Tag: Grace of God

THE DIVINE MIRROR RESTORED

It’s true that we Lutherans certainly believe that the Lutheran branch of the Christian Faith has many wonderful gifts to offer to the whole of Christianity and indeed to the entire world, but we Lutherans also recognize that we do not have a monopoly on all theological and spiritual truths. And it’s true that we as Christians proclaim that the good news of Jesus Christ provides direct access to the fullness of God’s grace and truth, but we do not say that we have a monopoly on God’s eternal grace and truth. So if members of the Church of Jesus Christ consider those of other religions to be completely ignorant of all theological and spiritual truths, then this is just plain wrong. And if non-Christians assume that we Christians claim to be the sole purveyors of truth, then they’re wrong too.

Nevertheless, we Christians do profess and confess that Christ is “the Way and the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6), and so we earnestly proclaim the good news of his redeeming life, death and resurrection for the sake of the world. In fact, the Holy Scriptures exhort us to always be ready to share the grace and truth of Jesus Christ with our neighbors:

“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth [of Christ] to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” – (Ephesians 4:25)

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” – (First Peter 3:15-16)

However, we do this proclamation of Jesus’ good news within the multicultural context of human civilization. For we see throughout the history of salvation (from ancient times unto today) that there is a certain universal pattern we sinful human beings (of all times and places) seem to follow. It’s the pattern of faithfulness and apostasy, and it should be very familiar to us within the Christian Faith because the Holy Bible is filled with this pattern.

The cycle of faithfulness and apostasy is the historical pattern of civilization all over the world throughout the ages. From the very genesis of humanity, over and over again, God calls us, gathers us, instructs us and blesses us. But over and over again, people begin to reject and fall away from God’s revealed truth and grace. Therefore, God decided to send us the exact reflection of the glory of the fullness of himself — Christ Jesus our Lord, the Eternal Son of God and Bread of Heaven.

Let’s imagine that the revelation of God is one great Divine Mirror. And let’s imagine that the pattern of faithfulness and apostasy within human civilization is that Mirror breaking into a thousand pieces and scattering throughout the world. And then, after each shattering of this Mirror, a faithful remnant of believers were left to salvage as many pieces of God’s grace and truth as they could, resulting in a great diversity of faiths and spiritual traditions over time. So each time this shattering would happen in history, a group of like-minded believers would gather their particular shards of the Divine Mirror, and they would follow God’s Light reflected in these shards as best they knew how. And thousands of other groups did the same thing with the shards of truth they had collected.

But then, at the right time in human history, God revealed the fullness of his truth and grace for all people through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is the entire Divine Mirror restored to humanity — for he is the clear-as-glass Living Mirror of Heaven. And it might sound presumptuous to claim that the faith, hope and love of Jesus constitute the complete Divine Mirror reflecting the fullness of God’s Heart for humanity, but that is indeed what we have been granted in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God!

However, while we have amazing access to the entire Divine Mirror of God (in all its clarity) through Jesus our Savior, this should not by any means negate the importance of the shards of God’s grace and truth that other religions have access to. In fact, the shards of Divine Truth within non-Christian religions (although incomplete) are nevertheless reflective of God’s saving truth. Consequently, the great non-Christian religious leaders of the world such as Buddha, Krishna, Muhammad, Confucius, and Lao-Tzu (as well as philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and others) have all received pieces of God’s complete Mirror. They all have received a portion of God’s True Light — morsels of the Bread of Heaven (so to speak). So let’s genuinely appreciate the Truth of God from whichever direction it’s coming at us, even from non-Christian sources.

As we Christians share with others the fullness of God’s grace and truth in Christ Jesus our Lord, let’s remember the great Divine Mirror that every compassionate religion has pieces of — precious pieces of the universal reality and saving grace of God. Yet, our evangelical mission is to always uplift how all those shards of God’s Truth fit into the wholeness of God’s pure reflection in Jesus, the only begotten Son of God. And even if a certain non-Christian belief seems to be contrary to the gospel of Jesus, it just might be that this belief is still somehow based upon an eternal principle of God (if we look deeply enough). So maybe that shard of belief that seems to contradict Jesus simply needs a little ‘gospel windex’ to clarify it a bit.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we’re not here to trash the pieces of the Mirror (or the portions of the Bread of Heaven) that people of other belief systems possess. We are simply here to do as it says in Ephesians 4 and First Peter 3, where it says: “let all of us speak the truth [of Christ] to our neighbors, for we are members of one another” and “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect…”

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim

THE EASTER EGG & THE EMPTY TOMB

Although Christianity is essentially a form of Judaism, over the centuries the Christian Faith has incorporated and inculcated itself into the various cultures of Pagan societies. So Christianity’s spiritual inheritance is a blend of ancient Hebrew faith mixed with some Christianized archaic Pagan practices. And while this fact is often greatly overstated these days by those who wish to discredit and malign Christianity, the reality is that Christian observances (such as the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ) include some formerly Pagan elements as well. Consequently, things like colored eggs, bunny rabbits, and so on, have been given new and eternal significance by the grace and truth of God revealed in Christ our Savior. For “God has placed all things under Christ’s feet and has made him the head over all things for the church…” (Ephesians 1:22).  

Moreover, while the name of the annual celebration of the resurrection of Jesus maintains its Hebrew roots in many non-English languages (Pascha in Greek, Pascua in Spanish, etc.), in English the name of this most holy of all Christian holy days is taken from an Anglo-Saxon spring festival centered on the goddess Eostre, a Germanic goddess of the sunrise whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. So this is only the case in English (Easter) and German (Ostern), not in other languages. In most languages, the paschal connection between the celebrations of Passover and Holy Week is maintained, stemming from the Hebrew root word of Pesach.

Now that all this has been said, how are we Christians to regard symbols like colored Easter eggs?

The egg is an obvious candidate for a resurrection symbol of renewal and regeneration. The egg has been honored during many spring rites throughout the ages: Egyptians, Jews, Persians, Romans, Celts, and even the Chinese, have all understood the egg as representing new beginnings. Whether it was the commencement of building a bridge across a river, sowing a field of wheat, or launching a new fishing boat, the egg was used as an emblem of renewal. So Christians naturally adopted the egg symbol to specifically and preeminently represent the new life received through the cross and empty tomb of Jesus. For, again, “God has placed all things under Christ’s feet and has made him the head over all things for the church…”

The good news is that God enacts, establishes and extends his absolute love for all nations and peoples through the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ the Son of God, offering the free gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life to everyone by God’s grace through faith. Therefore, according to the biblical gospel, Christianity ascribes the ancient Hebrew symbolism of the Passover lamb and the archaic Pagan symbolism of the decorated egg to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus the Universal Messiah.

So for us Christians, a colored Easter egg (and its emptied shell after eating it) represents the empty tomb, and it calls us to be empty tombs as well. For the truth is that we can sometimes be overwhelmed by our unrealized expectations, disappointments, losses and grief; we can sometimes be overcome by despair, frustration and an apocalyptic mood. We can become so spiritually and emotionally severe that we become tombs filled with the deadly stench of judgment and condemnation, directed at ourselves and others. However, we must realize that we cannot force the Kingdom of God to be perfectly manifest in others any more than we can force God’s Kingdom to be perfectly manifest in ourselves. So we must love and forgive ourselves and others, just as God loves us and forgives us in Christ.

In other words, by the grace of God, let us become empty tombs in our lives — empty of our desire to control and our attachment to specific outcomes. By God’s grace, we must LET GO and LET GOD! By God’s sovereign grace and will, let us TRUST IN THE LORD and be at peace. God is the Lord of human history (including you and me) and God’s steadfast love endures forever.

“O give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.” (Psalm 136:2)

Blessed & Happy Eastertime!!! Pastor Tim

THE FEAR & GRACE OF THE LORD

It is an absolute understatement to say that we are living through a time of information overload and rampant fear-mongering. Due to the digital media revolution of the past several decades, we are now enduring a time in which every molehill is a 10-mile-high mountain and every single challenge is an existential crisis for humanity. From the moment we get up in the morning to the moment we go to bed, we essentially hear daily cries of “the sky is falling” or “wolf! wolf!” flooding into our minds and hearts, seeking to stir people up into a fear-soaked frenzy for the purpose of serving this or that agenda.

However, if everything is a mountain then nothing is; if everything is a crisis then nothing is. Consequently, we are so overwhelmed and burned out by the constant parade of media-ratings-driven crises that we struggle to pay attention anymore. So of course, we would be well-advised to remember the moral of the old folktales of The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Chicken Little.  In particular, if we remember the ending of the Chicken Little story then we could recall that Chicken Little got other small animal friends whipped up into his hysteria while they completely missed the real threat of the fox in their midst (who eats them all in the end).

As believers and followers of Jesus Christ, the Anointed One who is the Living Revelation of Almighty God’s mercy and forgiveness, we are partakers of his reconciling heart and compassionate mind for the sake of the world. Therefore, the divisiveness and manipulation that saturates our culture these days, seeking to divide and control at every level of society, is contrary to the grace and truth of Christ our Savior. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” – (Second Timothy 1:7)

Of course, there is a good kind of biblical fear, a kind of fear that empowers our love and soundness of mind: it’s “the fear of the Lord” as the Holy Scriptures declare. That is, it’s the “fear” of awe-struck wonder at the deep mystery of God. It’s the “fearful” awe and reverence for the Eternal God that leads to insight, understanding and wisdom. As it says in the Book of Proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10).

This biblical “fear of the Lord” is what leads us to be free peacemakers and free bridge-builders in our lives and world. Freeing us from all forms of human tribalism, the fear and love and faith of Christ our Lord can lead us to transcend earthly divisions for the glory of God and the benefit of all. So as we await the fullness of God’s Kingdom to come when our resurrected Lord Jesus returns to us in person someday, we can be those peacemaking “children of God” that Jesus talks about in chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew.

Moreover, as citizens of the United States of America, we are especially blessed to live in the most universally diverse of all the countries on Earth. It’s not perfect (no country has a perfect history), but we are nonetheless the most diverse country in the world, and I believe God has blessed us Americans with the task of modeling and defending the idea of e pluribus unum (unity from diversity). But more importantly, as Christians, in the name of Jesus Christ, we can be respectful and merciful in this disrespectful and wrathful time, and we can always seek to understand those who differ with us even though we might firmly disagree.

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim

DIVINE GRACE & PRESENCE

There are two ways of living… One is the way of resisting Almighty God, and the other is the way of surrender to God’s eternal grace and steadfast love. Resistance to God brings anxiety and distress, restlessness and hopelessness. Surrender to God, however, brings inner peace and joy, true happiness and hope. It really is that simple.

The worldly person is always in a state of resistance and inner conflict. The spiritual person, on the other hand, has given up the struggle through their sweet surrender to God. For as St. Augustine famously stated in his autobiographical Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

True religion, therefore, is about surrender, and a wonderful symbolic representation of this is the California condor. When it steps out off the cliff, it simply stretches wide its wings and floats in the rising air thermals. Likewise, as we yield to God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior, we are freed to no longer flap our spiritual wings to exhaustion. Rather, by the uplifting power of God’s Holy Spirit, we are free to float weightless on God’s limitless atmosphere.

“Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles [and condors], they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” – (Isaiah 40:30-31)

So, truly, all the weight in our hearts and minds can be tied in some way to our willful and sinful resistance to the Way and Truth and Life of God in our lives. The more you fight God, the lower you fall. The more you yield and surrender to him, the lighter you become and the higher you soar spiritually.

The Season of Lent is all about dying to our sinful rebellion, and rising up unto the abundant Life and Light and Love of our Heavenly Father. This is what our Lord Jesus meant when he declared in Luke 17:33, “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.”

Consequently, as we move into Lent (meaning “length”) when the days lengthen toward springtime, may we ever seek to give up the fight, surrendering to the forgiveness and renewal of the Lord our God given freely to us in Christ. Moreover, may we also be ever mindful of God’s Holy Presence with us and for us in the here and now, realizing that we stand before the amazing Throne of the Eternal God each and every moment of our daily lives.

As the days lengthen and become warmer, may we come to understand more fully that the grass and flowers of the field, the trees and mountains, the rocks and rivers, Christ’s Word and Sacraments, as well as our hearts and souls, are all together the amazing Throne of God’s Presence. In reality, we stand before the Throne of God Most High now… Forever right now… So, for this Lenten Season, and for the rest of our God-given life, let us remember our most Wonder-Full Lord God every single day, the ever-present Source of all creation and salvation, in whom “we live, move and have our being” (Acts 17:28a).

Blessed Lent to All of You! Pastor Tim

THE POWER OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST

As winter approaches, there’s deep concern about a looming energy crisis in Europe, caused in no small part by the war in Ukraine. And our country is also experiencing its own problems regarding energy. Debates rage about how to transition to non-fossil fuel sources as energy prices go up and our power grids in some places are strained almost to the brink of collapse. And very moderate estimates say that we would need to double the size of our power grid just to begin to meet the energy requirements for a future in which the electric vehicle (or EV) is the dominant form of automotive transportation.

As brownouts roll across high population centers, people are increasingly asking: Where are we going to get the power? Is it going to come from low-carbon natural gas? From solar, wind, geothermal, or nuclear? Or is it simply a robust combination of all of these sources?

This question, in a spiritual sense, is also a question that Christianity is asking these days within our American society. Of course, I’m not talking about how we’re going to power the lights and air conditioning. What I’m saying is, spiritually speaking, where are we going to get the energy for these times of colossal societal shifts that are so much bigger than us? Where are we going to get the power?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we face a different kind of energy crisis as Christians within our secularizing American culture. Our declining denominations of every branch of the Church, dwindling Christian institutions, and struggling congregations, are causing us to wonder (and even worry) where we’re going to get the power to move into the future. Yes, COVID took its toll on the Church, no doubt about it. However, this spiritual energy crisis for the Church in the United States was already in place, and growing, long before any of us ever heard about the coronavirus. The pandemic was merely a kind of accelerant which exacerbated trends within American Christianity that were already well established.

Seminary enrollments have seen a marked drop in recent decades. Worship attendance has been trending downward for years in every single county of the United States. The fastest growing religious affiliation in our country is “none” — no affiliation whatsoever. Volunteerism is way down across the board in our American society, which has a huge impact on service clubs, fraternal organizations, youth organizations, and, of course, on congregational life. And Church bodies and institutions have been made to reorganize, then reorganize again, and then reorganize yet again, in response to dwindling resources. So, essentially, we have an energy crisis in the Church throughout our nation, even within the mega-church congregations now.

Nonetheless, at the risk of sounding overly simplistic, I would like to suggest that we have a power source which can fuel the future of the Christian Church in America (whatever form that future might take), and this power source is right under our noses. It’s a renewable resource of inexhaustible supply, and this power is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the message we have been given to proclaim to the world that [1] there really is such a thing as sin, [2] our sin separates us from God and one another, and [3] we sinners are reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s the message that we are forgiven and freed by the sacrificial blood of the cross of Christ our Lord, so that we might live a new life with God which begins now and continues forever.

In fact, the New Testament refers to the gospel as “the power of God” for our salvation in the Book of Romans. And the actual Greek word translated into English as the word “power” is the word dynamis. So if this word sounds to you like the word “dynamite” then you are correct. That is, according to the New Testament, the full gospel concerning the reality of sin, the spiritual consequences of sin, and then the forgiveness of sin granted to us by the infinite atonement of the sacrificial offering of Christ on our behalf, is an explosively saving and redeeming message. It’s a message that detonates within the receptive ear and open heart, igniting the living fire of faith and salvation. The gospel is the very power that drives faith and fuels the Church.

I believe a major factor in the energy crisis of the Church in America is that we’ve lost our focus on the power of the gospel. Far too many think it’s insufficient as an energy source — that it must be combined with something else, such as the latest fashions in entertainment and media. Or, too many people these days seek to dilute the significance of the cross of Christ, making Jesus into merely a grand religious example, a great spiritual ethicist, or the ideal leader of a liberation army. Therefore, as long as the cross is treated as an afterthought — or worse, as an embarrassment — you can expect the energy crisis in the American Church to continue.

But I’m optimistic. As other power sources we run after prove to be insufficient, the Church will continue to grow dim for a time, BUT within the growing darkness of our culture we will more and more come to see the True Light who was hanged on a central cross between two criminals. For as we see in Luke chapter 23, amid sarcasm and scoffing from those who mockingly call Jesus messiah and king, our Lord Jesus Christ reveals that he, as the Universal Messiah and Everlasting King, gives his life in love for the sake of the world. Enthroned on his sacrificial cross, Jesus uses his divine authority to welcome a penitent sinner into God’s heavenly paradise. And Jesus does the same thing for us! Thanks be to God!

In other words, if we were to die tonight, and we were to enter God’s paradise, what would we say about our entry into glory? Would we say, It’s because I…? It’s because I made a covenant with God, or it’s because I am faithful, or it’s because I am this or that… No! Rather, it is because HE (Jesus). It’s because HE died for me. It’s because HE made a baptismal covenant with me. It’s because HE is faithful and true. Like the thief on a cross next to Jesus, it is entirely because HE granted us access to God’s paradise. The thief in paradise can only and ever say, It’s because the man on the middle cross said I could come. Likewise, when we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, it can only and ever be said by us that it’s entirely because the man who was hanged on the middle cross said that you and I could come to be there.

The gospel of the cross of Christ is the saving dynamite that, when harnessed through his Word and Sacraments, fuels the Church. So as we try in vain to plug into other energy sources, we will come to see once again that the good news of the forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ provides us with all the power we will ever need.

Good Advent & Merry Christmas!!! Pastor Tim

GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS

As I get older, the well-known saying “God works in mysterious ways” is becoming much less a mere platitude for me and much more a powerful statement of divine truth. Biblically speaking, we see this throughout the Holy Scriptures, from the Old Testament to the New Testament. In particular, this mysterious truth is clearly apparent in God’s surprising use of very unlikely historical characters to achieve his ends for the sake of his believers and followers. For instance, King Cyrus the Great of the Persian Empire comes to mind.

The Kingdom of Judah was the last remaining Israelite realm in the Promised Land, but in 589 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Babylonian Empire laid siege to the City of Jerusalem, utterly destroying it and its Holy Temple in the summer of 587 BC. However, in 539 BC, God used the Persian Empire to thwart the Babylonian Empire, which allowed the People of Israel to return to the Promised Land in large numbers. God used King Cyrus the Great of Persia to release the Jews from their captivity in Babylon and let them go back to their beloved Jerusalem, decreeing that the Jerusalem Temple be rebuilt. This edict is fully preserved in the Book of Ezra, which states the following:

In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the king issued a decree: “Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the temple, the place where sacrifices are offered, be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained, its height being 60 cubits and its width 60 cubits; with three layers of huge stones and one layer of timbers. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. Also let the gold and silver utensils of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be returned and brought to their places in the temple in Jerusalem; and you shall put them in the house of God.” – (Ezra 6:3-5)

Because of this, the Jewish People honored Cyrus the Great with the sacred title “Anointed One” — making him the only Gentile (non-Jew) to receive this title in all of history. And also in the Book of Isaiah, God says, “I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness… He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 45:13).

The return from exile of the People of Israel under the direction of King Cyrus the Great of Persia is one amazing example of many historical examples in which the mysterious ways of God are at work through unexpected people to ultimately accomplish God’s will. So in the case of King Cyrus, God used a pagan Gentile emperor to bless the Israelites and the Holy City of Jerusalem.

Again, King Cyrus is only one example of this because the Bible and history are filled to overflowing with examples of God’s mysterious work in using unlikely and very problematic individuals to further God’s purposes. Of course, this includes the various flawed biblical heroes such as Abraham, Moses, Samson, David, Peter, Matthew, Paul, etc. And this also includes biblical antiheroes like King Cyrus the Great, as well as some biblical villains like Pontius Pilate.

Even today, God continues to work in mysterious ways through unlikely and flawed people, and through unexpected turns in life, and even through you and me. The older I get, the more I see the truth of this within all aspects of our lives. For as the famous Tapestry Poem beautifully states, “[Our] life is but a weaving” and “[we], in foolish pride, forget God sees the upper and [we] the underside.” And then the great promise of the Lord is articulated in this poem with the words, “Not ‘til the loom is silent, and the shuttles cease to fly, will God unroll the tapestry and explain the reason why.”

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you!

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim

REFORMATIONAL DO’S & DON’TS

Each year on Reformation Sunday, which is always the last Sunday in October, we commemorate the great Protestant Reformation that took place during the period of transition from the late Medieval timeframe into the Renaissance timeframe. For Lutherans and Catholics, this commemoration is marked both by sorrow for past sins against one another and by deep gratitude for the spiritual gifts we now offer to one another through Christ our Lord and Savior.

As we are reformational Lutheran Christians of the 21st Century (now over two decades into the Third Millennium of Christ’s Redemption), I offer you the following couple areas of reformational do’s and don’ts:

DO’S & DON’TS FOR INTERFAITH RELATIONS…

DO… Let us regard all people as fellow children of God, made in the spiritual image of God. While we profess that Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) is the fullest revelation and manifestation of God, we must also be sure to look for and celebrate the Spirit of our Lord Jesus within non-Christian faiths. Even as we proclaim that Jesus is the Eternal Word of God incarnate in human flesh (John 1), we must also be sure to seek to recognize the ‘Seeds of the Word’ (Semina Verbi in Latin) that are scattered throughout the world. In other words, as I often like to say, while Jesus is the “full enchilada” of the revelation of God, there are also slices of this Divine “enchilada” within other faiths as well.

DON’T… When it comes to interfaith relations, it’s a temptation to downplay our Christian theology and spirituality in order to be hospitable and friendly. It’s tempting to say that all roads to God are equal. However, we cannot do this if we are to remain faithful to the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.

The big question is, “Will the real Jesus please stand up?” Well, the answer for some people is that Jesus is a prophet, and for some he is a buddha, and for some others he is a rabbi or a guru. However, the plain historical truth is that the people who know Jesus best are the people of the living community that he and his Apostles founded, which is the Church of Jesus Christ. So for those who know him best — that is, for Christians — Jesus is much more than everything these various titles convey. For us Christians, Jesus is the Son of God and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity (the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit). For us, Jesus is the Divine Messiah who is the Supreme Prophet, the Heavenly High Priest, the Prince of Peace, and the Everlasting King of Kings. For us, Jesus isn’t merely Prophet Jesus, but rather he is LORD Jesus. Consequently, we can be understanding and respectful of other religions while at the same time we can hold firm to our confession of our Trinitarian Christian faith and spirituality.

DO’S & DON’TS FOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH RELATIONS…

DO… Let us start all interactions with Christians of different branches of the Church from a position of UNITY IN DIVERSITY. So much more unites us than differentiates us as fellow brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ, the Christian Church. We share the same foundational, central and essential confession that Jesus the Christ (Yeshua Ha-Mashiach) is Lord and Savior, just as we have received from the very beginning at the Annunciation to Mary:

The angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

(Luke 1:35)

We share in the same baptismal grace and faith, and we share in the same resurrection hope and charitable love of our Lord Jesus.

DON’T… We must never see other branches of the Christian Church as alien to our own identity in Christ Jesus. For we are ONE BODY in Christ with many uniquely gifted members by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are ONE TREE in Christ, with many uniquely gifted branches reaching out in all directions — Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and so on.

Together in Christ,  Pastor Tim

LENTEN PLOWING & SEEDING

The good news of Jesus Christ is for the desperate. Those who recognize their sinful condition and their desperate need for God’s grace are the target audience of his gospel. And recognizing our basic spiritual desperation is the very thing that readies us to receive the all-surpassing consolation and salvation that can only come through the Living Word of God, Christ Jesus our Lord.

Due to the fall of humanity, allegorized in the Garden of Eden narrative, the fallen condition of the spiritual soil of the human soul is nothing but rocks, hardpan, weeds and thistles. Consequently, “good soil” within the human heart is not so much found as it is created. Just like it is with farming, soil suitable for planting must first be prepared by clearing, weeding and plowing.

Therefore, our hearts need repentance to be prepared to receive the seed of the gospel of Christ. When we sinners have the soil of our hearts broken up by the sharp plow blade of God’s biblical law, then our hearts are made repentantly soft and joyfully able to receive God’s gospel of grace. And the Season of Lent is a very useful time of year to get spiritually plowed up by God’s biblical law and prepared again to be planted anew with God’s saving grace in Christ.

Technically speaking, farmers do not plow to make the soil productive, but rather for the purpose of making the planted seed productive. That’s what God does with us, and that’s what he wants to do anew this Lenten Season. He wants to soften us up for an effective implantation of the grace of the gospel. Through the dying and rising of Jesus the Son of God, it is God’s righteousness alone that grants us this renewal, not our own righteousness. For indeed our human righteousness is so flawed and inadequate that God (who is totally good and holy and pure) regards it as something that is soiled and foul smelling at best, because our human righteousness is compromised by sinful pride and selfish gain. 

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”

Isaiah 64:6

Jesus comes to transform the curse of the soil of the human heart. He comes to give us an honest and contrite heart that appreciates its own sinful condition and desperately longs to be renewed by him through his saving gospel. For only a contrite heart can genuinely appreciate its need for the atonement and redemption that cannot be produced by our own merit, but must be first planted within us by our loving God.

“You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Psalm 51:16-17

May the Lord of grace and truth make our fallen and sinful hearts to be soft and receptive, may he take hold of us and lead us with him through his sufferings of the Garden of Gethsemane and the Cross of Golgotha, and may he raise us up to new life in him.

“Thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread everywhere the fragrance of knowing him. For we are the pleasing aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.”

Second Corinthians 2:14-15

Good Lent & Blessed Holy Week!

Pastor Tim

AN ALL-INCLUSIVE PRAYER FOR 2021

Almighty and wonder-full God, we are thankful for your all-encompassing, all-pervading and eternal Presence.

Our thanks and praise belong to you alone, O God of all, because you are the One Source of all being and goodness. In you we live, move and have our being, and by your sovereign grace we receive salvation, wholeness and renewal.

We thank you for the birth, life, teachings, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord. We thank you for the redemptive suffering of Jesus, endured by him from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross of Golgotha (a suffering which exposed the total depravity of our sinful human condition every step of the way), and we thank you for Jesus’ sacrificial offering of himself for our everlasting atonement and reconciliation. Moreover, we thank and praise you for the empty tomb and ascension of Jesus which declare your Final Word of life, light and love eternal.

Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — you are in charge and you lead the way. You never leave us nor forsake us, and your steadfast love endures forever. Whether we live or die, we are yours. In this life and the next, we are secure in your hands.

By your sovereign grace and divine will, you call us, claim us and draw us to yourself. You lead us on paths we do not yet know. There is a tomorrow we cannot see, and there are bends in the road we cannot know. But we know you will faithfully lead us according to your plan and purpose, because you are the Faithful One.

By your amazing grace, we travel the journey of this life. By your grace, we keep our minds focused on you. By your grace, we live God-conscious lives, a daily relationship of moment-by-moment dialogue with you. By your grace, we trust in you, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen. And by your grace, we follow you and abide in you.

By your grace, what joy and peace you give to us!!!

And in response to your infinite grace and absolute love, we live lives of worship, prayer, Holy Scripture study, tenderheartedness, lovingkindness, faithfulness, justice, hospitality and charity.

O Lord God, we pray for the world, this diverse arena you have created to work out your infinite grace and purposes for us and all things. We know that destruction and rebirth are a part of your creative will for the natural world. We know that you are in all creation and all creation is in you. Help us to use times of crisis as opportunities for serving those in need and sharing your truth.

O God, we know that you establish, disestablish and reestablish your earthly community throughout the ages. Beginnings, endings and new beginnings all flow from your creative and redemptive activity. We pray that in times of adversity you will draw us closer to you all the more.

Help us to see your Unity in the diversity of our world, O God, and help us to see that we are all united in you through your Holy Spirit. Help us to see we are of One Love and One Heart in you.

O God, for your universal glory and for our eternal benefit, help us to see and understand all of this according to the faith, hope and love of your Living Word, Jesus Christ our Lord.

You are Love… You are Sovereign… You are True…

Wonder-full God, the great “I Am” of the Scriptures, we pray all these things in the saving name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The grace and peace of Christ be with you all in 2021! Pastor Tim

“HOLY ADMIRATION, BATMAN!”

As most of you probably know by now, I’m quite the nerd when it comes to sci-fi and superheroes and the like. So the title of my article plays around with this interest of mine, borrowing from the comic book character Robin’s many sayings from the Batman & Robin comic series. I Googled it, and the character Robin exclaimed everything from “Holy Alphabet, Batman!” to “Holy Love Birds, Batman!” to “Holy Zorro, Batman!” But let’s talk about why this article is entitled “Holy Admiration, Batman!”

I was recently driving by the St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Glendale, and I decided to stop there and walk around the church grounds a bit. And I have to say that the beauty of that church structure was very uplifting. As I often do when visiting worship sites of other spiritual groups (Christian or otherwise), I felt a sense of “holy admiration” for their religious faith and spirituality, and I believe that a healthy sense of holy admiration for communities of God other than our own is a very good thing.

As Christians we follow the Ten Commandments, and among these seminal commandments of God is to “not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16) which also means that we try to “interpret everything they do in the best possible light” (Martin Luther’s Small Catechism). So according to this, whenever we take part in interchurch relations or interfaith relations we are to have holy admiration for the highest aspects (the better angels) of other faith traditions, even if it is a non-Christian religion.

Of course it is much easier to do this with Christian groups, as is the case with the Armenian Orthodox Church, but this also goes for non-Christian faith expressions. However, it is important for the followers of Jesus to be spiritually discerning about harmful religious manifestations, and even to be critical of anything that might be directly opposed to the core principles of the Faith, Hope and Love of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, we should always leave room in our hearts for reverent appreciation — even a kind of sacred envy — concerning anything good and Divine within other religions.

Now let me be clear, this does not mean we profess that all beliefs are equal. In fact, because all things are not equal in philosophy or science or any other discipline, therefore not all things are equal in theology and spirituality. So while we reverently appreciate and even admire aspects of various non-Christian groups, we also believe and trust in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, who is the fullest revelation of God’s Heart and the fullness of salvation for the whole world.

As the Apostles Paul and John write…

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith…”

St. Paul in Romans 1:16-17a

“God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”

St. John in First John 4:9-11

So let us engage in interchurch and interfaith conversations and relations, with admiration and lovingkindness, but let us also hold fast to the universal good news of God the Son. And let us never be ashamed or hesitant to share the good news that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have everlasting life” (Jesus speaking to Nicodemus in John 3:16).

Together in Christ,  Pastor Tim