Particulars and Patterns

There are basically two ways to enjoy a stained glass window. If you can get close enough, you can examine the intricacy of each uniquely shaped piece of colored glass and inspect the meticulous craftsmanship with which they’re joined, or you can stand back and let the sun shine through all the individual pieces, bringing the entire window to life as a glorious whole

As I’ve preached over the past several weeks—excluding last Sunday—I’ve been looking at the book of Romans up close, examining the particulars of some of the doctrine that’s meticulously developed in this letter. 

This week, though, I’d like to stand back a little, because this week’s Epistle reading isn’t primarily about particulars, although there are some. This passage is about a biblical pattern…a glorious whole every particular has been pointing to.

How do we summon hope?

What is hope? What are we doing when we hope? What is its origin and the source of its vitality?  

I think it is hard to have hope. The fire seems to burn so strongly when there is no wind of opposition; but then the slightest breeze of contest can nearly extinguish the flame.  

Like many, I’m a great admirer of Samwise Gamgee, the loyal friend of Frodo in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings novels. Sam was pragmatic, humble, and loyal. What touches me especially is that Sam had a poet’s capacity for apprehending the light of the sun when all around was dark. He believed the “old stories” and sensed that things that were too good to be true were yet true.  

When Frodo was caught in the grip of despair and overwhelmed by his enemy, he said, “I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I'm naked in the dark.” There, with him, Sam summoned faith that “even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.”

Our text this Sunday is taken from Isaiah 55. There, the prophet Isaiah, like Sam, calls out to Israel in her malaise to “recall the taste of food.” Through him, God says to Israel, “…eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food.” 

Eventually, we have to assimilate the poetry and stand before the winds of opposition with a flame that burns. In real life. Against real obstacles.  

How do we summon hope like Sam’s when we feel like Frodo? How do we enjoy the fullness of rich food when our stomachs churn with fear?  

These are questions I’m asking as I work through the substantial metaphors of Isaiah 55 and I look forward to being with you on Sunday to “listen diligently” to God (Isaiah 55:2). Bring hungry hearts!

Can’t hide from Hyde

At one point in the classic Robert Lewis Stevenson Gothic novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Henry Jekyll quotes from this week’s Epistle reading. The first time Jekyll takes the potion and finds himself becoming Hyde he says, “I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life to be more wicked—tenfold more wicked—sold as a slave to sin.”

In Romans 7, St. Paul talks about two selves, in a sense, warring within. An inner conflict between good and evil. “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave to sin.” (7:14) That’s the passage Jekyll quotes.

Despite its being 137 years old, the story is incredibly engaging and chilling. It prompts the reader to ask fundamental questions about human nature in general, and their own nature in particular. The answer we get in the story (confirmed in Romans 7) is that Stevenson is right in his pessimistic view of human nature—we can’t hide from Hyde—but that’s where the story of Jekyll ends, leaving the reader bereft of hope. Stevenson stops just a few verses too early. He accurately diagnoses the problem, but misses the solution.

Symphony

I recall first understanding the visceral power of music as a little kid.

My parents would occasionally buy these inexpensive Time/Life LPs at of all places the grocery store, the “greatest hits” from composers like Gershwin, Bernstein, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. They were all beautiful, but my favorite by far was Copeland’s Greatest Hits. I was particularly moved by one instrumental moment in Appalachian Spring…the already passionate music quickening and swelling to the point that I would just be overcome by the beauty of it. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes I’d listen—through my ginormous headphones (it was the 60s)—to that one brief passage over and over and over again, the accelerando and crescendo expressing something for which words don’t do the trick. It’s something you have to feel.

Another advantage of having spent hundreds of hours wearing out those albums is that I learned—again, by feel—the power of symphonic form to craft a story.

The readings from Romans over the past several weeks strike me as a kind of theological “symphony”. If you know anything about symphonic form, you know that in order to truly grasp a particular movement, it’s essential to hear it in the context of the entire masterpiece. In a similar way, the fourth movement of this “symphony”—this week’s Epistle reading from Romans 6—only makes sense if you hear it in the context of the entire masterpiece, particularly the dramatic, if not overwhelming crescendo of grace that precedes it.

More to the story

When I was a college student contemplating seminary education, a friend of my father's who was a seminary professor said to him, “tell your son that the road to ministry is strewn with many casualties.” I wondered what I should do with such information. Was I to turn aside? How would I protect myself from unknown foes that apparently felled others more well equipped than I? Well, I did go to seminary, I did travel along the road of vocational ministry, and I was a casualty. My last endeavor in full-time ministry was not a success by “common standards.” Our experience was beset with insurmountable challenges and the journey ended painfully.  

Jesus told us that in this life, we would have trouble and that his followers would take up their crosses. The Apostle Paul said that we would suffer affliction for Jesus' sake. As we follow Jesus we expose ourselves to tension and pressure and conflict.  And in the midst of all that, we are going to feel disoriented sometimes.  

This is what Jeremiah expresses in our Old Testament reading this week. “O Lord,” he cries out, “you have deceived me.”  It wasn't supposed to go this way; I wasn't supposed to be a casualty.  I hardly know who or what to believe.

And yet, such a telling of the story isn't complete. We know from Scripture that “common standards” have never applied to Christian discipleship. There is more to Jeremiah's story, to my story, and to yours, too.

Jeremiah would later recall to his mind in the midst of his affliction that “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end.” In fact, God was faithful to Jeremiah from his birth through his exile to Egypt and this was demonstrated through God's personal presence, his powerful promises, and the ministry of his faithful secretary, Baruch.

To use a modern expression, we are supposed to “lean in” to the Gospel. We are ambassadors of Jesus, emissaries from the Kingdom of God where his rule breaks in upon our broken world to resist its corruption and reconcile us to God. There is forward motion and momentum against which we experience the opposition of darkness and sin.  Sometimes it's disorienting.  Sometimes it's confusing.  But that's not the whole picture.  We have God's enduring presence, the confidence of his promises, the fellowship of Christian friends.  We have Jesus, who conquered death and unites us with him in new life.  

Jeremiah has a lot to show us about acknowledging and expressing our anguish to God.  I look forward to sharing his words together this Sunday.

Life is difficult

I don’t think this'll be a news flash for anyone: life is difficult.

It wouldn’t take much for us to come up with a list of woes that plague our nation and the world. And in one way or another we all feel the effects of those woes. Even if our own lives are relatively trouble free, just dwelling on the big issues can make us anxious. Then there are those times when we face painful difficulties in our own lives or those of our loved ones.

Yet in the midst of these difficulties, God wants us to know that he is with us. He wants to tell us that he suffers with us and that he wants to help us by affirming his love for us. In fact, we could make the case that God’s love is most present to as as we work through the difficulties and sufferings we all face.

That truth is spelled out most clearly in this week’s Epistle reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. Reflecting on his own experience, even as he sketches out God’s plan of salvation, Paul wrote, “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” 

In that one sentence Paul reveals how God’s love helped him grow in holiness during his own times of suffering.

To the end

I think it was from Tim Keller that I heard this for the first time, years ago now: “When Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn’t think, ‘I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.’ No. He was in agony, and he looked down at us—denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him—and in the greatest act of love in history, he stayed. He said, ‘Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.’ He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely.”

For his own, Jesus persists in that determined love today and will persist in it through eternity. Of immense comfort is something  John Bunyan wrote in 1743, “Love in Christ decays not, nor can it be tempted to do so by anything that happens, or shall happen hereafter, in the object so beloved.” 

The heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers does not flash with tenderness occasionally or temporarily, sputtering out over time. It persists steadily, consistently, everlastingly when all loveliness has withered.

How do we know?

The God behind the Gospel

This Sunday is The Feast of the Holy Trinity (a.k.a. Trinity Sunday), celebrated in Western churches each year on the Sunday following Pentecost since the early 900s. J. I. Packer wrote of the Trinity, “God is Triune; there are within the Godhead three Persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and the work of salvation is one in which all three act together, the Father purposing redemption, the Son securing it; and the Spirit applying it.”

We’ll be reflecting on chapters 19-21 of Gentle and Lowly, looking at three passages reflecting the heart of God the Father in “purposing redemption”, not from the perspective of the Old Testament, but from St. Paul’s perspective in Ephesians 2:1-5, Galatians 3:10-12, and Romans 5:6-11.

We’ll encounter the invincible work of the God behind the Gospel—rich in mercy, lavish of heart, and steadfast in love—moving ever toward sinners and sufferers like you and me.