Category: Feasts and Seasons

09Oct

Jacob’s Ladder and Cosmology

NGC-604 Star Cluster

NGC-604 Nebula, located in M33 Galaxy; The destruction of an old star provides the materials for the birth of new stars.

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:12)

The recently observed feast of St Michael and All Angels (or “Michaelmas”, Sept 29, 2018) reminded me of something. The Old Testament reading from Genesis 28 conveyed the eerie and interesting story of Jacob’s dream of a nexus between Heaven and Earth, which occurred while he was on the run—he was a fugitive fleeing for his life after tricking his brother Esau. God showed him a vision of spiritual emissaries ascending and descending upon earth, and reassured him: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go”. When the terrified Jacob awoke, he thought,

”How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

A few years ago I was participating in a very interesting observatory experience atop the peak of Mt Lemmon in Arizona. My family shivered under blankets and looked at distant galaxies and nebulae through the very powerful telescopes operated by the University of Arizona.

Later, our astronomer gave what was clearly supposed to be an inspiring pep talk. First he tried to drive home the nearly unimaginable immensity of our universe. Our sun is one of 250 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is one of at least a couple hundred billion galaxies in the known universe. We are latecomers to an evolutionary process that has been ongoing for billions of years before our arrival on the scene. Our matter, the stuff of which we are made, was forged out of the explosive destruction of older stars. Our bodies, while we still draw breath, are furthermore bathed in, and replenished by, cosmic particles blown off by ancient supernovae. While this reflection may tend to make one feel insignificant, like a mere lonely speck in the vastness of the greater Cosmos, we can take some heart: “We are made of the same stardust,” he concluded, “and therefore in a very real way, we are connected to each other.”

Well-meaning as this is, the stardust platitude is a cold comfort to offer people in exchange for trading in Theism. (I don’t believe that embrace of the insights of science demands a rejection of God, but some do). Scientific materialism, as a worldview, offers little psychological benefit beyond the existentialist’s “freedom” of finite beings facing oblivion—you are a cosmic accident, so suck it up and and you can be your own “God” for a little while. Nothing actually matters, and no rules really apply to you. There is no Creator. Nothing is all that special about Earth or your place in it. There is no afterlife. You will be long forgotten by fellow humans, probably within your lifetime, but —“Hey, stardust!”

Christianity teaches that while humans indeed are small, this is not the entire story. We have a dignity that we don’t even begin to comprehend, and don’t deserve. Whatever else can be said about the mysterious account of “Jacob’s Ladder” it is this: Our world is indeed loved and cared for by the God of the Universe. We are more than just bits of congealed stardust in a forgotten and remote part of the Cosmos. Behind the scenes, powerful emissaries from the spiritual realms travel back and forth, signifying that God desires and maintains a connection with us. (Maybe we will learn that we are only one of trillions of worlds teeming with sentient life, but we are by no means abandoned). If God has this kind of connection with the remote and diminutive planet Earth, then take heart! He knows and loves you!

Praise be to God!

20Apr

Saint Anselm of Canterbury

image
(Statue of Anselm at Canterbury Cathedral, taken May 2010, by Ealdgyth, obtained from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons 3.0 license)

If you have taken a philosophy class somewhere, you probably encountered this great thinker from antiquity, and his famous definition of God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”. In his work, proslogion, he endeavored to demonstrate God’s existence in what has since been labelled the “ontological argument”. Basically, If you can conceive of something like God, defined as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”, but God doesn’t actually exist, then anything that does exist would be greater. Hence God must exist in reality and not just in thought. It’s clever, though it can be (and has been) punctured by others, such as Immanuel Kant. Variants of the argument have been put forward by Descartes, Leibniz, and Goedel. Even today the argument provides grist for reflection. Few would regard it as an absolute proof of God, but perhaps in its best forms it demonstrates that belief in God isn’t unreasonable, as the loudest screamers of the atheist community would insist. 1

Another sign of the importance of St. Anselm is that in the divide between East and West in Christianity, the theological focus in the West since St Anselm has been upon the mystery of the atonement. In his book Cur Deus Homo (“Why God Man?”) Anselm reflects upon the atonement. Jesus is regarded by the church universal as a being with two natures–“fully God and fully Man”. As St Athanasius put it centuries earlier:

…For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess,
that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds;
and Man of the substance of his Mother, born in the world;
Perfect God and perfect Man,
of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.

(You may read the Athanasian creed in its entirety here).

Anselm started with this accepted christology and asked, “why?” His answer became a powerful reflection upon the nature of the atonement. The thesis is essentially that we humans owe a cosmic debt that we cannot pay. Only God is qualified to pay off that debt, but can’t do so because He doesn’t owe it. With Jesus you have one who both owes the debt and can pay it.

Anselm (1033-1109) joined the Benedictine monastery at Bec in Normandy, in 1060, rising to become Abbot. Not long afterward, England was conquered by Anselm’s king, William the Conqueror. Many of Anselm’s friends went to England, and he made trips to oversee property belonging to Bec. In 1093 Anselm became Archbishop of Canterbury. His years in Canterbury were stormy, as he clashed with the English monarch over what is known to history as the “investiture controversy”, and twice had to go into exile. After his death he was canonized, and is today regarded as the father of scholasticism. He is considered one of the “doctors of the church” (from Latin docere, “to teach”), men regarded as great intellects who profoundly influenced Western Christianity.

In addition to the heady philosophical treatises, we have the following prayer from Saint Anselm:

O Lord my God,
Teach my heart this day where and how to see you,
Where and how to find you.
You have made me and remade me,
And you have bestowed on me
All the good things I possess,
And still I do not know you.
I have not yet done that
For which I was made.
Teach me to seek you,
For I cannot seek you
Unless you teach me,
Or find you
Unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire,
Let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you,
Let me love you when I find you.

(Read more at BeliefNet).

We also have a song of St Anselm,
Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you:
you are gentle with us as a mother with her children;
Often you weep over our sins and our pride:
tenderly you draw us from hatred and judgement.
You comfort us in sorrow and bind up our wounds:
in sickness you nurse us,
and with pure milk you feed us.
Jesus, by your dying we are born to new life:
by your anguish and labour we come forth in joy.
Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness:
through your gentleness we find comfort in fear.
Your warmth gives life to the dead:
your touch makes sinners righteous.
Lord Jesus, in your mercy heal us:
in your love and tenderness remake us.
In your compassion bring grace and forgiveness:
for the beauty of heaven may your love prepare us.
(From James Kiefer).

A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Anselm

Almighty God, who didst raise up thy servant Anselm to teach the Church of his day to understand its faith in thine eternal Being, perfect justice, and saving mercy: Provide thy Church in every age with devout and learned scholars and teachers, that we may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Further information about Saint Anselm:

For Further Reading
Resources about the Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement:

  • Saint Anselm, Cur Deus Homo. (Full text available online).
  • Theologian and popular teacher RC Sproul has discussed this issue in an essay.

Resources about the “Ontological Argument”, including modern restatements:

  • Saint Anselm, proslogium, available online courtesy of Fordham University.
  • A repository of items at Lastseminary.com.
  • Waterloo Univ statistics professor Christopher Small’s blog and essay. (Discussion of the more recent version of the ontological argument by the mathematician Goedel).
  • Der Spiegel. (A computer program validates Goedel’s argument).

1 One of the funnier misrepresentations of an ontological argument, which I can no longer find, is a statement to the effect of, “I can f**k around with language and therefore God exists, now go to church.”

01Apr

Christ is Risen!

A joyful Eastertide to you.

Rembrandt van Rijn – Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb

30Mar

Good Friday and the Temple Veil

St. Mark, the gospel writer, noted that when Jesus died:

Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.
And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
(Mark 15: 37-38)

In three of the four accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion, we have a mention of the curious fact of the rending of the temple veil, or curtain. The curtain in view here is probably the barrier that guarded the entrance to the “holy of Holies”, the most sacred part of the Hebrew Tabernacle (and later, the Temple in Jerusalem). Within this chamber resided the Ark of the Covenant (until it became lost to history). This chamber represented the presence of God. No one was allowed to enter except the High Priest, and even he could only enter once a year on Yom Kippur (the great “Day of Atonement”). The barrier was for the protection of the people, who could not survive a direct encounter with the presence of God.

Ancient Jewish tradition would suggest that this barrier was formidable (though debate about the thickness exists; see a full discussion by Baptist seminarian Charles Bumgardner at his blog). It is unclear whether the veil was a single thick panel, or a single panel hung in such a way as to create a maze. It may even have been two panels. (For a lengthy discussion, see the article “The Veil of the Temple in History and Legend” by Daniel M. Gurtner).

According to a 2014 news report, a group of women in Israel are struggling with the challenge of recreating the Veil: “The women of the veil chamber,” as they call themselves, have founded a little workshop in the biblical Samarian community of Shiloh that is filled with weaving devices and wool. . This curtain is no thin wisp of cloth: The size of the veil itself, a single rag-like object measuring 20 meters high, 10 meters wide and 10 centimeters thick, is a project of immense complexity in and of itself.
(From Israel Today. I have not found any follow up reporting on their progress).

I might pause to note that some debate also exists also as to which curtain was torn. Some early theologians, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, believed that the torn curtain was not the one protecting the Holy of Holies, but a more visible and external curtain, hanging in front of the outer courts. There would have been two curtains in the temple, since the temple followed biblical blueprints initially given for its predecessor, the mobile Tent of Meeting (or Tabernacle): “You shall make a screen for the entrance of the tent, of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, embroidered with needlework.” (Exodus 26:36, English Standard Version)

In his Commentary on St. Matthew, Aquinas noted that the deepest mysteries still remain hid from us:

And these two veils signify a twofold veiling, because the inside veil signifies the veiling of heavenly mysteries, which will be revealed to us: for then we shall be like to Him, when His glory shall have appeared. The other veil, which was outside, signifies the veiling of mysteries which pertain to the Church. Hence, the outer veil was rent, but the other one was not, to signify that mysteries which pertain to the Church were made known by Christ’s death; but the other veil was not rent, because heavenly secrets still remain veiled. Hence, the Apostle says: “But when Israel shall be converted to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away” (II Cor. 3, 16). Hence, by the Passion, all mysteries, which were written in the Law and the prophets, were opened, as it is stated: “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things that were concerning him” (Lk. 24, 27).
(St Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on St. Matthew, available online).

The important point for us isn’t the nature or location of the curtain, but rather the deeper meaning and symbolism behind its rupture. Even this may have multiple layers of possibilities. As I was preparing this article, I discovered one blog article that linked the tearing of the veil to the Jewish custom of tearing one’s clothes at a time of great distress, such as grief from the death of a loved one. The idea is that God was tearing His clothes at a moment of deep anguish.

A more common interpretation would be something like this:

The rending of this veil means that access into the presence of God is no longer limited to the high priest; in the era after Christ’s death, all believers may boldly come before the Almighty’s throne. … Clearly, with the death of Jesus a cataclysmic change happened in the way we approach the Father, as well as with God’s relationship to the temple. It was, John Calvin writes, “an opening of heaven, that God may now invite the members of his Son to approach him with familiarity.” (R.C. Sproul, Ligonier Ministries).

Jesus’ death has accomplished something wondrous. God has destroyed the barrier that separates us from His presence.

14Feb

God’s Valentine to the World

In 2018 fate has put Ash Wednesday on the same day as Valentine’s Day. Men nervously scour the pink laden aisles of Target and Kroger for last minute gifts for their wives or girlfriends, thereby observing Valentine’s Day as the national holiday of romantic love. Simultaneously, this year Christians will begin Lent, that solemn journey of penitence and remembrance that culminates at the Cross of Jesus. A smudge of ash on the forehead is an odd juxtaposition with the arrows of Cupid.

Yet the Bible more than once waxes nearly erotic in describing God’s longing for a
relationship with his wayward people. The Presbyterian theologian and preacher Francis Shaeffer once remarked, “This is the biblical picture, one that we would not dare use if God himself did not use it.” More on this in a moment.

In the Old Testament, one need look no further than the “Song of Solomon”, a poetic book full of sexual imagery, which is generally interpreted as a metaphor for God’s love for us. The book opens with the maiden (God’s people) waxing rhapsodic about her lover (God):

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
    for your love is more delightful than wine.
Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
    your name is like perfume poured out.
    
Elsewhere in the Old Testament we see numerous passages likening God to the husband of Israel. God’s relationship, his covenant, is essentially that of marriage. Isaiah 54 states “For your husband is the One who made you.” Hosea 2:15 states “And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.”

In the New Testament, Christ also compared himself to a bridegroom. For example, when the Pharisees criticized Jesus for not fasting, he replied: “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.” (Mark 2)

In Ephesians 5, we have a clear statement of this metaphor:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband (Ephesians 5:25-33).

Here is a more expansive version of that earlier quote from Francis Schaeffer:

The picture here is overwhelming. As the bride puts herself in the bridegroom’s arms on the wedding day and then daily, and as therefore children are born, so the individual Christian is to put himself or herself in the Bridegroom’s arms, not only once for all in justification, but existentially, moment by moment. Then the Christian will bear Christ’s fruit out into the fallen, revolted, external world. In this relationship, we are all female. This is the biblical picture, one that we would not dare use if God himself did not use it. (From The Church Before The Watching World, 1971; text available here).

Unfortunately, in this relationship we humans have long been the unfaithful party. As Jeremiah stated (in his eponymous book, chapter 3):

Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. … Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, ‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD; ‘I will not look upon you in anger For I am gracious,’ declares the LORD; ‘I will not be angry forever.

This topic would not be complete without a mention of the strange case of Hosea the prophet. As the book of Hosea opens, the prophet is asked by God to marry an actual prostitute, as an object lesson of the relationship between God and Israel:
When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”

At the outset of the covenant, God knew that we would blow it. From the beginning, therefore, He planned a drastic measure to try to get us back. The Cross of Jesus is the end of that journey. It is God’s ultimate valentine to the world.

As Francis Schaeffer stated in his meditation on those opening verses of the Song of Solomon:

  We will remember the love which suggested the sacrifice of yourself; the love which, until the fullness of time, mused over that sacrifice, and longed for the hour of which, in the volume of the Book it was written of you, “Lo, I come.” We will remember your love, O Jesus, as it was manifested to us in your holy life, from the manger of Bethlehem to the garden of Gethsemane! We will track you from the cradle to the grave, for every word and every deed of yours was love. You, wherever you did walk, did scatter loving kindnesses with both your hands. As it is said of your Father, “God is love,” so, surely, you are love, O Jesus! The fullness of the Godhead dwells in you; the essence of love, nothing else but love, is your incarnate person.
  And specially, O Jesus, will we remember your love to us upon the cross! We will view you as you come from the garden of your agony, and from the hall of your flagellation. We will gaze upon you with your hands and your feet nailed to the accursed tree. We will watch you when you could, if you had willed it, have saved yourself; but when you did, nevertheless, give up your strength, and bow yourself downward to the grave that you might lift us up to heaven. We will remember your love which you did manifest through your poor, bleeding hands, and feet, and side.
  We will remember this love of yours until it invigorates and cheers us “more than wine,”-the love, of which we have heard, which you have exercised since your death, the love of your resurrection, the love which prompts you continually to intercede before your Father’s throne, that burning lamp of love which will never let you hold your peace until your chosen ones are all safely housed, and Zion is glorified, and the spiritual Jerusalem is settled on her everlasting foundations of light and love in heaven. We will remember all your love, from its beginning in the eternal past to the eternity that is to come; no, we will try to project our thoughts and imagination, and so to remember that, long as eternity shall continue, even forever and for evermore, so long shall your love exist in all its glory, undiminished in its luster or its force. “We will remember your love more than wine.”

(Schaeffer’s sermons on the Song of Solomon are available at GraceGems).

05Feb

Candlemas in the Sarum Rite

The recently observed Feast of the Presentation (also known as “Candlemas”) reminded me of an interesting YouTube video, a bit of living history, that I ran across some years ago. In 1997, a reconstruction of a Sarum rite Candlemas liturgy was conducted at Merton Chapel, Oxford.  The following link is to one portion of the service:

“Sarum” refers to medieval English worship practices centered at Salisbury Cathedral. The codification of the Sarum use was largely the work of Saint Osmund, nephew of William the Conqueror, who after the 1066 Norman conquest became Lord Chancellor of England (1070-1078) and then Bishop of Salisbury in 1078. His ceremonies and customs owe much to those of Rouen in Normandy, but were adapted in a way that he hoped would benefit both the French and the Saxons. It is noted that the Sarum rituals were more elaborate than other rites of the Roman Catholic Church, including the Tridentine.

In time the Sarum use came to dominate much of England, and the other rites (those of York, Lincoln, Aberdeen, Bangor, and Hereford, among others) were suppressed by King Henry VIII. The Sarum Rite influenced, and was in turn displaced by, the English language Book of Common Prayer after Henry’s death. Sarum usage enjoyed a brief revival from 1553-1559, under Queen Mary I.

The snippet of the Candlemas service above shows the Offertory. From the comments, I am informed that the background music is ‘Gaude, Gaude, Mater’ by John Sheppard. The musicians are from the Choir of the Church of Our Lady at Lisson Grove in London.

You can view the entire service in a series of YouTube installments, thanks to a YouTuber who calls himself “BrunoTheLabrador”.

19Jan

Which Rock?

Christians in many traditions celebrate on January 18 the “Confession of St. Peter”, or “The Good Confession”:

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
(Matthew 16: 13-19, Holy Bible, King James Version)

Peter’s statement, which is subsequently praised by Jesus, is a breathtaking pronouncement of Jesus’ exalted status. It has been used and repeated by Christians down the centuries as a kind of “credo”, and in a broad sense Peter speaks for the Twelve as well as all of us here. (As recently as last year, I have witnessed this used in Evangelical churches as a profession of faith at the time of baptism). Here, Jesus is identified by Simon as “the anointed one” (the awaited “messiah”), and also “the son of God”.

Jesus turns about and gives the disciple a fresh identity, and engages in a bit of a pun. Simon was from henceforth to be “Peter” (“Πέτρος” meaning “stone”), and declares that his community of believers would be founded upon this rock (“πέτρᾳ” or “boulder”). One strand of interpretation has been to identify the church as being founded upon Simon Peter. The foundation stone is more likely not Peter himself but rather his confession, his belief.

In the words of one Dr. James Boyce, Professor emeritus of Greek and New Testament at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN:

Peter speaks for the disciples, for Matthew’s gospel and the community to which it is first addressed, and certainly for us, announcing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God (16:15-16). Jesus confirms this “confession” by Peter as a mark of God’s blessing and as the “rock” upon which he will build his church (16:17-18).
(The full comments on this are available online at this site).

06Jan

A Lutheran Prayer for Epiphany

Lord God, on this day you revealed your Son to the nations by the leading of a star. Lead us now by faith to know your presence in our lives, and bring us at last to the full vision of your glory, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. AMEN

Lutheran Book of Worship, pg 15