Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-30-13

When I have visited Bologna through the years, mostly to attend the International Children’s Book Fair, I stayed at an ancient villa outside the city. Its site went back to pre-Christian Roman days; it is named “Torre di Iano” – Tower (or castle or fortress) of Janus, the Roman god of new beginnings; of transitions; of endings and commencements. The grounds were beautiful, patrolled, believe it or not, by peacocks. The twenty-somethings who bought the decaying structure restored it to a comfortable hotel and restaurant status one room at a time, one floor tile at a time.

Iano. Jano. Janus – the two-faced god invented by the Romans, looking backward and forward. It is where we get the name for the month January, representing the year ending and the year beginning.

Thank God (not Jupiter) that we have a Lord who is never two-faced! He is, on the contrary, the fullness of creation, the Alpha and the Omega – who is, the Bible tells us, “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” He is constant, reliable, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Remember this on New Year’s Eve, through your New Year’s resolutions, whether (or how soon) you break them. We mortals always do.

In fact the new calendar gives us reason to think of Jesus anew – not because He takes to Himself a new or changing set of characteristics… but because He doesn’t. This is a remarkable attribute. A God who is faithful even when we are not. A God who is invariable. A God who is an ever-present refuge in times of trouble. A God who is just but merciful, and whose promises are forever.

… a God who doesn’t break HIS resolutions, even when, as surely we will, we try and fail, try and fail ourselves. A one-faced God, whom we see through Jesus, the “image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

Happy new year!

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The composer Vep Ellis wrote a gospel song with the same title as a beloved ancient hymn, that is no less beloved or impactful. “The Love of God” speaks to the Lord’s never-changing faithfulness and His eternal worthiness as an object of our devotion. The Gaither Vocal Band sings:

Click: The Love of God

12-23-13

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “How many people observe Christ’s birthday! How few observe his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.” The man who filled his annual almanacs with such wisdom, under the name of Poor Richard Saunders, was never closer to the truth.

Franklin had no crystal ball, looking ahead to the “commercialization” of Christmas that we all decry as we rush around, finishing our shopping lists. Rather he made an observation on human nature. How do we break our culture’s cycle of spending-orgies every year … or every 12 months since the last holiday of the Religio-Industrial Complex calendar? My children had an idea this year that we all agree to forego presents, and focus on the Savior’s birth.

My son went a step further, proposing an idea for those in the family who already bought some presents (since every time the resolution has been agreed to in years past, it routinely has been broken by us all). His idea was that we donate those gifts to needy families, Toys for Tots, or other worthy, hurting families. In his city, people can “adopt” a family whose father or mother is with the military, serving overseas; and address their diverse needs.

Consider trying this. The blessings you bestow are appreciated, of course, but the blessings you receive by such acts cannot be measured.

An ancient scriptural word for Love was translated as Charity, through the centuries acquiring a meaning quite separate from its origin. Unfortunately. When Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you,” He was not sighing in defeat. It is part of God’s plan for us that we cultivate and maintain the charitable impulse: loving strangers, because they are God’s children, and binding their physical, economic, spiritual wounds.

As contemporary governments usurp the function of individual consciences and organized churches by taxing, deciding, and coercing in the name of “caring,” we suffer the larger assault on God’s prerogatives as well as our own.

The scurrying around malls, and now computer screens, continues unabated, even in the face of economic slowdowns. “Oh, everyone already knows the Christmas story,” some may say. Is that so? It might be, but some people need to be reminded that the entire Christmas story began more than 700 years before the Manger Scene. Isaiah and other prophets foretold of the Savior’s birth, with details, players, facts, places, signs in the skies and acts of friends and enemies, in such a cascade of confirmations that make a mockery of the word “coincidence.” Indeed, even the first chapters of the Book of Genesis contain specific prophecies of the Messiah Jesus.

We can always gain new insights from familiar stories. But we can confront startling truths that have eluded us, too. Messiah. Long prophesied. Fulfilled in the flesh. Growing up to understand the world, to share our temptations, to take our deserved punishments upon Himself. We, whom He didn’t know, in the world’s sense. Because we are poor in spirit and in need of His gifts.

… welcome back to the larger meaning of giving at Christmastime. May we be cleansed of corruption, of worldly agendas and false values, no matter how well-intentioned, and “be” Jesus Christ to some really needy, or ailing, or to the poor; or lonely people, this season. As Franklin suggested, do not merely observe the holiday, but live it.

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Benjamin Franklin might, just might, have foreseen shopping malls, but one wonders if he would have endorsed the frenzy. Today, however, many shopping malls are being redeemed. By “flash mobs”! Maybe you have seen this phenomenon, or taken part in one. Journey of Faith perform
at the South Bay Galleria, Redondo Beach CA. Enjoy. Be touched:

Click: Go Tell It In the Malls!

12-16-13

The title of this essay is a double negative of sorts, but a decent aphorism. Its truth would be measured in doses of wisdom and experience and maybe a few bruises and scars: life. It is from the gaggle of family advice we tell children: “This hurts me more than it does you,” and “Some day this will all make sense.”

Like many life-lessons – and all aphorisms – we can harvest wisdom from turning the sayings around, maybe even discovering greater truths. At least fresher truths, which become attractive portals. I have often thought about the locutions of such life principles. Not catchy phrases, but succinct truths.

For instance, anent friendship, how often do we realize – how often do we, in fact, cherish – that we cannot know true friendship until we become a friend. Maybe, more so, until we NEED a friend.

Similarly, we cannot fully know forgiveness until we receive forgiveness… but the biblical principle is that we must forgive in order to be forgiven. To be conscious of the need to be forgiven, and to savor the feeling of truly being forgiven.

Again, the next step, for our meditation, is that we cannot know the joy of salvation without having sinned. A common saying in churches these days is, “To get a blessing, be a blessing.” These sayings are true, but we have to be careful to see them as principles, not “Christian karma.” There is nothing wrong with being mechanistic if it is spiritual – remember, after all, the Latin phrase “Deus ex machina,” which, classroom drama lessons aside, means “the way God works.”

The irony in that truth about salvation should make us stop and think, and respect, this life we lead under God’s grace. Is it good that we sin? Of course not. Is it God’s will? God forbid. But He has provided pathways for us, and answers to life’s problems. “Where sin abounds, there grace abounds more” (Romans 5:20).

Let us remind ourselves of partially obscured principles of the kingdom that we see through a glass darkly. We are more special than the angels, and among the reasons is the fact that angels can never know the joy of salvation. They are never able to sing “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” The bonds of sin seem different to us, less oppressive, when we consider this.

We can gnash our teeth when we feel like victims of life’s circumstances. But how sweet when we hold to that thread of hope, maintaining by God’s grace a glimmer of faith, and deliverance comes. To venture back to concise aphorisms, we cannot know answers unless we cry out with questions. There is no progress until you actually take that pesky first step.

I wrote above that we might never know real friendship until we need a friend. Self-evident? Not always. And we need to recognize that God sometimes works through circumstances (my source: um, the entire Bible, and the lives of uncountable believers through history). He also works through unlikely channels – that is called Grace. And He works through sometimes unlikely persons – they are called Friends.

“God works in mysterious ways”? His ways are not all that mysterious. We just don’t see them clearly enough, or often enough.

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The trio Selah provides a musical illustration to these thoughts, melding two time-honored hymns of the church… as only they can.

Click: Be Still My Soul/ Jesus Loves Me

12-9-13

If you had a child playing at the edge of an ever-widening sinkhole – and sinkholes lately have been in the news, including ones that swallowed people as well as houses – you would call that child to move back. If your friend were eating something poisonous without realizing the dangers, you would advise that friend of the fact. We do the same, some of us, with people, even strangers, who smoke. “Intervention” today increasingly is employed on behalf of people with drinking problems.

Followers of Christ, who subscribe to the beliefs that all of us make mistakes and are sinful at heart; that therefore a wide gulf separates us from a Holy God; that this God nevertheless desires eternal fellowship with us and offers forgiveness and salvation; and that “accepting” Jesus – believing in our hearts and confessing with our words – these Christians cannot do anything else than have the same regard for other people’s souls as we do their health and comfort.

How often do contemporary Christians fit that last puzzle-piece in place?

Failing this, we condemn ourselves; and we are implicit in sending others to the cold darkness of eternity, separation from God. How often do we avoid sharing even the smallest portion of Jesus with someone because we might “offend them”? Hurt their feelings? “Hey buddy, don’t smoke in your apartment, but I don’t care if you go to hell.”

It’s not always comfortable, but neither was that splintery cross. Living in a multimedia culture makes it easy to assume everyone thinks like we do, or has access to the same facts that we process. Not so. When the Apostle Paul arrived in Ephesus, word-of-mouth about the Savior had already led to the establishment of several Christian communities. But not every word had been shared by every mouth:

“…he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers. ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ he asked them. ‘No,’ they replied, ‘we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ ‘Then what baptism did you experience?’ he asked. And they replied, ‘The baptism of John.’ Paul said, ‘John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.’ As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:1-6, NLT).

Paul wrote letters to local churches and church leaders, sharing the good news, and answering questions. These letters comprise the majority of the New Testament. We shared last week how papyrus letters from a generation or two after Paul are extant. Before Christ’s time, spiritual news and God’s words were shared by Torah scrolls, inscriptions, sacred texts. After him we have the successive march of letters, manuscripts, tapestries and stained-glass picture stories, parchment books, printed books, mass-production, tracts, evangelistic crusades, recordings, radio, short-wave, television, and the internet.

The SHARING of the good news is central to the good news itself. “Go into all the world…” Jesus said, commissioning His disciples. Romans 10:14-15 argues: “How can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?  And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, ‘How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!’ (NLT) Like much of the Book of Romans, this is like an advocate summarizing his case. How can they hear about Jesus unless someone tells them?

Right about in the middle of humankind’s list of ways to share the good news – not in a timeline, but in the numbers of methods and technologies – is the radio. After its invention it was available to almost every community on the earth. And much of its message, especially today on short-wave broadcasts, is Christian. I went to Sunday school as a child, but it was preachers on my AM transistor radio from whom I really heard the first hard (and sweet) truths of the Gospel; and came face-to-face with decisions to make, or avoid, regarding Jesus Christ.

Albert E. Brumley was an American gospel songwriter of the past century. He wrote more than 800 sermons-in-song, many of which are favorites today in churches, hymnbooks, and recordings. Among them are “I’ll Fly Away,” “If We Never Meet Again (This Side of Heaven),” “I’ll Meet You In The Morning,” “Jesus, Hold My Hand,” “I’d Rather Be An Old Time Christian,” and “Rank Strangers to Me.”

He told a story about another of his classics… and the role of radio in spreading the gospel:

“I wrote ‘Turn Your Radio On’ in 1937, and it was published in 1938. At this time radio was relatively new to the rural people, especially gospel music programs. I had become alert to the necessity of creating song titles, themes, and plots, and frequently people would call me and say, ‘Turn your radio on, Albert, they’re singing one of your songs on such-and-such a station.’ It finally dawned on me to use… ‘Turn your radio on’ as a theme for a religious… song.”

Like the poor, radio we will always have with us. In the words of the song, “turn your radio on and listen to the music in the air; Turn your radio on and heaven’s glory share…”

Are you tuned in… to what God is saying to you? Don’t touch that dial! You can broadcast (as it were) a brief public-service announcement, or a personal message, every once in a while yourself.

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Many folks’ favorite version of Brumley’s classic song is by the great Ray Stevens. Fun, upbeat, infectious… meaningful. Here he sings at the piano, surrounded by friends who sing along, as you might, yourself.

Click: Turn Your Radio On

12-2-13

There is an exhibition quietly and modestly making its way across the United States that is one of the most astonishing displays I have ever witnessed. I choose my words carefully – actually, an unbreakable habit of mine, even on good days – but I have been to America’s great museums, as well those of the world, including the Louvre, the Musee d’Orsay, the Uffizi, down to treasure-filled Halls of Fame. But currently (until Feb 1) housed in an otherwise ordinary former retail space in a neighborhood of Colorado Springs, is “Passages: The Experience.”

I think the weak link in their chain might be “branding,” since it is impossible to guess the exhibition’s theme from its title. And this is counter-intuitive, since the person behind this exhibition is one of America’s great marketers: Steve Green. The President of Hobby Lobby, Steve recently has been the focus of news – and prayers – because of his determination to resist the government’s ObamaCare guidelines to provide and pay 100 per cent of abortifacients , contraceptives, and abortion procedures for his employees. He and the Green family have sacrificed much to fight this battle, which has this week been accepted by the Supreme Court for a hearing.

“Passages” is an exhibition of Steve Green’s substantial collection of Bibles, illuminated manuscripts, ancient scrolls, biblical relics, and artifacts of the faithful. After Colorado Springs
( http://www.explorepassages.com ) the exhibition will continue its tour to other cities, ultimately top reside permanently in Washington DC.

Papyrus 39

After the Colorado Christian Writers Conference in May, my friend Diane Obbema read about the exhibition and suggested we visit. It was a great day of my life. First, we were impressed by the sheer scope. An iPod audio guide is eight hours long, for visitors who visit every display case and presentation. Cases, captions, actors and robotics, videos and interactive stations. Portions are designed for younger visitors. History comes alive. You see a Gutenberg press, you can pull one’s own prints.

More than that is the impressive display of scarce, often one-of-a-kind, artifacts. The second-largest private collection of Dead Sea Scrolls. Many cuneiform tablets; illuminated manuscripts; the world’s largest collection of vintage Jewish scrolls and ancient Torahs. Wycliffe’s likely Middle-English translation of the New Testament; the majority of the rare Gutenberg Bible; many of the famous early printed Bibles, like the Geneva Bible and the first King James Version. The exhibition’s surprises are… very surprising, and inspiring to see: a letter Martin Luther wrote night before his trial in Worms, half will and testament of the presumed martyr, half a rehearsal of his defiant “Here I Stand’ statement. In another display case, the manuscript copy of Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Amazing.

Martin Luther’s Will

This is the story of Christendom – the Church through the ages, managing to survive and spreading gloriously.

There is an overarching story beyond the gospel story itself, yet usually missed by most of us. Often it is willful ignorance or rejection. My mother-in-law was one of myriad, in this land of many churches, who fundamentally doubted the Bible’s authenticity or reliability. “It was written by men,” its first putative offense, and she also indicted its authorship “by many people, over many places, across many years, and through many translations.”

A slippery slope it is, of course, to dismiss the Bible as a collection of fables, or purloined wisdom, or irrelevant stories and lies. And, at first glance in the presence of the Green Family’s collection, the sheer variety of translations and versions can seduce the credulity of an average believer.

But none of us should be average believers! We are indwelt by the Holy Ghost, the same Spirit of the Living God who inspired – literally, “breathed life” into – these scriptures. “The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). It has advanced despite hideous persecution. It has survived, sometimes, in remote outposts where Christianity was anathema and believers were hounded. It has also at times triumphed, in the worldly sense… inviting corruption and diluting its tenets.

Yes, many men wrote the first lines; and many were there who copied, and translated, and transliterated, and remembered verses, and strove to record the words of Christ and the testimony of apostles and martyrs, who saved the songs of poets, the wisdom of the anointed, and the letters of evangelists. When men first sought to put the Words of God into the languages of the people, they were, for hundreds of years, pursued, humiliated, tortured, and killed for so doing. Yet more than a thousand tongues now have Bibles in their own languages.

… are these prescriptions for error and mistakes, prejudices and bias, carelessness and sloppiness; for local churches and leaders with tempting agendas, to bring distortion? Would it not be logical – with all the people, places, and possibilities over the years represented in the display cases of “Passages” – that, instead of one True Bible of thousands of translations and versions, that there be thousands of competing Bibles?

Yet discrepancies are a tiny fraction, seldom close to any major theological or historical point, and always quickly reconciled. To me, THIS is the evidence of the authority, even inerrancy, of scripture. Tried, tested, true: a living document that is not malleable to suit every generation’s distractions. No: living, to be a vital source of hope, truth, and salvation; a reality to every one in every time and every place.

The texts studied in Northern Africa, in the Fourth Century, say; or the lessons taught in Asia Minor or to the heathen in northern Europe at the same early times; or the sermon themes in faraway Ireland – all are virtually identical to the words of the Bibles we have in our homes today. About what other books can this be said?

To visit “Passages” is inspiring. Yet when Diane and I left the “Experience,” I could not help but see the physical evidence of devotion, scholarship, sacrifice, martyrdom, and enterprise of uncountable saints through the millennia… and not feel a chill of caution.

Is America today capable of such fidelity to the Word of God? Does Western civilization have the loyalty to Christianity that it once did at Saragossa and at the Gates of Vienna? Right now, no.

The Word of God will survive always: axiomatic for the Eternal Truth. But if the Church of Christ dies in what is left of Western Civilization, it ultimately will be due not to persecution by its enemies, but neglect by its adherents.

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For those who cannot visit the “Passages” exhibition, or until its goal of a permanent home in the nation’s capital, books and other materials are available from the organizers: https://store.explorepassages.com

I have chosen a beautiful performance in a beautiful setting of Mozart’s beautiful “Laudate Dominum.” The text is the entire Psalms 117, shortest in the Bible, followed by the doxology. The music, if I might presume to characterize it so, is by the Holy Spirit, received and passed to us by Mozart. One of his supernal masterworks. The singer is the beautiful – yes, beauty abounds – Katherine Jenkins. The captions are the Latin text and Czech. Here is the English:

Praise the Lord, all ye peoples,
Praise Him, all ye peoples.
For his loving kindness
Has been bestowed upon us,
And the truth of the Lord endures for eternity.

Glory to the Father, Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen.

Click: Laudate Dominum