The Internet Monk Archives

Sermon: Epiphany III – What Is It About Jesus?

SERMON: What Is It About Jesus?

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the lake, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

‘Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.’

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

• Matthew 4:12-23

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What is it about Jesus?

What is it about him, that when he walks by, people pay attention? What is so attractive about this itinerant rabbi that people like Simon Peter and Andrew, hard-working brothers in a family business, will stop right in the middle of their work day, come ashore and leave it all behind to follow him? Why would James and John drop their nets, abandon the boat, and leave their father in the lurch to take off after Jesus? (I’ve always thought that was a bit unfair to Papa Zebedee.)

What is it about Jesus?

Why do people like you and me come to this place every week? Why have people gathered together around here since the mid-1830’s to pray and sing, to hear sermons from the Bible, to take communion together? Why have generations of people brought their babies to be baptized and raised their children in confirmation classes here? Why has this congregation continued, generation after generation, to serve its neighbors? It has something to do with Jesus, who is pictured right behind me here as a shepherd tending his flock, whose name we invoke constantly throughout our service, whose body and blood we receive each Sunday.

But what is it about him? What is it about Jesus that inspires such devotion, that brings about such faithfulness and loyalty?

Why am I here this morning? Why, more than forty years ago, did I embark on a journey of faith and pursue a vocation of ministry? Why did a young man like me, a senior in high school, become attracted to a church and a youth group and a youth choir and to studying the Bible? Why did I walk forward in response to an invitation one Sunday morning and profess a renewed faith and a desire to follow Jesus? Why did I then go to Bible college and afterwards begin preaching in the hills of Vermont in a little white church where they rang the bell on Sunday morning — a church even older than this one, where people had been coming to worship since 1814?

After that, we moved to Chicago so I could attend seminary. There I became pastor of another church as our family grew and learned what it meant to follow Jesus together. Then it was on to the Indianapolis area, where we kept on trying to serve churches in Jesus’ name. Gail and I even took mission trips around the world to places like India where we sang and preached and did medical work so that young people there would hear about Jesus. Now, as a hospice chaplain, it is my calling to go into homes where people are dying all around Indianapolis, sharing the comfort and hope of Jesus’ love.

What is it about Jesus that would make a person like me choose a life like that?

Each one of you has a story too, a story of what Jesus means to you. You might not be able to put it into fancy words, but you know Jesus has called you to follow him, and there was a time in your life when, like Simon Peter and Andrew, like James and John, you discovered that following him was your calling. It may not have been so dramatic as their decision to drop their nets and say goodbye to dad right in the middle of the work day, but here you are, however long it’s been, and you are still following.

Why? What is it about Jesus?

Our Gospel this morning says that Jesus was like a light in the midst of darkness. It says that people in his day, and especially in the place where he lived were sitting in darkness and in shadows so deep it seemed like death. Their land was occupied by foreign soldiers and ruled by a puppet king named Herod. God had promised that one day he would send his King, the Messiah, who would bring about peace, rescue them from oppression, and finally make things right, not only for them but also for this whole great big dark world in which they lived.

Many individuals and movements claimed to have the answer. Some, like the Zealots, led revolutionary movements that sought to use violent means to overthrow their enemies. Others, like the Pharisees, thought that leading a life of strict religious observance would get God’s attention and move God to miraculously intervene on his people’s behalf. Still others, like the Sadducees, took the route of trying to cooperate with the Romans, thinking that working within the system rather than against it would yield the best results.

In various ways, all these groups were trying to fight darkness with darkness. Violence wasn’t the answer. Meticulous religious practice wasn’t the answer. Politics wasn’t the answer.

Then Jesus came along. What was it about him? Well, our text says he was like the light of the sun rising to dispel the darkness.

It says he came with a different message, a message that caught people’s imagination. “Repent! for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!” The word “repent” here didn’t so much mean that Jesus was calling people to feel sorry for their sins. “Repent” means to turn around, to change your ways. He was calling them to do something new and different, something 180 degrees opposite of what they were doing, to give up all of the fruitless ways of fighting the darkness in which they were engaged.

Why should they change their ways? Because, Jesus said, God has come to rule. God was on the verge of fulfilling his promises. God is about to do what everyone has been waiting so long for God to do. And so, Jesus said, the appropriate response to that is not violence, nor withdrawing into a life of religious piety, nor trying to work the system to get what you can out of it.

Well, if those things aren’t the answer, what is? What should we do then? That’s when Jesus comes walking by, saying to us, “Follow ME.” We are to trust him, to spend time with him, to watch him and how he lives, to learn to do things his way. When we follow Jesus, the text says, we see him teaching, announcing Good News, and bringing healing to everyone he touches.

In other words, Jesus not only came with a different message, he came with a completely different mode of operation. Jesus comes and shows us it is all about the power of God’s Word and the power of God’s love. When people hear that Word and when people are touched by that love, they begin to experience the rule of God, the kingdom of God, in their own hearts and lives.

That’s what it is about Jesus. He’s all about a living in a different way than all the ways we commonly use to try and fight the darkness in our world. He’s about bringing a message of genuine hope. That message proclaims that God is really here, and he loves us, and he will make things right! Jesus is about a mode of operation that exhibits love, compassion, and kindness, that reaches out with compassion and helps the hurting. A way of living that brings healing and hope to all those who encounter it.

What is it about Jesus? It’s about truth, and grace, and most of all, love. Love that cared for people and gave so faithfully and completely that Jesus voluntarily took our darkness upon himself and died, before being raised into resurrection light.

This way of Jesus is what our world today needs too.

It has been many years since I have seen the people around me in our land so angry, so divided, so desperate to find ways out of the darkness. What our neighbors need to see in us — the followers of Jesus — is a group of people who refuse to resort to anger and violence, who will not succumb to the temptation to withdraw into our little world of religious piety, and who will not think that we can make things right by resorting to political compromise.

No, the call is clear. First, repent — that is, turn around and decide you are going to go a different way. Second, listen to Jesus when he says “Follow me!” Follow me into the light. Follow me as I lean on God’s Word and share it with others. Follow me as I lay down my life to heal and bless others.

That’s what it is about Jesus. May it also be said that that’s what it is about us. Amen.

Epiphany III: Pic & Cantata of the Week

(Click on picture to see larger image)

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EPIPHANY III

Bach Cantata BWV 72, “Everything according to God’s Will”

This is one of four Bach cantatas we have for the third Sunday after Epiphany. It emphasizes the believer’s effort to accept that God’s will is ultimately good, no matter how many dark passages it involves navigating.

The alto aria from this cantata that we present today is an earnest, delightful expression of childlike trust and commitment to follow Jesus, even through “the ways of thorns and roses.”

Mit allem, was ich hab und bin,
Will ich mich Jesu lassen,
Kann gleich mein schwacher Geist und Sinn
Des Höchsten Rat nicht fassen;
Er führe mich nur immer hin
Auf Dorn- und Rosenstraßen!With all that I have and am

I want to abandon myself to Jesus.
Although my weak spirit and mind cannot
grasp the counsel of the Highest,
may he always lead me along
the ways of thorns and roses!

Cantata text by Franck, von Brandenburg

The Internet Monk Saturday Brunch (1/21/17)

THE INTERNET MONK SATURDAY BRUNCH

”It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.”

There was a big to-do in Washington, D.C. yesterday. We’ll do our best to block it out of our minds and conversation today. I’d like to avoid indigestion and/or food fights if possible.

Ah, I see our loyal servant is bringing the fruit tray and coffee now. It’s time to indulge in some of the news and notes from this past week outside of Washington. Enjoy!

PASTOR AND . . . GARBAGE MAN?

When my son was little, he once told me when he grew up he wanted to be “an artist and a garbage man.” What else would you expect from a little boy who sat for hours by the picture window in the living room, drawing and coloring and watching the traffic on the street outside?

This week I heard the story of John Marboe. He is a Lutheran pastor who grew up admiring his local garbage collectors in Alexandria, Minn. And when times were lean for his family, he decided to take on some shifts hauling trash. What meaning does he find in this odd combination of trades?

I keep doing it because it’s, I don’t know if I want to say it’s more important but it’s differently important. You’re doing something for people, and I think especially I’m aware of that when it’s hot out, when it’s really smelly, when there are a lot of maggots. But as a garbage man, I probably know more about people on my route than their pastor does because their trash tells a story.

…it puts me in touch with that side of life which is about loss, that everything is temporary.

…And to do the trash, it’s sort of a reminder that every small thing that we ever do for other people is valuable, even though it might be really small and unnoticed.

Read or listen to “Trash Tells a Story” at NPR StoryCorps

ABORTION RATE AT NEW LOW

Jan Hoffman of the New York Times reports:

The rate of abortions performed in the United States has fallen lower than during any year since 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized the procedure, according to a new report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

The latest numbers, for 2014, continue a trend of declining abortion rates for most years since 1981.

In 2014, there were an estimated 926,200 abortions — a rate of 14.6 per 1,000 women of childbearing age (15 to 44) — compared with 1.06 million abortions in 2011, the year of the last Guttmacher report, or 16.9 per 1,000. In 1973, the year of the Roe v. Wade decision, the rate was 16.3. In 1981, the rate was 29.3.

Now for someone like me who does not support the practice of abortion (whether or not it should be legal and available is another question), this is both good news and bad. I have often expressed my opinion that those who are pro-life should focus first on reducing abortions by helping change certain conditions that cause people to choose the procedure. So, this continuing drop in the rate of abortions is unvarnished good news. On the other hand, I still find the idea of nearly a million abortions per year sad and unacceptable. It was not clear to me from reading the study how many of those abortions might have been considered medically necessary.

One of the biggest factors in the decline of abortions, the report suggests, was access to birth control.

Researchers suggested that increased use of long-term birth control, such as intrauterine devices and contraceptive implants, contributed to the most recent decline. In particular, the proportion of clients at federally funded family planning clinics who sought such methods increased to 11 percent in 2014 from 7 percent in 2011. Because women who rely on these clinics are disproportionately young and poor and account for a majority of unintended pregnancies, researchers said, even a moderate increase in reliance on these methods could have an effect on the abortion rate.

Read “Rate of U.S. Abortions Hits Lowest since Roe v. Wade” at the NY Times

DEPRESSED? YOU MAY WANT TO BLAME YOUR NEANDERTHAL ANCESTORS

According to geneticists, anywhere from 1-5% of the genome of modern Europeans and Asians may come from Neanderthal ancestors. It seems that around 50,000 years ago, when the ancestors of modern humans migrated out of Africa and into Eurasia, they encountered Neanderthals and, uh, took things to the next level. Those who stayed in Africa missed out on the Neanderthal tango (no Neanderthal DNA appears in present day Africans).

Dr. John Anthony Capra, an evolutionary genomics professor at Vanderbilt, has been trying to learn what a partial-Neanderthal heritage means for people today.

What we’ve been finding is that Neanderthal DNA has a subtle influence on risk for disease. It affects our immune system and how we respond to different immune challenges. It affects our skin. You’re slightly more prone to a condition where you can get scaly lesions after extreme sun exposure. There’s an increased risk for blood clots and tobacco addiction.

To our surprise, it appears that some Neanderthal DNA can increase the risk for depression; however, there are other Neanderthal bits that decrease the risk. Roughly 1 to 2 percent of one’s risk for depression is determined by Neanderthal DNA. It all depends on where on the genome it’s located.

He even thinks that Neanderthal DNA can make a person more prone to nicotine addiction.

Sorry if these words are hurtful to any of you.

Read “What Did Neanderthals Leave to Modern Humans?” at the NY Times

QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK

Did Jesus believe in “original sin”?

Who were the first “Protestants”?

How did Christianity diverge from 1st century thought about the afterlife?

What predictions of “conventional wisdom” about the church failed to come true in 2016?

How should we interpret the Genesis Flood account?

Is the Bible a “personal letter” from God to you and me?

What, exactly, is the problem with hypocrisy?

Does America’s “gospel of success” leave any room for failure?

How does televangelist Paula White answer her critics?

Is “globalization” the problem?

THE POWER OF HUMAN TOUCH

Babies born dependent on opioids, tiny victims of an epidemic across our nation, are often born facing having to deal with symptoms of withdrawal — twitching and tremors, trouble with feeding, and difficulty sleeping.

Boston Medical Center has developed a program to help these little ones. They call it CALM, an incomplete but apt acronym for Cuddling Assists in Lowering Maternal and infant stress. This program revives a definitely old-school approach, putting an emphasis on non-pharmacologic care. Often, that starts with skin-to-skin cuddling.

Programs like CALM are being developed across the country, recruiting volunteer cuddlers for those babies whose parents are unavailable because they are in residential treatment programs or otherwise unable to be as present as needed. The CALM program itself has 100 volunteers who take two-hour shifts, holding, rocking, singing, and providing soothing presence to the little ones.

STATNews reports on the results so far:

A 40% drop in medication treatment rates
Saving the hospitals money. It costs $2100 per day for the medical center to house one of these babies and huge cost savings is realized with shortened stays.

And all it takes is someone who will devote himself or herself to cuddling a baby.

Read “Call in the Cuddlers” at STATNews

TODAY IN MUSIC…

For my money, the greatest cover song of all time began to be recorded on this day in music history. On January 21, 1968, Jimi Hendrix started to lay down his version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” at Olympic Studios in London.

Recording the song was a long process that eventually moved to New York’s Record Plant studio, where the majority of the Electric Ladyland album was cut. There Hendrix had access to a 12-track and then later a 16-track recording machine that enabled him to obsessively overdub guitar and bass tracks repeatedly until he got what he wanted.

I’ll let Ray Padgett in his “Cover Me” article take it from here:

After the endless overdubs and re-recordings of guitars, vocals, and bass, it came time to mix the record. By this point Chandler, who had produced the original London sessions, was long gone. His original mix had been relatively subdued, focusing heavily on the acoustic guitars and giving even the loud solos plenty of room to breathe.

The new version Hendrix mixed with Eddie Kramer went in the opposite direction. “It was a case of Jimi and I doing it together and just making it sound as commercial as we possibly could,” Kramer said. With 16 tracks at their disposable, they had plenty of room to add compression, reverb, chorusing, and other studio tricks to make the entire thing louder and more in-your-face. With many other tracks too long or too far out to ever take off, the goal for “Watchtower” was becoming clear: hit single.

It worked. Release as a single in the US on September 21, 1968, and backed with “Burning of the Midnight Lamp,” “All Along the Watchtower” became Hendrix’s first and only Top 40 single on the Billboard charts, climbing from #66 on its debut to a peak of #20 (it made #5 in the UK, where Hendrix had more of a track record). It in fact sold more than the group’s previous four singles combined – and that includes “Purple Haze” and “Foxy Lady.”

It resonated particularly with troops in Vietnam. The army’s official radio broadcasts were tightly controlled, but GIs overseas had made a regular practice of setting up pirate radio stations in the field, and “Watchtower” began to get heavy airplay. One veteran recalled in Stephen Roby’s Black Gold, “I just spun the dials…lo and behold there’s Midnight Jack broadcasting: ‘Midnight Jack, man, I’m deep in the jungle… What can I play for you, man?’ He’s gone for about 30 seconds and I imagine he’s putting a reel-to-reel tape on and here comes Jimi Hendrix…”

Perhaps most importantly to him, Bob Dylan loved it too – though it’s not clear whether or not Hendrix ever knew, as all Dylan’s public comments occurred after Hendrix’s death. “It overwhelmed me, really,” Dylan told the Florida Sun-Sentinel in 1995. “He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn’t think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day.”

One cool thing about article linked and quoted above is that it contains audio samples of various takes captured in the process of recording “All Along the Watchtower.” Check it out. And here’s the finished single, a classic, and in my view as I said, the best cover song of all time.

Fridays with Michael Spencer: January 20, 2017

From a classic Michael Spencer post. May, 2008

There are some places that Christians will allow you to stand up and say “the sermon is pop psych” or “I’m not a young earth creationist” or “why do we act like we just invented Christianity this year?” What a gift it is to be able to speak truth and be supported by a community of the one who IS the truth.

In the church I grew up in I always heard that we believed in freedom of conscience, the right of private interpretation, the priesthood of the believer, soul competency and the sacred right to differ from the majority.

I heard about all of that, and I heard that it was other denominations, with their bishops and their hierarchies, that were hung up on conformity all the way down the line.

Well….let’s just say that it’s a good thing they don’t give awards for “Ironic Reversals of Reality” anywhere. Someone would need to build a shelf. A long one.

…There are still doors in Christendom where the truth needs to be nailed, and some of them aren’t far away from where you are.

We need to talk about what is and is not happening among real Christians living real lives.

We need to hear the truth about the Christian experience, not just the scrubbed and glowing testimonials.

We need to have the assumed wisdom and answers of denominational leaders scrutinized, just like every pastor has to face his critics in every healthy church anywhere.

We need a vibrant discussion of the “whys” and the “what fors” in the things we require of one another in church, denomination and ministry.

We need courageous writers who will tell the stories that can’t be spoken among Christians who are determined to create a culture of secrecy and religious conformity.

There may be a price for honesty, asking questions and telling our stories. But there will never cease to be a need for someone who has the courage to ask tough questions and tell honest experiences in the midst of organized religion. We won’t ever get the truth of our human and Christian journeys from the official spokespersons or the press releases. We have to speak it to one another and support one another in the consequences.

We can’t speak falsehood to ourselves, one another and our children. Even if the truth is clumsy, painful, inconvenient or unwelcome, it is still the truth and we should love it for Jesus’ sake.

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Photo by Scott Robinson at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Mike the Geologist: On the Grand Canyon and the Flood (10)

Previous posts in the series:

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The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon?
By Gregg Davidson, Joel Duff, David Elliott, Tim Helble, Carol Hill, Stephen Moshier, Wayne Ranney, Ralph Stearley, Bryan Tapp, Roger Wiens, and Ken Wolgemuth.

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Final post in series.

Chapter 20: Science vs. Flood Geology- Not just a difference in worldview is the final chapter in the book. At the beginning of the book it was noted that flood geologists claim they are looking at the same data as modern geologists; they just interpret through the lens of a biblical worldview. The implication is that if you believe the Bible is true, then your eyes are open to the natural evidence that the earth, and the canyon, are very young. If you are wearing “humanistic” glasses though, all you see is the evidence that the earth is very old. Everybody is doing good science, it is just arriving at different interpretations of the data due to your worldview presuppositions. One world- two views as AIG puts it.

Creation Ministries International says this:

We often emphasize two important points about science and the origins debate: (1) there is a fundamental difference between the science of present processes (operational science) and the science of past events (historical science), and (2) historical science in particular is governed by the biases we bring to the data so that people with different worldviews can look at the same data and come to completely different conclusions on what happened.

• http://creation.com/same-data-different-interpretations.

But is that distinction true? Is the “science of present processes” different in any significant way from the “science of past events”? For each subject addressed in this book, when the data are considered in their totality and the conclusions are allowed to follow from the data, instead of the conclusion being pre-determined from the start, the data lead to an inevitable conclusion of a long developmental history of many millions of years for the formation of the Grand Canyon.

A recent age for the canyon can only be imagined by deciding on such an answer in advance, carefully selecting bits of data that can be construed to fit the preconceived model, and ignoring data that do not fit. (page 207)

That is the difference between the real science of geology and the pseudo-science of flood geology. Real science goes where the data leads, flood geology does not.

The message of flood geology is that what is observed in nature today cannot be used to inform us of what may have happened in the past, that fundamental laws of physics and chemistry cannot be assumed to be well understood, and – critically – that nature cannot be trusted to tell its own story. In this regard, flood geology is not only unscientific, it is unbiblical. The first chapter of Romans states that the Creator’s divine nature is manifest in His physical creation- in nature. If nature cannot be trusted to tell a truthful story, what does this say about flood geologist’s conception of God? (page 208)

If the basis for evaluating the history of the formation of the Grand Canyon is physical evidence then flood geology falls far short. A truly viable account- a scientific account- must take into account all the data, not just that which conveniently fits flood geology’s preferred model. The flood geology claim of being just “as good as” the prevailing scientific view is hollow; even if they are able to persuade gullible scientifically illiterate Christians.

However, I get it. I really do it get. The desire to defend the faith from the skeptics. The rise of modernity has coincided with the rise of modern science and has seemed to overwhelm the old paradigm. Religion is a thing of the past for ignorant and superstitious people, so the modern “scientific” skeptic says.

12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain… 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (1 Cor 15:12-14,19)

Inerrancy Governs Our Response to the Conclusions of Science. If we believe the Bible contains errors, then we will be quick to accept scientific theories that appear to prove the Bible wrong. In other words, we will allow the conclusions of science to dictate the accuracy of the Word of God. When we doubt the Bible’s inerrancy, we have to invent new principles for interpreting Scripture that for convenience turn history into poetry and facts into myths. This means people must ask how reliable a given passage is when they turn to it. Only then will they be able to decide what to make of it. On the other hand, if we believe in inerrancy, we will test by Scripture the hasty theories that often come to us in the name of science.

• https://answersingenesis.org/is-the-bible-true/why-should-we-believe-in-the-inerrancy-of-scripture/

This seems like a reasonable position for a Christian to hold. If we can’t believe the Genesis account of the Flood, then how can we believe the New Testament account of the resurrection? If we doubt the one why shouldn’t we doubt the other and be of “all men most miserable”. So we can only let Scripture judge Scripture, we cannot let the fallible, ever-changing science of unregenerate, fallen men judge the holy, God-breathed, infallible, un-changing Scriptures. It’s the serpent that inspires the question, “Hath God said…”

The problem here is twofold. First of all reality is reality. If something is true in the natural, physical realm then it is true- period. All truth must, for the Christian, be God’s truth. The YECs say that we can’t allow “the conclusions of science to dictate the accuracy of the Word of God”. And to an extent, for the Christian, that has a measure of plausibility to it. Science tells us when you are dead you are dead. Men dead for three days stay dead. Five loaves and two fishes can’t feed 5,000 people. Human beings can’t walk on water. But the issue with miracles are that they are not judged by science because they are, by definition, one-off events not the result of natural causes. The second issue with YEC is the inconsistent application of the hermeneutic. The Genesis account also says the sky is a solid dome, there is an ocean above the dome, and an ocean under the earth (which by the way rests on pillars). The earth is a flat circular disk and the sun, moon, and stars revolve around it. The stars are “lesser lights” and the moon gives its own light.

So, is this picture above true… or does it contradict the Bible? Were Galileo and Copernicus wrong and the geocentrists right: If you don’t believe the sun rises, then you don’t believe the son rises. The answer is that we do indeed allow the conclusions of science to judge the Bible; at least our interpretation of it. What would have happened if Galileo and his colleagues would have bowed to the pressure to conform to the accepted wisdom of their society and the accepted interpretation of the Bible? Even if the technological advances had somehow been able to continue and we developed TV, satellites, long-range telescopes, and put men on the moon; the truth of the solar system and indeed the cosmos would have had to come out eventually. And then what of Christian believers and the faith. What if the faith was tied to the Earth being the center of the cosmos as indeed some church men were trying to do:

From the trial of Galileo: We pronounce this Our final sentence: We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo . . . have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world; also, that an opinion can be held and supported as probable, after it has been declared and finally decreed contrary to the Holy Scripture…

The result would be that the Bible would be discredited and men would not believe its witness (nor ours) to the resurrection. Many would eventually feel compelled to leave the faith altogether in the mistaken notion that science and the Bible are hopelessly at odds. And then Augustine’s prediction made back in 408 AD would come true:

…If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Pete Enns, in a recent post on his blog, said this:

The findings of science and biblical scholarship are not the enemies of Christian faith—they are only “enemies” of biblical literalism, which is not to be equated with the Christian faith… In fact I’ll take this a step further: The discoveries of science and of ancient history are opportunities to be truly “biblical” precisely because they are invitations to reconsider what it means to read the creation stories well.

We need only think of the ruckus caused by Copernicus and Galileo, telling us the earth whizzes around the sun, as do the other planets, when the Bible “clearly” says that the earth is fixed and stable (Ps 104:5) and the heavenly bodies do all the moving. Sometimes older views—no matter how biblically grounded we might think they are—do and must give way to newer ones if the circumstances warrant.

Saying you will make Scripture the priority based on your trust in God is one thing, but trying to have it both ways by saying “real science” would agree with my faith statement is DISHONEST. Either you are going to engage the science honestly, or you are going to set it aside because your trust in God is what is most important to you. If you say that based on Scripture the entire planet was under water but by some miracle it didn’t leave the evidence that would be expected, or you just don’t know why it didn’t leave the evidence- that is being honest and consistent. Let me be clear, if you insist that the Flood took place just as Genesis “literally” says then you are stating it was a miracle. A one-of-a-kind event that did not conform to natural laws; it was a supernatural occasion where God temporarily set aside the regular laws of the natural world. If that is your position then fine, I disagree, but I respect your faith.

What you cannot say is that science properly applied with the right interpretive lens supports the conclusion the Grand Canyon was created in a single flood event. That is wrong. That is mistaken. This book conclusively and unambiguously demonstrates no single flood deposited all the layers and formed the Grand Canyon. Flood geology marches its adherents inexorably down the road to conclude the Bible teaches error and thereby undermines faith and undermines the very scriptures it purports to defend.

I will conclude with the final words of the book (page 209):

Does it matter? It certainly does! Truth ALWAYS matters.

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Photo by Joe Jiang at Flickr. Creative Commons License

John Sailhamer Week: 3 — Focus on the Text

John Sailhamer Week on Internet Monk (3)
Focus on the Text

Last week, the most influential professor in my life died. John Sailhamer, my Hebrew and OT prof at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School throughout the 1980’s, succumbed to Parkinson’s and Lewy Body dementia, and went into the care of the God who loved him and called him to the work of understanding and teaching the Scriptures.

I dedicate this week on Internet Monk to him. I will share some of the biggest lessons he taught me about the Bible and studying the Bible, particularly the book of Genesis and the canon of the Hebrew Bible.

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At the heart of Dr. John Sailhamer’s life and teaching was a relentless focus on the text of the Bible. This single-minded attention in method helped me learned to appreciate the literary artistry of the scriptures and the “world” into which the Bible invites us.

He helped me understand that all “history” is interpretation. With regard to the Hebrew Bible’s historical narratives, he showed me that the author’s (or final editor’s) intention in selecting material, arranging it, and creating verbal links to other texts within the OT canon has created certain perspectives which are commended to us as God’s Word, God’s story, a divinely inspired point of view on the history of Israel.

The goal of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) is to find the author’s intent in his verbal meaning. One must seek to understand the words and sentences the author uses. We do that by understanding his words within the context of the grammar of biblical Hebrew, or a good translation, and the literary shape of the whole of the Pentateuch (verbal meaning). Our clues to the author’s big idea are to be sought in those things about which the author most often writes and which seem important to him. Ultimately, we discover the meaning of a book such as the Pentateuch by reading it and asking the right questions. Behind our quest for the (human) author’s intent is the conviction that the divine intention of Scripture (mens dei) is to be found in the human author’s intent (mens auctoris).

As noted above, the exegetical warrant form my understanding is the message of the Bible, and the Pentateuch in particular, is to be found in a fourfold linkage of perspectives at four textually based levels: verbal, narrative technique, narrative world, thematic structure. An exegetically warranted interpretation of a biblical text such as the Pentateuch must be grounded in each of these levels of narrative.

• The Meaning of the Pentateuch, p. 610

In this way did Dr. Sailhamer encourage me and all his students to “meditate on the Torah of the Lord day and night” (Psalm 1:2).

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes along these lines from Dr. John Sailhamer:

The Pentateuch may be compared to a Rembrandt painting of real persons or events. We do not understand a Rembrandt painting by taking a photograph of the “thing” that Rembrandt painted and comparing it with the painting itself. That may help us understand the “thing” that Rembrandt painted, his subject matter, but it will not help us understand the painting itself. To understand Rembrandt’s painting, we must look at it and see its colors, shapes and textures. In the same way, to understand the Pentateuch, one must look at its colors, contours and textures.

• The Meaning of the Pentateuch, p. 19

He was truly an artist of biblical interpretation, who appreciated and passed on his love and delight in the artistry of Hebrew Bible to his students and friends.

I wish I could also capture and express to you the enormous grace, humility, and humor by which he did so.

He was a beloved teacher, a prime mover encouraging me to a deep love for the scriptures and, though I had little idea of it at the time, a guide leading to my post-evangelical journey, which I am still on because of the Bible, not in spite of it.

May he rest in God’s care until we all come to the good land God has prepared for us.

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Photo by Ghatamos at Flickr. Creative Commons License

John Sailhamer Week: 2 – Opening the Door to Genesis

John Sailhamer Week on Internet Monk (2)
Opening the Door to Genesis

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Dr. John Sailhamer opened the doors to the book of Genesis for me. His teaching on Genesis 1-3, in particular, startled me out of my naive fundamentalism with regard to what the Bible teaches about creation. It set me on a path of renewed love for the Scriptures, particularly the Hebrew Bible, and what it says regarding the goodness of our Creator and his redemptive purposes for this world.

As I have continued to study the early chapters of Genesis, I have come to take some different positions than he set forth. It took some other teachers as well, especially Bruce Waltke, John Walton, and Peter Enns, to help me refine my own understanding (which is still developing, by the way). I should also mention a book by Seth D. Postell, called Adam as Israel: Genesis 1-3 as the Introduction to the Torah and Tanakh. Seth was a PhD student of Dr. Sailhamer’s and credits him as “the single most positive influence on my life as a follower of Yeshua.”

However, what John Sailhamer did was to help me see the creation accounts as an integral part of the Hebrew Bible, and as an introduction to the Torah (the Pentateuch) and the Tanakh (Law/Prophets/Writings) as a whole.

In his reading of Genesis 1-3, he makes observations like these:

The account of God creating the entire universe is limited to one verse: Genesis 1:1, where the phrase “the sky and the land” is a merism describing all that is.

The rest of Genesis 1 describes how God prepared a good land for Adam and Eve. The “land” (Heb: eretz) mentioned therein is not the earth as a whole, but the Promised Land. The movement is from the “wilderness” described in Gen. 1:2 (Heb: tohu wabohu) to a “good” land (Heb: tov).

Even the creation of such things as the heavenly bodies (Day 4: Gen. 1:14-19) is described specifically in terms of their purposes with regard to Jewish worship.

In the account of human creation in Genesis 1, God’s “blessing” is given and linked with a fruitful posterity. This introduces a central theme in the whole of the Torah.

Genesis 2 gives specific geographical references that identify the garden in Eden with the Promised Land.

There are many similarities between the descriptions of the Garden and the later tabernacle.

In both Genesis 1-2, humans are pictured as God’s priests in the world. Gen. 2:15, for example, should be understood as God placing Adam in the Garden “to worship and obey.”

Just as these chapters serve as a prototype for God’s good gift of the land to Israel, so chapter 3 sets the template for Israel’s future exile from the land.

The command given to Adam and Eve uses the same language as the command of Moses to Israel in Deuteronomy 30:15-18.

Adam and Eve are exiled “eastward” and “out of the garden.” This is the direction toward Babylon, where Israel was exiled.

It was points like these that rocked my world, created a deep hunger within me to meditate on these texts more deeply, and helped me to move away from simplistic, literalistic interpretations that failed to grasp either the text or its relation to the Old Testament canon as a whole.

Here is a brief summary Dr. Sailhamer wrote in his more popular book outlining his teachings on the early chapters of Genesis. He did this because he thought he had found a way through the debate in evangelical circles pitting creationism against evolutionary teaching. I personally don’t think that part stands the test of time and further study, but I think he made a good effort.

His great contribution to me was in re-Judaizing the text for me and helping me to see it as the introduction to the Torah and Tanakh. I’m forever in his debt for opening the door for me to enter this wonderful literary world of Genesis, where I may begin to grasp more fully the goodness of our Creator and his purposes.

I maintain that the narratives of Genesis 1 and 2 are to be understood as both literal and historical. They recount two great acts of God. In the first act, God created the universe we see around us today, consisting of the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the plants and animals that now inhabit (or formerly inhabited) the earth. The biblical record of that act of creation is recounted in Genesis 1:1—“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Since the Hebrew word translated “beginning” refers to an indefinite period of time, we cannot say for certain when God created the world or how long He took to create it. This period could have spanned as much as several billion years, or it could have been much less; the text simply does not tell us how long. It tells us only that God did it during the “beginning” of our universe’s history.

The second act of God recounted in Genesis 1 and 2 deals with a much more limited scope and period of time. Beginning with Genesis 1:2, the biblical narrative recounts God’s preparation of a land for the man and woman He was to create. That “land” was the same land later promised to Abraham and his descendants. It was that land which God gave to Israel after their exodus from Egypt. It was that land to which Joshua led the Israelites after their time of wandering in the wilderness. According to Genesis 1, God prepared that land within a period of a six-day work week. On the sixth day of that week, God created human beings. God then rested on the seventh day.

The second chapter of Genesis provides a closer look at God’s creation of the first human beings. We are told that God created them from the ground and put them in the garden of Eden to worship and obey God (not merely to work the garden and take care of it). The boundaries of that garden are the same as those of the promised land; thus the events of these chapters foreshadow the events of the remainder of the Pentateuch. God creates a people, He puts them into the land He has prepared for them, and He calls on them to worship and obey Him and receive His blessing.

• John Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account

John Sailhamer Week: 1 — The Big Picture of the Pentateuch

John Sailhamer Week on Internet Monk (1)
The Big Picture of the Pentateuch

We begin with a post reflecting one of the greatest lessons I learned from Dr. Sailhamer: Read the stories of the Pentateuch in the light of its “big picture.”

The most influential, yet subtlest, feature of an author’s rendering of historical narrative is the overall framework within which he or she arranges it.

• The Meaning of the Pentateuch, p. 29

Sailhamer observed that there are fundament structures that are characteristic in the Pentateuch, used by the author as a framework for the stories within it.

The first involves how the author structures his entire book around two dominant characters and their faith or lack thereof — Abraham and Moses.
The second involves the author’s use of poems at the end of narrative blocks.

I have reworked an earlier post from 2013 to show you in more detail how John Sailhamer used these observations to develop a perspective on the overall message of the Torah.

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The Big Picture of the Torah

The canonical order of the Hebrew Bible differs from the order of the books in the Christian Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible is “Tanakh,” the three consonants TNK being an acronymn for its three major divisions.

TORAH (“LAW”)

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

NEVIIM (PROPHETS)

Joshua Isaiah

Judges Jeremiah

Samuel Ezekiel

Kings The Twelve

KETUVIM (WRITINGS)

Psalms Ecclesiastes Nehemiah

Job Lamentations Chronicles

Proverbs Esther

Ruth Daniel

Canticles Ezra

The Torah, or Pentateuch (fivefold book), is the first major section of the Hebrew Bible. Its story takes the reader from creation to the days when Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land.

Here are a few statements about the big picture of the Torah.

(1) The Torah is to be understood as a single book (a “pentateuch” — a five part scroll with an overall unity).

The word “Torah” is often translated “Law,” but this gives an inadequate understanding of what the word means and what the book is like. It is not a book of legal statutes or moral commandments to be followed universally, though it contains many laws. The word “torah” is better understood as the teaching of a father.

The Pentateuch is primarily a book of narratives, containing many different genres of literature, including stories, genealogies, poems, sermons, speeches, liturgical rites, songs, as well as collections of laws, statutes, ordinances and commands. Together, these are designed to inculcate wisdom in those who read and absorb its teachings into their lives — originally those exiled in Babylon.

(2) The Torah is a book of narratives containing laws, not a law book.

It tells how God dealt with his people from creation to the end of Moses’ life. The sections of law are part of the story. We learn about the laws God gave to Israel under the Sinai Covenant and why he gave them. We learn how Israel was to live while under these laws and examples of how they actually lived. We find specific commentaries about the law and what it could and could not do for them.

The Torah is not a book of law in the sense that it is a manual of rules that we are to follow. It is a story-book that includes a description of the laws that were pertinent to the story. It is a book with laws, not a book of laws designed to make us all good Israelites. The Torah is the account of the people of Israel and the laws God gave them. What happened to them under the law provides the author with a perspective on Israel’s future and what she must hope for from God.

That does not mean we have nothing to learn from these laws. They reveal the character of God and provide examples from which we may learn. But we do not live “under” this law. These are the rules of the covenant that God gave to Israel under Moses in the context of the story the Pentateuch is telling.

(3) The Torah is essentially a two-part biography about faith.

Most of the material in Genesis is about Abraham and his family, while Exodus-Deuteronomy focuses on the Moses and the Hebrew people.

Abraham, chosen by God to be the founding father of Israel, is portrayed as a model of faith. He was counted righteous before God because he believed God’s promises (Gen. 15:6). Even though he lived long before the Sinai Covenant, he is described as one who fulfilled the Mosaic Law (Gen. 26:5). God’s ultimate promise was that he would bless the whole world through Abraham’s descendants (Gen. 12:1-3). Though flawed and sinful, Abraham and his family were heirs of God’s promise by grace through faith.

Unlike Abraham, who lived before the Law, Moses lived under the Law. God raised him up to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt to Mt. Sinai, where he made them his chosen nation by entering into a a covenant with them. A large part of the Torah is devoted to the time the infant nation spent at Mt. Sinai, where God gave them laws for their life together and their religious practices. Though Moses was a faithful servant of God, he was ultimately prevented from going into the Promised Land because of unbelief (Numbers 20:12).

The Torah thus contrasts the life of faith apart from the Law, which leads to justification and blessing within God’s promise with life under the Law, which leads to unbelief and exile from God’s place of rest and blessing.

By giving Israel this book of stories which draws a contrast between those who lived before the Law (Abraham and his family) and those who lived under the Law (Moses and the people of Israel), the Torah has been transformed from a Law book into a book of instruction (which is what torah really means) that encourages Israel to trust in God. It urges the exiles who received this book to find their hope and future not in a Law-shaped identity, but in another, which we explore next.

(4) The Torah is a book shaped to encourage eschatological hope in God’s coming Kingdom.

When Dr. Sailhamer examined the literary structures in the Pentateuch he found the following pattern of narrative/poem/epilogue, which shapes both the smaller units and macro-structures of the entire work.

In the early chapters of Genesis, the author establishes a literary pattern:

Stories are told in narrative prose.
And the end of the stories, there is a poetic speech.
The speech is followed by an epilogue.

So, for example in Genesis 1-2:

1:1-2:22 — stories of creation
2:23 — poetic speech by author
2:24-25 — epilogue

And, in Genesis 3:

3:1-13 — stories of temptation and sin
3:14-19 — poetic speech by God
3:20-24 — epilogue

And, in Genesis 4:

4:1-22 — stories of Cain and Abel
4:23-24 — poetic speech by Lamech
4:25-26 — epilogue

Having noted this pattern, Sailhamer than stepped back and looked at the Torah as a whole. He discovered the same literary style at work in the larger structures of the work.

Genesis 1-48: stories from creation to Jacob’s family
Genesis 49: poetic speech by Jacob
Genesis 50: epilogue

Exodus-Numbers 22: stories from Mt. Sinai and wilderness
Numbers 23-24: poetic speeches by Balaam
Numbers 25: epilogue

Numbers 26-Deuteronomy 31: stories and sermons from the plains of Moab
Deuteronomy 32-33: poetic speeches by Moses
Deuteronomy 34: epilogue

What Sailhamer discovered when he looked at this more closely is that each poetic speech in the larger structure of the Torah contains significant eschatological passages.

Each poetic speech is a summarizing “blessing” passage in the Torah at the end of an important era.

Gen. 49 — Israel’s (Jacob’s) blessings on his twelve sons (end of patriarchal stories)
Num. 23-24 — Balaam’s blessings of Israel (end of wilderness journeys)
Deut. 32-33 — Moses’ song and blessing of Israel (end of Moses’ life)

Each poetic speech is given by a main character who calls an audience together and proclaims what will happen in “the last days.”

Gen. 49:1 — Jacob tells what will come to pass in the last days
Num. 24:14 — Balaam tells what will become of Israel in the last days
Deut. 31:28-29 — Moses tells what will happen after his death, in the last days

Each poetic speech contains a promise about a coming King (Messiah):

Gen. 49:10 — Shiloh, the coming ruler, the lion from the tribe of Judah
Num. 23-24 — The royal Star that will rise from Jacob
Deut. 32:43 — The one who atones for sin and brings joy to the nations (see Romans 15:10)

By shaping the Torah in this fashion, the editors of its final form transformed it from a book of history into a book of eschatology. It is more focused on the future than the past. Though it contains many stories from the past, they serve as pointers to future events. The past events, in fact, foreshadow the future.

The exiled people of Israel who first received the Torah in this final form were meant to take hope from this book that illustrates:

the failure of the Law,
the blessings of faith,
and the ultimate triumph of God’s Kingdom.

Sermon: Epiphany II – There’s No Place Like Home

Note from CM: I will be moving our weekly sermon from Mondays to Sunday afternoons for awhile, to create more space for other things. So we will have both a cantata post in the morning and a sermon post in the afternoon on Sundays.

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Sermon: “There’s No Place Like Home”

The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

• John 1:29-42

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The Wizard of Oz is one of my all-time favorite movies. From the time I was a small child, it was a staple on our family’s TV screen when one of the networks would broadcast it each year. It filled my imagination as a child, and continues to shape me.

Of course, everyone knows the message of that film: “There’s no place like home.” In order to understand how blest she was to have her home in Kansas, young Dorothy had to go through a dream-experience of traveling to another world. There, in the land of Oz, everything appeared in technicolor; it was more vibrant and interesting, fascinating and attractive than drab old Kansas had ever been.

But soon she learned from the characters she met in Oz that there is something deeper and more lasting than bright colors, interesting sights, and magical experiences. Dorothy learned about faith and hope and love in Oz. She learned what it means to have a brain, to have a heart, to have courage. And she learned that all those things were available to her where she never thought it possible before — right there in her own home. She didn’t need to travel “over the rainbow” or “follow the yellow brick road to find them. They were right there, in the place she had been so eager to leave.

There’s no place like home.

In today’s Gospel, a couple of John the Baptist tells his disciples that Jesus is the Lamb of God, the one greater than John, the one who is the Son of God. The next day, when Jesus walks by, they decide it is time to leave John and become followers of Jesus.

So they run after him and approach him. He stops, looks at them, and asks them an important question: “What are you looking for?”

They reply, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”

And Jesus invites them to find out. “Come and see,” he says.

What were they looking for? According to the text, they were looking for a place to call home. They were looking for the place where Jesus was staying, so that they could go there and stay with him as his learners and apprentices. They were looking for Jesus to become their Master, their Leader, their Rabbi. They wanted to dwell with him, to abide with him, to learn from him. They wanted to find their home with Jesus.

Their experience with John the Baptist had been good, but it wasn’t ever meant to be permanent. It was a stepping-stone along the way toward their real home with Jesus. Now they had graduated from John and it was time for them to find their permanent vocation, their life’s calling, the place in life for which they were created. There’s no place like home, and they had come to realize that they were meant to make their home with this Rabbi, the Lamb of God, the Son of God.

Do you mind if I ask you? What are you looking for?

I doubt if you and I are much different than these disciples. Like them, I would guess that there is a deep longing in our hearts for home. For acceptance. For a place where we can rest and be ourselves. For a place of welcome, a place of fellowship. A place at the table where we can sit down and share meals and converse and laugh with others with whom we are bound together by cords of love. A place where we can rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. A place where we can learn and grow, where our questions can be heard, where our hopes and fears can be spoken.

One of my favorite music artists is a wonderful pianist and singer named Ken Medema. Ken once wrote and sang about such a place:

If this is not a place, where tears are understood,
then where shall I go to cry?
And if this is not a place, where my spirit can take wings,
then where shall I go to fly?

I don’t need another place, for trying to impress you
with just how good and virtuous I am.
No, no, no I don’t need another place, for always being on top of things.
Everybody knows it’s a sham, its a sham.

I don’t need another place, for always wearing smiles
even when it’s not the way I feel.
I don’t need another place, to mouth the same old platitudes;
everybody knows that it’s not real.

So if this is not a place, where my questions can be asked,
then where shall I go to seek?
And if this is not a place where my heart cry can be heard,
where, tell me where, shall I go to speak?

So if this is not a place where tears are understood
where shall I go, where shall I go to fly?

There’s no place like home.

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy discovered that, and Kansas was never drab and uninteresting to her again. This is how she put it: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard.”

I know some people find places like church drab and uninteresting, especially on the surface. It’s just people getting together, singing old songs, reciting words, listening to someone talk, going forward for a bit of bread and wine.

But I tell you: Jesus is here, right here among us in the common, ordinary actions of worship, in the faces of women and men, boys and girls who gather as brothers and sisters, fathers and mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends.

It just depends what you’re looking for.

If you’re looking for something like Oz, something “over the rainbow” where “troubles melt like lemon drops” and everything is novel and surprising and stimulating all the time, where horses change colors and cities are brilliant emerald green and you can be friends with scarecrows, tin men, lions and beautiful good witches, and engage in thrilling battles with powerful enemies, then I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.

But maybe that’s not really, down deep, what we’re looking for. And maybe none of us need to look any further than our own back yard.

Maybe home is right here, where we pray and give thanks, where we hear God’s word of grace, where we come to the Table together.

Perhaps this is where Jesus is, and there’s no place like home. As he said to the disciples that day, “Come and see.”

Epiphany II: Pic & Cantata of the Week

(Click on picture to see larger image)

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EPIPHANY II

Bach Cantata BWV 155, “My God, how long? How long?”

This cantata for the second Sunday in Epiphany, like Bach’s other works for this Sunday (BWV 3, 13), emphasizes spiritual distress and its resolution in Christ. The Gospel for the morning in Bach’s day was the story of the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11), and Bach chose texts that emphasize the movement from minor to major keys, from lack to provision, from questioning the presence and power of God in the midst of trouble, to trust in his goodness.

Today’s sample is a sprightly soprano aria, the climactic movement of this cantata, which encourages this trust.

As Julian Mincham comments, “The soprano aria is the one movement of this cantata which can be described as being truly joyous and it encapsulates the delight and, indeed, relief of complete commitment—-Heart, throw yourself into His merciful arms—-lay your burdens and oppressions upon His compassionate shoulders.”

• • •

Wirf, mein Herze, wirf dich noch
In des Höchsten Liebesarme,
Dass er deiner sich erbarme.
Lege deiner Sorgen Joch,
Und was dich bisher beladen,
Auf die Achseln seiner Gnaden.

Throw yourself, my heart, just throw yourself
into the loving arms of the Almighty,
so that he may feel compassion for you.
Place the yoke of your cares
and what has burdened you up till now
on the shoulders of his grace.

Cantata Text by Richard Stokes

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Today’s photo by David Cornwell at Flickr