The Burr in the Burgh

Higher Things 2007
Text: Matthew 28:1-8 (Eastertide theme)

Your sins tangle you in the web of death. You think you can get away with it, but you cannot. You think no one will know, but God sees everything. You have convinced yourself that it’s not that big a deal to look at pornography. You think it’s OK to mock the weirdoes at school. You love buying clothes at the mall more than you love receiving the Eucharist at church.

Sin is like tar. Once you get a spot on your hands, there is nothing you can do to wipe it off. In fact, the more you try to wipe it off, the more you’re going to just spread it around all over yourself. You cannot justify yourselves before God. All of your acts of piety, your good deeds and your sweetness are not enough to make you right with God. And the more you attempt to please God and hide your sin, the dirtier and filthier you will become.

Sin is like manure on a baloney sandwich. It doesn’t matter if you just have a little teensy piece of dog manure on the bread. The whole thing is ruined. You can’t eat that thing because the whole thing is contaminated.

So often we try to appease our consciences by comparing ourselves to other human beings. Well, my sins are small compared to that guy! The problem is that when judging you, God does not compare you to that guy. He compares you to His Son. And by that standard, we all fall short.

When it come right down to it, you’re a mess. And so am I. But it’s worse that we tend to want to believe. Like the knight in The Quest for the Holy Grail, we are spouting a fountain of blood and try to make light of it saying, “It’s only a flesh wound.”

Your problem is not that you are sick It’s not that you are weak. It’s not that you are out-of-harmony with the universe. It’s not that there’s a tiny speck of manure on your sandwich. The problem is that you are contaminated. The problem is that all of us are out favor with God on account of our sinfulness. All of us are spiritually dead without Jesus Christ.

A really big problem calls for a really big solution. People that fail to understand the seriousness of their sin also fail to realize the seriousness of God’s love. Our savior is not small. He is not weak. He is not trivial. He is not one hour of your week. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. He is the beginner and finisher of our salvation.

The most important thing in life is not your shoes, your hair, your grades, your pimples, your sex appeal or the plastic golden trophies on your shelf. The most important thing is that you, sinner, have been baptized into Jesus Christ. And in that baptism, God Almighty bestowed on you all the blessing and benefits of the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the cross, the Father heaped all of the manure of your sin, all of your secrets and all of your hidden faults and piled on the head or His Son, so that on the cross, God looked at Jesus and said, “You disgust me. You repulse me. You nauseate me. I hate you.” And the sky went dark and the earth shook and the curtain in the Temple tore from top to bottom. And the only truly good man who ever lived bowed his head and died.

Probably all of you have been to the funeral of someone you knew, at least once or twice. In most modern cemeteries, people put big heavy granite or marble headstones on top of the graves. They are called headstones. Did you ever wonder why they do that?

We think of these probably as just a way for us to mark the spot or a way to remember the deceased. Some historians think, however, that the practice of placing heavy marble or granite stones over the head of the dead person dates back to pagan origins when people were afraid of ghosts. They thought that placing a big rock at the head of the grave would pin the spirit of the dead person in his grave so he would follow them home and haunt them.

But I am here to tell you today that no one on heaven or earth, no angels or demons, no man or woman, no authority, power or dominion will be able to keep you pinned in your graves at the Day of Lord’s return. There will come a day, sooner or maybe later, but it will come when our dear Lord Jesus Christ will reappear in glory surrounded by angels and He will speak your name. And at that moment, if you are in the grave at the time, your body will be restored to life and you will rise again. Not green and maggot ridden like a Hollywood zombie with bits of flesh hanging down in quivering strips. But fully restored and more than that. You will be glorified.

So, to hell with the devil and his accusations!! He has no claim on you. You have been baptized into Jesus Christ. The very life of God is pulsating in your veins and corpuscles transforming you into the magnificent creature God the Creator intend you to be.

I have no particular wish to die, but I look forward to the day of my resurrection, the day when my baptism will be fulfilled. But until that hour, fix your hopes on Jesus Christ. Don’t let the devil fool you into thinking you are worthless. Because of all that Jesus has accomplished, you are precious in God’s sight. He will not treat you as your sins deserve. Left to yourself, your life is like manure on a baloney sandwich, contaminated through and through. But in Jesus Christ, you are pure gold – no, more than that, you are the sons of God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

In certain circles (namely, the circles in which I circulate) the theological discipline of apologetics often gets a bad rap. Some belittle the whole apologetic enterprise saying, "you can't argue someone into faith." Thus many confessional Lutherans ignore apologetics and the field is over-run by modern Evangelicals (Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, etc.) We Lutherans have some hearty influence in the field, however, namely John Warwick Montgomery and Paul Maier, but these are few and far between.

If apologetics is the enterprise of forming systematic arguments to defend one's beliefs, then confessional Lutherans do this all the time - only they do to it towards fellow Lutherans and other Christians. Polemics has a noble and oft-abused history in the Christian family.

There is a screaming need for intelligent Lutheran Christians to apply themselves anew to the enterprise of apologetics towards non-Christians. We need to overcome our allergy to human reason and construct cogent arguments to defend our teachings against objections. Yes, Luther once called reason a whore because he was reacting against the excesses of Scholastic medieval writers. But he also acknowledged that reason can serve theology when enlightened by the Spirit (cf. Table Talk).

You can't argue someone into the Faith, to be sure. There is a distinction between apologetics and proclamation. For many, the one must precede the other. I agree that it is dangerous sin to make reason a master over divine revelation. But what about the many areas of conversation that are located just outside the perimeter of divine revelation? And that support the claims of the Church?

Most faithful pastors do the apologetics I'm talking about nearly every day. That is, if they engage in conversations with unbelievers about God or matters of the spirit.

In 1948, Alfred Hitchcock directed the unusual thriller Rope starring Jimmy Steward and Farley Granger.

I say "unusual" because it is not typical for Hollywood to include drawn out philosophical reflections in its productions.

Entirely played out in two rooms of a single apartment, the opening scene shows two men at the final moments of strangling a third man to death.

Brandon and Philip are the two spoiled urbane collegians who are playing a game, performing an experiment, and, I suppose, attempting to realize their destiny.

Jimmy Stewart plays a former professor, still much admired by the boys for his unorthodox views.

Essentially, the drama revolves around Brandon's and Philip's avant garde ethical viewpoint. Patterned after the famous case of Leopold and Loeb, the two young men set out to commit the "perfect" murder just because they could. But they could not. And did not. They were caught.

I don't quite know enough about Friedrich Nietzsche to be the judge, but the film's two protagonists - especially Brandon - purport to embody the German philosopher's idea of the ubermensch.

To be plain, Nietzsche believed that traditional Christian morality was generally demeaning to man. Since "God is dead", (as he would say), why should men bridle their instincts, denying themselves terrific pleasure and reward to assuage a fictional deity?

For Nietzsche, might makes right. The one who has the power to enforce his will upon others is the best one. He spoke of the "superman" who would not grovel or cater to the heavenlies but who would assert himself.

Brandon certainly understood himself as the ubermensch. In his mind, murdering a cohort whom he considered an inferior was justified. Sort of a variation on Darwin's natural selection.

Ideas do have consequence.

cf. Rope: Nietzsche and the Art of Murder; Hitchcock and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy)

Erin Bode is a young woman who looks like Michelle Pfeiffer and sings like Nora Jones. She has also recently partnered with the Lutheran Church (MS) World Relief to assist poor girls in South Africa. Go here to see what I mean. You will like it. And purchase the CD. Do it because the music is terrific. Do it because the proceeds assist these young people in such need.

There has been a lot of press recently about a statement from the Bishop of Rome about how people are saved. First of all, I think it's important to note that Benedict XVI has said nothing new here. I continue to be amazed, frankly, that there are so many people who are surprised when the pope teaches Roman Catholic doctrine. Oh, and I just learned that the Dalai Lama thinks like a Buddhist too!

Regardless of what you've heard, the pope did not say that all non-Catholics are going to hell. What he said, as I understand it, is that Lutherans and Protestants are not the church, properly understood.

I disagree, of course. Who is the Church? Where is it to be found? Lutherans believe that the Church is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel. (Augsburg Confession Article VII).

I agree with the pope that there is only one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. Our Lord did not establish multiple entities to represent Him, nor are there multiple paths to enlightenment. There is only one true church.

I will go further. Outside of the church, it is not possible to be saved. I don't accept the notion of "anonymous Christians" which some Roman theologians have posited. That is the idea that people of non-Christian belief systems might be saved by Christ even if they don't know his name or confess Him as Lord.

So to be saved, one must be in the Church of Jesus Christ. I simply do not equate the Church of Jesus Christ with any single existing institutional denomination.

A major part of the problem is the pope's misunderstanding of apostolic succession. The Apostle's Creed refers to the church as apostolic. That is to say that it is built upon the foundation of the apostles (and prophets) with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone. But in what sense is the church apostolic? Is the important thing that one can demonstrate a physical laying on of hands from one to the next for eons? Rather, isn't it the man who teaches the doctrine of the apostles who is their rightful successor whether he is in the physical lineage or not?

Consider what Jesus says in John 8 about who are the true sons of Abraham. In opposition to the pharisees, Jesus said that the sons of Abraham are those who hold the faith of Abraham, not simply those biologically descended from his loins.

I went with a couple of chums last night to a late showing of 1408, the current film based on a story by Stephen King. It starred John Cusack, one of my all-time favorite actors.

I really appreciate a well-written ghost story. This one was better than average but not stellar. A good ghost story always begs these two questions:

- Is there life beyond death?
- Is there a God and does He love or hate us?

I liked 1408 not only because it was a moderately scary flick, but because it did grapple with those two questions pretty effectively. Of course, most ghost stories fall very short of giving complete and correct answers but in an aggressively atheistic and materialistic cultural context, the questions themselves may represent progress.

Yesterday, I finished reading A Father's Story by the father of serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer, Lionel Dahmer. I found it enlightening. Parents look at their children and hope for the best for their future. To what extent, if any, should responsibility (blame?) fall to the parents for the crimes of the children? One of the things that I found most interesting in Mr. Dahmer's book is the degree to which it was an examination of himself. The apple never falls too far from the tree. Not to say that Mr. Lionel Dahmer ever committed the particular atrocities of his son. But the author reveals that his own quirks, failings, weaknesses and flaws are present in seed form in his son. As he put it (I may not have the quote exact), he put his hand on the handle of the door to the room which Jeffrey entered.

Was Jeffrey genetically predisposed to become a murderer? From his father's account, I'd say most likely. But that's not such a stretch really. I think everyone is capable, under certain circumstances, to commit murder. Are our genes our destiny? I'm not saying that. Yet just as some people are naturally more sensitive, others "naturally" lack empathy.

What Jeffrey did, however, goes well beyond merely killing human beings. Perhaps his perversions defy explanation. One of the rationalizations that I find objectionable is when people label such people "monsters." Jeffrey Dahmer was no monster. He was a man. A man who felt, willed, loved, and performed monstrous things. Is there a qualitative difference between Jeffrey Dahmer and you? Certainly a difference in degree, but in quality? Have you never hated another or wished someone dead? Have you never treated people like they are your possessions? Have you never - in pain or anger or sorrow - tortured the innocents? By your words? Your actions or inactions? Ah. Maybe we have all grasped the handle to the door of the room Jeffrey entered.

Now I'm reading a brilliant text by Mikal Gilmore, brother of killer Gary Gilmore, called Shot in the Heart. Mikal is a writer by profession and what a skillfully woven narrative he offers! Whereas Mr. Dahmer focused upon the genetic conveyance of evil (if you will), Mikal Gilmore seems to be looking at the entrenched patterns of violence in family systems. He looks much further into his family tree to see how close the apples fall. And this is a guy with a bizarre and terrible tale to tell.

I can never just read one book at a time. Lately I've been reading:

From my interest in movies:

Yesterday, after the church council picnic, I finished The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons. Loved it. Next I'll take up my biography of Laurel and Hardy.

The Kill Bill Diary: The Making of a Tarantino Classic as Seen Through the Eyes of a Screen Legend by David Carradine

Forensic Science of CSI by Katherine Ramsland

The Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation by Katherine Ramsland

Inside the Minds of Serial Killers: Why They Kill by Katherine Ramsland

A Father's Story by Lionel Dahmer, the father of Jeffrey Dahmer. I just started this yesterday.

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

Philemon: A theological Exposition of Sacred Scripture (Concordia Commentary) by Dr. John Nordling, one of our crackerjack New Testament gurus.

Friends, the past two weeks have seen the 9th annual successful Christ Academy for high school men considering the pastoral ministry. It's been a crazy busy two weeks.

Why would actress Cameron Diaz want a handbag emblazoned with Maoist slogans? This is fashion? And then to insensitively wear it while touring Peru, a land where Maoist ideologues murdered tens of thousands. Why not just wear a "Go Hitler!" sweatshirt in Jerusalem or a "Pol Pot Is My Homeboy" baseball cap in Cambodia? Even if Diaz was truly clueless, her handlers should have caught this.... No, wearing a Mao Zedong handbag is just evil.

A man named Scott Diekmann contacted me today to inform me of his group's website called Sound Witness. I haven't had the chance to look at their material yet, so please don't assume I agree with every jot and tittle. However, just from my quick glance, it looks to me like these guys have something helpful to offer. I encourage you to take a look at their material. I'm particularly interesting in the article on the emerging church movement.

I've enjoyed Peggy Noonan's political writing for a long time. Here is her analysis of The Sopranos.

Like many Americans watching television on Sunday night at around 10 p.m., I yelled, "What?! What happened?!" At first, I thought my TV fritzed out on me. But a split second later it hit me and then waves of disappointment washed over me.

There is an internet debate over whether David Chase is brilliant or took the coward's way out. I think Chase is a brilliant coward. I can't blame him, but I will never forgive him. What a lousy stunt!? But still, it makes perfect sense.

Like many others, I am sad to say goodbye to America's most likable sociopath. For a series that was known both for its subtlety and its coarseness, perhaps the best end is no ending at all. The very last sound were these words to a Journey power ballad: "Don't stop." And then it stopped. All too abruptly.

Did it stop or didn't it? We'll never know. There were indications that something was about to happen. And then nothing did. But isn't that how life is? Are all the plot strings in your life tightly knotted at the end?

The episode made the point that life is like sitting in a rocking chair. It's a lot of work, but you don't go anywhere. After all the gore, bodily and emotional, we're right where we started. Tony goes right back to episode 1, season 1 with A.J.'s therapist. And just as the first season ended with a family meal, so the finale. Like men lost in the woods, we tend to go in circles. Has any progress been made?

The Sopranos gave us insight into the meaning of life. No, really. I mean that. When the other FBI agent told Agent Harris about Phil Leotardo's demise, Harris smacked the table with glee saying, "We're gonna win this thing." We're disgusted that he responded to the murder of a human being as if his favorite team just scored in a close championship match. Life is no game. But which fan of the show did not have the exact same reaction internally? Just like Harris caught himself, we have to ask, "why do I like this stuff?" What does that say about me?

The biggest question on everyone's mind was who will get whacked in the end? Will Tony finally get his due? The foreshadowing intentionally misled us. Bobby in the boat with Tony opined that you never see it coming when the bullet with your name on it comes knocking. Maybe, he said, it just all goes black. So isn't the conclusion obvious to you now? Chase didn't whack Tony. Whether he knows it or not, he whacked us.

David Klinghoffer clarifies the Iowa State University flap over denying tenure to highly accomplished astronomer, Guillermo Gonzalez, because he harbors unpopular views in this Daily Standard article. It seems that every outrageous theory is defensible in today's academia as long as you don't ever imply a supreme intelligence behind the origin of the planet.

Anyone care to opine about the... uh... unexpected ending to television's most talked about series? Join the blog-versation. Leave your comments. I'll chime in later. Spoilers allowed.

The Scriptures teach: "Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22)." I couldn't help but notice the significance of blood in the temple ritual of the Mayans in the movie Apocalypto. One telling scene has a warrior returning with captives to be sacrificed at the temple. The priest stops him before he sets foot on the most holy place. And the warrior, understanding the problem, cuts his hand with a knife and sprinkles his blood upon the stones before taking a step. I can't say whether the Gibson film accurately represents the theology of ancient Mayan religion, but I am fascinated that so many pagan belief systems understand the principle of cleansing with blood.

Very cool interactive picture here.

Our little buddy was confirmed at Redeemer a couple of weeks ago. I was grateful that Pastor Petersen allowed me to participate as we blessed those little rascals.

The rite of Confirmation is kind of a slippery thing in Lutheran practice. We don't recognize it as a divinely instituted thing but a human tradition that has merit.

Lutherans are not uniform in how we practice confirmation or even in its purpose. Many American Lutherans treat confirmation as a pre-requisite for receiving the Holy Communion. The most common age for confirmation is after 8th grade. Others do early communion and still confirm at age 13 or 14.

The rite itself is not the main thing either. The heart of it is the time spent (often 2 years) in instruction. Many churches still use Martin Luther's Small Catechism as the basic text other than Holy Scripture. The rite is a blessing but is most significant in that it leads to their first communion (the highest blessing).

I like the way our congregation does it. As both a pastor and a parent, I strongly prefer earlier communion. I cannot justify making our young people wait until they are 14 years old before allowing them to receive the benefits of Christ's Supper.

I agree with the notion that a person should receive basic instruction in the Christian faith before being admitted to the altar. But waiting until a child is a teenager, arguably the most difficult period of their young lives and the time when they are most likely to rebel and question their faith, before giving them the Body and Blood of Christ seems strange.

Tomorrow (June 1), seminarian Jason Braaten will become the Reverend Jason Braaten. Jason is the latest addition to our Seminary Admission staff.

We had a bit of a surprise luncheon for him in the office. Thanks to all who helped.

He'll try to tell you that the pink feather boa is mine, but don't you believe it.

The second picture is of our Admission Officers. Going left to right, there is me, Jason, Martin Luther, Phil Zielinski, Tom Zimmerman and John Dreyer (the eligible bachelor among us). Not pictured are the ladies. Why didn't we get a shot of them? Pat Painter, Marsha Zimmerman and Cheri Shoemaker. Also not pictured are the three student workers: Brian German, Tony Oliphant, and Tim Storck.

I direct you to a fascinating review of The Lives of Others by Barbara Nicolosi. She makes an interesting argument for why Hollywood has made so many movies about the Nazi atrocities but so few about the appalling stories of the Soviets or modern communists in Cuba, China or North Korea.

I just added The Lives of Others to my Blockbuster Online list.

In my last post, I recommended Apocalypto, while warning that it is not for the squeamish. It's a great film and I firmly believe, as I said, that if this had been directed by anyone besides Mel Gibson, it would have been hailed as a masterpiece by Hollywood elites and critics alike.

It is simply a gorgeous movie. It's a feast for the eyes. The story is simple but very effectively told. Since the whole movie is in the Yucatec language, Gibson keeps the dialogue to a minimum. It takes special skill to tell a story without having character dialog or narration to explain things. They say a story-teller should "show" and not "tell." Gibson is the master at that. And to truly appreciate the complexity of the story, you must watch the movie at least twice. The subtleties of the story arc were much more appreciated by me the second time.

Certainly one of the reasons that the politically correct thought police disliked Apocalypto is that it is unabashedly pro-colonial. While the Europeans have very little screen time, they are arguably the most important characters in the film. The Spaniards bringing Christianity to the shores of paganism truly are the deus ex machina. The Mayans are portrayed as a society destroying itself, curved inward, unable to suppress the corruption from within. Just when hope is lost, the saviors arrive. This makes every new beginning possible.

In spite of their many scientific and cultural accomplishments, the ancient Mayans were brutal and savage to an extreme. I'm not saying that classic European society was violence-free, but the values and worldview of Christianity shaped Western culture to make it the great and wonderful phenomena it has been, extolling liberty, justice, knowledge, beauty and faith - in short, the peak of civilization.

But what about the much ballyhooed degree of violence? The gore-hounds surely will not be disappointed. People do get hurt and people do die. And it doesn't always happen off-screen. And it is seldom pretty. So for a society that prefers to paint our dead to appear alive and hire strangers to wash and dress our deceased for us, this will shock. But I don't see how Gibson could have shown the peril of the characters' world without revealing injury and death convincingly.

I finally watched Mel Gibson's Apocalypto last night. I'd easily give it 5 stars out of 5. It's an excellent film, though not for the squeamish.

The reviews had made such a big deal out of the violence and gore that I was reticent to see it. But I'm convinced that the movie reviewers who criticized it for that reason either don't see very many movies or still want to grind an ax against Gibson for his Jesus movie. It's not that intense, not compared to others that get critical raves.

Actually, the violence it contains seemed anything but exploitive. I'd say it was necessary to the narrative.

Apocalypto is simply the work of a cinematic genius. The story is powerful, the characters intriguing, and the action is non-stop. Very exciting. Also very beautiful. Gibson captures the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of humanity at a basic level.

If you want to learn something, if you want to feel excitement, if you want to dip your toe into an alien world while sitting safely in your pajamas, rent Apocalypto tonight.

The critics were mixed in their evaluations. Many of them overflowed with praise. Others claimed to be repulsed. I think this reviewer is correct in saying that if any other director had made this movie, the others would be tripping over themselves to honor it. But because Mel Gibson made a powerful film about Jesus (the most offensive man who ever lived), they can't tolerate anything he does.

Is this the biggest pig you've ever seen? Go here.

We've all seen the Hollywood personalities addicted to cosmetic surgery. It weirds me out to see Burt Reynolds or Joan Rivers these days. They look like they're made of wax.

At least Joan Rivers is honest about it. In this telling article, she reveals that many entertainers are actually filled with self-loathing.

What are your thoughts about cosmetic surgery? I'm not talking about reparative plastic procedures for someone with an injury or malformity. I'm referring to purely elective procedures that people have in order to enhance or improve their appearance.

This week, I am at Grace Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm sitting in on a continuing education class for pastors on Leviticus. Our instructor is Dr. John Kleinig, Old Testament scholar at Australian Lutheran College.

He is quite fantastic and has me convinced that Leviticus is - by Christians - the most tragically neglected book of the Bible. My pastor, Rev. David Petersen, blogged several times recently about his experience with this course when it was offered in Fort Wayne.

The over-arching theme of Leviticus is holiness. The concept of holiness is the key for understanding the whole arrangement of worship in Israel and God’s involvement in worship. It has crucial implications for Christian worship as well.

First of all, only God is holy. No one and nothing apart from God is holy. There is no other sources of holiness. How do things and people become holy? Only by contact with God. The trouble is that sinful people who come into contact with God (without mediation) are destroyed, just as fire burns chaff and light scatters darkness. We sinful beings are in need of a means to access God (atonement; Great High Priest, Christ as intercessor).

I am attracted to this teaching, not only because I recognize the scriptural soundness of it, but because I am annoyed by the buddy/buddy informality that permeates much of contemporary Christianity. Nothing is sacred. God is a benign cuddly grandpa.

According to this story, some activists are trying to get a chimpanzee certain legal rights by having a court declare him a person.

So what makes someone a person anyway? We pro-lifers understand that an unborn child - at every stage of development - is a person. What about this creature who shares 99.4% of our DNA?

Holy Scripture differentiates between human beings and the other living creatures by teaching that Adam and Eve were formed in the image and likeness of God. This is said of no other being.

Can one be a person and then cease being a person? Terri Schiavo?

Humorist Dave Barry has this fun take on what is actually quite a helpful little text. Go here to read Barry's review of Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home.

In The Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther expounds on how the sinner is justified and united with Christ.

The third incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh (Eph. 5:31-32). And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage - indeed the most perfect of all marriages. . . it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own.

Let us compared these and we shall see inestimable benefits. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul's; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride's and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?

The other day in chapel, we prayed the litany. One of the lines in this wonderful prayer is our petition asking God to save us from a sudden and evil death.

Have you ever thought about that? Don't most people actually want to die suddenly? What's the alternative? A slow and lingering death?

I have a hunch that this is a petition many pray, but simply don't mean (but never think about it either).

What exactly is the problem with a sudden death? We might be able to understand what an evil death would be, but why do we wish to be spared a sudden death?

You know Shakespeare's Hamlet. One of the prince's greatest sorrows at his father's death is that he was murdered while he slept. They poured poison in the poor king's ear. Prince Hamlet explains that the murderers killed his father twice because not only did they slay his body but by killing him unexpectedly, he had no occasion to shrive himself (g0 to receive private absolution).

Are you prepared to die? How does one become prepared? A sudden death suggests that one has not had opportunity to ready oneself to meet the Maker. I suppose this would be a more pressing concern if I feared thousands of years in purgatory.

A Christian finds great comfort indeed from making personal confession and receiving God's gracious absolution from the pastor. And it is a joy and consolation w/o comparison to partake of the Holy Eucharist. As a congregational pastor, I had the opportunity to stand at the deathbeds of many people and offer them God's grace and mercy. Not only was this a comfort for the dying person, but certainly also for the family.

Should this mean, however, that a Christian who is baptized into Christ and faithfully makes use of the means of grace throughout his life, relying on God's mercy, should be overly distressed at the prospect of a sudden death, as if the eternal outcome were are at urgent risk?

Oh, I was just rifling through the pockets on one of my suit coats and came across one of my ubiquitous notepads. I like to always have a pad and pen with me wherever I am so that I can take notes about whatever. I get all kinds of ideas throughout the day.

Often, I take notes when listening to sermons. This is especially true on Sunday mornings when listening to Pastor Petersen.

Some time ago, he preached on Luke 18:9-14, the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector who both go to the Temple to pray. I'm not going to try to reconstruct pastor's sermon. You can (and probably should) read the whole manuscript here. I just want to share with you some of the disconnected notes I jotted that morning.

• It's easy to hate the Pharisee who thinks he is better than others. We think we are better than him.


• All sins are dangerous. There are always victims.
  


• All who trust in themselves go to hell.


• The Tax Collector was reckoned righteous because he despaired of himself.
  


• The difference between our sins and theirs is like the difference between calling Pluto a planet or an asteroid. It makes no difference. It's still there.
  


• Everyone who hopes for mercy from Jesus Christ receives it.


• The mercy of the Lord endures forever.


• No one who hopes for mercy is denied.
  

One of the neatest things about living on our beautiful 190 acre seminary campus is the waterfowl. Squads of ducks and geese call our little lake home, at least for part of the year. Watching them nest and rear their young gives me a genuine Tony Soprano moment.

People who know me know that I am a fan of director Quentin Tarantino. We can argue about that later, if you like.

So it was almost a necessity that I go see the big Q's latest cinematic discharge: Grindhouse. I have strongly mixed feelings about this project, an ambitious double feature with Tarantino chum, fellow director, Robert Rodriguez.

Grindhouse is really two completely separate movies played back to back with a brief intermission filled with phony trailers. The first half of the double was Planet Terror, a zombie pic directed by R. Rodriguez. I hated it.

I don't mind horror or zombies in themselves. Some of my favorite movies are horror pictures and a couple of them feature zombies. But this one just took gross to a whole new level, a level I -for one- simply did not need. There was just nothing funny or cool about it to outweigh the yuck.

But the second half of the double feature was completely different, the one from Quentin. It was called Death Proof and is your basic pyscho-killer car caper. This movie was a blast of fun. Yes, it does have moments of profanity and titillation, but these are small and peripheral. There is also violence; one scene in particular was excruciating and literally knocked the breath out of me just to watch it. But mostly, it is a red-blooded car chase that sent my adrenaline to the moon. I have never spontaneously blurted, "WHOOAAA!!!!" out loud in a theater before. But I did this time.

I've tried to like Rodriguez films in the past, but have usually been unhappy. Desperado (1995) with Antonio Banderas was the only one of his projects I could bear to watch again. Sin City was OK, but the best parts of that were the story, dialog and visual style which came from Frank Miller. That and a killer cast. I'm not sure how much to credit Rodriguez since the credits list Tarantino as an assistant director. I'm inclined to think that what's good about Sin City came from Miller and the big Q.

Quentin (if you are reading this blog), re-release Death Proof as a single feature. Drop the Rodriguez disgrace. It's pulling you down. Like all of Tarantino's films, Death Proof needs to be watched over and over again (just like certain episodes of Sponge Bob). Everything Q does is a cult film. So if he won't cut himself free of the lousy zombie bomb, I'll have to buy my next Grindhouse ticket, go eat a burger and come back 90 minutes into it.

Premiere magazine lists the 100 Greatest movie lines. See here. Any of your faves that they missed?

Christopher Tolkien, the son of the famous father, has edited and released a "new" volume of the lore of Middle Earth. The Children of Hurin is based on a story the master first wrote in 1919. Tolkien fans know that he constantly revised and re-wrote his tales all his life long. What Christopher appears to have done is compiled the stories of this cycle and edited and conflated them into this new volume, never previously published.

The reviews are quite intriguing. See here. And here.

Third Week of Easter

April 25, 2007

Text: Acts 9:1-20

Before Paul was called Paul, he was known as Saul of Tarsus. Saul was a highly learned scholar, a Pharisee, an expert in the Law. He was also one of the earliest and more feverish opponents of Christianity. We know from the book of Acts and from Paul’s own writings that he had once been a persecutor of the church. He was personally responsible for arresting, harassing, and even murdering those who believed and followed Jesus Christ. It is Paul who writes about himself in one of his letters calling himself “the Chief of Sinners.”

I think it’s safe to say that Paul, while he was still known as Saul, was not a righteous man. He had a form of righteousness, to be sure. He was an avid follower of the Law of Moses. He knew which foods were kosher, which holy days to observe. He was strictly devoted to the outward forms of his religion while failing to comprehend the meaning behind it all.

But the type of righteousness I’m talking about here is not the type of righteousness which places us in good standing with God. A man could follow all the ceremonial niceties perfectly but still be as lost as a tax collector if he did not have faith in God’s Messiah.

Saul had an outward righteousness, a civic righteousness, you might even say a ceremonial righteousness. And none of that is bad. It’s just not sufficient. It’s only bad if you trust in it for salvation.

It’s the same way with us today. While none of us is probably all that worked up over things like circumcision, kosher diet, and animal sacrifices. We do get excited about outward righteousness in other ways. We care if a person is a good, decent person, a law abiding neighbor, a considerate person. For instance, a husband who is faithful to his wife, who is a spiritual leader in the household and provides for his family is what we would probably call a good man.

We’ve all gone to funerals where we hear people say things like “john was such a good person.” That always makes me cringe a little because Jesus said there is no one good except one person and that is God himself. And St. Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

So on the one hand, no human being, other that Jesus Christ who is God-in-the-flesh, can truly be called good. But even having said all that, we do sometimes use the word simply to refer to the outward behavior of a person. Who would you rather have as a next door neighbor, a peaceful, law-abiding family man who is kind and considerate of other people’s feelings? Or would you rather have an obnoxious, selfish neighbor who couldn’t care less about you or anyone else? You’d rather have the first guy because he’s a good person and the second guy is not.

So Saul of Tarsus, later to be renamed Paul, was one of the good guys. At least on the surface of it. He obeyed the law. He kept the commandments as best he could. So there is a sort of outward righteousness, an outer goodness to him.

But on the inside, not so much. Do you remember what Jesus called the Pharisees? He called them whitewashed sepulchers. A sepulcher, of course, is a tomb. And a whitewashed sepulcher is just a thing filled with dead rotting stinking filth that happens to be nice and shiny and white on the outside.

Are you a whitewashed sepulcher? In the end, it doesn’t matter what people see when they look at you. They may all say at your funeral, “Oh, what a good person she was.” But God alone sees the inside. He knows what lies on the heart. He is not tricked by our brightly polished outward appearance of goodness. He sees the selfishness, lust, greed, and pride. The outer righteousness I’ve been talking about is good for this life, for this world. It makes for good neighbors. But it is totally worthless when it comes to salvation.

The only righteousness which counts before the judgment seat of God is the righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus said that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20). Jesus is the only truly righteous man who has ever lived.

How then can any of us ever be saved? If being a good decent person is not good enough, and if you have to have perfect righteousness and if Jesus is the only man who was ever perfectly righteous, what will happen to us? It’s a fair question. Here is the answer. You will be saved because God credits the very righteousness of Jesus Christ to you. Jesus is righteous but you get the credit. And that’s because it went the other first on the cross: you are the sinner, but Jesus took the blame. It’s what might be called an alien righteousness because it comes from outside of you. To all who trust in Him, to all who have faith, God credits the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That’s what we mean when we emphasize that salvation is a gift from God. There is nothing you can ever do to earn His merit or favor. But you don’t have to. Christ has merited it for you.

On his road to Damascus, on the way to go capture and persecute more believers, the post-resurrection Lord appeared to him. This was shortly after Easter and after the Ascension. So the Jesus whom Saul encounters is the exalted Lord in all of his radiance and light. And you’ll notice that Saul is struck blind from the experience. Or was he?

Before he encountered Jesus, he could see, yet he was spiritually blind. He didn’t need anyone to help him walk around, but he was in the dark when it comes to the things of God. He was devoted to keeping the law and placed his faith in the power of the law to save him. But while the Law of God is powerful to do a lot of things, the one thing it cannot do is save a sinful man. The Law may help us achieve a certain sort of outward righteousness like I’ve noted, but this is simply not good enough. For God does not look only at the outside of a man, but at his inside, the most intimate thoughts and desires of his mind and heart. And on this basis, at the very least, we are all condemned and lost.

A fellow pastor likes to use this illustration. Think about what a very terrible thing it would be if they ever invent a mind-reading machine. What would it be like if scientists were to actually create a device that would enable other people to see and read your thoughts? I think masses of people would be jumping off of cliffs if that were to happen. Do you really want your spouse, your children, your parents, your boss, your pastor, your neighbor to know everything that goes on inside your head? Wouldn’t you be ashamed? I confess that I would be.

And yet, we know that God knows our every thought and it hardly concerns us in the least. We act as if we are more afraid of what other people will think of us than with what God will think of us.

Saul could see and yet he was blind to the most important realities of life. And get this; it wasn’t until God made him blind that he could really see things as they truly are. Only after Saul was struck blind by Jesus on the Damascus road did he come to understand that Jesus Christ is Lord. Only after Saul was struck blind did he begin to see that the Messiah had to die in order to pay for the sins of the world, like a sacrificial lamb. Only after Saul was struck blind did he understand that people are not reckoned just in God’s sight on account of their obedience to the law but on account of the obedience of Jesus Christ.

This is how it is with God. You have to go blind before you learn to truly see. But more than that, you have to die before you can truly live. And you die to sin daily through repentance, through humbling yourself and confessing your faults, through admitting your shortcomings, through acknowledging your failure to obey God’s commandments in thought, word and deed. And it is on the other side of this daily dying to sin through humble repentance that God will raise you up from the dead. He will resurrect you, not just spiritually but also in your body on the last day, just as He raised Jesus bodily on the first Easter.

You could say that Saul was struck blind by Jesus. Or you could say that he was given sight for the very first time.

Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found.

Was blind, but now I see.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

One of the most delightful customs in our beloved Lutheran church body is what takes place at the seminaries each spring. In April, our students receive their vicarage (internship) assignments and the graduates receive their call placements.

How wonderful it was to watch these highly dedicated men being sent to serve God's people in places such as Capistrano Beach, CA; Boulder, CO; Snohomish, WA; Wheaton, IL; Greensboro, NC; Midland, MI; Yuma, AZ; Kibera, Kenya; Plano, TX; Topeka, KS and many others.

If you're interested, you can see the list of names and places for our vicars, our deaconess interns, and our candidates.

Ever wonder what you'll look like in old age? Or what if you were a different race, or sex? Ever wonder what you'd look like in a painting by El Greco or Botticelli? Well, wonder no more. Go and enjoy the Face Transformer website.

HT: SouthCon

Sign seen in a church in California. What?! Why don't we want the cats to get in? I want the cats to come in.

So in tonight's Conan O'Brian, his monologue had these two funny jokes:

A clothing designer has announced the development of a new swimsuit for Muslim women. They're calling it the burkini. It's a burkha made into waterproof clothing. The announcement stated that it's perfect for the Muslim women who love to swim but hate getting stoned to death.

And, this from the Pittsburgh zoo. A polar bear had an infected tooth so the zookeepers gave it a root canal. Zoo officials are describing the bear as stable and they're describing the dentist as handless.

When I have to fly, I like to have a fun novel to occupy my mind. Boy, did I win the lottery with my latest. It's called Replay and it's by Ken Grimwood. What a fascinating book. The premise is that a man dies in 1988 and instantly re-awakens as himself back in 1963 while he's a freshman in college. The whole world is still his oyster and his life still lies before him. He has the opportunity, essentially, to re-live every major aspect of his adult life and can choose to do things differently. What would you do?

But then when 1988 hits again, he dies like before and returns once more. What lessons did he learn from his last attempt? This time around, he makes completely different choices, always in the chase for that elusive prize: Happiness.

Like most consumers of pop culture, I've read numerous books and seen films about time travel or other fantasies about alternate lives (Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, Groundhog Day etc.). But this one is certainly one of the most entertaining, substantive and thought provoking. I'm about 75 pages from the end and I'm dying to see how it concludes. If Grimwood spins as satisfying a conclusion as he has a body of the story, this will make my list for favorite books read this year.

Even though The Burr no longer resides in the burgh, part of his heart remains in good 0l' southwest Pennsylvania. Here are some terrific photos of our former home town.

I am continually dumbfounded by how gullible people are when it comes to anti-Christian hype. Anyone who bothered to do five minutes of research could have debunked that ridiculous "Jesus' Tomb" business from James Cameron recently. But we don't want the facts to interfere with our Christian-bashing.

Not surprisingly, now many of the experts cited in Cameron's silly film are saying they were misconstrued, misquoted, etc. See here.

Certainly, the big media will saturate the airwaves with these corrections just as they did with the original sensational and preposterous claims . . . NOT!

I'm curious. What is your favorite dystopic vision of the future in books, television or film? Why? Here are some that come to mind.

Brave New World
Escape from New York
Buck Rogers
Terminator
1984
Children of Men
Minority Report
Soylent Green

We never stop looking at the cross, but sometime you have to look beyond the cross to see the empty tomb. A couple of years ago, I took a little survey after church one Sunday asking my congregation's opinions about the movie about the Passion of the Christ. And one person wrote this comment: “I was worried about the gore ahead of time, but knowing about the resurrection got me through it.” You know, somehow I think that is what Jesus Himself was probably thinking at the time. I was worried about the gore ahead of time, but knowing about the resurrection got me through it. "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2)." The message of the cross would be unbearable if we didn’t know about the resurrection.

Perhaps my favorite service of the liturgical year is the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. It is a powerful bridge from the grief of Good Friday to the joy of Easter. The service begins in darkness and gradually transforms into the brilliant light of the resurrection. There are so many things going on in the service that it's not possible for me to do it justice in a blog: the service of light, the readings, the baptisms, the Eucharist. It's all there.

And I must add that our pastor did an especially knock-out job with his sermon. I'm hoping he puts it up soon to our church website.

Our church, together with a couple of neighboring Lutheran congregations, held a Tre Ore ("three hour") service today.

Why a church service three hours long? It is a custom to wait with Jesus from noon til three on Good Friday because it was during those hours that darkness covered the earth while Jesus hung dying.

He was actually on the cross for six hours, beginning at about 9 a.m. His "trial," you see, had taken place over night and in the wee hours of the morning.

But at noon, the sun hid it's face until our Lord expired at about 3 p.m. Even the earth and stars could not bear the horror of Christ's death.

The service at Redeemer was exhausting, to be sure, but quite wonderful. The music, the liturgy, the ceremonies, the texts, everything was amazingly powerful.

If you went outside and conducted a poll asking the man on the street this question: “Why did Jesus die on the cross,” what kinds of responses do you think you’d receive?

I think some people would say He died on the cross because one of His followers betrayed Him and the Jews and Romans conspired together to have Him killed. And that would be true. That is what happened, but why did it happen? Why did He have to die on the cross? It’s not good enough to just say that some people didn’t like Him and they rejected Him and had Him murdered. That is only part of the answer.

I think some other people would say that Jesus died on the cross to show us how much He loves us. And that’s kind of true too. Jesus Himself said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that He lay down His life for His friends.” But again why did He have to die on the cross to show us His love? Couldn’t He have found a more pleasant way to do it? I love my wife and family and I would be willing to die for them, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to. If all Jesus was trying to do was give them a sentimental expression of His affection, then I think He could have just washed His disciple’s feet and left it at that.

And I am sure that some of the more perceptive respondents would say something like, “Jesus had to die… in order to save us.” And you’d say, “Bingo. Right on the nose.” But then follow up on that and ask, “How does the death of Jesus do that?” and you might get a blank stare.

A related question to the first one (Why did Jesus die on the cross?) would be this question (Who was responsible for the death of Jesus?) And maybe by answering the second question first, we will be answering the first question as well. Who is responsible for the death of Jesus? And why did Jesus die?

Throughout history there have been those who have thought about the Passion of Jesus and become angry at the Jews and blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus. It is a fact that sometimes Christians would chase the Jews out of their villages and burn down their synagogues for being Christ-killers. And since today everyone is so oversensitive about these things, there is now a movement to remove any references to the Jews’ involvement with the death of Jesus for fear of causing another anti-Semitic groundswell. Passion plays that have been performed in Europe and North America for a hundred years are now being revised for the first time to remove any derogatory mention of the Jewish leaders. And when you respond to the cultured despisers that you are just following the text of the Gospels, they tell you that the Gospels themselves are anti-Semitic documents and should be classified as hate speech.

Jesus doesn’t need us to defend Him. He didn’t need His disciples to draw their swords against the temple guards or the Roman soldiers. He could have summoned armies of angels to come to His aid, but He didn’t. And far from asking His followers today to avenge His death by burning synagogues, Jesus prayed for His persecutors saying, “Father forgive them. They know not what they do.” It was Jesus who taught us that we should love our enemies and to pray for our persecutors.

But then there are the people who like to sympathize emotionally with Christ. They weep and wail over Him because He was so innocent. They think “look at poor Jesus,” and “don’t we feel so sorry for Jesus.” They are like the women who followed Christ from Jerusalem crying loudly as He carried His cross. Jesus rebuked them. He told them that they should not weep for Him. They should weep for themselves and their children (Luke 23:28). What did He mean by that? Why should we weep for ourselves and our children when we think about the death of Jesus Christ?

Because God does not want your pity. The better response, I think, is to say, “Look what my selfishness has caused to happen. My impatience, my stinginess, my lust, my greed, my folly.”

So Martin Luther wrote, “You should deeply believe, and never doubt, that in fact you are the one who killed Christ. Your sins did this to Him. Therefore, when you look at the nails being driven through His hands, firmly believe that it is your work. Do you see His crown of thorns? Those thorns are your wicked thoughts.”

To illustrate, let’s say that you are going about your daily business when an evil person comes along and kills an innocent child in front of you. You would feel angry at the murderer and sorrow for the child. But then what if you found out later that it was actually something you did or said that was responsible for the death of that child. How would you feel about that? Now you’re not just sympathetic. Now you feel responsibility. Now you feel remorse. Now it’s personal.

Someone once said that the Good Friday liturgy is like a funeral for Jesus. Perhaps that is true, but like a Christian burial, we do not mourn for the one who is deceased. We don’t mourn for Jesus this day. If we mourn today, we mourn for our sins.

This is almost so outrageous, I'm tempted to think it's a jest. It seems that some British schools are starting to drop certain topics from their history curriculum for fear of offending the Muslim children. Which topics, you ask? Namely the Holocaust and the Crusades.

The reason, according to the Daily Mail, is because some of the things taught in the normal state curriculum contradicts what is taught in the local mosques. Things specifically pertaining to the Holocaust and the Crusades.

Gee, I wonder if the same schools are teaching things that might contradict what is taught in certain local Christian churches. Why would the opinions of Muslims receive such special respect?

After the Holocaust, the world said, "Never Again." Yeah. Right.