Today is Palm Sunday. On this day the church has traditionally celebrated and remembered Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey before his crucifixion.

It is the Passover season, the highest of the feasts, and Jerusalem is stuffed with pilgrims. Jesus acquires a donkey, as the prophecy foretold, and enters as the Returning King. A populace welcomes him joyously, crying “Hosanna”–begging for deliverance. These are the poor and downtrodden, and they honor him with whatever they have at hand: palms cut from nearby trees, the clothes off their very backs. And this King is magnanimous enough to receive their humble adulations.

And then, as the Great High Priest, he goes to inspect the house of God, but it is leprous and must be cleansed. Imagine the scene. Imagine the commotion and noise. Imagine the authority pouring off Jesus. No one stopped him. No one interfered. Here is power and majesty. Here is one fit to sit on David’s throne.

And then he turns and heals the blind and the lame and receives the praises of children. He has no patience with sham religiosity, with the hypocrisy of the temple leaders, but he gives himself to the week and despised and small.

This is comfort and it is warning. For the fig tree that bears leaves but no fruit, there is strong warning. Matthew Henry puts it this way, “If Christ came now into many parts of his visible church, how many secret evils he would discover and cleanse! And how many things daily practised under the cloak of religion, would he show to be more suitable to a den of thieves than to a house of prayer!”

But to the contrite and lowly, to those who would call God their Father, He is abundant in mercy. He comes as conquering King, but this King, so great and mighty, has come not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Joshua Edgren – March 24, 2024

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We sometimes refer to the Lord’s Day gathering of the saints as a “worship service” wherein we serve the Lord by giving Him our worship. But what is worship exactly? The term gets a bit slippery.

Some will say that everything in your life is worship, and they have a distaste for any formalism in the Lord’s Day service. While there certainly is truth to this view, the folks that holds it are often lax in actual works of righteousness and holy living. It turns out that the distaste for formalism in one area turns into irreverence in others. The principle that we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, that all our life and work should be presented to God as a sacrifice of thanksgiving is solid, but this flows from robust weekly worship; it is not in competition with it.

Another view limits “worship” to the 2-3 songs the guy with the guitar plays up front and which you close your eyes and sway to before the sermon. This also has a grain of truth, namely that the songs we sing to God are a potent means by which we render Him the honor due His name, but it fails both in scope and execution. Meaning that it is both too narrow and also really bad at living up to its own narrowly defined claims.

Here is a simple thought experiment: Worship is that which is given to God and to God alone. What is idolatry? It is the rendering of worship to anything which is not God. So there is this thing, which we call worship, which is for God alone. The comparison to a marriage is apt. A wife is always married to her husband, and her whole life is an act of love and devotion to him, but there are also particular expressions of this devotion which cannot be overlooked and which must not be given to anyone else.

So what is God owed? Of course, He rightly claims your whole self, but also He is owed your particular praise and adoration. When we gather here, we do so in response to His lovingkindness in calling us, in order to give to Him that which is owed to no other. And when we go out from here, we go with His blessing on our heads and hands, ready to render to Him our whole selves as we carry out the work of our vocation.

And finally, practically, God is owed our fear. What we fear is as good an indicator as any of what we worship. But fear is something we owe to God alone. It is worship. Too often we talk about what this doesn’t mean (“don’t be scared of God”) and fail to consider what it does mean: that when we continually fear something other than God, we are guilty of idolatry and should repent. And this is good news, supremely good news in that it frees us from bondage to cowardice and depression, but it also reminds us of our need to confess our sins.

Joshua Edgren – March 17, 2024

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Some time ago we looked at the sin of envy and its relation to jealousy and covetousness. Now we will attend to covetousness. Turns out it’s bad too.

Twice in the New Testament, once in Colossians and once in Ephesians, covetousness is equated with idolatry. The worship of idols was the prevailing sin of Israel and ended up working the ruin of both the northern and southern kingdoms, but after the exile idol worship “proper” was never tolerated again. But the human heart is subtle and crafty, like a sprawling city with many shady alleys and lairs. You can root sin out of one area only to find that a remnant of it scoots out the back door during the police raid and hides out in a safehouse for a bit. Then it gathers strength and starts disrupting things again.

So the root sin of idolatry which once could walk openly and claim even to be piety, now has to hide out in the basements of other vices. So when Paul says that covetousness is idolatry, it’s like he is pointing out that a smalltime criminal is hiding the mafia boss or the drug lord.

We can be inclined to think of covetousness as the junior member of the company; it comes last among the ten commandments, and after bearing false witness, stealing, lying, murder, and adultery, it seems anticlimactic. But the sin of covetousness contains the same seed which throws down empires and ruins nations: assuming yourself to be God.

When we covet our neighbors’ goods or condition, we shake our fist at Heaven and say, “Not thy will but mine be done! I give my allegiance to my own desires above all else.” And this is the essence of idolatry, and if we are not vigilant in rooting out this spirit of discontent, it can easily lead to misery. God help us.

Joshua Edgren – January 14, 2024

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The vastness and immensity of God presents us finite folk with lovely paradoxes. Consider this one: the knowledge and power of God are truly unbounded, and yet He cares about the smallest detail of your life and doings. This is both comfort and warning.

It is undeniable comfort to remember that the King of Heaven—the one who created and upholds all things and has cherubim at His command and who dwells in unapproachable light—is intimately involved in the affairs of men. This is His story, and he is working all things to His glory and to the good of His people. We are in uncertain times, but the purposes of God are ever faithful, ever sure. It looks to us like the world around us is going up in flame, and it might be, but if so, it is a controlled burn set by the divine fire chief for His good pleasure. Nothing can thwart God’s plans and purposes. We are all of us in the palm of His hand. This is comfort.

But there is warning as well. And here is the paradox: the great and omnipotent God of the cosmos has crafted a story so great that the choices of the characters truly matter. It would be easy to stop halfway and say, “I’m just along for the ride. God is doing whatever He’s doing, and I’m just a passive observer.” The ditch on one side is fearful anxiety, and the ditch on the other side is slothful presumption; we must avoid both.

When we gather in the presence of God with the saints on the Lord’s Day, we walk the path between the ditches. We come to worship at the throne of the Almighty God, acknowledging His supreme power and authority over all things. And also we come to hear the commands of God proclaimed and explained. We come to confess our sins and to receive forgiveness and to be equipped and strengthened for godly living.

Joshua Edgren – January 7, 2024

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The unbelieving world doesn’t know what to do with Christmas. It’s too big to ignore, but the world doesn’t know what it’s for. Sort of like Stonehenge. They stare at Christmas in perplexity. “It must meansomething…” 

And so, they try all sorts of things on for size: Maybe if we involve a magically generous old man in a red suit, that will make sense of things. No? Add reindeer. Still no? Well shoot. Okay, well, let’s try to borrow the trappings of a Christian age and see if that will help. It’s like setting the table with your grandparents’ chinaware and hoping that will make food appear. When all else fails, go for the sentimental; appeal to the feels. Just go for what makes you feel warm and snuggly. Fill the dishes with whipped cream. That’s what Christmas is for. It’s for warm and snuggly feelings. Ahhh. Glad we got that figured out.

Joshua Edgren – December 24, 2023

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