Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-20-21

We know that the ways of God are mysterious. He works in mysterious ways, we tell each other, but His story, history, also overflows with blessings that surprise people, challenges that somehow bless people, and surprises that challenge humankind – always, mysteriously, drawing us closer to Him.

That He would “empty” Himself and “become flesh” and dwell amongst us is the greatest of mysteries. It was foreordained – prophesied in diverse ways by numerous people through the ages until the Incarnation itself. In Isaiah Chapter 53 Jesus was predicted and described; His place and manner of birth was foretold; His ministry was reported beforehand, as was His eventual suffering and death; the meaning of His life on earth was told, and His resurrection explained.

Yet Immanuel, God-Becomes-Man, is a mystery to us.

Humankind could have confronted its sinful rebellion by obeying laws, but didn’t.

God might have sent a Ruler in a burst of terror to confront the wicked, but didn’t.

Humankind might have understood a Holy warrior, a righteous reformer, a rebel with a cause. But God chose to come as a… baby.

Mysteries. It is useless to confront God for reasons and answers. And more useless to want to question His love.

Let us step back for a moment. Christmas cards and carols and gift wrap and pretty ornaments make us forget some of the truths of Christmas. Shepherds: why shepherds as the first to behold the Savior? A manger: rough straw with livestock spittle? Mysterious scenarios, yet God’s choice of arrangements.

Did the world welcome the Savior? – Of course not. Humankind’s inclination to sin was the reason God acted through the Incarnation. Our hearts are dark; such is humankind’s reaction to free will.

Was the “first Christmas” a time of rejoicing? – Hardly. The innkeepers turned Mary and Joseph away (I am tempted to think it really was because she was a pregnant virgin…). The Roman authorities, knowing Scriptural prophecy too, ordered babies younger than two to be slaughtered in the land. Mary and Joseph and Jesus fled to Egypt to escape a deadly and hostile situation.

And the birth of Jesus: was Mary full of joy? – Not completely, of course. As a mother she was blessed, yet she knew the sorrows, rejections, suffering, and death that lay ahead for her Baby.

Mysteries. These things had to be. Let us remember such truths.

Yes, we want to celebrate a Holy Birthday Party. Yet the seeds of a funeral were sown at His birth – in fact from the earliest events in the Garden. Jesus did not come to us to teach and do good deeds, tra la, before things went wrong for Him, despite His loving ways.

Jesus came to earth to die.

His ministry was to teach; His blessings included healing; He acted to fulfill prophecies; yes. But He came to die. As “fully man and fully God,” He would struggle with betrayals and pain and death – mysteries again, how God “emptied Himself” – yet He knew that is why He was born in human form.

Kids and trees and presents and smiles aside (and I am not saying to be forsaken), we should remember the Easter message, too, at Christmastime. I believe the baby Jesus did. When He first opened His eyes, I believe He looked into the face of His loving mother, and shepherds, and angels, and, yes, some lowly animals.

And I believe He also looked up from His mother’s arms and somehow – mysteriously – saw the cross too. And the (empty) tomb.

Let us rejoice for all these sweet mysteries of our loving God.

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Click: What Child Is This

6-3-19

You have heard the question a hundred times in your life, asked by anguished parents or victims, from wise-guy atheists to anti-religious bigots.

Maybe you have asked it yourself at times.

The quick answer is that mankind has chosen sin and rebellion – distilled as evil. Whether you believe in the literal account of the Garden, and Adam and Eve; or people’s individual free will and exercise of liberty in our daily lives, every human being commits evil. To a greater or lesser extent? Surely, but… we permit evil in the world, because we all exercise it.

The deeper – but just as profound – response is that God is not the culprit. He is the answer, but not the source. None of us is God, so we should stop drawing up a to-do list for Him, or scribble out a better Job Description.

If He gives His children free will; and we, His children, choose to transgress… that is why there is sin, and evil, in the world.

You think He should create a place where sin and evil do not exist? He has created such a place: Heaven. In the meantime we live on earth, and our job descriptions include serving God by serving our fellow men and women. By avoiding sin and evil, sharing God’s love, and telling of forgiveness in Christ.

Perhaps you are impatient, or virtually so, waiting for Heaven. Do you realize that we are slightly above the angels? Angels cannot experience redemption, or forgiveness, or the glories of a born-again life. No angel can know what it means to sing “Amazing Grace.”

There is a more logical question – more pertinent, more pressing – than How can God permit evil in the world?

I suggest to you that asking this question frames the spiritual challenge in the clearest terms:

How can My children, with all things I do permit and gift them with – the sacrificial death of My Son; forgiveness; fellowship divine; My promise of eternal paradise – how is that My children still sin and rebel and reject Me every day?

Questions, questions. But that is one question to which we all have the answer.

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Click: Amazing Grace

4-1-19

How do most of us prepare for Easter?

I am sorry to say that, often, in the same way we generally prepare for Christmas by buying presents and planning meals; and prepare for Thanksgiving by buying turkeys and inviting relatives. The arrival of Easter often is consumed by coloring eggs, dressing well for church, and deciding between lamb and ham.

Jesus prepared for Easter, although of course it was not called that in His day, in ways we know. Before His Incarnation, Father God prepared the way. The prophet Isaiah described it seven hundred years before Jesus’s birth:

Chapter 53: Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors….

Preparing for Easter. Seven hundred years earlier (in our own perspective, if we can imagine, that would be like two hundred years before the birth of Columbus), a Prophet of God described Jesus, even to whether He was handsome or not; His persecution and trial; and how He would die. And why.

But there was a prophecy that was closer in time to Jesus’s own day. We do not often connect it with Easter. From Luke chapter 2 –

The angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men….

There was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.

And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

And he came by the Spirit into the temple where the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, then Simeon took him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel….

Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;

Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

So. Isaiah foretold the Person of the Christ, and details of His life and death; angels announced His birth; the holy man Simeon explained the holiness and mission of the Messiah, with attendant violence and sacrifice.

But let us back up to the angels in the hills above Bethlehem. Tidings of great joy… referring to this baby who was certain to be unjustly persecuted, tortured, and executed? Tidings of great joy about a someone the Bible also calls a “Man of Great Sorrow”? Tidings of great joy about the person who will be “despised and rejected”… by God Himself?

Does this make sense at all? Especially to call it “joy”?

Praise God, it doesn’t make sense.

It is God’s way, however. He loved us so much – even when we were yet sinners – that He provided the ultimate pathway to find eternal life with Him. We cannot earn it ourselves.

We cannot earn it ourselves. Isaiah knew it; the angels knew it; Mary knew it; Simeon knew it; Jesus, of course, knew it.

Do you know it? Go thou and prepare for Easter.

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Click: Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed?

9-22-14

People sometimes are more attracted to fantasy than reality, which amuses me. When it doesn’t amuse me it disheartens me. I understand real life can be grim; that our souls seek poetic escape; that fiction often codifies the moral tendencies of a culture, and we thereby create comfort zones. Blah, blah, blah, as literary critics say.

But why is this true, when reality can also be sweeter than any fiction? As a former editor of Marvel Comics, and writer for Disney, I spent a lot of time trafficking in the contemporary versions of civilization’s epic confrontations and traditional fairy tales. But I have to report that I wondered, during my Marvel days, why millions of readers were so invested in superheroes, forever asking “what if?” about characters with super powers, invincibility, the ability to defy nature, fighting life-threatening foes and defeating evil, as good as good guys can be… but how so many of those young (and older) readers could be indifferent about Jesus.

Jesus was the greatest superhero of them all, doing all those things quite easily – and we can add attributes like time travel, walking through walls, and rising from death. Everything but the Spandex, right?

Yet many people prefer fantasy to reality. Speculation to truth. Mythological heroes to men and women of history. Of course, I suspect that a major factor is pride: humans have the tendency to monopolize the truth, or persuade themselves that they can do so. Malleable stories are therefore more comforting than stark reality.

For instance, what about angels in this essay’s title? Well, it struck me a few years ago when the Angel Fad was coursing through the bloodstream of America, that many people equated that with a rise in spirituality.

Yet Angelmania was spiritual only if Hallmark stores are churches, only if costume jewelry is sacramental, only if Della Reese (“Touched By an Angel”) is an ordained minister of the gospel. (In fact she does pastor a church – in Los Angeles, where else? – called the Universal Foundation for Better Living, a non-Christian Unity or New Age sort of church whose pope is someone called The Reverend Doctor Johnnie Colemon.) So she and Rev. Dr. Johnnie are ministers, but not of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But angels did populate the Christian culture for a season. Now they largely populate storage closets and the backs of dresser drawers, along with posters of elves and fairies, garden gnomes, and WWJD bracelets. Odd, no?

I do believe in angels – I mean I believe they exist – just as I believe it is useful to ask myself “What Would Jesus Do?” in daily situations. I am fairly certain He would not have worn angel pins, but that is not my point. These things are not evil, and I might yet seek forgiveness for being spiritually flippant. BUT.

I am quite serious when I regard anything that takes our eyes off the gospel message of salvation can be the essence of sin: missing the mark. Yes, I believe that angels exist, but not the angels of popular culture. The Bible describes them, and that’s enough for me. But we need to understand certain things:

1. There are actually many things we DON’T understand about angels, and cannot understand, because the Bible often is intentionally vague;

2. Their role, as described in the Bible, principally is as messengers and “ministering spirits”;

3. They are not humans in heavenly bodies; they are separate creations; they can appear sometimes as humans (my family had such an encounter), but are spirits;

4. Except for the seraphim, only occasionally are they described as having wings;

5. All angels are not good: Satan attracted one-third of them in his rebellion;

6. They are not omniscient nor can they be omnipresent… or they would be as God;

7. In their perhaps uncountable numbers, they are not anonymous – Michael and Gabriel are two who have central roles in the heavenly realms, and will play mighty parts when prophecies are fulfilled – cherubim, seraphim and others are ministering spirits to us, and comprise worshipful choruses before the throne.

So. No offense to my own guardian angel, if I have one, but I am suspicious of Christianity that lives in jewelry and not necessarily in our hearts. Or expressions that serve as statements of our faith, when our very lives, instead, should show our love – faith in action.

Ultimately, there is, I think, one important thing to remember about angels. And this will prove I am not a spiritual abuser of these mysterious creatures, far from it. Angels, created by God before mankind was created, and not glorified souls of humans, have never known what you and I have experienced.

Never sick? Never feeling loss or betrayal or pain or grief? Never sinning? How can that be a negative? I feel sorry for them precisely for those reasons. No angel knows the shackles of sin, broken by the power of salvation. No angel knows the joy of forgiveness. No angel has experienced bondage and blood-bought redemption. We are more precious in God’s sight even than angels, more than all creation.

All angels can sing “Jesus loves me, this I know.” None can sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”

Jesus came to die for human beings, every one of us who will accept His sacrifice. Sorry, angels, He didn’t die for you. Yet the Bible tells me so, that you will be ministering to us, just the same, as we enter Glory. As we gather around the Throne together, that’s when I really will feel the touch of angels’ wings.

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An old American hymn (ca. 1860) is the comforting “Angel Band,” written by Jefferson Hascall with music by William Batchelder Bradbury. It originally was known by its incipit, “My latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run.” It has painted a true picture of the heavenly orders for generations of Christians.

Click: Angel Band