1 Year

What a difference a year makes. The only thing that seems to be similar between today and a year ago is that it is raining. There is a different President with different challenges, a differing ideology from mine, and we wait to see what happens . There is a different principal at my school. I am not on spring break right now. The economy has altered much of the country's outlook. Issues, Etc. is back up and running (although I have missed it quite a bit lately due to the hectic schedule I have been keeping recently), and our church body is facing some unique challenges due to economy and ideology--I sense a theme here. It will be interesting to see what transpires in the next 365 days.

I take back my second sentence. There is one other similarity, no, an identical fact. Christ is still Lord of all, and He knows what the future holds for each of us.

Ads

Having received junk mail to excess, and having seen the junk mail which arrives at churches and schools, I have wondered what kind of junk mail goes to the main office of a baseball/football/basketball stadium. I bet it's boring ads for trash cans or something.
While sorting the school mail, I found two amusing ads. Often I toss them in the recycle bin, some I keep just for my amusement.
Ad #1: T-shirts and sweatshirts from Apostle in Training Ministries. Their tagline reads, "A Fundraiser that Glorifies God!" Two questions: First, how, specifically, does a fundraiser glorify God? Is it because the product has a cross on it? I'm a bit skeptical on that claim. Second, what's an apostle in training? Is that like training for the marathon? I thought the apostolic age was over. Maybe if it read "Synchronious sinner/saint" or even "disciple in training" I might go for it. I'll pass on the "Follower's Testimony," by the way.
Ad #2: Continuing Education Units for Biblical Credit from "Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram". Among the courses offered are "Why I Believe," "Good to Great in God's Eyes," How to Land the Job of Your Dreams," and "How to be a Christian Without Being Religious." These studies "are rooted in Scripture" and "free of denominational bias." Again, I'm a bit skeptical. "Why I Believe" sounds pretty good, but can it truly be free of denominational bias? I wonder how one could be a Christian without being religious and remain rooted in the Bible. Thanks, Pastor Chip, all the same, but (a) I was always told me not to walk near the edge, especially when the slope is slippery and (b) I'll continue with my Book of Concord study.

The Crucifixion

I discovered recently that the word assassination was invented by Shakespeare. Also recently a friend posed the following question: how important does one have to be to be assassinated rather than murdered? I heard a comment today in reference to a soldier who murdered Jesus. These loosely interconnected ideas made me wonder--was Jesus assassinated, murdered, or executed?
Assassination is politically motivated. [I am defining this myself and leaving Webster out of the picture, which is fine, because dictionaries do not tell what words mean; only how people use them, which is a different blog for a different day.] Assassinations are the killing of politically important people for political purposes. By that definition, Jesus was assassinated. The Jewish leaders wanted this blaspheming, status-quo disrupter silenced. The chief priests are quoted as saying, "If we let [Jesus] go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." (John 11:48, NASB)
Murder is the general taking of a life. Often there is a motive, sometimes it is random. Jesus was murdered. He had committed no wrong, there was no sense to His death. The chief priests had motive to eliminate Him; the Romans, not so much. The soldiers who killed Him were doing their duty.
Execution is the putting to death of a criminal. It is a punishment carried out through the government as payment for wrongdoing. Although innocent, Jesus took on our sin and our punishment. He was executed with common thieves, crucified as a common criminal.
To be executed, murdered, and assassinated is horrible. The tragedy underlying such acts is unthinkable. How much more, then the death of the Son of God? He was guiltless, yet executed for our guilt. He was murdered without cause. He was assassinated, yet His kingdom was not of this world. This is an awe-full mystery.

In Memoriam

There was a shooting at a church in the greater metro area today. The shooter killed the pastor during his sermon. I cannot even remotely fathom the fear and depth of grief of the people. My heart goes out to the family and members of that congregation.
There will be much said over the next few days regarding church and forgiveness. There will be much speculation over motive and why. It will bring up the questions of why bad things happen to good people and why someone would want to kill a pastor and what about evil. There will be discussions over the man's sanity. There will be debates over whether he was did such a thing because of something in his past that he became that way or not.
My sympathy goes out to the people who will be in the middle of this investigation.
The main thing to remember is that no matter what happens in this world, it is still Christ's church and He knows His own.

Says Who?

It came up again today: there are those who assert that the liturgy is too hard, too complex, too stodgy, too whatever for children to learn. There are problems with this assessment. Children can learn the liturgy, and the neglect thereof is a slippery slope.
I have heard the stories—the Lutheran school children are having field day at a local park and want to end with chapel. The pastor says, “We didn’t bring our hymnals.” No problem, the children can do Matins a cappella, and they do it flawlessly there in the park. Beyond the stories, I have seen and heard elementary school children pray and sing Matins. I have seen and heard high school students pray and sing Evening Prayer. To the naysayers I say that it can be done.
To neglect the teaching of the liturgy is to create a generation who do not know their past, nor are they building a connection to the historic church. For centuries the church has had liturgy. The Jews at the time of Jesus had a liturgy for Passover. The church at the time of Martin Luther had the propers and the ordinary of the mass in place. Why is this generation so bold as to think that the liturgy is now obsolete and we can invent something better, something more spiritual, something more entertaining than the liturgy? I guess this is no different than the baseball stadium which voted on a new song for the seventh inning stretch because “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was passé and needed something better.
To neglect the teaching of the liturgy is to contribute to the “dumbing down” of America. We send our children the wrong message when we say that they are incapable of learning the liturgy. As we tell the children that they unable to learn it, they believe us. In years to come, they continue to believe they cannot learn it; therefore, they continue to make excuses for not learning it. It has begun to hit Lutheran colleges and seminaries where Lutheran pastors and teachers are formed; the students complain that chapel is dull because they are now expected to learn and do the liturgy, but it is too hard and too boring. They are merely repeating as adults what they were taught as children.
We also send our children the wrong message by implying there is no benefit in learning something so complex as the liturgy. Frankly, the liturgy is quite simple to learn; it merely takes practice. Could it be that the truth is that the adults have not the patience nor desire to take the time to practice and teach the liturgy? This attitude is reflected in the children who then make the connection that there is no benefit in learning what it is we do at church; therefore, it is of no benefit that we do church.
The liturgy is the framework of divine worship. To make it up as we go along is to move away from the understanding of what happens in the worship service. No longer is it what God does for us, it becomes what we do for God. To assert then that the learning or neglect of the liturgy is of no consequence is to move ourselves away from a Christ-centered focus to a self-centered focus. This is neither right nor safe.