt anxiety that floods the soul must not be confused with impatience or the momentary feeling of contrition. Experience teaches us that the right moment to repent is not always the one that is immediately present. Repentance can too easily be confused with a tormenting agonizing or with a worldly sorrow; with a desperate feeling of grief in itself. But by itself, sorrow never becomes repentance, no matter how long it continues to rage. However clouded the mind becomes, the sobs of contrition, no matter how violent they are, never become tears of repentance. They are like empty clouds that bear no water, or like convulsive puffs of wind. This kind of repentance is selfish. It is sensually powerful for the moment, excited in expression – and, for this very reason, is no real repentance at all. Sudden, quick repentance wants only to drink down the bitterness of sorrow in a single draught and then hurry on. It wants to get away from guilt, away from every reminder of it, and fortify itself by imagining that it does not want to be held back in the pursuit of the Good.
What a delusion!
True repentance is not self-improvement
There is a story about a man who by his misdeeds deserved to be punished according to the law. After he had served his sentence he went back into ordinary society, reformed. He went to a foreign country, where he was unknown and where he became known for his upright conduct. All was forgotten. Then one day a fugitive appeared who recognized him from the past. The reformed man was terrified. A deathlike fear shook him each time the fugitive passed. Though silent, his fear shouted with a loud voice, until it became vocal in that dastardly fugitive’s voice. Despair suddenly seized him and it seized him just because he had forgotten his repentance. His self-improvement had never led him to surrender to God so that in the humility of repentance he might remember what he had once been.
True repentance: temporal and eternal
Yes, in the temporal and social sense, repentance may come and go. But in the eternal sense, it is a quiet daily commitment before God. In the light of eternity, one’s guilt is never changed, even if a century passes by. To think anything of this sort is to confuse the eternal with what it is least like – human forgetfulness.
One can tell the age of a tree by looking at its bark. One can also tell a person’s age in the Good by the intensity and inwardness of his repentance. It may be said of a dancer that her time is past when her youth is gone, but not so with a penitent. Repentance, if it is forgotten, is nothing but immaturity. The longer and the more deeply one treasures it, however, the better it becomes.
Repentance must not only have its time, but also its time of preparation. And herein lies the need of confession, the holy act that ought to be preceded by preparation. Just as a person changes his clothes for a celebration, so a person preparing for confession is inwardly changed. But if in the hour of confession one has not truly made up his mind he is still only distracted. He sees his sin with only half an eye. When he speaks, it is just talk – not true confession.
We mustn’t forget that the One who is present in confession is omniscient. God knows everything, remembers everything, all that we have ever confided to him, or what we have ever kept from his confidence. He is the One “who sees in secret,” with whom we speak even in silence. No one can venture to deceive him either by talk or by silence.
True repentance: Divine self-awareness
When we confess to God, therefore, we are not like a servant that gives account to his master for the administration entrusted to him because his master could not manage everything or be everywhere at once. Nor when we confess are we like one who confides in a friend to whom sooner or later he reveals things that his friend did not previously know. No, much of what you are able to keep hidden in darkness you only first get to know by revealing it to the all-knowing One. The all-knowing One does not get to know something about those who confess, rather those who confess find out something about themselves.
Prayer
Dear Abba, this Lenten season, may I discover and enter true repentance through the grace of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Grant me this in His name, and through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who leads us into all truth. Amen.
True repentance does not belong to a certain period of life, as fun and games belong to childhood, or as the excitement of romantic love belongs to youth. It does not come and disappear as a whim or as a surprise. No, no. There is a sense of reverence, a holy fear, a humility, a pure sincerity which insures that repentance does not become vain and overhasty.
From the point of view of the eternal, repentance must come “all at once,” where in one’s grief there is not even time to utter words. But the grieving of repentance and the heartfelt anxiety that floods the soul must not be confused with impatience or the momentary feeling of contrition. Experience teaches us that the right moment to repent is not always the one that is immediately present. Repentance can too easily be confused with a tormenting agonizing or with a worldly sorrow; with a desperate feeling of grief in itself. But by itself, sorrow never becomes repentance, no matter how long it continues to rage. However clouded the mind becomes, the sobs of contrition, no matter how violent they are, never become tears of repentance. They are like empty clouds that bear no water, or like convulsive puffs of wind. This kind of repentance is selfish. It is sensually powerful for the moment, excited in expression – and, for this very reason, is no real repentance at all. Sudden, quick repentance wants only to drink down the bitterness of sorrow in a single draught and then hurry on. It wants to get away from guilt, away from every reminder of it, and fortify itself by imagining that it does not want to be held back in the pursuit of the Good.
What a delusion!
True repentance is not self-improvement
There is a story about a man who by his misdeeds deserved to be punished according to the law. After he had served his sentence he went back into ordinary society, reformed. He went to a foreign country, where he was unknown and where he became known for his upright conduct. All was forgotten. Then one day a fugitive appeared who recognized him from the past. The reformed man was terrified. A deathlike fear shook him each time the fugitive passed. Though silent, his fear shouted with a loud voice, until it became vocal in that dastardly fugitive’s voice. Despair suddenly seized him and it seized him just because he had forgotten his repentance. His self-improvement had never led him to surrender to God so that in the humility of repentance he might remember what he had once been.
True repentance: temporal and eternal
Yes, in the temporal and social sense, repentance may come and go. But in the eternal sense, it is a quiet daily commitment before God. In the light of eternity, one’s guilt is never changed, even if a century passes by. To think anything of this sort is to confuse the eternal with what it is least like – human forgetfulness.
One can tell the age of a tree by looking at its bark. One can also tell a person’s age in the Good by the intensity and inwardness of his repentance. It may be said of a dancer that her time is past when her youth is gone, but not so with a penitent. Repentance, if it is forgotten, is nothing but immaturity. The longer and the more deeply one treasures it, however, the better it becomes.
Repentance must not only have its time, but also its time of preparation. And herein lies the need of confession, the holy act that ought to be preceded by preparation. Just as a person changes his clothes for a celebration, so a person preparing for confession is inwardly changed. But if in the hour of confession one has not truly made up his mind he is still only distracted. He sees his sin with only half an eye. When he speaks, it is just talk – not true confession.
We mustn’t forget that the One who is present in confession is omniscient. God knows everything, remembers everything, all that we have ever confided to him, or what we have ever kept from his confidence. He is the One “who sees in secret,” with whom we speak even in silence. No one can venture to deceive him either by talk or by silence.
True repentance: Divine self-awareness
When we confess to God, therefore, we are not like a servant that gives account to his master for the administration entrusted to him because his master could not manage everything or be everywhere at once. Nor when we confess are we like one who confides in a friend to whom sooner or later he reveals things that his friend did not previously know. No, much of what you are able to keep hidden in darkness you only first get to know by revealing it to the all-knowing One. The all-knowing One does not get to know something about those who confess, rather those who confess find out something about themselves.
Prayer
Dear Abba, this Lenten season, may I discover and enter true repentance through the grace of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Grant me this in His name, and through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who leads us into all truth. Amen.
Kierkegaard on repentance II
The fire of repentance
The fire of repentance and of the accusing conscience is like that Grecian fire which could not be put out with water – so, too, this one can be extinguished only with tears.
Repentance means to lament the sins one has committed and not to commit any more the sins one has lamented.
There is a Savior, not merely so that we can resort to him when we have sinned, receiving forgiveness, but precisely for the purpose of saving us from sinning.
That a person wants to sit and brood and stare at his sin and is unwilling to have faith that it is forgiven is itself a further guilt. It simply ignores what Christ has done.
Repentance: First nothing, then everything
That Christ makes something big out of something small, as at the feeding of the five thousand, is usually referred to as a miracle. But Christ also works a miracle inversely – makes something big (everything that wants to be something) into something little. He makes it infinitely nothing in humility.
God creates everything out of nothing – and all God is to use He first turns to nothing.
God in heaven, let me rightly feel my nothingness, not to despair over it, but all the more intensely to feel the greatness of your goodness.
God chooses and is closest to the despised, the castoffs of the race, the one single sorry abandoned wretch. He hates this business of the pyramid.
Attending to repentance in deeds and words
Our hearts often pay far greater toll to sin than do our words or deeds. They invite us to self-excusing. Thoughts invite us, more than words and deeds, to continue in sin; for thought can be concealed, while words and deeds cannot.
It is precisely our consciousness of sin that can lead us nearer to God. For there is hope of conquering the evil, if only, every time sin attacks us, it leads us nearer to God.
How shall God be able in heaven to dry up your tears when you have not yet wept?
To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one’s breast and groan over oneself.
Repentance as the path to true self-knowledge
The all-knowing One does not get to know something about the one who needs confession, rather the one who confesses gets to know something about himself.
Be not afraid of the penitential preacher, who perhaps has terror in his appearance and wrath in his voice, who chides and rebukes and thunders. No, in the inmost depths of every man’s heart there dwells his own preacher of repentance. When he has a chance to speak, he does not preach to others. He preaches before you alone. He does not preach in any church before an assembled multitude, he preaches in the secret chamber of the heart. He has nothing else whatever to attend to but to attend to you, and he takes good care to be heard when all around you is silence, when the stillness makes you lonely.
Repentance: A terrible, singular cure
The remedy seems infinitely worse than the sickness. “But if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.”
Whoever is intent upon confession is as solitary as one who is dying.
Teach me, oh God, not to torture myself and not to make a martyr of myself in suffocating introspection, but to take deep and wholesome breaths of faith!
Oh infinite love, I do desire to be involved with you! If I make a mistake, oh, you who are love, strike me so that I get on the right path again.
Prayer
Father in heaven, open the fountains of our eyes, let a torrent of tears like a flood obliterate all that which has not found favor in your eyes. But also give us a sign as of old, when you set the rainbow as a gateway of grace in the heavens, that you will no more wipe us out with a flood.
Father in heaven, let your face shine upon me, that I may walk in your ways and not stray more distantly from you, where your voice can no longer reach me. Oh, let your voice inspire faith and let me hear it, even if it overtakes me with its terrors upon my erring paths, where I live as one sick and tainted in spirit, apart and lonely, far from fellowship with you and with neighbor!
Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save the lost – you who left the ninety and nine sheep to seek that one which was lost – seek me, lost as I am upon my erring paths.
Good Shepherd, let me hear your voice, let me know it, let me follow it! Holy Spirit, come to me with groanings that cannot be uttered. Pray for me as Abraham did for Sodom, that if there be but one pure thought, one better feeling in me, the time of probation may be prolonged for the barren fig tree. And Holy Spirit, you who give birth to the dead and youth to the aged, renew me also; create in me a new heart.
I seek you alone, you the Omniscient. If I am guilty, enlighten my understanding that I may see my error and my depravity. I do not wish to escape suffering – that is not my prayer – but let me learn never to argue with you. I must conquer, even though the manner of it is infinitely different from what I can imagine.
Selah.
_____________
Soren Kierkegaard, P r o v o c a t i o n s: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, Compiled and Edited by Charles E. Moore. Reprinted from www.bruderhof.com. Copyright 2002 by The Bruderhof Foundation, Inc. Used with permission.
The fire of repentance and of the accusing conscience is like that Grecian fire which could not be put out with water – so, too, this one can be extinguished only with tears.
Repentance means to lament the sins one has committed and not to commit any more the sins one has lamented.
There is a Savior, not merely so that we can resort to him when we have sinned, receiving forgiveness, but precisely for the purpose of saving us from sinning.
That a person wants to sit and brood and stare at his sin and is unwilling to have faith that it is forgiven is itself a further guilt. It simply ignores what Christ has done.
Repentance: First nothing, then everything
That Christ makes something big out of something small, as at the feeding of the five thousand, is usually referred to as a miracle. But Christ also works a miracle inversely – makes something big (everything that wants to be something) into something little. He makes it infinitely nothing in humility.
God creates everything out of nothing – and all God is to use He first turns to nothing.
God in heaven, let me rightly feel my nothingness, not to despair over it, but all the more intensely to feel the greatness of your goodness.
God chooses and is closest to the despised, the castoffs of the race, the one single sorry abandoned wretch. He hates this business of the pyramid.
Attending to repentance in deeds and words
Our hearts often pay far greater toll to sin than do our words or deeds. They invite us to self-excusing. Thoughts invite us, more than words and deeds, to continue in sin; for thought can be concealed, while words and deeds cannot.
It is precisely our consciousness of sin that can lead us nearer to God. For there is hope of conquering the evil, if only, every time sin attacks us, it leads us nearer to God.
How shall God be able in heaven to dry up your tears when you have not yet wept?
To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one’s breast and groan over oneself.
Repentance as the path to true self-knowledge
The all-knowing One does not get to know something about the one who needs confession, rather the one who confesses gets to know something about himself.
Be not afraid of the penitential preacher, who perhaps has terror in his appearance and wrath in his voice, who chides and rebukes and thunders. No, in the inmost depths of every man’s heart there dwells his own preacher of repentance. When he has a chance to speak, he does not preach to others. He preaches before you alone. He does not preach in any church before an assembled multitude, he preaches in the secret chamber of the heart. He has nothing else whatever to attend to but to attend to you, and he takes good care to be heard when all around you is silence, when the stillness makes you lonely.
Repentance: A terrible, singular cure
The remedy seems infinitely worse than the sickness. “But if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.”
Whoever is intent upon confession is as solitary as one who is dying.
Teach me, oh God, not to torture myself and not to make a martyr of myself in suffocating introspection, but to take deep and wholesome breaths of faith!
Oh infinite love, I do desire to be involved with you! If I make a mistake, oh, you who are love, strike me so that I get on the right path again.
Prayer
Father in heaven, open the fountains of our eyes, let a torrent of tears like a flood obliterate all that which has not found favor in your eyes. But also give us a sign as of old, when you set the rainbow as a gateway of grace in the heavens, that you will no more wipe us out with a flood.
Father in heaven, let your face shine upon me, that I may walk in your ways and not stray more distantly from you, where your voice can no longer reach me. Oh, let your voice inspire faith and let me hear it, even if it overtakes me with its terrors upon my erring paths, where I live as one sick and tainted in spirit, apart and lonely, far from fellowship with you and with neighbor!
Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save the lost – you who left the ninety and nine sheep to seek that one which was lost – seek me, lost as I am upon my erring paths.
Good Shepherd, let me hear your voice, let me know it, let me follow it! Holy Spirit, come to me with groanings that cannot be uttered. Pray for me as Abraham did for Sodom, that if there be but one pure thought, one better feeling in me, the time of probation may be prolonged for the barren fig tree. And Holy Spirit, you who give birth to the dead and youth to the aged, renew me also; create in me a new heart.
I seek you alone, you the Omniscient. If I am guilty, enlighten my understanding that I may see my error and my depravity. I do not wish to escape suffering – that is not my prayer – but let me learn never to argue with you. I must conquer, even though the manner of it is infinitely different from what I can imagine.
Selah.
_____________
Soren Kierkegaard, P r o v o c a t i o n s: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, Compiled and Edited by Charles E. Moore. Reprinted from www.bruderhof.com. Copyright 2002 by The Bruderhof Foundation, Inc. Used with permission.
Only let me hear thy call
Jesus, Master, whom I serve
Words: Frances Ridley Havergal, 1869
Tune: Jesu, meine Zuversicht (Ratisbon)
Jesus, Master, whom I serve,
though so feebly and so ill,
strengthen hand and heart and nerve
all thy bidding to fulfill;
open thou mine eyes to see
all the work thou hast done for me.
Lord, thou needest not, I know,
service such as I can bring;
yet I long to prove and show
full allegiance to my King.
Thou Redeemer art to me;
let me be a praise to thee.
Jesus, Master, wilt thou use
one who owes thee more than all?
As thou wilt! I would not choose;
only let me hear thy call.
Jesus! let me always be
in thy service glad and free.
Selah.
Words: Frances Ridley Havergal, 1869
Tune: Jesu, meine Zuversicht (Ratisbon)
Jesus, Master, whom I serve,
though so feebly and so ill,
strengthen hand and heart and nerve
all thy bidding to fulfill;
open thou mine eyes to see
all the work thou hast done for me.
Lord, thou needest not, I know,
service such as I can bring;
yet I long to prove and show
full allegiance to my King.
Thou Redeemer art to me;
let me be a praise to thee.
Jesus, Master, wilt thou use
one who owes thee more than all?
As thou wilt! I would not choose;
only let me hear thy call.
Jesus! let me always be
in thy service glad and free.
Selah.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Repentance: The only way out of the hole
Our most alive times: Escaping the hells we create
Johann Christoph Arnold
We must change, or die. That is not only a biological fact, but a truth that holds the key to solving the great riddle of heaven and hell in our personal lives. Circumstances can't always be changed; other people, even if we may try to influence them, are still other people; the future is impossible to predict – even tomorrow is a mystery. In short, our best efforts cannot make heaven out of hell. But there is one thing we can do, and that is choose - to be selfish or selfless; to burn with lust or with love; to defend our power, or dismantle it. And that is why, instead of taking on the futile task of trying to change the whole world, we must, as Gandhi once advised, be the change we wish to see in it.
Real transformation is the opposite of self-improvement. It is one thing, for example, to spruce up an old wall by covering it with a new coat of paint; quite another to check for dry rot or termites and replace every damaged board. The cosmetic solution costs less, at least upfront, whereas the structural one, which requires far greater changes, also requires far more labor and time. But if that is what is needed, that is what must be done. Even if the new paint is shiny, the surface will soon prove itself insufficient to save the wall, and in the end, more will be lost than was temporarily saved.
As with the house, so with each of us. We can – as today's advertisers seem to have successfully seduced our generation into doing – spend the greater part of our lives repainting ourselves: Upgrading our computer, replacing the old car, shedding those extra pounds, going to the hairstylist to try the newest look. Deep down, however, we all know that none of these changes can bring lasting happiness. Deep down, all of us sense that to some extent, the hells of our lives are related to the brokenness of our own hearts and minds, and that this brokenness is the most vital thing we must examine and fix.
How we go about doing this is another story, for knowing that a problem exists does not mean knowing how to solve it. We are by nature divided; our souls are fissured, and we cannot bind or heal them any more than the victim of heart disease can carry out surgery on himself. And thus our transformation depends not only on us, but on another power, and on our willingness to submit to it, just as the patient submits to the surgeon's knife.
Because we fear pain [who looks forward to surgery?] most of us do everything we can to avoid it. And not only literally. To be inwardly cut to the quick – to have one's false fronts torn away and the lies behind them exposed, to have one's rough edges chipped away and one's ego cut down to size, to be "pruned," as the Gospels put it – simply is a painful thing.
That's why we often settle for more convenient, more comfortable ways to change. We aim to fine-tune our marriages, improve relationships at work. We work at being a better team player, a better listener, parent, or friend. We choose something we don't like about ourselves and resolve to do away with it, or at very least change it. But no matter how many such timid efforts we make, they will not help us any more than painkillers, which suppress symptoms but do nothing to truly combat disease. They simply cannot bring us the much greater relief that comes from having signed up for surgery, and from being able to emerge after it with a clean bill of health.
How different transformation looks to someone who grits his teeth and opts for the full treatment! Such a person knows the exhilaration of undergoing a thorough upheaval, and even if he later reverts to his old self – to weariness, boredom, sickness, or sin – he never forgets the experience so completely that he won't long for it again.
To use a familiar image from the natural world, we must undergo the same full-fledged metamorphosis as that of a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly. Inside its chrysalis or cocoon, a caterpillar loses all of its defining characteristics: its skin color, shape, mouth, and legs. Even its internal organs and systems are altered during the pupal stage, and its appetites and habits as well. It loses everything that once made up its identity. It ceases to exist as a caterpillar. But that is not all. In submitting to the destruction of its old body, it is no longer confined to crawling on the underside of a leaf, but captures the eye with its beauty and its ability to flutter and float and soar. Whereas previously it could not reproduce, it can now mate and lay eggs: its [transformation] allows it to bear fruit.
What does it mean to "die," be transformed, and experience rebirth? First and foremost, I believe it means letting ourselves be dismantled – not partially, but completely. That, to me, is the crucial first step – giving up our dreams and ambitions, our worries and fears; yielding control over our social, political, and economic agendas; surrendering our most personal plans; even revealing our darkest secrets.
Equally vital is letting go of our goodness. Not surprisingly, that is difficult. In fact, having talked with countless people at critical moments in their lives, I've found that this is often the biggest sticking point. All of us want to change, to become better people, to get rid of the negative baggage we drag after ourselves. But when it comes down to the brass tacks, most of us are just as eager to preserve every inch of our old selves, or at least our good parts. Having gladly dropped everything we didn't like about ourselves, we still cling desperately to the rest, refusing to believe that it might be tainted, and hoping that it can still be rescued. Yet the fact is that even the most sincerely held virtue can be a great obstacle to transformation. That is because a subjective view of our own goodness is rarely in line with reality; that is to say, few of us are really as pure as we might imagine ourselves.
Simply put, rebirth is impossible for those who are in love with themselves in any way, and that goes for a "religious" person as much as anyone else. Confidence is one thing, of course, and no one can truly live or blossom without it. But the self-love of complacency – the sort that leads people to talk about how they are "saved" because they were "born again" (or how they are "enlightened" because they have "seen the light") – is quite another. In fact, it seems to me that those who claim such things are among the worst enemies of rebirth, if only because their smugness is often coupled with the assurance that the rest of the world is damned. Maybe that is why Jesus reserved His harshest words for His most pious countrymen – rebuking them as a "brood of vipers" and comparing them to "whitewashed tombs. It is surely why He also warned them – and us – that “whoever saves his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life will save it.”
There is another ingredient to finding new life, other than merely “letting go,” and that is repenting. Unfortunately, to many, the word implies hellfire and brimstone. In fact, repentance is just another word for remorse, or, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, for laying down our arms and surrendering, saying we're sorry, realizing we're on the wrong track, and moving full speed astern. Repentance, he says, is "the only way out of a hole.”
Selah.
This is excerpted from Johann Christoph Arnold’s article, ‘Our Most Alive Times: Escaping the Hells We Create,’ from Bruderhof Community.
Johann Christoph Arnold
We must change, or die. That is not only a biological fact, but a truth that holds the key to solving the great riddle of heaven and hell in our personal lives. Circumstances can't always be changed; other people, even if we may try to influence them, are still other people; the future is impossible to predict – even tomorrow is a mystery. In short, our best efforts cannot make heaven out of hell. But there is one thing we can do, and that is choose - to be selfish or selfless; to burn with lust or with love; to defend our power, or dismantle it. And that is why, instead of taking on the futile task of trying to change the whole world, we must, as Gandhi once advised, be the change we wish to see in it.
Real transformation is the opposite of self-improvement. It is one thing, for example, to spruce up an old wall by covering it with a new coat of paint; quite another to check for dry rot or termites and replace every damaged board. The cosmetic solution costs less, at least upfront, whereas the structural one, which requires far greater changes, also requires far more labor and time. But if that is what is needed, that is what must be done. Even if the new paint is shiny, the surface will soon prove itself insufficient to save the wall, and in the end, more will be lost than was temporarily saved.
As with the house, so with each of us. We can – as today's advertisers seem to have successfully seduced our generation into doing – spend the greater part of our lives repainting ourselves: Upgrading our computer, replacing the old car, shedding those extra pounds, going to the hairstylist to try the newest look. Deep down, however, we all know that none of these changes can bring lasting happiness. Deep down, all of us sense that to some extent, the hells of our lives are related to the brokenness of our own hearts and minds, and that this brokenness is the most vital thing we must examine and fix.
How we go about doing this is another story, for knowing that a problem exists does not mean knowing how to solve it. We are by nature divided; our souls are fissured, and we cannot bind or heal them any more than the victim of heart disease can carry out surgery on himself. And thus our transformation depends not only on us, but on another power, and on our willingness to submit to it, just as the patient submits to the surgeon's knife.
Because we fear pain [who looks forward to surgery?] most of us do everything we can to avoid it. And not only literally. To be inwardly cut to the quick – to have one's false fronts torn away and the lies behind them exposed, to have one's rough edges chipped away and one's ego cut down to size, to be "pruned," as the Gospels put it – simply is a painful thing.
That's why we often settle for more convenient, more comfortable ways to change. We aim to fine-tune our marriages, improve relationships at work. We work at being a better team player, a better listener, parent, or friend. We choose something we don't like about ourselves and resolve to do away with it, or at very least change it. But no matter how many such timid efforts we make, they will not help us any more than painkillers, which suppress symptoms but do nothing to truly combat disease. They simply cannot bring us the much greater relief that comes from having signed up for surgery, and from being able to emerge after it with a clean bill of health.
How different transformation looks to someone who grits his teeth and opts for the full treatment! Such a person knows the exhilaration of undergoing a thorough upheaval, and even if he later reverts to his old self – to weariness, boredom, sickness, or sin – he never forgets the experience so completely that he won't long for it again.
To use a familiar image from the natural world, we must undergo the same full-fledged metamorphosis as that of a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly. Inside its chrysalis or cocoon, a caterpillar loses all of its defining characteristics: its skin color, shape, mouth, and legs. Even its internal organs and systems are altered during the pupal stage, and its appetites and habits as well. It loses everything that once made up its identity. It ceases to exist as a caterpillar. But that is not all. In submitting to the destruction of its old body, it is no longer confined to crawling on the underside of a leaf, but captures the eye with its beauty and its ability to flutter and float and soar. Whereas previously it could not reproduce, it can now mate and lay eggs: its [transformation] allows it to bear fruit.
What does it mean to "die," be transformed, and experience rebirth? First and foremost, I believe it means letting ourselves be dismantled – not partially, but completely. That, to me, is the crucial first step – giving up our dreams and ambitions, our worries and fears; yielding control over our social, political, and economic agendas; surrendering our most personal plans; even revealing our darkest secrets.
Equally vital is letting go of our goodness. Not surprisingly, that is difficult. In fact, having talked with countless people at critical moments in their lives, I've found that this is often the biggest sticking point. All of us want to change, to become better people, to get rid of the negative baggage we drag after ourselves. But when it comes down to the brass tacks, most of us are just as eager to preserve every inch of our old selves, or at least our good parts. Having gladly dropped everything we didn't like about ourselves, we still cling desperately to the rest, refusing to believe that it might be tainted, and hoping that it can still be rescued. Yet the fact is that even the most sincerely held virtue can be a great obstacle to transformation. That is because a subjective view of our own goodness is rarely in line with reality; that is to say, few of us are really as pure as we might imagine ourselves.
Simply put, rebirth is impossible for those who are in love with themselves in any way, and that goes for a "religious" person as much as anyone else. Confidence is one thing, of course, and no one can truly live or blossom without it. But the self-love of complacency – the sort that leads people to talk about how they are "saved" because they were "born again" (or how they are "enlightened" because they have "seen the light") – is quite another. In fact, it seems to me that those who claim such things are among the worst enemies of rebirth, if only because their smugness is often coupled with the assurance that the rest of the world is damned. Maybe that is why Jesus reserved His harshest words for His most pious countrymen – rebuking them as a "brood of vipers" and comparing them to "whitewashed tombs. It is surely why He also warned them – and us – that “whoever saves his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life will save it.”
There is another ingredient to finding new life, other than merely “letting go,” and that is repenting. Unfortunately, to many, the word implies hellfire and brimstone. In fact, repentance is just another word for remorse, or, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, for laying down our arms and surrendering, saying we're sorry, realizing we're on the wrong track, and moving full speed astern. Repentance, he says, is "the only way out of a hole.”
Selah.
This is excerpted from Johann Christoph Arnold’s article, ‘Our Most Alive Times: Escaping the Hells We Create,’ from Bruderhof Community.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Archbishop of Anglican Communion seeks adoption of Islamic Law
Ok, my mind is blown now.
The leader of Anglicanism is advocating for a future adoption of Islamic Law in England. Read his transcript here, and check out the positive nuance with which he spins the acceptance of sharia. Read these comments, and if you've read That Hideous Strength, you'll shiver at the chill: it's like hearing the character Withers talk -- except this time as leader of the "One True ChurchTM ."
Looks like the faithful persons in the Anglican Communion will have to discover another One True ChurchTM or somehow discover the New Testament definition of the Church [the truth uncovered in the Reformation]! Or, be left serving Allah and Muhammad by proxy, with the One True ChurchTM...
Another article here: Canterbury Tales of Dhimmitude.
Hmm... do we need Lent this year or what? Repentance, confession, humility... to our prayers!
Selah.
Glen Reynolds adds incisive commentary:
Hmm...
The leader of Anglicanism is advocating for a future adoption of Islamic Law in England. Read his transcript here, and check out the positive nuance with which he spins the acceptance of sharia. Read these comments, and if you've read That Hideous Strength, you'll shiver at the chill: it's like hearing the character Withers talk -- except this time as leader of the "One True ChurchTM ."
Looks like the faithful persons in the Anglican Communion will have to discover another One True ChurchTM or somehow discover the New Testament definition of the Church [the truth uncovered in the Reformation]! Or, be left serving Allah and Muhammad by proxy, with the One True ChurchTM...
Another article here: Canterbury Tales of Dhimmitude.
Hmm... do we need Lent this year or what? Repentance, confession, humility... to our prayers!
Selah.
Glen Reynolds adds incisive commentary:
It's interesting, however, that Rowan Williams need have no fear for his personal safety after saying that Sharia is inevitable in England, while had he said bad things about Sharia the reverse would have been true. Under such circumstances, is behavior like his surprising?
Plus this: "I've just been speaking with a Muslim friend who has always opposed sharia law. 'Where does it leave me', he asks, 'when the Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for sharia?' The beautifully hostile press reaction to Rowan Williams' disgusting views is the only aspect of this story that could provide any hope. But the story is running big across the Middle East, and people there are seeing Britain's surrender to sharia played out on a news-loop. Do we think that Islamic extremists in the Middle East and beyond will be be more demoralised or more emboldened by this news?"
Hmm...
Friday, April 06, 2007
Jesus, our Love, is crucified
O come and mourn with me awhile
Words: Frederick William Faber, 1849
Tune: St. Cross
O come and mourn with me awhile;
O come ye to the Savior's side;
O come, together let us mourn;
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
Have we no tears to shed for Him,
while soldiers scoff and foes deride?
Ah! look how patiently He hangs;
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
How fast His hands and feet are nailed;
His blessed tongue with thirst is tied,
His failing eyes are blind with blood:
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
His mother cannot reach His face;
she stands in helplessness beside;
her heart is martyred with her Son's:
Jesus, our Love, is Crucified.
Seven times seven He spoke, seven words of love;
and all three hours His silence cried
for mercy on the souls of men;
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
O break, O break, hard heart of mine!
Thy weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and his Judas were:
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
A broken heart, a fount of tears,
ask, and they will not be denied;
a broken heart love's cradle is:
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
O love of God! O sin of man!
In this dread act your strength is tried;
and victory remains with love;
for He, our Love, is crucified.
Selah.
Words: Frederick William Faber, 1849
Tune: St. Cross
O come and mourn with me awhile;
O come ye to the Savior's side;
O come, together let us mourn;
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
Have we no tears to shed for Him,
while soldiers scoff and foes deride?
Ah! look how patiently He hangs;
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
How fast His hands and feet are nailed;
His blessed tongue with thirst is tied,
His failing eyes are blind with blood:
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
His mother cannot reach His face;
she stands in helplessness beside;
her heart is martyred with her Son's:
Jesus, our Love, is Crucified.
Seven times seven He spoke, seven words of love;
and all three hours His silence cried
for mercy on the souls of men;
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
O break, O break, hard heart of mine!
Thy weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and his Judas were:
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
A broken heart, a fount of tears,
ask, and they will not be denied;
a broken heart love's cradle is:
Jesus, our Love, is crucified.
O love of God! O sin of man!
In this dread act your strength is tried;
and victory remains with love;
for He, our Love, is crucified.
Selah.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
A place God waits for us to sit awhile with Him
Then they heard the sound of the LORD God as He walked in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees...
But the LORD God called, "Where are you?"
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of His inheritance? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
“For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.
“I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the one against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Gen. 3:8, 9; Isa. 38:17; Mic. 7:18, 19; Isa. 54:7, 8; Jer. 31:34; Ps. 32:1, 2; 1 John 1:7