Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Keep A Song In Your Heart

 


The popular bandleader Lawrence Welk used to end his television show each week with a reminder to “keep a song in your heart.”     

Regularly reading and hearing God’s Word helps us to keep a song in our heart. But it seems like it is harder and harder to do in our culture and world today, with the chaos and clamor of dystopian dissonance ringing in our ears. The Psalms, and especially Psalm 137, can be of great help to us.

The context of Psalm 137 is the Babylonian Exile. After many years of idolatry and rebellion, God sent the prophets to call Israel back to the word and ways of the Lord. But Israel still strayed and disobeyed, and so Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, Zion was left in ruin and rubble, and the people were taken into exile to Babylon. 

“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept as we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps. Then our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded from us songs of joy. ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ But how can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?”

They were far from home, living in a foreign country, strangers in a strange land. Everything had changed. The future was dim for them. They had all but given up hope. The last thing on their mind was singing a song of joy.

There they were in Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers, longing for home, remembering Zion, hanging their harps on the poplar trees, without a song in their heart.

Or so it would seem. For though Psalm 137 is indeed about not having a song to sing, it still remains a song nonetheless. It is a song without a song - a vivid reminder of how important it is to ‘keep a song in your heart’. The psalm goes on ...

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.”

The promise and presence of the Lord God himself is what brought joy to his people at the temple in Jerusalem. And now, though all of that seems so far away, the psalmist still remembers and will not forget the Lord, even in the midst of pain and suffering and loss.

When Jesus came to his temple in Jerusalem, he was rejected by his own. On the cross, he was forsaken, abandoned, and alone. He was as far away from home as you can get. He was exiled from his Father for a time so we would never have to be. Even in the midst of our sin and separation. Even in the midst of our failure and our fear. Even when we don’t have a song to sing, Jesus comes to put a song in our heart. 

God may at times seem distant and appear remote and far off. But we know that, while weeping may endure for a night, joy comes in the morning. We can have the comfort and assurance in knowing that he is still here, in his Word, in the Sacraments, and with his people, the church. The God of the Bible still keeps his promises. He is the One who gives us a song to sing.

Keep a song in your heart!

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Monday, January 29, 2024

The Real World

 


In 1992, MTV came out with The Real World, the first reality show of the modern era. The tagline was “the true story of seven strangers picked to live in a house, and what happens when they stop being polite, and start getting real.”  I remember watching it once and thinking - this can’t be real. It’s all fake - it’s all made up.

Well, it was a success nonetheless, and we have been drowning in a deluge of reality shows ever since. From Survivor to the Amazing Race to the Bachelor to Love Island, these shows have essentially taken over the television and entertainment industry. And it’s not just Hollywood that has been dealing in the fake and phony in recent years. Fake news, fraudulent claims, and conspiracy theories abound today in all types of media, with social media and artificial intelligence leading the way.

People are left wondering, “What is true? What is real? Is there anything truly genuine and authentic?” It’s why we find ourselves in a meaning crisis in the West, defined and described by the likes of Jordan Peterson, John Vervaeke, Douglas Murray, and Tom Holland. People are left wondering where to turn when cultural and societal structures break down around them.  

Our country used to have a common story. It was basically Superman’s motto - Truth, Justice, and the American Way. But our culture doesn’t believe in absolute truth anymore. There’s no overarching narrative. That’s the result of postmodernism, where you have your truth, I have my truth, they have their truth, and somehow everything will work out in the end. But as the old “contradict” bumper sticker pointed out so well, all religions may be false, but they can’t all be true. In the end of this scenario, you're left with nothing. Nothing to believe in, no absolute truth, no sure and certain hope. 

The good news is that there is another story. The story of a God who loved this world he created so much that he came down himself to redeem it. A God who promises to someday set things straight and make things right, to make everything sad come untrue. To bring about what he originally intended for his creation - something good, true, and beautiful.   

In the meantime God gives his church a story that helps make sense of life. It gives meaning, purpose, and significance to all. It builds faith, grants forgiveness, & spreads peace, hope, and joy.

For God’s people, the ultimate reality is knowing Christ and making Him known. It is reading and hearing God’s Word. It is prayer and meditation. It is confession and absolution. It is the reception of God’s good gifts through the Means of Grace, the Word and Sacraments. It is eating and drinking Christ’s body and blood in and with the bread and wine in Holy Communion. It is gathering in worship and fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. It is the conversation and consolation of fellow believers. It is, in the words of the Apostles Creed, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. 

Welcome to the real world. 


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Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Surprised By Jack



As a child, I knew Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy. I knew Reepicheep, Puddleglum and Mr. Beaver. More importantly, I knew Aslan, the Lion King of Narnia. But I still didn't know Jack. It wasn’t until college when I stumbled upon a book in the library entitled, Surprised By Joy. That’s when I really got to know the creator of all of these characters, C. S. Lewis.


Surprised By Joy is known as Lewis’ spiritual autobiography, with the subtitle being, The Shape of My Early Life. He wrote it toward the end of his life in 1955, after most of his other books had been written. The title comes from a line by Wordsworth, “Surprised by joy - impatient as the wind.” It spoke to the desire and longing in Jack’s heart for something more in life, a sense of “joy.” 


Jack spent his early years living with his family in Belfast, Ireland. He had a happy and carefree childhood with his brother Warnie, until his mother died of cancer when he was nine years old. It was a traumatic loss and was compounded by his father’s own despair and melancholy. Unable to function after his wife’s death, Mr. Lewis sent the boys off to boarding school.  


Those were difficult years for the Lewis boys. After boarding school came college, and soon after, they were sent off to fight in World War One. The harshness of life and horrors of war led them away from God and the church. Jack later wrote that he was “very angry with God for not existing”.


Thankfully, “the harshness of God is kinder than the softness of men.” During this time, Jack was introduced to the writings of George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton, whose Christian worldviews influenced him without even knowing it. “A young man who wishes to remain atheist cannot be too careful of his reading”.


Back at Oxford after the war, one of the most important friendships of the century began when C.S. Lewis met J.R.R. Tolkien. Jack and Tollers (Tolkien’s nickname), as it turned out, had a lot in common. They were both English professors who shared a love of Norse mythology. They both had lost their mothers at an early age. They were both veterans who had fought and lost friends in the War. These experiences brought them together and strengthened their bonds of friendship and fellowship. They would go on to establish the writers group known as “The Inklings,” which met each week at a local pub to read and discuss their literary work.


After several years and many conversations with Tolkien and fellow Inklings, Jack became convinced in the existence of God and the claims of Christianity, and eventually returned to the joy of his childhood faith. The moment was far less emotional than he had expected. “It was more like when a man after a long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake”.


In Mere Christianity, Lewis talks about the deep desire he always had for something more, which nothing in this world could ever satisfy. He finally realized that it was because he was made for another world, the heavenly place where true joy could be found:


"But what, in conclusion, of joy? For that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about. To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian. I cannot complain, like Wordsworth, that the visionary gleam has passed away. I believe the old bittersweet stab has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life. But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. When we are lost in the woods, the sight of a signpost is a great matter. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we need not stop and stare. We would be at Jerusalem." 


This has been my experience as well, and why getting to know Jack by reading “Surprised By Joy” has meant so much to me. 


(Interestingly, Jack was surprised by joy in more ways than one. A year after publishing his autobiography, the self-proclaimed bachelor was married to an American writer. Her name? Joy.)


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Monday, September 11, 2023

Beren and Luthien



Once upon a time, a boy was born to a British couple living in South Africa. A few years later  the boy’s father died, and the mother moved back to England with her two sons. They lived with relatives out in the country, and the boy enjoyed roaming around the area, looking at all the flowers and studying the trees. He especially liked going to his aunt’s farm, which was called “Bag End.”


The boy began reading at an early age, and soon his mother was teaching him Latin, instilling in him a love of language that would last a lifetime. After an idyllic few years in the countryside, the mother died, and the boy and his brother had to face the future as orphans. Thankfully their mother left them in the care of a friend who was a priest, and he faithfully looked after them and brought them up in the church.


Young Ronald was a good student and continued in his pursuit of learning languages, even creating some languages of his own. Along with some of his friends, he created the T.C.B.S. - the Tea Club and Barrovian Society. They met to chat and drink tea in a nearby department store and (secretly) in the school library. This group was one of the predecessors to The Inklings of Oxford.


At the age of 16, Ronald met Edith, another orphan in need of affection. They soon fell in love, but were not allowed to date one another until he was 21. After a long five year wait, he proposed and they were married. Ronald later spoke of his admiration for Edith’s willingness to marry a man with no job, little money, and few prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War.  


The Great War, World War One, was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Some even called it the war to usher in the kingdom of heaven. But it didn’t quite work out that way. It was more like ushering in the kingdom of Mordor.


By this time you probably realize that young Ronald is none other than John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Tolkien’s experience in World War One was pivotal in his life in so many ways. I have written about that in a previous article, “I’m Glad You’re With Me”, which details his friendship with CS Lewis and the many life experiences that they shared.


https://www.1517.org/articles/im-glad-youre-with-me-tolkien-lewis-and-the-not-so-great-war


While back in England recuperating from trench fever, Tolkien began writing an improbable love story between a man named Beren and an elf named Luthien. Together they took on the evil of Morgoth and triumphed against overwhelming odds. Their relationship would be the cornerstone, “the kernel of the mythology, of Tolkien’s prodigious work in Middle Earth. It is the basis for the later story of Aragorn and Arwen found in the Lord of the Rings. 


If you ever find yourself in Oxford at the Wolvercote cemetery where Ronald and Edith are buried, you will see the names engraved in stone, Beren and Luthien. It is a story of good and evil, of faith overcoming fear, of love conquering hate. Ultimately it is the Christian story - God in Christ loving his bride so much he would endure anything to get her back. Pain, suffering, loss, death, even hell. There and back again.


As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Tolkien’s death this week, we thank God for his life and his work. For by it we see more clearly the beauty and evil of this world, that there are good things still worth fighting for, and that we need each other as we await the return of the King.


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Thursday, July 6, 2023

fields of gold


Fields of gold as far as the eye can see. That’s the first thing my brother and I noticed last month after renting a car in Frankfurt and hopping on the autobahn. Fields of gold as far as the eye can see. Germany has many wonderful things to offer travelers, such as gardens, palaces, castles, and cathedrals. But on this particular week in late spring, it turned out to be millions and millions of yellow flowers. (They are harvested and used in the making of canola oil). Everyone told us that we came at the perfect time, and after one drive through the German countryside, we heartily agreed.


We were there to see relatives and to tour the Luther Lands, areas which had been closed off to us in previous years. My family and I had lived in Northern Germany in the late 70’s when East Germany was still verboten for Western visitors. Since we were unable to see the Lands of Luther back then, we were very much looking forward to finally visiting these historic sites.


We were able to stay several days in Wittenberg, and it definitely did not disappoint. From the Castle Church to the City Church and everything in between - Luther’s house, Melanchthon’s house, Cranach’s house and studio, the Wittenberg 360 museum, the Marktplatz. Later we were also able to visit Erfurt, Eisenach, and the Wartburg Castle. There is so much to see and learn.


500 years later, it’s plain to see how Luther’s impact and influence went far beyond the church and extended into politics, business, economics, philosophy, language, education, and technology, But at the center of the Reformation was Luther’s rediscovery of the Gospel - the good news message that we are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Justification by grace through faith, the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls, still forms and informs what we believe today.      


As pastors, we were of course engrossed and engaged by the history and theology of the lands of Luther, but what really entranced and enchanted us this trip was the natural beauty of the landscapes and the countryside that surrounded us. It reminded us that, while a cross and heart are at the center of Luther’s Seal, they are set in the midst of a white rose, and encircled by a golden ring. A sign and symbol of the new creation. A brief yet beautiful glimpse of eternity. Fields of gold as far as the eye can see.


“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him." - 1 Cor. 2:9

"Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in books alone, but in every leaf of spring.”  - Martin Luther


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Tuesday, February 7, 2023

the white rose



The Christian life begins and ends with a promise. It begins with the words, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It ends with, "I will be with you always, to the very end of the age."


As we embark upon the Christian life this Epiphany season, we do so with the promise, presence, and peace of mind that the Almighty and All-powerful God of all creation is also our God. He is Yahweh Immanuel, God with us and God for us. He is the God who makes promises and keeps them. He is the God who loves us and cares for us and is never going to let us go. He is the God who, by grace through faith in his Son, makes us his baptized, beloved, blood-bought believers.


Hans and Sophie Scholl were young Lutheran university students in Munich who were growing up in the midst of Nazi Germany. As teenagers in the 1930’s, things seemed to be going pretty well. They were members of youth organizations that promoted health, citizenship, and the great outdoors. But through a series of events they began to get wise to what was really going on. And in 1942, along with some of their Christian friends, they created the Resistance of the White Rose. They got together to share information, promote freedom, and to warn people of what was to come.


They wrote, published, and sent out leaflets - first in Munich, then in Bavaria, and eventually all over Germany. They were quite creative with their efforts and were successful in getting their message out. But they were finally caught in the act while dropping leaflets from a second floor balcony at the University of Berlin. They were arrested, charged, and sentenced to death.


What courage and commitment young Hans and Sophie displayed in the face of great evil. What was behind it all? What gave them such strength and resilience? No one knows exactly why they named their group “The White Rose.” But I have a pretty good idea. Hans and Sophie were baptized Lutheran Christians, and they no doubt knew about Luther’s seal, or Luther’s rose.


Here is how Luther himself explained it …


There is a black cross in a heart that remains its natural color red. This is to remind us that it is faith in the Crucified One that saves us. Anyone who believes from the heart will be justified. It is a black cross, which mortifies and causes pain, but it leaves the heart its natural color. It doesn’t destroy us, it does not kill us but keeps us alive, for the just shall live by faith in the Son of God.  The heart should stand in the middle of a white rose. This is to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace. It puts the believer into a white, pure, and joyous rose. Faith does not give peace and joy like the world gives. This is why the rose must be white and not red. White is the color of the spirits and the angels. This white rose should stand in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that a joyful spirit and faith is a beginning of heavenly joy, which begins now, but is grasped in hope, not yet fully revealed. Around the field of blue is a golden ring to symbolize that blessedness in heaven lasts forever and has no end. Heavenly blessedness is exquisite, beyond all earthly joy and better than any temporal possessions, as gold is the most valuable of all precious metals.


As baptized believers by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, Hans and Sophie had a promise and a peace and a presence that was always with them no matter what. We too are God’s baptized, beloved, blood-bought believers. And no one can ever take that away from us. 



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Tuesday, November 1, 2022

visible and invisible





It's Halloween season.


The time when people think of and imagine invisible things like ghosts and ghouls and goblins.

What do you think of when you think of invisible things?

Rich Mullins was a singer, songwriter, and poet of my generation. Here is what he thought of -

"There are invisible things. Like the light behind the earth that casts a shadow that we call night, like the sap that runs with life in the veins of trees that we think are dead, like the silence behind all the noise.

Like the great beyond, too great to be fit into the lenses of our high-powered telescopes. Like the atmosphere for birds, the ocean for fish, too present to be discovered, which we are a part of, and apart from which we cannot have life. Invisible things.

Things cut off from our senses - like Eden barred from our first ancestors - guarded, hedged in, kept away. The Spirit, the angels, the hidden realm, the secret kingdom, God's hidden work and his mysterious ways. The things we dream of and imagine we remember, things we yearn for and curse and deny and yet hope for in spite of ourselves. As if a part of our true selves belonged to a real world and not the one our lesser selves have settled for and surrendered to ... or would surrender to if not for the persistence of those invisible things.

The things the visible world points to and grasps at, but cannot quite reach, cannot quite escape. And just when our smug, agnostic selves settle into some comfortable, manageable despair, something goes bump in the night, something hums in our hearts and sweeps us up out of the numbness and into a great longing, the unquenchable hope that we would just as well live without, if only life was possible without invisible things."  (Release Magazine, 1994)

In the creed we confess, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” In this secular world of naturalism and materialism, many people think that the only things that are real are the things that you can see and hear and touch. There are no spiritual or supernatural powers at work, only natural, only what you can see and experience around you. This leads to some bad ideas and even worse consequences. Like the idea that you've only got one crack at this thing, only one go-around, so you better look out for #1 and go for the gusto and get yours while the gettin' is good. So what if you have to knock off a few people along the way, you know, crack a few eggs to make the omelet. Hey, that's life, because you only live once, right? 

But if we are only living in a natural material world where we're just fighting to survive, there is no concept of God and what it means to live in God's good creation, let alone the new creation that is to come. There is so much more to this life than just what we can see, taste, and touch - what we can collect, earn, accumulate, and put in our bank account. We need a better idea, a better image.

Paul says in Colossians 1 that "the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created - things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

The image of the invisible God. The original icon, the eternal logos, the creator of the cosmos, the one who came from beyond the great beyond. The Incarnate One, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and in whom all things hold together. All things. That includes invisible things, like goodness, truth, beauty, and love. In him we see what love really is and where it comes from - the very heart of God. For God so loved the world, that he sent his one and only Son, for you, for me, for all. 

Rich Mullins could have had it all. He was on his way to being the #1 recording artist in Christian music. But the invisible things of God kept gnawing away at him. So he left his status and celebrity and went back to school for a music degree, and then on to New Mexico to live on a reservation so he could teach music to children and share God's love with them. 

Some say Christians are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good. But the opposite is actually worse - to be so earthly minded that you are no heavenly good. 

"Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.'  (Col. 3)


We thank God for all that we see - all the visible things our senses can perceive. But we thank God most of all for His Son, without whom we would be deaf, dumb, and blind to the invisible things of this world and the world to come. For God, who said, 'let light shine out of darkness,'has made his light to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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