Church Calendar Archives - Page 28 of 48

Part 1: A Theology of Christmas Presents

Christ Church on December 1, 2019

Introduction

During this Advent season, I want to spend some time in this series of messages working through a theology of Christmas presents. Quite a number of you are going to be spending quite a bit of time on this aspect of your Christmas celebrations, and so—as Christians who seek to bring every aspect of our lives into submission to the Word—how should we think about Christmas presents? We will need to consider in turns the ground of our giving, the nature of giving, the nature of receiving, and the good of the material world.

The Text

“Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;) Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God; Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men; And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:10–15).

Summary of the Text

Now in this part of his letter, the apostle Paul is speaking a benediction for the Corinthians. He asks that the God who provides seed for the farmers would bless the ministrations of the Corinthians (v. 10). He asks that God would provide them with food, and multiply the effects of their generosity (v. 10). He wants this to result in abundance for them so that they might be equipped to give more, with the result of even more thanksgiving (v. 11). The reason is that this kind of giving has two benefits—it meets the need and it results in thanksgiving to God (v. 12). As the recipients approve of and rejoice in what they (and others) receive, they are glad for this tangible evidence of the submission of the Corinthians to the gospel of Christ (v. 13). In return for the gift, the recipients pray for and long for the donors as they see the surpassing grace of God resting upon them (v. 14). And then Paul anchors his benediction by referring to the ground of all generosity, which is the generosity of God toward us, in the gift of His Son—the unspeakable gift (v. 15). All our gifts, of whatever kind, are to be grounded here.

Different Kinds of Donations

By the grace of God, you own or possess what you have. Now the Scriptures describe for us different sorts of circumstances under which we give some of it away. And this giving would include anything of monetary value going out from you and with nothing coming back immediately in return. In other words, we are talking about an expenditure that is not “buying” something.

For our purposes, we can divide this up into three categories—tithes, offerings, and celebrations. Christmas presents would obviously fall into the third category.

Tithes

The tithe is a gift that is not discretionary. In other words, it is God’s tribute, assigned to us by Him. Contrary to the assumption of many believers, the tithe is not a “Mosaic thing.” Abraham tithed to Melchizedek before there was a Mosaic code (Gen. 14:20). Moses certainly included it in his law, the same way other ancient practices were included, practices like circumcision or animal sacrifice (Dt. 14:28). And then, in the New Testament, Paul tells us that those in Christian ministry should be supported in the same way that the Levitical priests were supported, which is to say, by means of the tithe (1 Cor. 9:13-14). Paul describes how the priests were supported in the OT, and then says even so, in the same way, Christian ministry should be supported.

So if you look carefully at the Scriptures, you will see that lawful recipients of the tithe are ministers of the Word (1 Cor. 9:14), the poor (Dt. 14:29), and the merchants who provide you with the goods for your celebrations before the Lord (Dt. 14 22-29).

Offerings

Scriptures frequently describe the giving of the tithe in terms of seed going into the ground, and seed that goes into the ground is the ordained means of obtaining a harvest or a crop (Mal. 3:10). To say that the tithe is a mandatory gift is simply to say that God requires us to put a certain amount of seed corn into the ground. He cares for us. Otherwise, we would tend to eat our seed corn.

But once we learn that money is seed corn, the wise among us want to figure out how to give more. But we do not give to get, period. We give to get in order to be enabled to give some more. “The liberal soul shall be made fat: And he that watereth shall be watered also himself” (Prov. 11:25).

And Paul encourages the Corinthians to apply the logic of the tithe to their thinking about their free will offerings.

“But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:6–7).

Celebrations

And so we come to the custom of celebrating through gifts. We already saw some indication of this in the Dt. 14 passage, where God requires what might be called a party tithe. But it appears that God has embedded deep within mankind an impulse to give gifts when celebrating. This is even the case with wicked men (Rev. 11:10). But impulse is also found among the righteous. What happened when the Jews were delivered from a great threat in the book of Esther?

“As the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor” (Esther 9:22).

The Unspeakable Gift

And so now we find the basis for all our Christmas shopping. Like all Christian generosity, it seeks to mimic the generosity of God, grounding our giving in the fact that God has given so generously to us. “freely ye have received, freely give” (Matt. 10:8). It shares this feature with our tithes and with our offerings. And, at the same time, all our Christmas gifts are also a celebration of that great gift that was given to us. We celebrate the Incarnation—the prerequisite gift that enabled God to give us the even greater gift of the crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus was born to die, and all of this—birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—was given for us men and for our salvation.

Provided we remember why we are doing it, it is entirely fitting that we give Christmas gifts to one another.

Dayspring of Christmas

Christ Church on December 1, 2019

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The Texts

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,” says the Lord of hosts, “That will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves. 3 You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this,” says the Lord of hosts. 4 “Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with thestatutes and judgments. 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 6 And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:1-6).

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, 77 To give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, 78 Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; 79 To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:76-79).

Two Coal Fires (Easter 2019)

Christ Church on April 21, 2019

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Introduction

The presence of the Lord Jesus, alive just as He promised He would be, transforms everything. We can see this very clearly in the fall and restoration of the apostle Peter after the resurrection. The account of Christ’s care for Peter is given to us so that we might understand more of His care for us.

The Texts

“And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold: and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself” (John 18:18).

“And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread” (John 21:8-9).

Summary of the Text

These two verses are just a few pages apart, and the Greek for the charcoal fire is identical (anthrakian). The apostle John is a very careful writer, and I believe we are being invited to compare and contrast the two fires in the two settings.

The first fire was built by the enemies of Christ (18:18), and the second was built by Jesus Himself (21:9). Peter was present in both settings, and he was present because of something that had been said by the apostle John (18:16; 21:7). Jesus was present in both settings. In the first He was on trial for His life (John 18:27; cf. Luke 22:61), and in the second He had conquered death (21:1). In the first, Peter denied the Lord three times, just as Jesus had predicted (18:17, 25, 26), and fell into sin. In the second, he affirmed his love for the Lord three times, and was reinstated (21: 15, 16, 17). In the first, Peter received something from wicked men (warmth), and in the second he received something from the Lord (food, and forgiveness). In the first, Peter does not compare favorably with the disciple that Jesus loved—John was more influential “at court,” John didn’t deny the Lord, and John didn’t run away. In the second, Peter has all such comparisons put to rest (John 21:21-22). “What is that to you?”

153 Fish, and Big Ones Too

As the disciples approached the shore, they were dragging a net filled with fish, and they cooked some of them on this coal fire. This is not a mystical or a “spooky” reading of the text—this is a literary reading of the text. The issues are placement, foreshadowing, parallelism, literary conventions, and so on.

To illustrate the difference, consider another detail from this text—when Jesus called out to His disciples fishing about 100 yards offshore, He told them to put their nets down over the right side of the boat, which they did. When they had done so, the result was a huge haul. This was a way Jesus had of identifying Himself. When He had first called them to ministry, He had called them away from their nets (Matt. 4:18-22) so that they could become fishers of men. And when Jesus had done a similar miracle like this one before, the response that Peter had had was that of being overwhelmed with his own sinfulness (Luke 5:8). This scene in John therefore has a return to both elements—Jesus deals wonderfully with Peter’s sin and fall, and Jesus recommissions him to ministry as a fisher of men. He tells him three times to “feed the sheep” (21:15, 16-17). We should have no trouble seeing the fish as emblematic of the coming haul at Pentecost. The nations were to be brought into the boat, and Jesus indeed made His disciples fishers of men. In this case, Peter had jumped out of the boat, and the others had brought the fish in. But Peter is soon to rejoin them in the work.

But what is it with the specific number of fish? This is a good place to illustrate the difference between a careful literary reading and mystical reading. This number has been the occasion of a goodly amount of ingenuity to be spent on it. Some of it has been fanciful, some of it sober, and some of it pretty pedestrian.

Bear With Me

The pedestrian reading is that 153 is mentioned because that’s how many fish there were, darn it, and John was simply interested in adding an irrelevant little detail. A fanciful reading is that when you add the ten of the commandments to the seven of the seven-fold Spirit, as Augustine urged us to do, you get seventeen, and 153 is the triangular of 17. The word “triangular” means that if you add the numbers 17 to 16 to 15 to 14 and so on down to one, the sum is 153). The problem here is that you can also get 153 from Seventeen magazine, and that doesn’t mean that John is talking about the challenges of adolescence. This is the kind of thing that John Calvin called “childish trifling.”

But 666 is the triangular of 36 (and 36 is 6 times 6). The biblical writers did make some of their points with numbers, and John particularly did this. The fact that it is unusual to us doesn’t make it unusual or odd to them. We already have solid grounds for understanding the fish as representing all the Gentile nations. We have the “fishers of men” call that Jesus gives Peter and Andrew, James and John. We have the fact that throughout Scripture, the sea represents the Gentiles and the land the Jews. No one in the Old Testament is shown eating fish, but in the New Testament fishing (and the eating of fish) comes to the front and center.

On the day of Pentecost, how many nations are listed? Well, 17 actually (Acts 2:7-11). And we have to remember the practice of encoding numbers in names (called gematria) was common in the ancient world. They could do this in a way that we cannot because they used the same symbols for letters as for numbers. We have Roman letters and Arabic numbers. But in Hebrew, the first nine letters corresponded to 1-9, the next nine were 10-90, and the last five were100-400. So? Well, the prophet Ezekiel had promised that the time of the New Covenant would be a time of glorious fishing.

“And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many” (Ez. 47:10).

The prefix En simply means spring, and so if we look at the numerical value of Gedi in Hebrew apart from the prefix, we find that it is 17, and the value of Eglaim (apart from the prefix)is 153. Ezekiel is talking about the salvation of the Gentiles under the figure of fish, and he uses these two numbers. John refers to this, and it has the same meaning as the explicit meaning given to it by Jesus in Luke. This means that 153 is a symbolic number for the Gentile nations who will be brought into the kingdom of God.

But Back to the Charcoal Fire

Remember that Peter is being restored. The antithesis is very clear here. The charcoal fire built by the enemies of Christ is not really a good place to warm yourself—and it ends with snarling, cursing, devouring, bitterness, and tears. The charcoal fire built by Christ is built in order to feed the disciples, and then, as Peter is being restored, he is commanded (in his turn) to feed the Christians who will follow him.

The resurrected Christ forgives and feeds. Our responsibility is to be forgiven, to be fed, and then to forgive . . . and to feed. And this helps us to be nourished and to worship both. Feeding is something newborn infants can understand, and toddlers most certainly do. Nutrition is so complex that only God understands it, although a person trained in nutrition understands more than most of us do exactly how much is going on when we eat a sandfish. And it is the same with texts like these. We can simply feed, but we can also stand back, amazed, and adore.

Wonders in the Dark (Easter 2019)

Christ Church on April 21, 2019

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The Text

O Lord, God of my salvation,
I have cried out day and night before You.
²Let my prayer come before You;
^[b]Incline Your ear to my cry.

³For my soul is full of troubles,
And my life draws near to the grave.
⁴I am counted with those who go^[c] down to the pit;
I am like a man who has no strength,
⁵^[d]Adrift among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You remember no more,
And who are cut off from Your hand.

⁶You have laid me in the lowest pit,
In darkness, in the depths.
⁷Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah
⁸You have ^[e]put away my acquaintances far from me;
You have made me an abomination to them;
I am shut up, and I cannot get out;
⁹My eye wastes away because of affliction.

Lord, I have called daily upon You;
I have stretched out my hands to You.
¹⁰Will You work wonders for the dead?
Shall ^[f]the dead arise and praise You? Selah
¹¹Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave?
Or Your faithfulness in the place of destruction?
¹²Shall Your wonders be known in the dark?
And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

¹³But to You I have cried out, O Lord,
And in the morning my prayer comes before You.
¹⁴Lord, why do You cast off my soul?
Why do You hide Your face from me?
¹⁵I have been afflicted and ready to die from my youth;
I suffer Your terrors;
I am distraught.
¹⁶Your fierce wrath has gone over me;
Your terrors have ^[g]cut me off.
¹⁷They came around me all day long like water;
They engulfed me altogether.
¹⁸Loved one and friend You have put far from me,
And my acquaintances into darkness (Psalm 88 NKJV).

The Greater Lazarus (Psalm Sunday 2019)

Christ Church on April 14, 2019

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Introduction

We are seeking to recover a Christian sense of time and history, and in some sense this means a recovery of the church year. But though we are seeking to escape a secularized calendar, we must never forget that we got this secular calendar (in part) because of a reaction away from the problem of “saints days glut.” And this means we cannot just be aware of the problems with ourimmediate past. We have to look farther back than this, and hence it is a means of guarding the future. What we need is balance.

The Text

On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord . . . (John 12:12-26).

Summary of the Text

Quite a few people heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem (v. 12), and when they heard this, they cut down palm branches and went out to meet Him (v. 13). Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it (v. 14), and thus fulfilled the words of the prophet Zechariah (v. 15). The disciples did not get the import of the Triumphal Entry until after Jesus was glorified (v. 16). People were in Jerusalem, talking about the raising of Lazarus (v. 17). This, in part, was why such a great crowd gathered (v. 18). The Pharisees had trouble seeing outside the immediate moment (v. 19). There were some Greeks there, who came to worship (v. 20), and they had heard about Jesus and asked Philip if they could see Him (v. 21). Philip and Andrew then come and ask Jesus about it (v. 22). Jesus answers (although it does not appear to be an answer), and says that the hour has come for Him to be glorified (v. 23). Death is necessary in order to bear fruit (v. 24). He then applies the principle more broadly, to all His followers (v. 25). Follow Me, Jesus says, and the Father will honor you (v.26).

The Time for Openness

Throughout His ministry, Jesus had spent a considerable amount of effort to get people to keep His miracles quiet. But His hour has come, and He does nothing to get thiscrowd to be quiet—as He says elsewhere, if the people were quiet, the stones would cry out. This crowd is here because of the resurrection of Lazarus, and Jesus does nothing to discourage them.

Deeper Glory

The disciples were caught up in the moment, and all they knew was the glory of it (and it was real glory). But it was only glory in preamble form, and there was a deeper glory coming. But in order for that deeper glory to arrive, it was necessary for the “corn of wheat” to fall into the ground and die (v. 24). Jesus had to explain this to His disciples. The exultation they felt was not the grand moment of victory.

In the same way, the Pharisees (with the same carnal eye) looked at the triumph of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a royal mount, heard the crowds, and lamented their loss— “behold, the world is gone after him” (v. 19). In other words, this was to be a roller coaster ride for them: despair, scheming, victory, and then ashen despair again. The disciples were operating on the same carnal level—only opposite. And this shows that there is a kind of “opposite” that is not really a demonstration of the antithesis at all, but is simply a matter of “taking sides.” This is why we have left and right, conservative and liberal, and so on. But the real antithesis is death versus life from the dead.

We Would See Jesus

In the pandemonium, certain Greeks came and wanted to see Jesus. Philip and Andrew ask about it, and Jesus gives a cryptic answer. But the answer is not a change of subject; the Lord is actually explaining how it is possible to see Jesus. But the answer involves much more than simply arranging for an appointment (which may have been what they were asking for).

The hour is coming when the Son of Man will be glorified (v. 23). How will that glorification occur? The seed must die (otherwise it remains solitary), but if it dies, it will bring forth much fruit (v. 24). The one who hates his own life shall regain it in eternal life, and the one who grasps to keep it will lose it (v. 25). This principle is now being extended by Jesus to His followers. What He is going to go through, they must go through also. If these Greeks want to really see Me, Jesus is saying, they must follow me. If they follow Him, they will be where He is and will do what He does also. They will also die, and they will also be fruitful. If this happens, then the Father will honor them. Now this is the only means these Greeks have of “seeing” Jesus that was different from how the Pharisees were also “seeing” Him at that moment.

The Greater Lazarus

Now the crowd was there because they had seen Lazarus raised, or had heard about Lazarus being raised (vv. 17-18). This meant that the multitude with the palm fronds knew that Jesus had authority over death. But what they did not know is that He had authority over death from the inside of it. If Jesus was here and death was there, then Jesus could fight with death the old-fashioned way, the way a knight might fight with a dragon. But Jesus was interested in far more than simply being opposed to death in some form of external combat. He walked into the maw of death in order to be swallowed by it, and to defeat death while a dead man. It was this feat that defeated all death at one blow, instead of having to bring people back, one at a time, like Lazarus.

Delayed Insight

The disciples did not realize until later that they had been the instrument of fulfilled prophecy (v. 16). They did not know these things at the first. But when Jesus was glorified, they realized it all. But Jesus talked to them about His approaching glorification (v. 23), and so it had been part of their conversation on that day. They talked about glorification, but it was not until they saw Jesus as glorified that any of this made any sense to them. But note what Jesus had taught here. It did not suddenly make sense to them simply because time had elapsed, because Jesus had died and was now glorified. It made sense to them because they had also died. They had gone through this death in different ways—Peter and John, for example, were quite different. But the shepherd had been struck and the sheep scattered. This, in a way, meant that the sheep had been struck as well. And when Jesus rose from the dead, so did His followers.

Jesus did not die so that we might live. He died so that we might die; He lives so that we might live.

Death and Fruitfulness

Many Christians glibly talk about having a fruitful Christian life, or a fruitful Christian ministry. They often mean nothing more than learning how to not mess up in obvious ways. But we use phrases like this in a way that should make us think of the request made of Jesus, that two brothers might sit on His right side and His left. Do you know what you asking? The answer was yes, but the answer was really no. When you ask to be fruitful, do you know what you are talking about? Not fully, but Jesus still issues the graceful invitation in the midst of His triumph. Come with Me. Come and die.