Happy (Annus) Bisextus Day!

In March, July, October, May
The Ides fall on the fifteenth day
The Nones the seventh; all besides
Have two days less for Nones and Ides. (an old Latin class mnemonic)

I am sending Happy Bisextus Day e-cards to all my kith and kin this morning! This is such a non-traditional and unorthodox day, I've decided to make it my own (so I only have to put up with it every four years...).

Actually, a Navy friend and I started wishing everyone we knew (and didn't know) a "Happy Bisextus Day, starting in 1984 while we were stationed in Japan. Most people hear the syllables "bi" and "sex" (or, God forbid, "annus" pronounced incorrectly) and then put up their dukes. But reaction from most folks is worth the greeting!

We have the ancient Romans to thank for this quadrennial add-on to February (and a pope to thank for trying to set the calendar straight).

According to Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, in the Roman calendar the sixth day before the Kalends, or Calends, of March (24 February, counting back from the beginning of March) occurred twice in a leap year.  So, bisextus (from bis "twice" and sextus "sixth") "the sixth day for the second time"...the real "leap day" for the ancient Romans was at 24/25 February, not the 29th!

Remember, the Romans made their dates by counting forward to fixed points, the Kalends (1st day of a month), the Nones, (the 5th or 7th, depending on the month) and the Ides (the 13th or 15th depending on the month).  There is a little verse to help us remember how this works:

In March, July, October, May
The Ides fall on the fifteenth day
The Nones the seventh; all besides
Have two days less for Nones and Ides.

Again, the Romans counted forward, rather than backward, like we do.  We today think in terms of the first day of the month, and then the 2nd day from the 1st, and the 3rd from the first: our reference point is backward.  The Romans counted forward to their days.  and they also counted inclusively, counting the days themselves rather then the days remaining until the Kalends, Nones or Ides.

The Julian calendar implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes, so the calendar fell out of sync with the seasons. This concerned Pope Gregory XIII (of the Gregorian Calendar) because it meant that Easter, traditionally observed on March 21, fell further away from the spring equinox with each passing year.

In 1582, the Pope decreed that an extra day would be added in February, the 29th, confirming that one in every four years would be a bisextille year (the year whose number is divisible by four), except that from then on the years divisible by one hundred (1700, 1800, 1900, etc), would not be bissextile, unless they were also divisible by four hundred (eg. 1600, 2000, etc.). He also decreed that October 4th, 1582 would be followed by October 15th to correct the accumulated inaccuracy of the Julian calendar (and, accordingly, that debtors should be granted ten more days to pay their obligations).

Personally, I'd much rather look forward to quadrennially wishing the world "Happy Bisextus Day!", than suffering through the playground politics and bullying that our presidential election process has become!

So get on out there and get bisextile! (then duck)

:)

P.S. To add to the confusion, check out this explanation about why today is NOT a bisextile day. (Don't let it ruin your party plans, though...)

Scratch don't matter with Handicap on your side!

For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (Galatians 3:26 ESV)

I have bowling on my mind this morning.

What if, unbeknownst to us, God has assigned every person on the planet a handicap (like in a bowling league)... You know, to level the playing field... The faithful and caring, the considerate and just-- well, they would have a lower handicap because God favors such qualities in His creations; the miscreants and ne'er-do-wells, the faithless and dregs of society-- well, they would have correspondingly greater handicaps to compensate for what they lack in God's eyes. Yes, I know God isn't concerned with scores (or keeping score), but, if He were, he would look at our scratch scores (pun intended) and sees willful, self-destructing, and sin-pocked individuals playing by our own rules. Thankfully, God's "league" is handicapped-- He sees our handicapped scores and sees imperfect individuals made perfect in Christ struggling to play by His rules one frame at a time.

I bowl in a "match-point" league during the week that traditionally attracts some pretty good (PBA-level) bowlers. Ours is a team of 5 ordinary guys sponsored by a local auto mechanic's shop. We're a little better than mediocre, and since it's a handicap league, we can be competitive on those nights when we're firing on all cylinders. In a match-point league bowlers are ordered by handicap and not only do the two opposing teams bowl for points, each bowler has an opponent, as well. Each week there are 56 points to be had over the course of three games, and each season the schedule is split into two halves (the two half winners bowl in a championship at the end of the season). During the fall, our team lived in last place in our division... Week after week, we got pounded, some weeks taking single-digit points as a team.

Over theses past four weeks, our team has taken a total of 136 points, an average of 36 points per week. Last night I noticed we were seated nicely in 2nd place, only 21 points out of 1st place (before we got started), and we broke a team points-taken record by out scoring our opponent 48 to 8. We are likely now atop our division in 1st place. And I was thinking about the peaks and valleys of bowling while driving home last night.

In bowling, as in life, there are those who are content just to "make average" (in other words, are satisfied with the status quo) and who don't mind or don't care (or maybe don't know) that the world often defines one's station by "handicap." There are folks who seek validation from a world that values hyberbole over potential, ability over effort, don't-get-caught over integrity. And, yes, there are (really!) those people who try to live a lifestyle of gratitude (rather than grab-ittude), play fair (rather than cut corners), and have learned that God's dispensation of Grace is not merit-based. In bowling, as with God, there is always a second chance to do better, to be better, and to help others...

Bowling mirrors life in many ways (choices of venue, equipment, teammates, and preparation; total lack of control over others; inability to change the past), but for a team sport, it provides an undeniably singular experience frame after frame. And that's where the trouble starts-- self-control, discipline, and confidence are all tenets of this man-made church with a single pew.

Last night I shot a 580 series, about average for me-- not great, but 8 of those 48 points we took were mine. Rather than walking off the lanes shaking my head at my performance, I should have been focused on my contribution to our team as a whole, one body-- 5 parts. In bowling, again as in life, it's so easy to become discouraged or too easy to get a bloated ego over success.

But the other life parallel of this sport has to be handicap. Handicap in bowling is not so much a badge of success, but, rather, one of failure; bad bowling begets high handicap-- but... The real metaphor is in seeing handicap as life's mistakes!  Just "making average" is the lack of desire to turn past mistakes into future potential-- this is so true in life!  Particularly from a faith standpoint. Those who can take past experiences-- misfortune, mistakes, malcontentedness-- and recycle them into motivation for change will begin to see their scores go up, frame by frame... Through Christ God gives each and every one of us the opportunity to lower our handicap, so to speak; to live for that next frame-- the next second chance (and then the next and the next...God's Grace is infinite).

As handicap erodes, scores (contributions to the welfare of the team) rise. Our past begins to define us less and less and we begin to "live in the frame" with the realization that the most important frame of the game is the one we're in now... We can't go back and there will always be another...until the game is over.

For now, though, I roll with the Handicap God gave me on Good Friday. Scratch don't matter.

Yep. Bowling's been on my mind this morning... ;)

Communing with penguins...

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav'nly host:
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (Common Doxology)

"Are you baptized?" (meduza.com)

If Francis may be my favorite Pope, then Kirill has to be my favorite Patriarch. More bridge-building has been going on, this time with the well-dressed population at the bottom of the Earth...

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, paid a visit last week to the Bellingshausen Station on King George Island in Antarctica, where he took a stroll among the penguins...

More in an article on The Guardian website.

Luther's 'layman's Bible' (does your household have one?)

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. (2 Timothy 2:15-17 ESV)

Ye bishops! what answer will ye give to Christ for having so shamefully neglected the people, and paid no attention to the duties of your office? I invoke no evil on your heads. But you withhold the cup in the Lord's Supper, insist on the observance of your human laws, and yet, at the same time, do not take the least interest in teaching the people the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, or any other part of the word of God. Woe unto you!

Archaic pronouns aside, I think that this excerpt from Luther’s preface to the Small Catechism (readily accessible online) still speaks explicitly of the need for Christian catechesis in today’s world!  In how many households and churches is teaching the people the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, or any other part of the word of God becoming a lost art (even among Lutherans)?  Christians should be as concerned with the regular care and maintenance of their baptized brethren (and, um, sistren?) as they are at seeking the lost.

Luther’s chief parts of the Small Catechism-- Commandments, Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Sacraments-- provide basic church tenets that every Christian should be (or become) familiar with. While not meant to be an exhaustive exposition of God’s Word, it is an effective and well-ordered primer, so to speak, of those things that are important in a new or seasoned relationship with God through Christ: His intentions for His children (Commandments), The Gospel message (Creed), how His children can interact with Him (Lord’s Prayer), how He interacts with His children (Sacraments). The example of prayers and delineation of duties also provide useful information in helping today’s Christian live a life of faith.

Luther, like Luke, saw the need for catechesis, especially for those already baptized into the Christian faith. Dr. Arthur Just writes in Hearers of the Word: Luke's Gospel as Sacramental Formation for a Liturgical Community that “Luke is writing a gospel for Jewish Christians to use in evangelizing and catechizing God-fearers and Gentiles. The concept of revelatory instruction as catechesis for pilgrims serves as a helpful formulation for considering the unity of God's work in Jesus' ministry, in Luke's church, in the early catechetical communities, and in the church's ministry today.” Without intending to elevate Luther to the same level of an author of a Gospel book, in my opinion the Small Catechism is just as useful as an aid for evangelizing the lost as it is for catechizing “pilgrims,” not only in Luther’s church, but in church ministry (not necessarily Lutheran) today. For a 16th century publication, it’s extremely user-friendly-- the explanations, for the most part, could be understood by an elementary school student. Luther himself wrote "The deplorable, miserable condition which I discovered…has forced and urged me to prepare this Catechism, or Christian doctrine, in this small, plain, simple form."

I spent a few years ministering to Russian-speakers; witnessing to them as a demographic is not easy, in large part due to the cultural umbilical cord that still connects-- even if only tenuously-- most ethnic Russians to the Russian Orthodox Church. I found that using a Russian-language version of the Small Catechism to be very helpful-- in fact, I think I’ve given away about 2 dozen or more. For that particular group, the Small Catechism was much more than a confirmand’s study guide, for conversion to Lutheran was not my task at hand, but a relationship with God through (and a faith centered on) Jesus Christ. In stark contrast to the mysticism of the Russian Orthodox Church and its catechesis (and excerpt, for example: Those brought up in other traditions have sometimes found it difficult to accept the Orthodox emphasis on apophatic theology and the distinction between essence and energies; but apart from these two matters, Orthodox agree in their doctrine of God with the overwhelming majority of all who call themselves Christians.), Luther has created a reference meant to be intentionally simple...

...a layman’s Bible. "Apophactic"-free for almost 500 years!

(Every Christian household, Lutheran or other, ought to have one!)

Justification - An Assurance Policy

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5 ESV)

I believe that it was C.F.W. Walther who said that “it is not an easy matter correctly to present the doctrine of justification.” And even harder, in my opinion, is the role of faith in the sinner’s salvation, or, to frame it another way, if Christ died for the sins of the world, why is faith necessary? What, exactly, do Lutherans mean by “We are saved by Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone”? I had (please pardon the expression) a devil of a time trying to teach this concept to Russians, still under the yoke of Orthodox tradition, while engaged in Russian-language outreach ministry some years back.

Lutherans understand two types of justification-- objective and subjective. The need for justification is based on Original Sin and Man’s standing before God as sinful and deserving of eternal damnation; because of Adam’s transgression, all of humankind is tainted. (AC Art. II).

Out of His love for us God imputed all of our sins to Christ, Whom He sacrificed to bear the fullness of divine wrath on the Cross to satisfy the Law in our place-- we are redeemed and forgiven through Christ’s atonement. This is objective justification, by which all sinners are justified-- reconciled or “made right”-- by God (that is, pronounced righteous by Him). AC Apology Art. IV states that “men by their own strength cannot fulfill the Law of God, and all are under sin, and subject to eternal wrath and death, on this account we cannot be freed by the Law from sin and be justified, but the promise of the remission of sins and of justification has been given us for Christ's sake, who was given for us in order that He might make satisfaction for the sins of the world.”

Subjective justification occurs when God appropriates the objective justification granted to the entire world in Christ to the individual sinner through faith. I have often heard it described this way: Faith is a “hand” in which the individual receives the objective justification won by Christ on the cross. SD Art. III states that “faith justifies, not for this cause and reason that it is so good a work and so fair a virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel; for this must be applied and appropriated to us by faith, if we are to be justified thereby.”

Faith-- our faith-- has absolutely nothing to do with Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross for our forgiveness, as we are justified objectively by God’s Grace and Christ’s obedience alone. It has been said that faith, however, is where objective and subjective justification meet. It is the open “hand” of that faith, itself a gift of God delivered through the Holy Spirit, which receives the promises of the Gospel. Without objective justification, the “hand” of faith receives nothing. It is this same faith that assures the sinner of God’s forgiveness and grace for Christ’s sake that reaches out in the Sacraments. AC Apology Art.13 reads “Therefore Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and Absolution, which is the Sacrament of Repentance, are truly Sacraments. For these rites have God's command and the promise of grace, which is peculiar to the New Testament. For when we are baptized, when we eat the Lord's body, when we are absolved, our hearts must be firmly assured that God truly forgives us for Christ's sake. And God, at the same time, by the Word and by the rite, moves hearts to believe and conceive faith, just as Paul says, Rom. 10:17: Faith cometh by hearing. But just as the Word enters the ear in order to strike our heart, so the rite itself strikes the eye, in order to move the heart. The effect of the Word and of the rite is the same, as it has been well said by Augustine that a Sacrament is a visible word, because the rite is received by the eyes, and is, as it were, a picture of the Word, signifying the same thing as the Word.”

During my Russian language ministry, it was a challenge to try and convince practically every person I came in contact with that God comes to us, rather than the other way around.  In a works-oriented culture, with regard to faith and the need to seek God’s approval, such as the Russian-speaking community I ministered to, Christ’s crucifixion is only part of God’s plan for our salvation-- we still have to do our part. I can recall one Bible study conversation in which I was sure I would lose the battle because of the words “justification” and “righteousness” (in a Romans reading, no doubt, probably 5:18-19), which have literal translations into Russian.

It’s sometimes all too easy to get bogged down in the details. The Lutheran doctrine of justification is an assurance policy (rather than an insurance policy, which would seem awfully proprietary), that’s really no more Lutheran than God Himself is. In any ministry aspect, in any language, justification is God’s gift of our assurance that because of-- and only because of-- Jesus Christ can we be worthy of salvation. That gift is accepted (throat clear here), appropriated through faith. How comforting (albeit incredibly hard to comprehend) are the promises of God’s love-- forgiveness of sins, new life in Jesus Christ, adoption into God’s family, eternal life-- to the sinner of any account, no strings attached! And how comforting, too, is God’s gracious gift of faith!

Paragraphs 71-72 of AC Apology Art. IV speak quite nicely to the role of faith in God’s the justification of the sinner [my boldfacing]: “But when it is said that faith justifies, some perhaps understand it of the beginning, namely, that faith is the beginning of justification or preparation for justification, so that not faith itself is that through which we are accepted by God, but the works which follow; and they dream, accordingly, that faith is highly praised, because it is the beginning. For great is the importance of the beginning, as they commonly say, The beginning is half of everything; just as if one would say that grammar makes the teachers of all arts, because it prepares for other arts, although in fact it is his own art that renders every one an artist. We do not believe thus concerning faith, but we maintain this, that properly and truly, by faith itself, we are for Christ's sake accounted righteous, or are acceptable to God. And because "to be justified" means that out of unjust men just men are made, or born again, it means also that they are pronounced or accounted just. For Scripture speaks in both ways. [The term ‘to be justified’ is used in two ways: to denote, being converted or regenerated; again, being accounted righteous.] Accordingly we wish first to show this, that faith alone makes of an unjust, a just man, i.e., receives remission of sins.”

To say that the boldfaced statement above defines justification is a bit of a stretch, yet it’s somewhat more easily digestible when reaching out in ministry. And it helps the unindoctrinated to better grasp the concept of “Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone” as an assurance of salvation.

Follow the myrrh during Lent...

But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;

they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;

“He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him;

let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” (Psalm 22:6-8 ESV)

It was about a year ago (on the 4th Wednesday during Lent) that I delivered a sermon as a part of our "Follow the..." midweek Lenten series: "Follow the Blood," "Follow the Tree," "Follow the Thief, and my topic, "Follow the Myrrh." It was tough to work myrrh into a Lenten framework, but here it is:

Follow the what?!  Myrrh. Yes, that’s 2 R’s and an H.  You know, of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh fame.  Ahhhh yes, THAT myrrh... And I know what you’re thinking now-- myrrh, that’s a Christmas...um...thingy, isn’t it?

I understand the confusion-- yes it is a Christmas thingy, actually a fragrant resin presented to the newborn King of the Jews by three Gentiles from the East, the Magi, back in King Herod’s day (Matthew 2).  So why "Follow the Myrrh" during Lent?  Good question!  I’m glad you asked…

Before we can follow something as curious as myrrh, we need to know not so much what it is, but where to find it, in order to follow it. Once that happens, the why will fall right into place... I hope...

Myrrh is mentioned 17 times in Scripture, and the search for it begins, well, at the beginning. Myrrh gets its first mention in Genesis, as something traded by merchants (Genesis 37:25); Moses used myrrh to make sacred anointing oil (Exodus 30:23); it’s used as a perfume in the Song of Solomon (1:13, 3:6); Psalm 45(:8); and to sweeten temptation in Proverbs (7:17); in Ester (2:12) it’s used as a beauty treatment; it’s a gift in Matthew’s Gospel; in Mark’s Gospel (15:23) it’s used as a pain-killer, and in John’s Gospel myrrh is used in the preparation of the dead for burial (19:39-40). Those last two are key during Lent.

Myrrh is a resin or gum considered precious throughout biblical times, particularly in the Old Testament, that oozed from a hard, thorny tree common in Africa and Arabia.  Myrrh gets its name from the Hebrew word for bitterness because, though it smells good, it apparently has a bitter taste. And like its Advent cousin frankincense, myrrh could be burned as incense-- and still is today in some Eastern Orthodox churches.  But it’s myrrh’s Old World medicinal and embalming properties that color its journey through Scripture from the time of Joseph through the arrival of the Magi to the suffering and death of our Savior on the Cross.

When we "follow the myrrh" we start out with dried tree sap valued primarily for its fragrance, used to anoint the holy, perfume clothes and people, not to mention tempt a man’s desires… By the time Jesus is born, this myrrh is fit for a king-- or is it?  Here the trail gets cold until we look more closely at what the Magi could have meant by such a present; we can infer the meaning of gold to be kingship, of frankincense to be priesthood, but what of the bitter, smell-good myrrh? I believe there’s more than a little prophesying going on at this point. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who lived some 700 years before Jesus was born, spoke these words from God: “They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord.” (Isaiah 60:6). The Magi not only appeared-- but  gifted, as well-- prophetically! This bitter myrrh signified the rejection, suffering, and death of Jesus for the sins of the world.

Myrrh symbolizes suffering, trials, tribulations, and afflictions. In the last book of the Bible, Revelation, the church of Smyrna is known as the "Suffering Church"; in Greek (and in Russian), smyrna means myrrh. To extract myrrh, the tree is repeatedly beaten and wounded to cause it to bleed... Sound familiar?  It should because...

On Good Friday Jesus was beaten, poked and prodded, spit upon, made to wear a crown of thorns, then, bleeding and bruised, was made to carry the cross on which he would be hung to suffer for hours before dying...so that you and I could live, so that our sins-- past, present, and future-- would be forgiven. While on that cross, Jesus was offered a drink of wine mingled with myrrh, possibly as taunting, but maybe as a way to ease the pain. He refused. Jesus willingly and obediently suffered pain and death for our inequities, bearing the full wrath of God that we so rightly deserve! 

Perhaps it’s difficult to see the love in this love story at this point, but John tells us very simply in the well-know 3:16 verse "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." This is a story with a happy ending, as we follow the myrrh to the empty tomb of Easter Sunday.  And it’s John again (19:38-40) who tells us "After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews." All four Gospel writers report that Jesus’ tomb was found empty on Easter morning. Our very faith as Christians hinges on the risen Christ, the fulcrum point of God’s solution to our sinful nature and our broken world!

So why "Follow the Myrrh" during Lent? The Bible, the story of God’s love for us is itself mingled with myrrh; it’s bitter with sin, yet fragrant with grace, the very grace that is freely offered to us as we come to the Lord’s Table this evening.

Perhaps there’s someone here tonight who is experiencing a bitterness in life, a broken relationship, either with another person or with God, or perhaps a stubborn addiction leaves a bad taste in the mouth, or maybe the bitterness of guilt and regret is like a cancer, taking a heavy toll for a past that can’t be changed-- in Christ Jesus, God can change that bitter myrrh to fragrant myrrh!  Relationships can be repaired, addictions conquered, guilt and regret sent to the Cross where they belong, forgotten and forgiven because God had a plan and Jesus had a purpose and it was centered on YOU. This is the season to put first the God who put YOU first as He sent His One and Only Son to die that you might experience His Grace alone...through faith alone...in Christ Jesus alone...

In His name. Amen.

Pedigree Collapse and the Law of Parsimony

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth..." (Genesis 1:27-28a ESV)

Illustration borrowed from
A Blog of random thoughts and ideas.
Caveat emptor.

When our oldest daughter was born in 1989 I became interested in genealogy and began doing extensive research, the culmination of which was a family history I compiled for our daughters and "published" for relatives in 1993. I wrote an introduction that contained the following paragraph:

Did you girls know that in the span of the last 600 years more than one million individuals have contributed directly to your existence and indirectly to your individuality? If my math is right, of the entire population of the world in the early 1400s (around 1420 or so), one million forty-eight thousand five hundred and seventy-six twentyorthirtysomethings were destined to become your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents! In other words, you girls are by-products of the genes of more than two million people in the last 20 generations.

I actually took a Genealogy course from Brigham Young University in the early 90s. As I sifted through the layers of monogamy, polygamy, and levirate marriages, I encountered the phrase (and concept) pedigree collapse. I really didn't think much of it (nor about it) until I introduced it to a classroom of high school students a few years ago with the challenge to explain how the number of their ancestors would eventually exceed the population of Earth. I drew a diamond-shaped diagram on the board representing a single person at the bottom and a first pair of male-female progenitors (cautiously avoiding accusations of proselytizing by not calling them Adam and Eve) at the top. As they thought about it, I could almost hear their mental clutch cables snapping. It's quite the paradox... Or so I thought.

Even looking at this from a secular perspective, it seems simple enough that our world is ordered a certain way-- that living things exist as male or female for the express purpose of reproduction. So if every living is the issue of a mother and father, and it all had to start somewhere, then...well, okay...it's not so simple; however, I found a plausible explanation in a 2012 post to a blog maintained by an eclectic guy named Stephen Lewis called How many ancestors do you have?:

...the number of our ancestors can’t really have kept on doubling in an exponential manner as we go further and further back. Consider just one additional fact: it has been shown that the human race, homo sapiens, went through at least one population bottleneck during our history. At certain times it appears that humankind almost went extinct. Around 70,000 years ago scientists have suggested that the total world population dwindled to only a few thousand-- the so-called Toba catastrophe. So sooner or later the number of your ancestors must have stopped exploding and had to have started to shrink, and shrink fast.

Such a phenomenon is called "Pedigree Collapse," a phrase coined by Robert C. Gunderson... Essentially there are two interrelated reasons why the number of your direct ancestors does not keep on exploding and why their number will sooner or later start to contract. The first has to do with "cousin marriage." When you look back at your ancestry you will find that again and again your ancestors married, or better said, bred with their "cousins." This is not a conjecture, this is a fact. Although there will be much to say on the level of cousin marriage. Second, we need to understand the nature of the available "breeding pool" that our ancestors had; and this means considering issues of migration.

The first factor, cousin marriage, or inbreeding if you like, can help us explain why the number of your ancestors first grows and then will eventually shrink. The second factor, migration or "outbreeding," helps us to understand why the onset of this narrowing and shrinkage is sometimes pushed farther back in time.

As I was reading through the full explanation, my brain suffered its own Toba catastrophe. But it does make me wonder at the numbers...

If you've never visited answersingenesis.org, you ought to check it out. On this particular topic, the site reminds us that...

1) Evolutionary scientists reject the biblical history of humanity’s origin from just two people. Nevertheless, when a group of evolutionary geneticists in 2009 evaluated various models of human origins, they tacitly acknowledged the plausibility of human descent from the people dispersed from the Tower of Babel. What they called the “instantaneous divergence model” sounds pretty much like what happened at the Tower of Babel sometime after the global Flood. 

2) The need for the Cross of Christ is rooted in the facts of our Creation history. The origin of sin and suffering and death and our need for a Savior is rooted in the truth of human origins as described in Genesis. Therefore it is vital that Christians avoid the compromising positions adopted by theistic evolutionists who typically claim that Adam and Eve are mere allegorical characters. 

3) Christians should also be confidently able to share the Gospel of salvation by beginning with the truth that the Bible is not anti-science.

Another website, creation.com, poses the unanswerable question "What if people had been around for one million years?" Then answers it:

Evolutionists claim that mankind evolved from apes about a million years ago. If the population had grown at just 0.01% per year since then (doubling only every 7,000 years), there could be 10⁴³ people today-- that’s a number with 43 zeros after it. This number is so big that not even the Texans have a word for it! To try to put this number of people in context, say each individual is given "standing room only" of about one square meter per person.

And still another website (World Population Since Creation) poses the next question: Where were they buried and what happened to their bones? An even more disturbing question is: What happened to their souls?

...using the most conservative figures for which we have even the remotest justification, if the theory of human evolution is true, there have been at least 300 billion people who have lived and died on the earth--almost all of them a long time before Christ came into the world and before any other revelation was given to man about God!...

It may be claimed that none of these calculations really prove anything, since no one really has any way of knowing exactly what birth and death rates and what population figures existed in prehistoric times. This is quite true, of course, but the known facts of population growth do fit the Biblical chronology very well and they do not fit the assumed evolutionary chronology at all. 

Scientists work in terms of "models" and try to evaluate each proposed model of a particular process in terms of the "degree of fit" of the known data into that model. On this basis, we are abundantly justified in concluding that the creationist model with its brief chronology fits the actual known data of population statistics far better than does the million-year evolutionary model. 

If you've made it this far, you (and your brain) are ready for the much-easier-to-grasp explanation of "pedigree collapse" from the amorphous Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope website:

Consider an extreme case. Mr. and Mrs. Nosepicker have two children, a girl and a boy. These two develop an unnatural yen for one another and marry. Six months later the girl gives birth to an eight-pound horseradish with a lisp. In theory, the horseradish has four grandparents. In reality, its maternal and paternal grandparents are identical. Two of the four grandparent slots are thus filled by duplicates-- pedigree collapse with a vengeance. Only slightly less extreme is the case of Alfonso XIII of Spain (1886-1941). Because of inbreeding in the royal family, he had only ten great-great-grandparents instead of the expected 16.

If you go back far enough, however, pedigree collapse happens to everybody. Think of your personal family tree as a diamond-shaped array imposed on the ever-spreading fan of human generations. (I told you this was cosmic.) As you trace your pedigree back, the number of ancestors in each generation increases steadily up to a point, then slows, stops, and finally collapses. Go back far enough and no doubt you would find that you and all your ancestors were descended from the first human tribe in some remote Mesopotamian village. Or, if you like, from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

These simple facts have given rise to some remarkable displays of statistical pyrotechnics. Demographer Kenneth Wachtel estimates that the typical English child born in 1947 would have had around 60,000 theoretical ancestors at the time of the discovery of America. Of this number, 95 percent would have been different individuals and 5 percent duplicates. (Sounds like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but you know what I mean.) Twenty generations back the kid would have 600,000 ancestors, one-third of which would be duplicates. At the time of the Black Death, he'd have had 3.5 million-- 30 percent real, 70 percent duplicates. The maximum number of "real" ancestors occurs around 1200 AD-- 2 million, some 80 percent of the population of England.

Pedigree collapse explains why it's so easy for professional genealogists to trace your lineage back to royalty-- go far enough back and you're related to everybody. For that matter, you're probably related to everybody alive today. Some geneticists believe that everybody on earth is at least 50th cousin to everybody else.

The bottom line? No one has been able to point out a time when God was wrong. And it seems to me that 14th-century William of Occam, for whom the principle Occam's Razor is named, was spot on. Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Genesis 1. At the risk of sounding parsimonious, lex parsimoniae.

Oh the humanit...simianity!

Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:17 ESV)

Among today's headlines, plucked from my morning paper:

Rum drinking monkey disrupts bar

Remarks by Francis turned Trump into 'martyr'

Trump, Pope have similarities

Teen becomes Eagle by standing up for gay community in project

In a flaky move, British chain won't carry curved croissants

Space station puts trash out for burning

I often start my workday watching the local news, feeling my heart sink as they report on the latest episodes of inhumanity; this morning, however, the news seemed a bit more on the mild side (I thought that maybe I've become so desensitized that I'm now oblivious...) and the morning paper confirmed it. Other than the drunken monkey with a knife in a bar in Brazil, the news today was mostly Trump and Cruz, Trump and Pope, Trump and Apple, Trump and Blackjack Pershing, Trump and etc. etc. a-um...

...and before too long, Trump and the drunken monkey...

(Sorry, your Holiness, I think we need a wall big enough to keep them both out!)

'I don’t question anybody’s Christianity, because...

For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. (Acts 17:23-29 ESV)

[Blue text from nationalmemo.com, where "We reserve the right to moderate our comments to maintain civil discourse."]

...I honestly believe that that’s a relationship that you have with your Creator,”Jeb said...

i like it

... “And it only enables bad behavior when you hear that someone from outside our country talks about Donald Trump.”

don't like it (not sure i understand it)

Reporters also asked Bush to respond to Francis’ comment, “a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Jeb responded.

the pope's comment is so not a call to arms!

I wish not to take up sides (or arms); however, I am a Lutheran that likes this Pope (the guy, not necessarily the papacy) and I am a conservative who favors Jeb Bush (not because of the name, yes I know he's Catholic-- should I hold that against him?, and yes I know his wife is an immigrant...seriously?). As for the Pope's remark about walls and bridges...

I, like the vast majority of pundits, blowhards, and armchair constituents, can easily see Pope Francis as just another piece on the game board. I could take his comment literally about a wall (like Berlin, 1961), but he's the Pope for cryin' out loud-- his job description may be the only one in all of Christendom that says in a codicil "oh yeah, and you're also head of state." But he's the Pope! His real job is preaching the Gospel to a broken world, and he very much did so when he told journalists who asked his opinion on Trump's proposals to halt illegal immigration "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel," Real or metaphorical, walls divide. Real or metaphorical, bridges unite. I heard a priest speak, not a politician...but I'm not running for office (yet-- I'm thinking about writing myself in as the Communist Party candidate) (not really, so save the hate mail).

Never short on cannon fodder, Trump fired back in response to the Pope's comment: "No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith," Judge? No. That's God's work. Question? Perhaps, especially a religious leader (though the Pharisees weaken that argument). I think the faith compass of another should not be blindly or naively dismissed, particularly when that person represents the religious ideals or national values of others. (This is why the "Evangelical Right" vote is so critical during presidential elections.)

[I am reminded of the scene in the movie "Contact" (which is about faith, not aliens...per se), during which Jodie Foster's character, the atheist astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway, faced an international committee tasked with deciding which of the homo sapiens on this planet could best represent us as a whole to an alien civilization. Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), on the committee to provide spiritual guidance, asks "Dr. Arroway, do you believe in God?" She said no and wasn't chosen. When she later asked Palmer why he did it, he responded: "Our job was to select someone to speak for everybody. And I just couldn't in good conscience vote for a person who doesn't believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other ninety five percent of us suffer from some form of mass delusion."]

The American people will have to choose a direction for our nation in the candidate they vote for. A candidate who wears his/her faith on his/her sleeve is a candidate that, perhaps, should have his/her religion or faith questioned (again, not judged). Same goes for the candidate whose faith seems empty or hidden in the shadows. If We the People of these United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity buy into the sound bites, mud-slinging, and posturing...then we deserve what we get. Let's hope, yet again, that God thinks otherwise.

"Our job was to select someone to speak for everybody."

(And I just couldn't in good conscience vote for a person who doesn't believe in God.)

Luther, Lutherans, and the Law

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (Galatians 3:23-26 ESV)

[No post yesterday; I was a little under the weather.]

I think one of the most easily identifiable traits of us who call ourselves Lutheran is the almost cavalier manner in which we regard the Ten Commandments. I cannot say for sure if I have ever heard a Lutheran pastor give a sermon centered on the Law; in fact, and in light of "Christ's Law" (as in Luke 10:27), we Lutherans pay very little attention to those things that we consider soooo Old Testament. More often than not we are "reminded" that the Law convicts, curbs, and guides us (more of a Sunday school or Confirmation topic), the latter merely a frame around our Lutheran life of Grace. I suspect few parishioners these days are excluded from the Sacraments for not reciting the Ten Commandments correctly, as Luther himself recommends in his preface to the Commandments in the Large Catechism: This sermon is designed and undertaken that it might be an instruction for children and the simple-minded. Hence of old it was called in Greek Catechism, i.e., instruction for children, what every Christian must needs know, so that he who does not know this could not be numbered with the Christians nor be admitted to any Sacrament, just as a mechanic who does not understand the rules and customs of his trade is expelled and considered incapable.

It is very interesting to me that Luther's exposition of the Ten Commandments takes up almost half of his Large Catechism. To Luther, the Law for the Christian is never meant to be archived or considered obsolete, but rather to be regarded with the same faith that drives us in service to God and neighbor. Many cite Paul in Galatians 3 as reason enough to dispense with the Law of Moses in the New Testament church era: Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. Paul and Luther both center on faith (rather than fear) as the Christian response to the Law, though even Luther, like Paul above, could be taken out of context. Lutheran pastor and professor Timothy Wengert writes in an essay entitled  Martin Luther and the Ten Commandments in the Large Catechism that Luther, who was only too happy to obey any command of God, no matter what ("If Christ commanded me to eat dung, I would do it," he once said to Ulrich Zwingli), always ties the Ten Commandments to God's purpose and goal for humanity. The commandments were not given for the same purpose my second grade teacher handed out mimeographed "seat work" (to keep us busy). Instead, they serve God and the neighbor always by serving faith.

As I read through Luther's section in the Large Catechism on the Ten Commandments, this analogy comes to mind—if faith is the road to God, then perhaps the Commandments are the streetlights, powered by Christ's fulfillment of them. I see clearly that for Luther, through faith all Commandments point back to the First. It is only through faith in Christ alone are we able to serve the One God from Whose Grace we so undeservedly benefit, honor His name, keep one day holy in honoring Him, and honor Him by striving to live as He Himself has instructed in Commandments Four through Ten.

Luther's exposition of the Commandments can most definitely serve us today! By remembering the Ten Commandments, we remember to put God first in every aspect of our life, from social media issues to the increasing tolerance toward same-sex relationships to why Sunday as a Sabbath ought to be the most important day of our busy week. Faith lets us see the Law clearly, in all of its uses, in the shape of the Cross—a place that reminds us of how we are deserving of God's wrath, but spared by His Love, rescued to live in a vertical relationship with Him and a horizontal one with others...

As Christ teaches us, the Law for us really IS all about faith (and, so it was for Luther, about the First Commandment): And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28-31 ESV)

And I agree (as I think would Luther) with this summation from Wengert: Commandments are not busy work; they reveal the best God intends for humanity.

How do you live your life when nobody’s watching?

A good name is better than precious ointment, 

   and the day of death than the day of birth. (Ecclesiastes 7:1 ESV)

[I dusted off a sermon I delivered 8 years ago...]

The verse I chose to be the fulcrum point of this morning’s sermon is Ecclesiastes 7:1:  “A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.” (NIV)  I’d like you to contemplate this as I move through my message; we’ll revisit it at the end.

I have decided that, as sin and our often feeble attempts to measure up to the Christian name we carry goes, that the single most identifiable gauge of how we are doing in this world, not only in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of everyone else around us, has to be integrity.  Our integrity—or lack thereof—is what immediately marks us in every aspect of our lives, in our homes, on the job, or in the classroom, from cheating on taxes to marital infidelity, whether we’re a good sport on the field or a forgiving driver during rush hour.  For the Christian, integrity is that cross Jesus is talking about in all three synoptic Gospels when he tells us to “take up your cross and follow Me.”  For others, integrity is nothing more than a nuisance that gets in the way of the finer things in life.  And for many, integrity is one of those words that comes up every so often but really needs a definition (or at least some clarification).

As most of you know, in my other life I am a high school teacher. While going over vocabulary words in an English class, I asked my students if any of them knew the meaning of integrity. A hand went up immediately and the young lady answered “That sign over your door?” Above the door in my classroom is a sign visible only on the way out that depicts a big eye and reads “How do you live your life when no one is watching?” Generally speaking, that question may be the simplest definition of integrity. But what about Christian integrity then…if we are truly who we profess to be as followers of Christ, then the when in that question has to come out, because there is never a time when we’re not being watched.  

So. What, exactly, is integrity?   More specifically, how would you define Christian integrity?

An exaggerated, but relevant illustration of Christian integrity can be found in the lifestyles of those first “reformers” who disagreed with the Anglican Church and migrated to the New World in the 17^th century.  These Puritans—people whose spiritual convictions transcended the confessional boundaries of the established church at the time—honored God above all else and believed that the best Christians should be the best husbands, wives, parents, children, masters, and servants, so that the doctrine of God might be glorified and not blasphemed.  By comparison to our modern-day I’m-okay-you’re-okay regard to the world around us, Puritans had an austere spiritual and moral ethic which pervaded every corner of their personal lives. Such passionate holy living was not intended to earn salvation but to express sonship, the believer's destiny in Christ.  In other words, there was no difference between personal integrity and Christian integrity among Puritans.  Moral and ethical violations blackened not only the transgressor’s family name, but the Body of Christ, as well; among Puritans a man’s word was as good as gold.

In the 1996 film The Crucible, Daniel Day Lewis plays the role of John Proctor, a husband, father, and well-respected member of the Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts, who is falsely accused of witchcraft and who is presented with two options: confess and live with the consequences of having been in league with the devil, such as being ostracized by others in the community or even excommunication, or face execution by hanging. The former carries a stigma that would associate Proctor’s name with witchcraft through future generations; the latter is that cross Jesus is talking about.  Proctor decides to confess for the sake of being with his wife and family; however, his accusers wish him to sign a confession to be nailed to the doors of the church... Thus the crucible (a severe test or trial) here; a man of Christian integrity must either lie to save others and lose his good name or speak the truth and save it, but at the same time face death.

So here we are in the 21^st century where looking out for number one is not only acceptable, but expected!  Children are raised in a society that promotes cutting corners to get ahead and dollar signs as the true measure of success.  While it’s not likely that a Christian in America will get caught in John Proctor’s crucible, there are Christians around the world who face persecution daily for their convictions.  For them, Christian integrity may very well be a question of life or death.  For us…well, for some of us, Christian integrity is a “Jesus fish” on the car, a “WWJD” bracelet on the wrist, a weekly appearance at a worship service, or $5 or $10 in the offering plate.  I don’t think this is what Jesus means when He tells us to “take up your cross and follow Me.”

Robert Thieme, a non-denominational pastor in Houston wrote: “Christian integrity is the strength of the advancing believer. Integrity means wholeness of character, consistency of word and deed, uncompromising adherence to a code of values. Christian integrity comes from living by the Word of God.”  He is absolutely right!  The Word of God contains all that we need to set our moral compasses to point to Christ so that we may be able take up our crosses as “advancing believers” and follow Him.

Brothers and sisters, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, for if we were or if we could be, then we wouldn’t need Christ. God does expect us to have integrity, though; to follow His guidelines for living a Christ-like, and therefore God-pleasing, life in world that needs to more examples of good than bad.  In our Gospel reading this morning from Matthew, Jesus explains what Christian integrity means: “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.'  But I tell you, do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.  And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black.  Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:33-37 ESV)

Christian integrity is keeping your word, your good name, as a living testimony to God’s Word and His Good Name.  When you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, when you don’t attempt to right a wrong, when you don’t speak the truth, when you don’t stand up for what is just, when you don’t come to the aid of others in need or less fortunate than you, when you say you are a Christian and then act in a contrary manner, you blacken not only your own name, but the name of Christ as well. Christian Integrity 101 begins with the Ten Commandments, in particular the First; the Puritans believed that true devotion to Christ involves obedience to the moral law of God. Honestly? The formula hasn’t changed in 300 years (or even 2000, for that matter). 

So go ahead and let your integrity define you—it’s going to anyway as a banner of how you live your life.  Being a Christian may not always be easy, but remember that the true fruits of God’s gift of Grace are in the sacrifice, the service to others rather than to ourselves, and that God’s expectations for us walk hand-in-hand with forgiveness. After all, there was only one perfect “Christian.” His model of integrity that we strive to follow has been captured in the following poem by that most famous of authors, Anonymous...

Definition of a Christian
He has a mind, and he knows it,
He has a will, and shows it;
He sees his way, and goes it,
He draws a line, and toes it.
He has a chance, and takes it,
A friendly hand and shakes it;
A rule, and never breaks it,
If there's no time, he makes it.
He loves the truth, stands by it,
Nor ever tries to shy it,
Whoever may deny it, or openly defy it.
He hears a lie and slays it,
He owes a debt and pays it;
And, as I've heard him praise it,
He knows the game, and plays it.
He sees the path Christ trod,
And grips the hand of God.

In closing, let’s revisit that verse from Ecclesiastes. Just why is the day of death better?  At birth, you are largely a blank slate—your reputation is nothing (apart from your connection with Mom and Dad), so your name is little more than a mere label. However, at your death you take your reputation with you. God may or may not confront you with a checklist, at the top of which is integrity; if He does, though, you might find yourself in a far worse crucible than did John Proctor...

“Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'.”   In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Of God and covenants, the Bible on commitment, and why you’re last...

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Matthew 16:24-26 ESV)

[This is a tweaked version of a church newsletter article I wrote in March 2009.]

If you were to search your Bible for the word “commitment,” how many times do you think it would turn up?  Interestingly, this word appears 0 times in my ESV translation.  But that doesn’t mean the concept isn’t there.  Jesus Himself tells His disciples (read: us) very clearly “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24 ESV)  This is a call meant to take precedence over everything else in our lives (ref. Matthew 8:18-22).

Maybe God understands us all too well, huh?  I suspect that, in breathing His Word into the authors of the both Testaments, He intentionally left “commitment” out.  In fact, I believe that commitment may be more a concept of the divine than of Man; while Scripture details how God has never broken a promise to His children, it’s also a record of thousands of years of our failed attempts at commitment to each other and to Him. 

Yet here YOU are, reading a newsletter produced by a congregation of believers within the Body of Christ that wants just that from its members, the VERY thing we’re not very good at: commitment.  Seems more than a little ironic, but it’s oh so true!   But the irony continues when we consider that there aren’t too many people who want to be part of a group that has little or no wholehearted commitment to God's purpose and plan.

An anonymous pastor in an anonymous congregation once upon a time gave a sermon on “conditional commitment” (hoping to motivate, rather than simply lambaste his flock), in which he asked if any of these sentiments sounded familiar: “Lord, I'll come to church but only on Sunday morning at 11:00.”  “Lord, I'll come to church every time the doors are open but don't expect me to do outreach, to teach a class, or pray publicly.”  “Lord, I'll do anything for you as long as it doesn't cost too much.”  He went on to make the point that we are willing to part with our time, talents, and treasure, as long as (conditions).  The pastor’s sermon was good, but he was really asking his parishioners to do what so obviously goes against our nature (as history and everyday life shows us).  So we need God, the Author of many an unbroken covenant, to be involved. 

Congregational membership, like marriage, is a covenant of sorts.  God must come first in both or the lifespan of each will be cut tragically short.  In both we are called to remain faithful—but, really, any promise or commitment that we believe is being made to another in the eyes of God is a covenant (a promise to pay back a loan, for example).  A congregation, however, relies upon the commitme…er, the covenant each member has entered into not only to sustain itself, but more importantly to equip itself for evangelism.  And, like marriage, a congregational commitme…er, covenant requires sacrifice.  In both we are called to put God and another (in that order, newlyweds) before ourselves.  Yes, that means through the bump and grind of this world in which we struggle every day to try and get ahead, we are third (not second, as that seemingly ubiquitous I Am Second ad campaign of a few years ago claimed in print ads, tv spots, and on billboards).

Martin Luther penned these thoughts on Christian commitment: “We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God.”  Jesus said it this way:  “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23 ESV)  Both are talking about sacrifice...

...the sacrifice of time, talent, and treasure.  Isn’t it curious that most Christians can quote John 3:16 (Christ’s sacrifice), but not 1 John 3:16 (our sacrifice)?  No one—not God, not the pastor, not the congregation—is asking you to make a commitment that you cannot keep; just to keep the covenant you entered into when you replied “with the help of God” as you were brought into membership... 

...then to pick up YOUR cross and follow where Jesus leads you!

(and, by the way, the word “covenant” appears in my ESV Bible 317 times…just so you to know…)

'those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth'

O LORD, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth,
for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water. (Jeremiah 17:13 ESV)

During this morning's sermon, the episode of Jesus writing in the sand in John 8:6 came up. It's more than just Jesus disarming a crowd bent on Pharisaical justice, it's a blink-or-you-may-miss-it mini-sermon on Law and Gospel! (And I've always wondered about what Jesus was scribbling-- I'd assumed it was the names of the woman's accusers.)

In the 2010 book Martin Luther's Understanding of God's Two Kingdoms (by William J. Wright and Richard Muller), the authors point out that in his commentary on John 8:6-8 [Luther’s Works Vol. 23], Luther used the two-kingdoms view in order to clarify the distinction between the law and the gospel. The purpose of telling the story of the harlot "was to show the clear distinction between the law and Gospel, or between the kingdom of Christ and that of the world." It was only in Christ's realm that there was no punishment, but rather mercy and forgiveness of sins. By contrast, in "the realm of Moses and the world there is no forgiveness of sins, but only wrath and punishment." In the worldly realm, death and stoning were quite proper. Even if the judge was also guilty, "it does not affect or alter the case." God ordered all such “ordinances, law, office, sword, gallows and wheel.” But the jurisdiction and office of such "rogues and rascals" (i.e., corrupt officials) will not protect them in Christ's kingdom- where they will be "condemned to Hell."  The difference between the kingdom of Christ and that of the world was that Christ "reduces all men to sinners, but then absolves them." Again and again, it is apparent that Luther used the idea of the two kingdoms to teach about salvation and the kingdom of heaven, or Christ's kingdom.

The end of this incident is the Gospel message expressed in these words of forgiveness to the accused woman: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” But, as it should, the Law, which the Pharisees and scribes knew all too well, and which convicts every sinner, accused every person intent on seeing the woman stoned to death. According to Leviticus 20, a couple accused and convicted (by the Old Testament rule of at least two witnesses-- and there's no mention an accusing husband) during a ceremony officiated and judged by a priest, the names of the condemned would be temporarily written in the dust on the floor. So Jesus, it seems, was turning the Law back against those who brandished it hypocritically as their source of righteousness-- He really was writing their names in the sand! (See Jeremiah 17:13 above.)

I found a very insightful exposition of this vignette from John's Gospel, written by Julie Barrier (CEO of the Christian leaders resource Preachit, Teachit): What Did Jesus REALLY Write in the Sand in John 8? 

Well, no matter the exact interpretation, I see in this story the hand of God-- literally (more specifically, the finger of God)-- writing in the sand to make a point, not so much with the Jewish religious establishment, but with the accused woman. In fact, the Law of Moses, may have saved her; this whole incident was a test to see if Jesus would go along with what amounted to lack of due process, the very violation that underscores His writing names in the sand. But the Gospel message here is awesome!  God's Grace is evident in Jesus' interaction with the woman; it is God in Christ that rescues and forgives...

...then forgets.  :)

A Catholic Pope and an Orthodox Patriarch walk into a...

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18-22 ESV)

Pope Francis and Patriarch Kyrill walk into an airport in Havana and... No joke!

Pope Francis and Patriarch Kyrill, head of the Russian Orthodox church, have met in Cuba in a historic act which some believe may have political motivations

The People's Pope is at it again! I hope Christians across the planet were watching yesterday as these two men put aside a nearly 1,000-year old doctrinal feud to put their two Heads together; perhaps to make the rest of us stop and blink at God's Church, which has only one name: The Body of Christ. How we came to refer to it by any other name is a shame, really. The ecumenical feuds and finger-pointing that have occurred since Jesus' earthly ministry and violent death on the Cross are works of men and remind us-- especially today-- of our need for Savior. Reconciliation, like the foxtrot, takes one person to step forward, make eye contact, proffer a hand, and ask "May I have this dance?" Then after the first step, the give-and-take of the dance is on. I would like to naively hope that the music keeps playing for more than 3 hours for these two prominent men of God and that they could make more than just a statement, a difference not only in Syria, but in the world at large.

Alas, that huge scar from the Great Schism must still itch...

The German news outlet Deutsche Welle made this skeptical, but probably accurate comment about the impression this mini-summit is making on the minds of most who bother to pay attention:

To some, Pope Francis's meeting with the Patriarch of Moscow could be seen as support for the Kremlin. Likewise, Christian critics in the US have argued that Catholics as well as the Orthodox churches are on principle quite reticent about ecumenical dialogue. A coming together of the two churches, which still hold fast to the dogma from the first centuries after Christ, could be seen as a distancing from the Church that developed after Martin Luther. Those include Protestants, Evangelicals, Lutherans or Free Church congregations and make up, as non-Catholics and non-Orthodox, the majority of the more than 225 million Christians living in the USA.

It's a pity that so many may see it this way when there's still plenty of room on the dance floor (and on the "dance card" that is 1 Corinthians 12:25)...

sigh

'Trick or treat!' Oh, wait...wrong holiday...

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:1-7 ESV)

Today, so far, has been kind of a blah sort of day-- I'm not even all that motivated by my weekly victory cry of "TGIF!" (I write the equivalent on my board in Russian every Friday). There's usually plenty of blog fodder in high school, particularly for a blog labelled "a faith journal." About the only observation of note today is the teenager's hapless buy-in of the next commercialized holiday in the 12-month rotation, Valentine's Day (which is Sunday, so we're in a sea of red and pink on my campus today). February 14th (or, for the herds moving through our Hallowed Halls, the 12th) is the one day of the year when everybody's in love. Or not. Or supposed to be. Or something.

I found this statement on a website which expresses (probably by accident) the yin and yang of Valentine's Day in this country: For those who see Valentine’s Day in its traditional sense, as a day where both couples and our broader society celebrate love as a cultural ideal, the influence of commercialism has muddled or polluted its expression. I agree; both couples and our broader society celebrate love as a cultural ideal, rather than the agape love of, say, The Song of Solomon. What passes for love in our society is something equivalent to popping a tantalizingly flavorful piece of chewing gum into your mouth then spitting it out after a time because the flavor's gone... Love, like just about everything else this world has to offer, is disposable. And, yes, the influence of commercialism has muddled or polluted the expression of true love, God's design that has sadly become a four letter word in our culture; a word that should be binding, not negotiable; a gift that should never (have to) be rescinded.

The same website proffers these statistics: The percent of women who send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day, sadly, is 14 per cent. Average consumer spending on Valentine’s Day is $116.

I think that the history (or histories-- much of Valentine's Day is unverifiable legend) of this holiday is more interesting than the day itself. The nontrinitarian, Sabbatarianist United Church of God has a good webpage about the origins of Valentine's Day. An excerpt:

During the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day became increasingly popular in Europe. February 14 was significant not only for its religious meaning, but because it was widely believed that birds begin to mate on this date...It is true that various birds are involved in courtship and mate selection around this time of year, but it is not specific to the date of Feb. 14. What was specific to Feb. 13 through 15 on the Roman calendar was the pagan festival of Lupercalia [also known as Februatio, from which comes the month name February]...

The original festival is founded in the ancient legend of Romulus and Remus, the traditional founders of Rome. The story says the two brothers were abandoned as infants but were then discovered and nursed by a she-wolf, or lupa in Latin—the cave where this supposedly happened, at the base of Rome’s Palatine Hill, becoming known as the Lupercal...

The Lupercalia festival was celebrated in honor of a number of pastoral deities. It combined the idea of cleansing before spring renewal with the promotion of sexual fertility and reproduction, a prevalent theme throughout pagan religion. Young men dressed in the skins of sacrificed goats would run from the Lupercal cave brandishing strips of goat skin [called februa] as whips. Any women slapped by these were assured fertility and ease in childbirth...

Pope Gelasius is said to have eradicated Lupercalia from Christian observance in the last decade of the fifth century. But in reality, the intermingling of paganism and Christianity had become inseparable in much of the Western world. Saturnalia and Mithraism were incorporated into the church through claiming a December birth date for Jesus Christ. Various spring fertility rites merged to form the basis of Easter celebrations. Lupercalia evolved into the observance of St. Valentine’s Day.

Just as interesting-- and much more romantic-- is the Christian origin of St. Valentine promoted through the ages laid out nicely on CBN's website. A quote from Father Frank O'Gara of Whitefriars Street Church in Dublin, Ireland: "Love -- human love and sexuality is wonderful, and blessed by God -- but also the shadow of the cross. That's what Valentine means to me." And that's what this day should really be all about...

How much true love-- agape love-- can be found in flowers or candy, $116 worth? (I do like those little candy hearts with the cheesy messages on them-- I'm particularly fond of the Kiss Me ones, though they don't seem to work very well.) For my beleagured high schoolers, I'm afraid Valentine's Day is nothing more than an ersatz litmus test of relationship strength in an adult world that teaches even love has a price (a better lesson to be learned in the pew, rather than in the school parking lot).

For me, Valentine's Day is less obnoxious (but spookier in its own way) than Halloween; both revolve around sweets and involve a facade. And both are cultural celebrations I could do without.