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The Delayed Revelation of Triunity

I have often been confused at the seeming newness of the doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament. In my opinion, the doctrine is obviously taught in the New Testament, but it is veiled in the Old Testament so much that, though there are hints and shadows, you could not discover the Doctrine of the Trinity without the New Testament. But the reason that the doctrine is veiled in the Old Testament is that we are kept at a distance from God by Sin. We are never let into the inner life of God because one of his works in the Old Testament was to keep us at a distance from his inner life. It was not until after Jesus has died and rose from the dead that we were brought into the inner life of God, at which point the reality of the Trinity was revealed to us. The High Priest entered the direct presence of God once a year, but we live in the presence of God because we are washed by the blood and the Holy Spirit lives inside of us. The veil was torn that had kept us out of God’s presence and now we experience the Trinitarian life. The Triunity of God was not revealed to us because we were not close enough to experience the reality of it, but when sin was done away with on the cross, we were reconciled to God and brought close enough to experience and enjoy the Triune life of God.

After knocking Abigail out of the race with a trip from behind, I thought that I had the race in the bag, but I ended up having to throw my scolding hot americano at Zipporah to come out on top. They told me in the parenting class to never start a competition of wills that you don't win, and besides, Cedric needs to learn that cheaters never prosper, but they win games.

Modernity's big red nose

The Interpretation of Parables is central to any thorough-going understanding of the mission and purpose of Jesus, yet it is at the very point of the interpretation of parables that moderns trip over the clown shoes of modernity. Understanding parables requires a familiarity with symbolic, typological, and figurative communication, but part of the clown act of modernity is a symbolic mime-act in which we are stuck in an invisible box. Moderns insist that they have moved beyond the Ancient and Medieval use of ‘symbolic communication’ to a precise scientific clarity.

Postmoderns, though they have realized that the box of modernity’s mime act was invisible only because it wasn’t there, continue to insist that their clown suit and mime act be taken seriously, and that they are different because, unlike the smiling clowns, their face paint has a frown and a tear and because they have an earring in their right ear (though not because they are a pirate).

Why Do We Sing?

People are made in the image of the Triune God and, as such, express themselves in three ways: Word, image, and music. When expressing themselves with words, they are acting primarily in the image of the Father, who is the revealed to us as a speaking God from the beginning. “And God Said . . .” The Son is the Word of God, but he is also the image of God who reveals God to us by image and impress (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15, 3:10; Heb. 1:3). Human expression with images can be further divided into two categories. We express ourselves by decorating and creating images outside of ourselves and we express ourselves with our bodies in movements, touch, and symbols (kneeling, handshakes, kisses, etc.). By creating music, we express ourselves in the image of the Spirit, who is the person of the Trinity involved in the glorification what the Father and the Son have created (though the creation was also done by and in the Spirit). The Spirit is the person of the Trinity that is identified with the passage of history through time and the glorification of God's people in time. Music is the expression that glorifies of words in time. These three categories of expression (word, image, music), in four modes (speaking, decorating, dance/bodily movement/liturgy, music) encompass all that we do.

Where covenant-renewal liturgy is concerned, we are seeking to enact a command-performance before our Lord and King. We are attempting to worship God on earth in the way that God is worshiped 1n heaven. The Reformed Church is currently very strong in expressing its worship of God with words, weak on decorating and bodily expression and generally thoughtless about music. This leads to a very unbalanced and at times even idolatrous worship service. As we have emphasized speaking to the dissipation of the other aspects of the image of God we have slipped into functional Unitarianism and deism. The sacraments and traditional liturgies that emphasized our union with Jesus and his constant feeding and care and the reality of his audible voice have been replaced with a lecture hall in which we hear about a god who is far off or worse, only near when he is angry. We have a god who is constantly looking over our shoulder hoping that we will make a mistake so that he can smash us. This is a far cry from our Father, who calls his children before him so that he can bless them.

We in the Reformed church are musically weak. Just as the Spirit of God was poured out on the world to glorify Jesus (John 16:12-15), the Word of God, so have we been given music to glorify the Scriptures as we sing them back to God. Because of this, singing has traditionally held an important place in the church. King David (a superb Christian) forever established singing at the center of all the church’s dealings with God. Even before that, certain songs were central to what it meant to be a member of the body of Moses, the daughter of Yahweh (Ex. 15; Deut. 32). Like many American denominations, that are defined as much by their hymnal (or lack there of), Israel was defined by the songs that they held dear. The musical heritage of the church is rich, diverse and full of blessedness. The Reformation itself was as much a reformation of liturgy as theology, which has bequeathed to Protestants a rich musical heritage, though of late we have spurned our inheritance.

So why do we sing? In the Bible we are told that the whole world is to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, serve God with gladness, and approach God with singing (Ps. 100:2). We are to imitate God in all that we do (Eph. 5:1) and our God is a singing God (Zeph. 3:17). We are told to sing the psalms, to sing new songs, and to do it skillfully (Ps. 33:2-3). We are told that the wicked use their tongue to lay traps through flattery, but the righteous sing and rejoice (Prov. 29:5-6). Our singing is to include our understanding (1 Cor. 14:15), so no singing in tongues (like Latin or German) during the worship service, (this would include babbling, vain repetitions in song, and singing songs that are not true). Our singing is often to be loud (Neh 12:42-43), we are to sing if we are joyful (James 5:13), sing to one another for mutual edification (Eph. 5:17-20), teach through songs (Is 5:1), sing our thanksgiving (2 Sam. 22:50, Ezra 3:10-11) and sing our history (Ps 106:11-12). In short, the Church of Jesus is to be a singing people.

Singing is one of the most important and powerful things we do as Christians. Our songs are the breath of God, knocking down the wicked and their idols (Is. 30:29-31:1). The choir in the pews is at war with the idols of their community. Like the armies of Joshua circling Jericho, our shouts to God are effective where nothing else is. Because the church is the body of Christ, present in the world, our songs are powerful; more powerful that we ever imagine. They are prayers that God hears and answers. We are singing from within the Triune communion. Our songs are sanctified and empowered by the Holy Spirit. And like a true arrow, true songs shoot straight. This is why singing the psalms, the songs given to us by inspiration, should fill us with joy, because we are ramming the gates of hell with a enormous battering ram that was forged from Moses’ day until the exile into Babylon. And heathens get nervous when they hear the wood creak and begin to split with one gigantic boom each Sunday morning.

Movie Reviews

For those of you who were wondering where my movie reviews are you can find them here:

The Lion King

Stranger than Fiction

2007 Summer Movies


I know that you have all been wanting them all in one place and I am here to oblige

my daughters obediently not smiling (almost).

Cutest kangaroo outside of texas

St. Brendan the Navigator

St. Brendan the Navigator

“Fear not, brothers, for our God will be unto us a helper, a mariner, and a pilot; take in the oars and helm, keep the sails set, and may God do unto us, His servants and His little vessel, as He willeth.” St. Brendan The Navigatio

The Roman World (which was the whole world in AD 500) had fallen apart. Christians throughout Europe, who were just trying to survive the collapse of the governing system all around them, began turning in on themselves instead of continuing the aggressive evangelistic missions of an earlier age. Many people were afraid that they must be living at the end of all things. If Rome could fall, what could possibly be safe?

During this socio-political upheaval, there was a man whose life inspired Prince Madok, Columbus[1], Captain John Smith and many other explorers, the Sons of Liberty, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison (Grant). There was a man that looked into the face of the unknown horizon and saw a place to which the paradise of the gospel needed to go. That man was Brendan, son of Finnlug Ua Alta, of the race of Eoghan. He was born in Tralee Ireland around the year 489 (O’Meara ix) and lived a long life dedicated to the service of God. He was the child of Christian parents who gave him over to the local monastery, for the service of the kingdom at age one. He grew to love learning, community, and Christ. Brendan spent his early years studying and planting monastic communities in Kerry, Galaway, and on the islands of the river Shannon (O’Meara ix), but when, already past 70 years old (Morison 15), he learned that there were lands with people beyond the horizon, he and fourteen companions built a boat and set sail for a trip across the Atlantic Ocean. On his voyage he met sea monsters, isolated island monks, giant icebergs, whales the size of small islands, and fog too thick to navigate through. After the many adventures he returned home to die among his people.

Brendan was not alone in his voyage. The Christian Celts of Brendan’s day were travellers. Brendan lived in the age of Peregrinatio Pro Christo, the pilgrimage for Christ. Christians would leave their world behind and journey as far as they could to serve Christ in the remotest areas of the world. And with them they brought the gospel of the resurrection and kingship of Christ. We know that Christian Celts made it as far as the Ohio Valley, but it is hard to imagine that missionaries who evangelized so broadly and so manfully did not make it further. As the spirit of the age waned throughout Europe, the spirited Christianity of these missionaries etched these words in the mountains of West Virginia in the Celtic language

At the Time of Sunrise, a ray grazes the notch on the left side, tis Christmas Day, a feast day of the Church, the first season of the Christian year, the season of the blessed advent of the Savior, Lord Christ. Salvatoris Domini Christi, behold he is born of Mary, a woman. Hallelujah. (Quoted in Grant)

Though the oldest know version of the story of Brendan’s voyage is from the seventh century (O’Meara x), perhaps less than 100 years after the voyage, many moderns doubted the historicity of Brendan and the Celts claims. No one believed that any band sailing in a curragh, the ancient Celtic boat of leather stretched across a wooden frame, described in accurate detail (Morison 16) in The Navigatio, could make the Atlantic trek. No one believed until Tim Severin and his crew built a curragh by the specifications laid out by The Navigatio, and sailed Brendan’s route. He even recounts tales of sea creatures that make The Navigatio’s tales look probable (Severin 140-148). There is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that the Celts had accomplished what they claimed to accomplish. There is enough evidence of a presence of Celts in America for some to postulate substantial Celtic civilizations existing in America. “Gloria Farley, an ardent archeologist and explorer, has found countless examples of what seem to be Keltic ogamic inscriptions along the Cimarron River in Arkansas and more in Kentucky, leading her to believe Kelts were exploring the Mississippi River valley and leaving their inscriptions along the way 1,000 years and more ago” (Angel). Though giant celtic civilizations might be pressing the imagination, the archeological evidence of an early Celtic presence in America, Iceland, and Greenland cries out for explanation. The archeology alone is inconclusive but there are also many accounts of Irish monks spread throughout the Northern Island of the new world. “Three centuries after Brendan’s death, the raiding Vikings found Irish Monks in Iceland, the Faroes, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys” (Morison 25).

Whether St. Brendan and the Celts were the first Europeans to come to America or not, they looked at the world around them and saw a world owned by Christ, a world that needed to know its Lord. As the story of Brendan’s voyage, The Navigatio, puts it, as Brendan and his crew of monks entered their boat, “all the birds sung in concert: Hear us, O God Our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea afar off” (Navigatio). These Christians would travel the globe and when they found a tribe or kingdom, they would go straight to the king to inform him of the King of kings. They feared no sea, no monster, and no man because “our God is the Lord Jesus Christ, who can bring to nought all living things” (Navigatio). We need men like Brendan to come along side us in our modern malaise and misanthropy the way he came along side the crew of his. “Soldiers of Christ, be strong in faith unfeigned and in the armor of the Spirit, for we are now on the confines of hell; watch, therefore, and act manfully” (Navigatio). We sit, much like Brendan did, on the edge of a fallen world which is being consumed by the death, destruction and the despair that always follows idolatrous statism. Oh, that the Lord would grant us the courage and faith of Brendan that sees the horizon as an opportunity to carry the Kingdom of Christ into the unknown.

While the rest of the church retreats into defeatists ghettos and evangelical and fundamentalist bunkers, we need to advance with the faith that says ‘if God be for us, then who can be against us.’ In one of the greatest scenes in The Navigatio, Brendan is celebrating the festival of St. Peter on the ship and large fish and sea monsters begin to circle the boat. “The brethren entreated the man of God to say Mass in a low voice, lest those monsters of the deep, hearing the strange voice, may be stirred up to attack them.” But Brendan responded, “I wonder much at your folly. Why do you dread those monsters? . . . For our God is the Lord Jesus Christ . . .’ Having thus spoken, he proceeded to sing the Mass in a louder voice.” As long as the church fears the wrath of man, we sit paralyzed like the men in Brendan’s Boat asking him to please sing the Mass a little quieter. But God calls us to fulfill Brendan’s desire for his men, to be soldiers of Christ who, though they be on the confines of hell, act manfully.

Bibliography

Angel, Paul Tudor. "Who Built New England’s Megalithic Monuments?" The Barnes Review November 1997. 15 March 2006

Grant, Dr. George. "St. Brendan." Saints and Scoundrels: Canon Press Annual History Conference, Moscow, 2001.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages AD 500-1600. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. Trans. Denis O’Donoghue 1893. Celtic Christianity e-library. 29 March. 2006 <>.

Severin, Tim. The Brendan Voyage. New York: Mcgraw-Hill Book Company, 1978.

The Voyage of St. Brendan: Journey to the Promised Land. Trans. And Intro. John J. O’Meara. New York: Ittegaps, 1999.

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[1] Columbus references Brendan the Navigator in the Journal of his first voyage.

Saint Brendan’s Prayer

Saint Brendan’s Prayer

Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home?
Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea?

Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy,
without silver, without a horse,
without fame, without honor?
Shall I throw myself wholly upon You,
without sword and shield, without food and drink,
without a bed to lie on?
Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Your yoke?

Shall I pour out my heart to You, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness,
tears streaming down my cheeks?
Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach,
a record of my final prayer in my native land?

Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict?
Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean?
O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?

O Christ, will You help me on the wild waves?

Saint Boniface

St. Boniface and Thor’s Oak

Boniface was a Bishop and a missionary in Saxony, in the early eighth century. In the area of Hessia there had once been a thriving Christian community, but when Boniface arrived all of the converts were gone and only the worshipers of Thor remained. Boniface was having little success in the area and could not convince any of the people to stop visiting Thor’s oak tree, an ancient Oak tree that was deep in the forest in which the people believed Thor lived. He decided to take care of it once and for all. He took an ax and had his monks and the people of Thor’s tribe follow him through the under brush and into the forest until the stood before Thor’s oak at which point he took off his shirt and, without a word, chopped down the six-foot wide wooden god. The people were thoroughly frightened because they believed that Boniface would be punished for even wielding an ax in the direction of the tree, but after the tree had fallen he stood on the stump and cried, “How stands your mighty god? My God is stronger than he.” He took the wood of the oak and made a chapel. Some people converted on the spot, other were upset with him, but over time the tribe became Christians and worshiped the True God in the chapel built of the wood of the giant felled Oak of Thor.

Quotes from St. Boniface

In her voyage across the ocean of this world, the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses. Our duty is not to abandons ship but to keep her on her course.

Let us stand fast in what is right, and prepare our souls for trial. Let us wait upon God's strengthening aid and say to him: "O Lord, you have been our refuge in all generations."

Let us trust in him who has placed this burden upon us. What we ourselves cannot bear let us bear with the help of Christ. For he is all-powerful, and he tells us: "My yoke is easy, and my burden light."

Let us continue the fight on the day of the Lord. The days of anguish and of tribulation have overtaken us; if God so wills, "let us die for the holy laws of our fathers," so that we may deserve to obtain an eternal inheritance with them.

from a letter by Saint Boniface

What fundamentalists and liberal have in common

R.R. Reno, in “The Ruins of the Church” points out that modern fundamentalists and liberal have this in common, they are both modern in the sense that they both believe that history has taken “turned the corner in some decisive sense” and that we must “separate ourselves from a dying past in order to receive the redemptive future.” He goes on to say that “the very essence of modernity is this embrace of liberating distance, this will to separation for the sake of the ‘not yet.’ For the modern, the past is a burden, the task of spiritual life is to throw of its debilitating weight.” Pretty cool. I never thought of that. That modernity is at root a revolt against history. No wonder moderns hate the middle ages and reformation. That is when Christianity tried to be the religion of history.

a collection of proverbs

surfing the internet is a huge waste of time,
unless you've got
nothing better to do

A soul full of meaning sees meaning in the world.
An empty soul will empty the world
and not be satisfied.

You don't realize how right-handed you are
until you lose your hand is a one
of those tragic "bull-riding
on houseboat" accidents.

Tetotaling is a diet.

cheaters never prosper,
but they most assuredly win games

a one eyed midget standing on his head
might have a different view of the
grass, but he can't see over the hedge.

Helping people is like washing the dishes. 
Sometimes you have to use the
sprayer, sometimes you have to let them
soak in soapy hot water, and
sometimes you have to grab the sos pad
and get in up to your elbows.

beating a dead horse won't make him run any faster,
but it sure makes you
feel better.

There isn't much difference between an open mind
and a whole in the head.

live your life for you dreams,
unless you are a member of Hamas.

Don’t stick
your head under the car until
after you put the emergency brake on,
you don’t want to be the guy that ran over your own head.

God digs the well of Joy with pain and tribulation

surfing the internet is a huge waste of time,
unless you've got nothing better to do

Ethics

All too often, when we think of Ethics, we think in terms of a list of rules, and then we try to determine what goes on the list and what does not. Then, when we go to differentiate between Christian and non-Christian ethical systems, we think that the Christian has a lot of rules, while the rank heathen only has a couple. This lump of coal is only fit for Aristotle’s stocking. Like everything for the Christian, the gospel defines our ethical system and for us, the gospel is not an abstract formula, but the person of Jesus the Messiah and King of the world. We follow Jesus, which makes us dangerous the way that Jesus was dangerous. It is easy to keep the ‘holier than thou’ in line, because they are satisfied with certain concessions. People attempting to live a Christ-life are dangerous because they will not compromise. They insist on loving effectually, which entails a savage hatred of idolatry, the enemy of all mankind and all his institutions.

Bold like a lion with the dead lamb

A common sin in our day, that is often mistaken for righteousness, is the “Bold like a lion when the lamb is already dead” syndrome. This is where a preacher spends his time attacking the idols of past generations that have already been ground to pieces by our faithful forefathers, but refuses to step forward five hundred years and confront the temptations of the congregation in front of them. This kind of preacher has a Costco size Tiger Balm® in the locker room but won’t shut up about how great it is in order to take the lid off.

Towards a Theology of Song

Singing has traditionally held an important place in the church. King David (a superb Christian) forever established singing at the center of all the church’s dealings since his reign. Even before that, certain songs were central to what it meant to be a member of the body of Moses, the daughter of Yahweh (Ex. 15, Deut. 32). The musical heritage of the church is rich, diverse and full of blessedness. The Reformation itself was as much a reformation of liturgy as theology like choir being in the pews and the movement of the table for the Lord’s Supper and the placement of the pulpit. In the Bible we are told that the whole world is to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, serve God with gladness, and approach God with singing (Ps. 100:2). We are told to sing the psalms, to sing new songs, and to do it skillfully (Ps. 33:2-3). We are told that the wicked use their tongue to lay traps through flattery, but the righteous doth sing and rejoice (Prov. 29:5-6). Our singing is to include our understanding (1 Cor. 14:15), So no singing in tounges (like Latin or German) during the worship service, (this would include babbling, vain repetitions in song, and singing songs that are not true). And our singing is to be loud (Neh 12:42-43) (Early church amens used to shake the walls and scare the neighbors). We are to sing if we are joyful (James 5:13) sing to one another for mutual edification (Eph. 5:17-20), teach through songs (Is 5:1) (This is what makes Bob Dylan so affective, bad music so dangerous and good music so wonderful). Sing our thanksgiving (2 Sam. 22:50, Ezra 3:10-11) and sing our history (Ps 106:11-12).
One last aspect of our singing is something that the Bible teaches that isn’t often taken into account. Our songs are the breath of God, knocking down the wicked and their idols (Is. 30:29-31:1); The Choir in the pews is at war with the idols of their community. Because the church is the body of Christ, present in the world, our songs are powerful, more powerful that we ever imagine. They are prayers that God hears and answers. We are singing from within the triune communion, so our songs are sanctified and empowered by the Holy Spirit. And like a true arrow, true songs shoot straight. This is why singing the songs given to us by inspiration is so fun because we are ramming the gates of hell with a enormous battering ram, that was forged from Moses’ day until the exile into Babylon. And heathens get nervous when they hear the wood creak and begin to split with one gigantic boom each Sunday morning.

revolutionary christianity

I have been thinking a lot lately about how revolutionary we tend to be as modern American Christians. It everywhere when we begin looking, but two things in particular have stuck out to me lately. The first is our general distain for imperfect authorities besides ourselves (which, in spite of our chest puffing, can hardly be called authorities). It is obvious in the church, "by choosing green rather than red for the sanctuary carpet you are deny in the gospel," but it comes out in every area in our lives. The move toward self inflicted medicine rather than trusting the medical authority (which is imperfect. yet still a real intellectual authority) is one example of the way we tend to refuse to live in the world God has given us. We are responsible to be alert patients, wise patients, understanding patients and helpful patients, and, I would argue, submissive patients. We haven't gone to medical school and a doctor making a mistake or a misdiagnosis does not make him not an authority, but we revolt and insist on taking to Google for our medicine. The second area that I noticed (ok, I'll admit it, in myself) was our (meaning, of course, my) view of sanctification. God has ordained that the preaching of the gospel, once a week, and the sacraments only once a week, be the means of kneading the dough to get the yeast spread through the whole loaf over the course of a life time. people get sanctified slowly. Yet we want a decisive moment of sudden clarity, because then the book will sell (perhaps that is a little cynical). Christianity is ordinary and boring and I am going to try and get that pounded into my skull (not revolutionarily downloaded like the matrix, but slowly rubbed in like a good pepper rub on a sirloin tip roast). There are my thoughts, and now that you have them you have no excuses.

Left-Handed Grace

Left-handed grace

Left handed right-thighed blade
paused and poised to pierce
a grease-gummed heart.
Surrounded by fat, grown
on the fresh flesh
of the good shepherd’s sheep.
A left-handed sword for a left
handed goat's stone heart.
Ehud, a judge of justice
bringing right-thighed
grace to be swallowed
hilt and all
by the fat
of exile.

Weasle-sucked words

for those of you wondering what a weasle-sucked words are, let me explain the metaphor. Weasles, when they come across an untended birds nest, have been known to just poke a hole in the egg and suck out the insides, then leave the shell. So when the mother returns there still appears to be a nest full of eggs. So a weasle sucked word would be a word or phrase that appears at first to have meaning, but when you look alittle closer, you learn that it is just a shell of communication. Some examples would be "Charismatic" "Right-wing" and the phrase "support our Troops." A weasle-sucked word is in need of another modifier to have any significant communicative power.

self-absorbtion

Walker Percy, in his book Lost in the Cosmos makes the point that the modern human self is empty. He points out that we attempt to fill our vacous soul with the meaning of the things of the world around us but, instead of ending up with a meaningful self, we end up with a meaningless world. Our empty modern souls devour the fullness of the meaningfulness around us and leave only invisible (to us at least) meaningless stuff. This is why, he argues, our fashion, funiture and culture flop between retro and grotesque (or both at once), because we imagine that the inherited meaning of old stuff or the shock value of "completely new" stuff will give our selfhood, previously drained of meaning by our self-absorbtion, lasting meaning, but instead, you get meaningless tye-dye and mullets and nudity and negliges in public that are no longer seductive in the bedroom. Perhaps this is also the reason behind moderns inability to use, understand, or develop subtlety and fullness of symbolism. When we do attempt it, we use it like morse code or worse, like bible code and end up with weasle sucked words.