Fr Wells' Bulletin Inserts

TRINITY IV

Concerning the Epistle:

A very thoughtful and perceptive friend recently asked me, "Have you in your life personally known an America that was morally superior to our own? He was articulating the anguish which many of us feel as we see a culture in shreds, values abandoned, a nation in ruins, a world gone berserk.

I have to answer my friend that from a Biblical perspective, the Fall of man did not take place in our lifetime nor in the lifetime of our parents and grand-parents, but at the very beginning of history, the edge of time itself. If the world seems to be a terrible place, it is not because things are getting worse but because our moral perceptions have become more acute.

St Paul addresses this issue in the passage from Romans 8 which we read today, when he elaborates on "the sufferings of this present time" which certainly will be reversed in the "glory" to come. This truly monumental chapter begins with the thrilling statement "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." The key-word of that text and perhaps for the whole chapter is the word "now," which tells us that in the earth-shattering event of Jesus Christ, there has been a decisive and permanent reversal in the world and the relationship between God and His creation.

But this reversal is not obvious to all and sometimes even Christians see it dimly. The Bible is honest about the intensity of "the sufferings of this present time." And those words, "this present time," do not refer to the current generation or even to our brief lifetime. "This present time" is the entire chunk of history between the two Comings of our Redeemer.

Paul reminds us that for the time being, until Jesus comes again, we live on this planet with the residual effects of Adam's Fall. "For the creation was subjected to futility, ... the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." When secular talking-heads try to alarm us with daily recitals of how bad the world has become, the Christian's response should be, "Yes, we have known all this for quite a long time, but we have already read the final chapter and we know the end of the story. In fact we have the solution to your pain."

"The glory which shall be revealed in us" is Christ's coming and the resurrection of our bodies. But within the here and the now, we already enjoy "the first-fruits of the Spirit." Here we have an interesting word. Usually, "first-fruits" meant the initial part of a harvest, which had to be rendered up to God in sacrifice. But here, the word instead refers to God's gift to us. Paul seems to be thinking of a special meaning of the term, in which it referred to a birth-certificate. The presence of the Holy Ghost within the life of the Christian is his birth-certificate as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. This is the great fact already in effect. The "present evil age" can never undo it.


Concerning the Gospel:

In the second half of the liturgical year, the series of approximately twenty-six Sundays, the persistent theme of our Epistles and Gospels is how to live the Christian life. From Advent through Trinity Sunday, we are taught what God has done for us. Nowbetween Trinity and Advent, we must learn (to borrow Francis Schaeffer's book title) “how then shall we live.” Our Saviour's mighty work for us cannot leave us unchanged.

Today's Gospel comes from a long passage in Luke called “the Sermon on the Plain,” roughly equivalent to Matthew's “Sermon on the Mount.” What should be immediately obvious to us is that Jesus spent much of His time in ethical teaching, instructing His disciples in a distinctive way of life. Christians are set apart, Jesus teaches us, not just in what we believe or how we worship, but by how we behave ourselves.

Three things are obvious in this passage. First, the Christian life is outstanding for the quality of inter-personal relationships. Everything Jesus has to say here involves how we treat, and get along with, other people.

Second, the moral principles of the Christian life are so utterly simple. Jesus does not speak of “gray areas,” or ethical dilemmas.” When He speaks of being merciful, or not judging, or being generous, we have before us some very straight-forward material. No-one can rightly say, “This is too hard for me to understand.” (Today's Epistle from Romans 8 is another matter!) We know only too well what Jesus means.

Third, in the two great passages in Matthew and Luke (Matt 5—8 and Lk 6:20—49), Jesus is not speaking (like Socrates or Emmanuel Kant) in the manner of an ethical teacher, speculating on the nature of right and wrong. He spoke and still speaks as King and Law-giver. When we hear His voice in these simple commands “Be ye therefore merciful, ...” we recognize His authority over us.

And sadly, we instantly recognize that this is a Law which we cannot yet fulfil. Can anyone of us read today's Gospel and say, “Oh yes, I have done all that, let's move on to the next topic.” It is significant that this sermon, as Luke narrates it, was preached by Jesus to “a great multitude of people ... which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases.” Disease in the Gospels is the symbol for sin. As the disease of our innate sinful nature is progressively healed in us, so it is that our daily lives are gradually re-fashioned and transformed. The royal law of Jesus will become the picture of the redeemed Christian.

Fr Wells' Bulletin Inserts

PALM SUNDAY

One neglected key-word in the Biblical vocabulary is the word “memorial.” This word appears inconspicuously in the Words of Institution, “Do this in memory of me.” A more precise trans-lation of the Greek would be, “Do this for my memorial.”

To us the word memorial refers to a purely mental exercise, a straining of the mind to think of something far away and long ago. We hold a “memorial service” for someone dead, not for someone alive. This word memorial might refer to the re-enactment of a battle, which everyone knows is not the real thing.

But as the Bible uses the word, a memorial (and here the Eucharist is the example par excellance) is not for someone absent but for Someone Present. A true memorial brings things out of the past and makes them contemporary. This is because the One who does the remem-bering is none other than God Himself! Think of all the times the Psalter calls upon God to remember His covenant and His promises, or think of how we pray in the Litany, “Remember not, Lord, our offenses, nor the offenses of our forefathers.”

In the Eucharist we are permitted to do something far greater than just sitting around and thinking about the death of our Saviour. Instead, we call upon God to remember that sacrifice, to make it present before our very eyes, to make it effective and powerful here and now. As Hymn 189 expresses it,
“Look, Father, look, on His anointed face,
And only look on us as found in Him.”
We sing of His sacrifice as truly present, because in the sacrament of the Altar, it is truly there before our eyes. Calvary does not have to be re-enacted, because Calvary is now.

Now we come again to Holy Week. This is emphatically *not* just a historical commem-oration, like Columbus Day or Independence Day, of remote events from another time, whose relevance we must strive to recall. In the Blessing of Palms today, in the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Maundy Thursday, in the Vigil around the Cross during the sacred Three Hours of Good Friday, we are permitted to re-live the mighty acts of God for our salvation—acts which we treat rather cheaply. The special services of Holy Week are a unique opportunity to encounter Christ and to grow closer to Him.

St John's Gospel emphasizes that Peter did not merely look at the empty tomb, but moreover Peter went into the tomb. Not only did he contemplate the evidence of the Resurrection, but entered himself totally into the Event itself. That is what this holy season is all about. We make and keep this Memorial of our Saviour that we may climb down into Him and find our resting-place in Him.

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The liturgy for the final Sunday in Lent, when we come to something like a pre-climax just before the real climax on Easter morning, is an embarrassment of riches. We have two moments of real drama today: first, the re-enactment of Our Lord's not-quite-triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and second, the long reading of St Matthew's Passion narrative. Between these two splendid moments, the Prayer Book gives us a brief reading from Philippians as the Epistle appointed for the day.

Bible scholars are almost unanimous in their suspicion that in these verses Paul was quoting a hymn from the early church's worship. These verses read like a hymn of six stanzas, three devoted to our Saviour's humiliation and three more (beginning at “Wherefore God”) proclaiming His exaltation. This passage almost begs to be sung and is the basis for one of our finest hymns. See Hymn 356, The Hymnal 1940.

Today we must concentrate on the first part of the hymn Paul was quoting. There we meet the contrast between “the form of God” and “the form of a servant.” Those two expressions reveal the amazing chasm of distance which the Incarnate God traveled for us. How far is it from heaven to earth? No, the question really is, How far is it from God's throne to Calvary's hill? A distance more vast and exhausting than we can imagine. And this word “form” is not just outward show, but inner reality. He possessed the very nature of God but took the role of a servant in the most realistic sense of the word.

From the moment when God commanded Adam in the garden “to till it and keep it,” and to give names to every beast of the field, God had been seeking a perfectly obedient and cooperative servant, to bear His image in His creation. Beginning with Adam, such a servant had never been found-- until Christ Jesus appeared. His task had been a far greater burden than that of Adam; his garden is not Eden but Gethsemane. His perfect obedience is submission to the Cross itself.

But if Paul is quoting a hymn in this passage, the opening line is his very own. “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” The attitude of Christ Jesus, in His self-denial, His perfect obedience, and His willingness to suffer, is to be our attitude as well. Those who are “in Christ Jesus” are called to be like Him, marked with the humility of slaves. Here is the point that Paul was striving to make as he quoted this hymn. Christ was not only our substitute but also, as today's Collect puts it, our example. And as St Peter wrote (I Peter 5:6), “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you.”

Passion Sunday II

Running through St John's Gospel we have an interesting series of sayings from the lips of Jesus, beginning with the simple formula “I am.” He hear Him saying, “I am the true vine, ... the good shepherd, ... the door, ... the bread of life, ... the resurrection and the life, ... the way, the truth, and the life.” These sayings are all striking not only because they create vivid word pictures for us, but moreover because they use an especially emphatic and solemn form of “I am” in the original Greek which under-lies our English Bibles. When Jesus said “I am,” He said it in a way which gets people's attention, as today's Gospel reading from John 8 clearly demonstrates.

The phrase echoes a number of passages from the Old Testament. As an example, there is Isaiah 41:4:

“Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning?

I, the LORD, the first, and with the last, I am he.”

But the most striking example is from the account of Moses' encounter with the Lord at the Burning Bush, in Exodus 3:14. Moses asked the mysterious voice coming from the bush to reveal His name. (We might forget what a bold and presumptuous request this was on Moses' part!) God revealed His name, nevertheless, telling Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” That mysterious and awesome Name was abbreviated with the one word all devout Israelites past and present feel is too sacred to be uttered aloud, the Divine Name YHWH.

When Jesus began to make statements, “I am ....” it surely sounded as if He were claiming for Himself the very Name of God, the Name too holy to be spoken above a whisper. But in John 8:58, He left no room for doubt, when He stated firmly to His opponents, “Before Abraham as, I AM.” Not only did He claim to be older than Abraham, He claimed to be God. If the words are obscure to us, the meaning was perfectly plain to the Jews. It is no wonder that they attempted to stone Him on the spot.

When the huge band of soldiers went out to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, He told them three times, “I am He” (John 18:5). When the high priest asked Him “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed,” again He answered “I am” (Mk 14:62). Both times, He made the bold claim to be God, the same God whom Moses met in the burning bush. This is not merely an opinion about Jesus; it is not to be explained as the Church's faith regarding Jesus; it is simply what Jesus claimed for Himself. If He did not make such a claim, why were His opponents so angry? If we love Jesus and place our trust in Him, then we simply must come to terms with the claims which He made concerning His identity.

A man who claims to be God, many have observed, is either a lunatic, a liar, or the Lord. In any case, such a man is no one to trifle with. As Christians, we have been granted to know the right answer.

Passion Sunday I

The violet vestments have been replaced by red, the color of blood, signifying that in the final two weeks of Lent we draw closer to our Lord Jesus in His suffering and death. The Sunday before Palm Sunday is known among Anglicans as Passion Sunday. It prepares us for Holy Week somewhat in the manner that the “Gesima” Sundays prepare us for Lent itself. The veils on the altar crucifix and other icons remind us of the time when Jesus “hid himself, and went out of the temple,” signifying that the glory had departed.

The word Passion means suffering; one with a “passion” for art or music will actually go experience suffering as he devotes himself totally in self-discipline and practice. In His suffering under the scourge and on the cross, our dear Lord revealed God's great passion for the souls of men.

All four of the Gospels devote a disproportionate number of chapters to the final week and even the final hours of the life of Jesus. The accounts have different perspectives and emphases.

Matthew and Mark are almost the same, emphasizing the rejection, humiliation, and suffering of Jesus. Their picture of the passion is reflected in the painful crucifix above the altar. These two Gospels give only one of the “Seven Words,” the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The authenticity of the saying is evinced by the fact that it is quoted in Hebrew by Matthew and in Aramaic by Mark. Aramaic was Our Lord's normal spoken language, but Hebrew was the language of the Psalm He was quoting.

Luke, on the other hand, emphasizes the compassion of Jesus, which strangely elicits the compassion of others. It is Luke who tells us that “there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him” (Lk 23:27). Luke gives us three words from the Cross, including, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and the word of compassion to the thief, “To day thou shalt be with me in paradise.” Luke's third word reflects the serene resignation of Jesus, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” Luke's version is reflected in the San Damiano icon at the side altar.

John presents yet a third picture, a picture of Jesus already in majesty. Jesus at every point is in full control of the situation, causing the soldiers in the garden to fall down in awe, and clearly worsting Pontius Pilate in the trial. John relates three other words from the cross: “Woman, behold thy son, Son, behold thy mother,” “I thirst,” and “It is finished.” All three reflect Jesus in command, even to the point of demanding a drink! The royal Christ is portrayed for us in the Christus Rex over the west door.

Sexagesima, Part II

Today's first reading begins with words of heavy sarcasm, “Ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.” A modern translation is quite helpful here, “How gladly you put up with fools, being yourselves so wise.” Paul was not paying any compliment to his Corinthian readers. When he called them wise, he meant the very opposite.

These new Christians, not rooted and well-grounded in the Faith, were in danger of being seduced by a substitute Gospel, a false Christianity. In contrast to our easy-going tolerant sort of religion, this for Paul was no small matter. A few verses before our reading begins, Paul had compared them to Eve in the Garden of Eden. “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor 11:3). When the immature Christians in Corinth cheerfully put up with “fools” in the form of false teachers, they were like Eve, falling for the lies of the devil.

Our world, and along with it, the Christian community of our time, have listened to many false teachers. Like the Corinthians, we have “suffered fools gladly,” but we have only proved ourselves to be fools ourselves. We have not been wise.

The doctrinal and moral errors which trouble us are not simple mistakes which we can solve by debate, argument and controversy. They point to something deeply wrong in our fallen human nature. As Paul wrote elsewhere, “they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools....” (Rom 1:21-22).

Ash Wednesday is at hand, when we are solemnly reminded, “Remember, man, thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” Those terrifying words are reinforced with a grim ceremony, when our foreheads are disfigured with ashes. But almost always, someone will get the giggles seeing the entire congregation looking so funny. That is not altogether wrong or inappropriate. As we recall our mortality and the shortness of our earthly life, we should know ourselves to be the victims of a dirty trick, a horrible cosmic joke, in which we have been robbed by Satan of our original righteousness, our communion with our Creator, and the gift of eternal life.

Satan himself is the ultimate fool, because he wanted to be more powerful than God. In our unregenerate life we indeed put up with him and become foolish like him. May we turn more and more to Christ, who is our wisdom, our righteousness and our peace.

Sexagesima, Part I

These Pre-Lenten Sundays have unusually distinctive Collects. And in case you are not familiar with the term Collect, this word is the name for brief prayers which sum up or “collect” the private petitions of God's people; that is why there is or should be a slight pause between “Let us pray” and the Collect itself, to allow for the people to pray silently for a moment.

On Septuagesima and Sexagesima, the proper collects strike a solemn, almost sad, tone. Today we pray to be “defended from all adversity.” Last Sunday, we acknowledged that such “adversity” sometimes comes as the “just punishment for our offences.” Grim as they are, these two prayers (BCP pages 118 and 120) might well be read together as examples of authentic Christian prayer. Those who learn to pray this way are not instructing God, giving Him good advice, sharing information, or even telling Him how they feel or what they want. They are simply asking to be defended against all adversity and mercifully delivered by God's goodness.

These two collects are among the most ancient prayers in the Prayer Book. They seem to have been composed in the Sixth Century A. D., just after the fall of the Roman empire, at the time when heathen barbarians from northern Europe were moving aggressively into Italy, leaving disaster and destruction in their wake. Whereas the Church had enjoyed a measure of safety and security in the last days of the Roman empire, now the world seemed to be collapsing. It was a perilous time, marked by pestilence, famine and earthquake. “Adversity” was not just a word.

The parallels between that period and our own are striking. Like the Roman Christians of the Sixth Century, we also perceive that our inherited world order may well be slipping away. But here is the great difference: whereas the Christian community of the early Dark Ages understood matters in solidly Biblical terms of God's just judgment on a sinful world, modern Christians seem to have a knack for making excuses and finding others to blame. We point to the liberals (both religious and political), we denounce the secular culture, we find fault with almost everyone and everything other than ourselves.

The Scriptures tells us that Divine judgment begins with the house of God. We are not here to play; the service of God is serious business. We know what God will do with the wicked, but what is in store for the shallow and superficial? Are you ready for Lent?

Septuagesima, Part II

From ancient times a parable has been defined as “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” Jesus commonly taught by means of such stories. The parables always seem simple because they use familiar and ordinary things, such as vineyards and wages, employers and employees, hard work and idleness. But the “heavenly meaning” is usually elusive. The parables make sense only to those having minds renewed by the Holy Spirit. To non-Christians, they make no sense at all.

To unpack the parable in today's Gospel, we have here a series of symbols. The men of the market-place are lost mankind. The householder who invites them to labor in his vineyard is God, merciful and generous. The vineyard itself is God's kingdom, clearly set apart and distinct from the market-place. The repeated invitation into the vineyard, given early in the morning, again at the third hour, the sixth hour, even at the ninth and eleventh hours, reflects the persistence of God in His incessant offer of the Gospel. The pay-out of wages at the end of the day points to the last judgment. And the wage itself?

At this point we seem to run into trouble. It all seems so very unfair. Anyone familiar with common business practices in ancient times or now will immediately understand the point of the objection, “These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.”

This parable, centering around this complaint, is all about God's sovereign grace, His unmerited love, His baffling generosity. Tragically we have attempted to domesticate and subdue that Gospel with the silly notion that “God helps those who helps themselves,” that He simply makes us an offer and awaits our cooperation. The most dangerous substitute for the Gospel is the devil's lie that God wants us to do our best and when we fail He will somehow step in and help us out.

Grace, symbolized in the wages paid to the eleventh hour workers, will forever be illogical, senseless, unfair to the unregenerate mind. That is why the hymn-writers so frequently describe grace as “amazing.”

The griping ingrates who complain against the householder feel that somehow they have been cheated or ill-treated. What escapes them is that the householder is generous to all, at no loss to them, but only at great expense to himself. That is the price paid for us on the Cross. That infinite price entitles the householder to say, “Many be called but few chosen.” May He never say to us, “Take that thine is, and go thy way,” for that is the way which leads to perdition.

Septuagesima, Part I

In ancient times, this was the Sunday when adult converts were enrolled for Baptismal instruction. Easter itself was the occasion for Baptism; Lent was primarily a period of instruction for new converts. That bit of background sheds light on the Epistle and Gospel appointed for this “Third Sunday before Lent.”

In today's readings we have the Christian life compared to (1) running a race, (2) toiling in a vineyard, and (3) receiving a reward. C. S. Lewis has written in the Screwtape Letters of the “Law of Undulation” in the spiritual life. At times the life of faith is like running a race, but mostly it is just toiling in a hot vineyard. But to concentrate on the reward, the parable makes it quite clear that the reward which God bestows on the Christian is absolutely a matter of His sovereign grace. The householder is not in the least reluctant to appear inconsistent, arbitrary, even unfair. “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?” The whining complaints of those who have labored the entire day miss the point that the householder is, above all, generous. He has graciously made a place in his vineyard for the laggards who have wasted the day in the market-place.

The whole idea of grace has all too often been trivialized into a tawdry secular notion of “unconditional love.” That understanding of grace (really a misunderstanding) would rewrite the parable to say that the householder forgets his vineyard, joins the laggards in the market-place, and at the end of the day divides his entire fortune with them. A false gospel which promises everything and requires nothing will quickly have a large audience; churches which proclaim such a message will always have full parking lots.

In today's Epistle we hear one of St. Paul's most solemn statements: “lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” Those are words which must make us stop and think! The great apostle himself seems to contemplate a possibility of losing his own soul. That was the real danger, not just for those left behind in the market-place (how many were there whom the householder did not invite?) but even for those who “have borne the burden and heat of the day.” Those whining ingrates are the Biblical paradigm for zealous Churchmen who never learn the Good News of Unmerited Grace. The petty rules of “I demand what I deserve” are left behind when we leave the market-place for the vineyard, where we are mercifully saved from our own just deserts.

As we approach Lent with its blessings and its demands, the Householder Himself comes to us, inviting us to leave the market-place of our spiritual sloth and come into His vineyard. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Are you one of the many, or the few?

The Last Sunday After Epiphany

Today would not be quite complete if we did not sing Hymn 54, marked in our Hymnal “for the last Sunday after Epiphany.” This hymn reflects a fine point of sound liturgical usage and perhaps a bit of unpacking may be helpful in our enjoyment of the hymn. As St. Paul says, “I will sing with the Spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”

The liturgical point is that from Septuagesima Sunday (which comes a week from today) until Easter Day, the Greek word “Alleluia” is not heard in the worship of the Church. That word, in Hebrew “Hallelujah,” meaning “Praise ye the LORD,” is our ultimate exclamation of joy. It expresses the joy unique to Easter, Resurrection-joy. The word is so joyful that we have never quite accepted a translation, but kept it in its Hebrew or Greek forms.

In Mediaeval worship, there was a little ceremony of “saying farewell to Alle-luia” on this final Sunday of the Epiphany Season. Therefore this lovely hymn was written. In the first Stanza, a contrast is drawn between the worship of the Church in heaven, “the choirs on high,” where “Alleluia” is sung forever without interruption. But we are not in heaven yet, so our worship cannot realistically maintain this tone of elation. (Don't people who are “happy all the time” get on your nerves?)

For the time being (that is all our time here on earth), we are still sinners. By God's gracious justification, we are “simul iusti et peccatores,” righteous and sinful at the very same time. But Lent, beginning on February 17, calls us to face with courage the fact of our continuing sinfulness even in our justified state. The third stanza of our hymn states, “For the holy time is coming Bidding us our sins deplore.” That “time” is, of course, the holy season of Lent.

Stanza two plays on a contrast between Jerusalem and Babylon. Jerusalem is the true home of God's people, Babylon is the place of our exile, the exile brought about by our habitual sinfulness. But in a larger sense, Jerusalem is our heavenly city, our home of eternal destiny, and Babylon is the fallen and corrupt world in which we live. As Psalm 137 reminds us, we cannot “sing the Lord's song in a strange land.”

So do not think it odd or peculiar that we refrain from singing “Alleluia” during that portion of the year when we recall that we still live in “the strange land” of our sinful existence. Instead, rejoice that for most of the year, from every Easter until the next Septuagesima, God mercifully permits us to sing the “songs of Sion” in our earthly worship. “Grant us, blessed Trinity, at the last to keep thine Easter in our home beyond the sky.” Septuagesima and Lent are painfully typical of “this present evil age,” but Easter, Ascensiontide and Pentecost are the promise and down-payment of the world to come.

Epiphany III

Following the visit of the Gentile Magi and the Baptism in the Jordan River, the miracle at the Cana marriage feast is the third manifestation of the God-Man in the Church's liturgical celebration. To many commentators, this seems to be a miracle almost unique, in that it does not serve any critical human need. Other miracles of Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, raised the dead. But this miracle merely saved an ordinary family from social embarrassment. Is this situation, with no-one sick, hungry, or dead, too prosaic to warrant Divine intervention? Recalling a wedding in my own experience when the caterer almost failed to appear, surely the Cana wine shortage cried out for God's help. No human need is beneath God's compassionate attention.

As St. John relates the event, the miracle seems almost like a parable in the constellation of symbols. The wedding itself recalls God's marriage covenant to Israel and Our Saviour's taking the Church for His bride. The transformation of water into wine reminds us of the Old Testament, with its types and shadows, giving place to the New Testament, in which the Word is made flesh. From another perspective it symbolizes sinners' being made into saints. Even the number of water-jars seems significant: six (as in the Days of Creation) frequently bespeaks incompleteness, just falling short of the mystical seven. And the presence of the Blessed Mother (not seen again in John until she stands at the foot of the Cross) is not without great importance. Both times Jesus addressed her as “Woman,” echoing Gen. 3:15, naming her as the New Eve, “mother of all living.”

At bottom, this episode is important because John tells us this was “the beginning of miracles.” The first half of the fourth Gospel is organized around an ascending series of six (that number again!) miracles. These form a crescendo of intensity and power, with the climax in the raising of Lazarus from the dead. John takes us from the gift of new and better wine to the restoration of life to a stinking corpse (his symbol for lost sinners). The seventh miracle, of course, is the resurrection of Jesus Himself.

The response to the miracles progresses in a counter-direction. The wine of Cana aroused pleasure and delight. “Thou hast kept the good wine until now.” But the succeeding miracles triggered growing animosity. The beneficiary of one miracle, the lame man of John 5, himself became a betrayer of Jesus. The hostility of sinners, like the power of God, found its climax in the desperation of the Jews: “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs” (John 11:47). We know the resolution of that quandary.

So John's magnificent Gospel carries us from “the beginning of signs” to “many signs.” The greatest sign, surely, still continues in the healed and transformed lives of all whom He encounters.

Epiphany I, Part II

Both Christmas and Epiphany celebrate the same event and same truth, but the difference in which the two great holy days are observed is painful. Christmas has become a popular secular holiday, whereas Epiphany (in spite of the slang use of the word itself) is barely known. In churches Christmas is celebrated with much ado. Congregations are filled and God is worshiped gloriously with our finest music and best liturgy. Epiphany is celebrated, if at all, with the plainest of plain services and tiny congregations. For Christmas we decorate our churches and our homes, making them beautiful for the Infant King. At Epiphany we take those decorations down and pack them away. Joy gives way to gloom, in the wretched cold of January. Now which observance is more like the Event itself?

Theologians speak of Christ in His two states, the state of His humiliation and of His exaltation. God's self-exhibition was first of all a revelation of His humility. It may seem rash to speak of “the humility of God,” but it is necessary to remember that His coming to earth was not an interlude, a change of plan, a deviation from the script. The babe visited by the shepherds, the young child worshiped by the wise men, the precocious boy who startled the teachers of the law, all were manifestations of God as He truly is.

St Paul wrote (1 Cor. 1:27-29), “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, God hath chosen the weak things in the world to confound the things that are mighty, and base things of the world hath God chosen, yea things which are not, to bring to nought things that are, so that no flesh should glory in his presence.” Of course the Apostle was describing his Corinthians converts and the methods by which they had been won for Christ: foolish, weak, base. But the humility of the Infant Church was firmly grounded in the humility of God Incarnate in Jesus Christ.

“That no flesh should glory!” The Gospel makes sense only to those who remember why it was necessary in the first place. The original and most enduring sin was the pride of Adam and Eve, who aspired to be equal with God, “knowing” (that is, determining for themselves) “good and evil.” Their offspring can be saved only by a drastic event of humiliation, a radical leveling of our pride. A desperate situation required a Divine intervention.

The shepherds, the wise men, the doctors in the Temple, have one thing in common with us. Left to our own devices, they and we knew very little of what God is like. But in Jesus Christ we have seen God face to face. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” And as we see Him clearly, our sin is exposed, our pride is levelled, and our boasting is put to silence.

Epiphany I, Part I

After the Feast itself of the Epiphany we have a season of varying length, which can be as short as one Sunday or as long as six. The Gospels appointed for these Sundays all maintain the theme of “manifestation” in one way or another. Today's Gospel presents Jesus as a mere boy (at an age when boys can be difficult to live with) speaking of “my Father,” and revealing Himself as God's Son. On Epiphany II we read of His Baptism, when the heavenly voice declared, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Then comes Epiphany III, the lovely account of the miracle at Cana's marriage feast which simultaneously saved a poor family from social disgrace and manifested Jesus as the One to bring a new marriage bond between God and His people. On Epiphany IV, Jesus manifests Himself as the One who heals, and then reiterates the theme of Epiphany Day itself, the welcome of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God. Epiphany V shows a simple manifestation through teaching. Epiphany VI describes the “Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” The ultimate manifestation of God Incarnate yet remains to be seen, but the Gospel promise is that He will indeed make Himself visible to all the world.

Epiphany VI has a thrilling Epistle reading, which contains the verse, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him.” This speaks of the renewal of the Image of God in us, damaged by sin but reconstituted in sanctification. So at the End, His manifestation is our manifestation; His Epiphany becomes our epiphany as well. Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror in heaven! What a make-over, what a face-lift that will be! You will look like Jesus, as the Image of God has been restored.

In the early Epiphany Sundays we have a series of readings from Romans 12 and 13. These readings all describe the morality of the Christian lifestyle. These are impressive in their very simplicity. No painful moral dilemmas, no impossible commandments, just a series of suggestions. But the key to the entire two chapters is in one exceedingly demanding verse: “And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Not conformed, but transformed! The message of Jesus, God Incarnate, is not for the self-satisfied but for those who are willing to be changed, made over, rehabilitated. If you like yourself the way you are, the Gospel is not for you, for the Gospel is all about internal and external change. And that, again, is God's ultimate and greatest self-disclosure.

The Epiphany

Because we celebrate the Birth of our Saviour on Dec. 25 and His Manifestation (that's what the word epiphany means) on Jan. 6, we might be tempted to think that His birth and His self-disclosure were two different events. His birth, in fact, was the beginning of Jesus' self-revelation as God in the flesh. The Epistle we read on Christmas Eve makes this clear, with Paul's ringing words, “the grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” That verb “appeared” in the Greek is precisely the word from which “Epiphany” is derived.

It is fascinating to observe how the vocabulary of Holy Mother Church is borrowed, and promptly corrupted, into the secular language. All sorts of people nowadays who know nothing and care less about our holy days are nattering mindlessly about epiphanies. As non-Christians throw around a trendy word, it seems to mean a flash of insight or a surprising new idea. It originates purely and strictly in the human consciousness.

But as the Bible uses the word “appeared” or “epiphany,” it is a far greater thing. When the Wise Men saw the star, they discerned a new flash of light from the skies, as far away from them as it was unexpected by them. When the shepherds were startled by the glory of the Lord shining round about them, they did not congratulate themselves for having a new idea. When Isaiah wrote “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,” he did not mean that they remembered to bring their flash lights.

When God became man at Bethlehem, to be wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, something totally new occurred, something which had never been anticipated or precisely foreseen. For all the prophecies of Jesus which fill the pages of the Old Testament, never had it been revealed that the eternal Word would become flesh. That was not a human idea at all; such a thing had not even been revealed in advance. An enfleshment of the incorporeal God (“without body, parts or passions”) was unthinkable, to devout Jews, to sophisticated Greeks, to cultivated Romans alike.

The Incarnation, also known as the Epiphany of God in Jesus Christ, puts the whole human race into the predicament of Job, who was finally compelled to say, “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” Job did not claim to have suddenly stumbled on a new idea; he has seen God Himself! When we see in the mysteries of Christmas and Epiphany God Himself made flesh, we are reminded that Lent is not far off. So with Job let us say, “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” As He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, the Gospel story quickly tells us how He was wrapped in a shroud and laid in a tomb. That also is an epiphany we would never have arrived at on our own.

The Third Sunday in Advent, Part II

During these final two Sundays of Advent the liturgy features the odd and unfriendly person known as St. John Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, who was born just six months before him. Although he is narrated in the New Testament Gospel, this man was the last of the Old Testament prophets. In this “goodly fellowship of the prophets,” he was the only prophet actually to see Jesus face to face. The One Whom Isaiah and all the other Old Testament figures saw only by faith, John was permitted to see right in front of him.

The message of John is summed up in the words, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The expression “kingdom of heaven” means the active reign of God. The word “kingdom” sounds like a political institution or territorial entity; the phrase is better translated “kingship of God.” John's message was simply that God, who rightly claims rule in His creation, can no longer be defied or challenged, since He is about to re-assert His royal authority in the world He made.

Almost at the beginning of history, our earliest ancestors set out to overthrow God and remove Him from His throne. That was the original sin; that is still the essence of all sin. But John announced that in Jesus Christ, the “Lamb of God,” God was about to gain the upper hand and resume control of His world. That was to be His “kingdom.”

John says this kingdom “is at hand.” That expression puzzles us. Did he mean the kingdom has already arrived, was shortly to arrive, or would arrive sometime in the future?

All three of these answers are correct. Because Jesus was physically standing in the middle of the crowd listening to John, the reign of God had already commenced. His perfect obedience and sinlessness showed that the victory over evil was already underway. But very soon, in just three years, that perfect obedience would bring Jesus to His cross and to His empty tomb. That was the decisive victory which proved and made sure that the old kingdom of sin and Satan was overthrown forever.

But the final victory, when Jesus will hand over the kingdom to His Father, will not come until the end of history. This good news of God's reign is summed up in the words, “Already, but Not Yet.” We live between two points of time, the coming of the kingdom in the life of Jesus on earth, and its perfection when He shall come again. And as we look forward to that arrival, John's message to us is simply to “repent,” to change our minds and and to change our lives so that we may be ready for Him when He comes in His glory.

The Third Sunday in Advent, Part I

Of all the praiseworthy characters of the Bible, the one whose company we would enjoy least is St John Baptist. He is not the sort of person we would wish to have as a dinner guest or as a fellow traveler on a cruise. But he is the saint who features prominently in the liturgy of the last two Sundays of Advent. And if the Baptist does not appeal to us, our Lord paid him the highest of all possible compliments: “Truly I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matt 11:11).

John was great because he was the last in the long succession of Old Testament prophets “which have been since the world began.” But John was the only one to see Jesus Himself. The Son of God was seen by Abraham, Moses, Isaiah and all the rest in a visionary way. John was privileged to see Him in the flesh.

John's prophetic ministry was threefold, as it related to (1) Jesus Himself, (2) Herod Antipas, and (3) the chosen people Israel living in A.D. 27—30. As far as Jesus is concerned, it was John's privilege to baptize Him and to announce Him publicly. “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world .... He must increase and I must decrease.”

As for Herod Antipas (son of the Herod who tried to murder the Christ Child), John's preaching was distinctly controversial and provocative. John publicly denounced this Herod for his immoral life—casting aside one wife to marry another who was the wife of his brother. For that sermon, John lost his life, and probably most Christians today would be in firm agreement with the Herod family that preachers should not meddle into such things. And if we and Herod are in agreement, we must be in disagreement with Jesus.

But John's sternest words were directed to the huge multitude which went out to hear him preaching on the banks of the Jordan. “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?......Now is the axe laid to the root of the trees.” The expression “generation of vipers” is probably an allusion to the “seed of the serpent” in Genesis 3:15, the reprobate race perpetually at enmity with the “Seed of the Woman.” So the last great voice of Old Testament prophecy echoes the earliest expression of the Gospel, the Protevangelium.

In addition to pointing out the actual presence of the Messiah, John preached the necessity for repentance, the moral house-cleaning which is imperative as the Lord approaches. As we contemplate John in the Advent liturgy, we face the question: What would John have to say to us?

The Second Sunday in Advent, Part II

Owing to its splendid Proper Collect, this second Sunday in Advent has come to be known as “Bible Sunday,” While most Collects are more ancient, this one was an original composition by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the compiler of the first Prayer Book of 1549. It was based on the opening text of today's Epistle: “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.” Advent is a good time to form a New Year's resolution to read the Bible more diligently. So we will learn the truth, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

But the original significance of this Sunday, as set forth in the appointed Gospel, is rather different. The message of Christ's final coming at the end of history is ratcheted up to a louder volume. “And then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” This takes place in a context of distress of nations, with men's hearts failing them for fear. Christ will not come into a serene or perfect world, but into the final catastrophe brought down by the tragedy of sin.

The almost final verse of today's Gospel is puzzling: “This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” Many have concluded that either Jesus or the Gospel-writer was flatly mistaken, as the final coming in glory did not take place within that narrow time-frame. But this text makes excellent sense if we understand the principle of double fulfilment, so frequently the case with Biblical prophecy. If we open our Bibles, and read the preceding verses, not printed in our Prayer Books, we see instantly that Jesus was predicting first of all the destruction of Jerusalem, which indeed occurred in A.D. 70 at the hands of the Romans. “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near” (Lk 21:20). This Roman devastation took place, exactly as Jesus said it would, within the life span of His audience. But what becomes clear on reflection is that the catastrophe of A.D. 70 turns out to be a foreshadowing of future events on a far greater scale. As the history of Israel ended in catastrophe, all earthly history will end in tragedy. The “generation” ultimately is the whole body of those elect who are His t people through “regeneration.” This “blessed company of all faithful people” will not pass away: the Church of Jesus Christ, no matter how battered and reduced by the bruises of history, will not disappear from the scene before Jesus comes again.

As Jerusalem was surrounded by Roman armies nearly 2,000 years ago, so our Jerusalem is encircled by hostile forces, neo-pagan culture, moral chaos, and militant unbelief. So Christ's message still remains: “Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” This Gospel of hope is no easy or comfortable religion, but a message of victory which defies all evidence.

The Second Sunday in Advent, part I

Among the glories of our beloved Prayer Book are those short pithy prayers which we know as the “Collect for the Day.” Every Sunday and Holy Day of the year has its own Collect, Epistle and Gospel; these are known as “the propers” of the particular day. These are very ancient. They mostly antedate the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Many of these “propers” go right back to the early centuries of the Church.

But upon occasion Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who compiled the first edition of our Prayer Book in 1549, wrote an original Collect. This is the case with the slightly unusual Collects we have on the first two Sundays of Advent. These two special prayers are among the most striking and moving petitions of all devotional literature.

The Collect for Advent I plays on a subtle contrast between “now in the time of this mortal life” and “the last day, when he shall come again.” This reinforces the major theme of Advent, “the night is far spent, the day is at hand.” This Collect reminds us that whether the final coming of our Saviour is ten thousand years into the future or within the next five minutes, that coming is the great event which really dominates all time between His ascension and the end of the world. We might be tempted to say it “overshadows” all earthly history. But on the contrary, it is the event which breaks apart the clouds of our sin and pours out God's dazzling light. So the present time in which we live is already the time of God's reign.

The Collect for Advent II reflects the resurgence of interest in the Bible which took place in Archbishop Cranmer's time. Although the Scriptures had always been studied and carefully preserved in the Church, both the invention of printing and new translations had made the Bible more accessible. The king whom Cranmer served, Henry VIII, is infamous for his six wives and generally wicked reign. But Henry made one lasting positive contribution to our Church when he commanded that every parish church in the realm of England have a large folio Bible installed for the use of the clergy and people. To this day that is a prominent feature of our Anglican churches, not usually seen elsewhere.

There are many spiritual tragedies in our time. But all, without exception, are rooted in the Church's neglect of the Bible, in our preaching, teaching, and devotional life. The petition that we “hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,” should be as urgent as any prayer we pray.

The First Sunday in Advent

It is still four weeks away when people will be saying, “Happy New Year,” eating hoppin' john, and getting used to writing 2010 when they date a check. But in the kalendar of Holy Mother Church, today is New Year's Day, when we flip back to page 90 in the Collects, Epistles and Gospels and start all over in the Church's Year of Grace.

Advent means Arrival and prepares our hearts and souls for the coming of our dear Lord at His birthday on December 25. But it accomplishes this not by a sentimental reminiscence of the first Christmas but through a sharp clear focus on His arrival at the end of time to take us to our eternal home. Advent reminds us that our faith leads us into the future when “He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead.” That was the promise which the angels made to the apostles as they watched Jesus ascend: “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

If we dismiss this glorious promise as an irrelevancy, then we need this season. Advent is like an alarm clock, to rouse a sluggish church and a sleepy Christian. Today's Epistle from Romans 8 (echoed in our processional hymn, Hymn 9) almost screams at us: “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”

When we read the entire Gospel story of Jesus' coming—God's arrival on earth—from Bethlehem to Calvary to the Empty Tomb to Bethany, we notice how sadly unprepared were the hearts of mankind. The Christian believer, on the other hand, must get busy, getting ready for Jesus to come again. “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

This world does not know the future and can only contemplate it with carelessness or with fear or some insane mixture of the two. But Christians happen to know how the story will turn out; we have already read the final chapter. So we look to the future with confidence, hope, and even with joy. Jesus is coming! That is our confidence, hope and joy.

During this penitential season, keep focused on Advent. Stay close to the Lord and be frequently at His altar. Then you will be ready for Christmas.

The Twenty-Third Sunday After Trinity, Part II

In today's reading from Matthew 22, we again see Our Divine Lord in contro-versy with His opponents. Running true to form, they attempted to entrap Him with a loaded question, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” If Jesus said “yes,” He could jeopardize His popularity with His Jewish following. If He said “no,” He would become a marked man with the Romans. It was a sneaky question, designed to make trouble. The Pharisees made sure some of the Herodians, a faction deeply sympathetic to the Romans, were on hand as witnesses.

The answer of Jesus was brilliant. “Render therefore under Caesar the thing's which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” Generally we take this simply as a commandment to obey our lawful government and pay its taxes. This text gets bandied around each year around April 15. It is a text widely known and quoted among people who know little about the Bible.

But there is more here than meets the eye. Whereas we pay our taxes to a government we acknowledge (perhaps grudgingly) as legitimate, the audience and followers of Jesus regarded the Roman government as conquerors, usurpers, tyrants holding no just authority. Many longed and prayed for a military strong-man who would lead a revolutionary war and drive the Romans out of their land. Many expected Jesus to become that leader. These folk paid their taxes grudgingly, but they did not consider it morally “lawful.”

So the question thrust upon Jesus by His opponents boils down to this: To what extent may a godly man obey an illegitimate or unjust government? This was reminiscent of the strange advice which Jeremiah gave his countrymen about 600 years earlier. “Submit to your Babylonian conquerors, even when they drag you off into exile, for they are God's just judgment on your sins.” A sound theology of judgment made Jeremiah into a political traitor to his people. Jesus shared virtually in the same dilemma.

For the time being, the people of God (now I am talking about us) live in two kingdoms: the reign of God in our hearts and in our personal behavior, and the political structures (which may be hellishly horrible and are never perfect) which Divine Judgment has placed over us. The first is the anticipation of eternity, the second is already passing away. We look forward to the time when “the kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our God, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11.15). But that is not yet.

The whole Biblical teaching is larger than what we have in this brief reading. The people of God may emphatically not “render unto Caesar” that which is not His. But Our Lord does teach us that “Caesar” even at His worst has legitimate demands upon us. The more urgent question here and now is whether we render unto God what truly belongs to God.

The Twenty-Third Sunday After Trinity, Part I

For the most part, our Prayer Book Epistles and Gospels are given in the “King James Version,” more accurately called the Authorized Version. We would not have it otherwise, since that version remains a great literary monument. But very occasionally the 1928 editors of the Prayer Book corrected a word, here or there. We have such an example in today's Epistle from Philippians. Where the KJV reads “Our conversation is in heaven,” the Prayer Book reads “Our citizenship is in heaven.”

Here we have a Greek word politeuma which is founds nowhere else in the New Testament. How the KJV got “conversation” out of this word is a long story which need not detain us here. But politeuma (a word related to “politics”) can be translated correctly either as “citizenship” or as “commonwealth.”

Within the Roman empire a politeuma referred to a colony of foreigners or relocated veterans. Think of a community of people with the same background, living together in a foreign country. Frequently the Roman emperors paid off their soldiers by given them grants of land in the conquered territories, which led to the creation of such communities. These “commonwealths” enjoyed special prestige and privilege in the Roman empire. Philippi itself was a politeuma.

If the Philippian Christians were tempted to take excessive pride in their political status or to find their security in an important earthly city, Paul was warning them and us that such gloating was a false hope.

Today's Gospel reminds us bluntly that Christians have a real obligation to support our earthly political systems, “Render unto Caesar...” But ultimately we belong to no earthly nation but to the Kingdom of God. When earthly political systems crumble (as the Roman empire surely did, as our own system may crumble before our very eyes), His reign remains secure.

To be a citizen is a great privilege. This was as true in St. Paul's time as in ours. A citizen has certain rights and can look to his government for protection. Paul's message in the use of this word is that we Christians enjoy amazing privileges as citizens of the Kingdom of God. We may trust in the protection of the King who has subdued us to Himself and now reigns over us and defends us. With sure confidence we may pray, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, “And grant us life that shall not end, in our true native land with thee.”