Pastoral Commonsense?

This bit of reportage is from the recent issue of National Review (8/30):

 “In Indianapolis, police sergeant Matthew Grimes was asked to give a presentation to a church audience. The pastor had something up his sleeve: he would stage a fight between two black men, to see how this white officer would respond.  The fight was staged: Grimes intervened, was thrown to the ground and drew his Taser gun. At that point, people said, essentially, “Just kidding!”  Grimes was injured during this stunt, and was treated for back spasms at a hospital.  We hope everyone is happy. By the way, how do you test whether a pastor has an ounce of sense in his head?”

 I think that’s fair question:  How do you test whether a pastor has an ounce of sense in his head?

“God, the Gospel and Mr. Glenn Beck”

As you probably know, this past Sunday there was a quasi-religious gathering in DC, at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, led by conservative political commentator, Glenn Beck. There is an excellent article on this by Russell Moore of Southeran Baptist Theological Seminary, “God, the Gospel and Mr. Glenn Beck”: http://www.russellmoore.com/2010/08/29/god-the-gospel-and-glenn-beck/ I suggest you read it but I do not think you need to to hopefully make sense of my remarks below on this article:

 This past Sunday there were actually two marches/rallies:  one led by Mr. Glenn Beck and the other by the Rev. Al Sharpton to protest Mr. Beck’s rally to bring the nation back to God.  Both men have now positioned themselves as religious figures and obviously the one conservative and the other liberal.

 Years ago, a dear friend and colleague, now of blessed memory, said to me in a political and religious discussion:  “The political liberals and conservatives are simply trying to see who will be America’s chaplain…I think the conservatives may win, but it doesn’t matter.”  In the wake of the utter demise of American mainline Protestantism as our de facto civil religion, by both post-modernism and it’s own hand, (cf. article, “The Death of Protestant America: A Political Theory of the Protestant Mainline” by Joseph Bottum, originally in First Things, posted here:  http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8381),  Mr. Bottum makes the convincing case that we should not be too exuberant on the demise of the old civic religion.  I think it has left in it’s wake a vacuum in the now naked public square and literally marching into the void  are self-appointed leaders, left and right, to show us the way, their way.  On Monday, after the rallies, Rev. Sharpton was interviewed on the Today Show and towards the end he said, “We are going to transform America to make it one.”  I think the demagoguery in that statement is frightening.  But I so is Mr. Beck saying, “We are going to take back America” or “restore honor to America”.  The old civic religion knew from the Bible the doctrine of original sin:  the Latter Day Saints know nothing of it, and I would also guess Rev. Sharpton. They know nothing of that doctrine and are ostensibly building the Kingdom or actually, their own, thinking, hey, we’re good…and that’s the worse statement a group of sinners can make. We’ll make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered said the people on the plains of Shinar.

 So, I  partially disagree with my dear friend’s comment, “…but it doesn’t matter”.  It matters to the point that both movements raise the specter of political tyranny.  In the Lutheran understanding of the two kingdoms, to pursue and use the penultimate authority and power of the left hand kingdom to bring about the right hand Kingdom invites both confusion and the prospect of fascism, left or right. I know I am probably overstating my case but as the saying goes, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”. 

 Russell Moore’s call to return to the Lord’s call to His Church as the place and time of repentance and forgiveness in Jesus Christ is meet, right and so to do.  No, being “salt” and “light” are not immediately persuasive political action, but, as silent as light, they preserve and save. G.K. Chesterton had it right:  ““If salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”…If the world grows too worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows too worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldliness by the world.”

Augustine, Commemoration, August 28th

 

 Note:  I am past the commemoration date of Augustine, but his sermons on the Word of God are germane every day.  May the Lord bless you through His servant’s preaching!–Pr. Schroeder

Quick Biography:  Augustine was one of the greatest of the Latin church fathers and a significant influence in the formation of Western Christianity, including Lutheranism. Born in A.D. 354 in North Africa, Augustine’s early life was distinguished by exceptional advancement as a teacher of rhetoric. In his book Confessions he describes his life before his conversion to Christianity, when he was drawn into the moral laxity of the day and fathered an illegitimate son. Through the devotion of his sainted mother Monica and the preaching of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (339–97), Augustine was converted to the Christian faith. During the great Pelagian controversies of the 5th century, Augustine emphasized the unilateral grace of God in the salvation of mankind. Bishop and theologian at Hippo in North Africa from A.D. 395 until his death in 430, Augustine was a man of great intelligence, a fierce defender of the orthodox faith, and a prolific writer. In addition to the book Confessions, Augustine’s book City of God had a great impact upon the church throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. (Treasury of Daily Prayer, Concordia Publishing House)

 The following quotes are Augustine’s sermons, from the four volume series, The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers:  A Manual of Preaching, Spiritual Reading and Meditation, translated and edited by M. F. Toal, D.D., 1996, Preservation Press: 

 Christmas Day:  Third Mass, John 1:   1—14, also addressed to the newly Baptized:

 “For from the Gentiles we have come, and in our forefathers we worshiped idols of stone.  So we also have been called dogs (Mt. 25: 26)…But to you grace, has come.  As many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God.  See!  You have come here newly-born (by baptism):  he gave them power to be made the sons of God.  To whom did he give it? To them that believe in His Name.  And how do they become the children of God?  Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, now of the will of man, but of God. They are born of God, when they have received the power to become sons of God…The first birth is from a male and a female;  the second from God and from the Church.  Behold they are born of God…How has this come to be?  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us.  Wondrous exchange!…Lift up your heart to the possession and enjoyment of higher things.  Do not stick fast in earthly cravings. You have been purchased at a price:  for your sake the Word was made flesh.

 The Fourth Sunday in Lent, on John 6:  1—15:

 “For the daily ordering of this whole world is a greater miracle than the feeding of five thousand men from five loaves.”

 “We must also ask the miracles what is it they tell us of Christ:  for they have, if we understand it, their own manner of speech.  For as Christ is the Word of God, any deed of the Word is a sermon to us.”

 Easter Sunday, on Mark 16: 1—8, addressed also to the newly Baptized:

 “For this divine condescension cannot be truly understood, and human thought and language fails us, that without previous merit on your part this free gift has come to you.  And for this do we call it a grace:  because it is given gratis.  And what grace is this? That you are now members of Christ, Children of God; that you are brothers of the Only-Begotten!”

 Second Sunday after Easter, on John 10:   11—16

 “To you it is not said:  be something less than you are;  but rather, learn what you are. Know that you are weak, know that you a man, know that you are a sinner; know that it is He Who sanctifies you;  know that you are stained by sin.  Let the blemish in your soul be made manifest in your confession, and you shall belong to the flock of Christ.  For the confession of your sins invites the Physician to heal  you; just as when he who is sick say, ‘I am well’, he desires no help from the physician.  Did not the Pharisee and the Publican go up into the Temple?  The one boasted of how strong his soul was; the other shown his wounds to the Physician.”

 Pentecost, on John 14:  23—31

 But whom do you say that I am? And Peter as the leader of the others, one speaking for all of them, said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God (Mt. xvi). 

This he said perfectly; most truly. Rightly did such an answer deserve to hear: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee, because thou hast said this to me; thou hast spoken: now listen; thou hast confessed: receive in turn a blessing. Therefore: And I say to thee: Thou art Peter: because I am the Rock, thou art Peter; for the Rock is not from Peter, but Peter is from the Rock; because Christ is not from Christian, but Christian is from Christ. Arid upon this rock I will build M Church: not upon Peter (non supra Petruin) who thou art, but upon the Rock (sed supra petrain) Whom thou hast confessed. I will build My church: I will build thee, who in this answer are in your­self the figure of the Church.

 16^th Sunday after Pentecost, on Luke 14:  1—11

“Do you desire to escape from an angry God?  Then fly to an appeased One:  fly nowhere from Him, only to Him.”

 The Feast of All Saints, on Matthew 5: 1—12

 “Riches can indeed perish; and would that they perished before they caused you to perish.”

 A Prayer Adapted from a Benediction by which St. Augustine ended at least two of his sermons:

 We turn to You, the Lord our God and as best as we can give we give You thanks.  We beseech You that in Your goodness You will hear our prayers and by Your power:  drive evil from our thoughts and actions, increase our faith, guide our minds, grant us Your holy inspirations, and bring us to joy without end through Your Son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The Lion of Judah

Several Sundays ago,  the second reading was from the fifth chapter of  The Book of Revelation, or to use the more ancient and accurate title:  The Apocalypse to St. John the Divine.  The fifth chapter, the fifth verse:

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

The picture for the blog’s title is one I took at The Cloisters in Manhattan this past summer.   The Cloisters is well worth at the very least a look at their web-site: http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/the_cloisters

The photo is of a sculpture  illustrating the Scripture verse cited above: Jesus Christ is the Lion of Judah.  I have seen this work many times and I am struck that the Lion of Judah is smiling like a “Cheshire cat”.  After a cursory ‘study’ on the internet it seems that the reference from Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland might be based upon several renditions of this grinning Lion of Judah in medieval churches. Why is He grinning?  In the full statue note that the serpent, the Ancient Foe, the Serpent lies under his feet, like a cat after catching a mouse!  Evil will have it’s day.   The victory is won over sin, death and power of the devil!  He alone can open the scroll of fallen human history and it’s seven seals. Why?  He has carried our  sin upon His shoulders (see Isaiah 9: 6-7 and Isaiah 53). The Lion of Judah fully entered into human history.  The Church’s God-revealed Faith is the only on earth that is thoroughly historical:  practically every Sunday and Liturgy of Holy Communion we confess in The Apostles’ Creed:  “…suffered under Pontius Pilate”.  We remember a minor Roman governor!  And under Pilate, the Lion was supposedly tamed forever by brutal treatment, even death on the Cross, in that pin-point of human history:  real-time.  The Lion can not be tamed (see The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis).  He is risen!  No one else is worthy to open the scrolls. The Lion is not enthralled by the vain idolatrous worship of personality, political leaders, mammon or the self.  Such idolatrous worship is the  persistent promise of the devil:  you will be like God (see Genesis 3).  He was so tempted by Satan (see St. Matthew 4: 8-11) in every way that we are, yet was without sin (see Hebrews4:  15).  In the Lion there is only Life, no death whatsoever, only  eternal life and He bore our death, our evil and our sin in His life-giving Body and died that you may live.  He is worthy because He suffered and all who suffer with Him will live and reign:

   ”Worthy are you to take the scroll
   and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
   from  every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
   and they shall reign on the earth.”

Apocalypse 5: 9-10

Our World without End and a Narrator

            In the March 2010 20^th Anniversary issue of ‘First Things’, the journal reprinted Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson’s article, “How the World Lost Its Story”.  The entire article is here:   http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/03/how-the-world-lost-its-story       It’s worth the read.  I will sum up the article with further emphases of other reflections from Jenson that have stuck in memory from his lectures.  I will also give some of my insights for what their worth.  His insights in this article, and in the aforementioned lectures, are quite cogent and need to be heard because of the response the Church can make, indeed must make courageously in these dark days

                       A favorite comedy movie that I watched many times with our children growing up was “George of the Jungle”.  Throughout the movie there is a Narrator and so narration to keep the plot line moving.   When the two ne’er-do-wells have kidnapped Ape (a talking one, voice:  John Cleese) and are hauling Ape in his cage, the Narrator makes disparaging comments about these two ape-nappers.  One of them looks up and says in effect, ‘I’m so sick and tired of you always butting in.  Why don’t you shut up?!’  The other rogue says, ‘Be quiet!  You shouldn’t argue with the Narrator!’ ‘That’s right’, says the Narrator in a booming voice and then the earth shakes. Jenson diagnoses  the problem that ‘George of the Jungle’ winks at:  no longer arguing with the Narrator but ‘living’ in a world without a Narrator and therefore a coherent narration:   a story without a plot-line in a post-modern world. 

             Intro: Post-Enlightenment modernism still was a world that was narrated and coherent even if it was contraryto the church and Christianity.  Why?  How? 

 “There is no mystery about how Western modernity came by this supposition.  The supposition is straightforwardly a secularization of Jewish and Christian practice—as indeed these are the source of most key suppositions of Western intellectual and moral life.  The archetypical body of realistic narratives is precisely the Bible, and the realistic narratives of Western modernity have every one been composed in, typically quite conscious, imitation of biblical narrative.” (emphasis my own)

 Jenson writes this is basically the Biblical basis of Western literature.  There is narration which is intelligible. There is meaning in our lives.   I add that the Scriptures are a meta-narrative:  a beginning, middle and an end, because there is the Narrator, from Creation to the coming of the Kingdom.

 “Modernity was defined by the attempt to live in a universal story without a universal storyteller.  The experiment failed.  It is, after the fact, obvious that I had to:  If there is no universal storyteller, the universe can have no story line.” (emphasis my own)

 This then is post-modernism: no Narrator (even one to shake one’s fist at!) and so no story line.  At one time it was simply fashionable to argue with the Narrator:  now the Narrator no longer exists and with it the narration.   As Nietzsche pronounced:  God is dead.  But even the progress inherent in Nietzsche’s uber-mensch, over-man or super-man to put meaning on the chaos is no longer possible. There is no progress.   Even to say “life is one damned thing after another” still implies an ordered universe:  because for something to be “damned” implies morality and a universal Judge.

Diagnoses of the Problem:  But, “Postmodernism is characterized by the loss of this supposition (that is, there is a coherent and meaningful story line)  in all its aspects.”(See quote above) The problem, wrote Jenson is seen in both “story” and “promise”.

 a. Story:  There is no longer in a post-modern world a world that is narratable and coherent because of post-modernism’s rejection of even an implicit Biblical narration.  The only story is that there is none. Jenson points out this can be seen in literature, especially existentialism, e.g. Sartre’s, Nausea, No Exit and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.  In modern art:  it’s all about the forms on the canvas.  Truly, ars gratia artis. Or as he points out about his students and others:

“…one of my suburban Minnesota students whose reality is rock music, his penis, and at the very fringes some awareness that to support both of these medical school might be nice; a New York street dude; the pillar of her congregation who one day casually reveals that of course she believes none of it, that her Christianity is a relativistic game that could easily be replaced altogether by some other religion or yoga—all inhabit a world of which no stories can be true.”

 Or in very similar vein as a colleague and mentor of mine, Pr. Louis Smith (of blessed memory) observed to me one day:  “Notice how many times in any discussion these days how key sentences invariably begin with , “I feel…”  or “This is how I feel…”  Why?  There is no post-modern authority outside of the self:  it’s all been deconstructed.  And notice how this crops up, I would hazard to guess, even in a conservative church and Bible study, “Well, this is the way I feel about (fill-in-the-blank)” Jenson also points out that in denominational, especially generic Protestant endeavors to “reach out”, “evangelize”, that we presuppose the folks we are speaking to recognize logical meaning inherent to living in a narratable world, “Indeed, many do not know that anyone ever did.”

b. Promise: the lack of any kind of promise, or as I have entitled this review, “Our world without end…” without an ending, a fulfillment, and that is, says Jenson, sheer hopelessness.  Indeed going back to “without God and hope in the world” (cf. Ephesians 2:  11—13):

 “Promises, in the postmodern world, are inauthentic simply because they are promises, because they commit a future that is not ours to commit… The impossibility of promises is there our daily experience. And in this matter, we have a paradigm case, in which the whole situation is instantly manifest and which I need only name. There is a human promise that is the closest possible creaturely approach to unconditional divine promise, and that is therefore throughout Scripture the chosen analog of divine promise: the marital promise of faithfulness unto death. Among us, that promise has become a near impossibility, socially, morally, and even legally.”

 Prognosis:  It is a grim diagnosis but I think an accurate one and his response is Biblical and confessional. 

 In a similar vein to this article, in a lecture Jenson pointed out that the liberal dictum in the church used to, “The world sets the agenda for the Church” which meant it’s problems dictated the course and action of the church, not the narration of the Word of God in Scripture. But Jenson said, the flip does not work:  the church sets the agenda for the world.  No, he said, the church’s story is the agenda of the world.  From the article: 

 “The obvious answer is that if the church does not find her hearers antecedently inhabiting a narratable world, then the church must herself be that world.

The church has in fact had great experience of just this role. One of many analogies between postmodernity and dying antiquity—in which the church lived for her most creative period—is that the late antique world also insisted on being a meaningless chaos, and that the church had to save her converts by offering herself as the narratable world within which life could be lived with dramatic coherence. Israel had been the nation that lived a realistic narrative amid nations that lived otherwise; the church offered herself to the gentiles as their Israel. The church so constituted herself in her liturgy.

For the ancient church, the walls of the place of Eucharist, whether these were the walls of a basement or of Hagia Sophia or of an imaginary circle in the desert, enclosed a world. And the great drama of the Eucharist was the narrative life of that world. Nor was this a fictive world, for its drama is precisely the “real” presence of all reality’s true author, elsewhere denied. The classic liturgical action of the church was not about anything else at all; it was itself the reality about which truth could be told.

In the postmodern world, if a congregation or churchly agency wants to be “relevant,” here is the first step: it must recover the classic liturgy of the church, in all its dramatic density, sensual actuality, and brutal realism, and make this the one exclusive center of its life. In the postmodern world, all else must at best be decoration and more likely distraction.

 Out there-and that is exactly how we must again begin to speak of the society in which the church finds itself-there is no narratable world. But absent a narratable world, the church’s hearers cannot believe or even understand the gospel story-or any other momentous story. If the church is not herself a real, substantial, living world to which the gospel can be true, faith is quite simply impossible.”

 For instance:  the Orthodox Church in Constantinople fell to Islam in 1453 and remained under formal subjection until in the 1920s (even today it is severely prescribed).  The church could not have schools, for instance.  How did it teach? Answer:  the liturgy. It is said of Protestant churches that “we begin our meetings with prayer and our worship services with announcements.”  I suppose this is a small point but it does point out a big problem.  The Orthodox liturgy of St. John Chrysostom begins with, “Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages.”  There is a sense that one is entering the world as it shall be and everything therein should reflect the hope we have in the Lord.  We have an entrance hymn by which we enter into the Presence.  But Jenson cautions,

 “Polemical point one: the story is not your story or my story or “his-story” or “her-story” or some neat story someone read or made up. The story of the sermon and of the hymns and of the processions and of the sacramental acts and of the readings is to be God’s story, the story of the Bible. Preachers are the greatest sinners here: the text already is and belongs to the one true story, it does need to be helped out in this respect. What is said and enacted in the church must be with the greatest exactitude and faithfulness and exclusivity the story of creation and redemption by the God of Israel and Father of the risen Christ. As we used to say: Period.” (emphasis my own)

I think this is being faithful to the Confessions and the Gottesdienst, but not ‘rubrics for rubrics sake’, but the Lord lets His Word shine forth in these dark days through the leitourgia.  A liturgy is not the continuation of the world inside a church building, but a discontinuation with the world with the Word for the sake of the world, for us and for our salvation.  The Liturgy is not a rock concert with a few alleluias thrown in, nor is it a museum piece of liturgical antiquity.  It is the living voice of the Word of God, the Lord come to us in His Word and Sacraments:  it is the Biblical narrative.  And it is not concocted by us to ‘reach’ people.  Liturgy is real as the Author is real.

 Further, the prognosis for the Promise is, writes Jenson, the eschatological hope:  there will be fulfillment. Tellingly, Jenson observes:

 “First and most obviously, preaching and teaching and hymns and prayers and processions and sacramental texts must no longer be shy about describing just what the gospel promises, what the Lord has in store. Will the city’s streets be paved with gold? Modernity’s preaching and teaching—and even its hymnody and sacramental texts—hastened to say, “Well, no, not really.” And having said that, it had no more to say. In modern Christianity’s discourse, the gospel’s eschatology died the death of a few quick qualifications.

The truly necessary qualification is not that the City’s streets will not be paved with real gold, but that gold as we know it is not real gold, such as the City will be paved with. What is the matter with gold anyway? Will goldsmiths who gain the Kingdom have nothing to do there? To stay with this one little piece of the vision, our discourse must learn again to revel in the beauty and flexibility and integrity of gold, of the City’s true gold, and to say exactly why the world the risen Jesus will make must of course be golden, must be and will be beautiful and flexible and integral as is no earthly city. And so on and on.”

 

And I say that the Church must reclaim, for instance, the last book of the Bible, The Apocalypse,  as it is written: simultaneously eschatological and liturgical.

 “Polemical point two: modern Christianity, i.e., Protestantism, has regularly substituted slogans for narrative, both in teaching and in liturgy. It has supposed that hearers already knew they had a story and even already knew its basic plot, so that all that needed to be done was to point up certain features of the story—that it is “justifying,” or “liberating,” or whatever. The supposition was always misguided, but sometimes the church got away with it. In the postmodern world, this sort of preaching and teaching and liturgical composition merely expresses the desperation of those who in their meaningless world can believe nothing but vaguely wish they could.”

So all the synodical and denominational programs for institutional survival piled all together can not address at all the anomie and anonymous life of a post-modern “Wasteland” (T.S. Eliot). For instance:  We live in a culture in which the only ‘sacrament’ is hooking-up.  This is why every Protestant Church body in the nation is a graveyard of past enthusiasms and why they don’t work.  We think they do as sop to feel like we are doing something to feel good that we’ve done something, in fact,  anything,  but it is a fact:  whom we think we are reaching are not being reached. 

Further, I add:  this kind of sloganeering indicates tragically the sin of sloth when it comes to a central mission entrusted to the Church by her Lord: teaching/catechesis.  We can be all afire about making disciples but forgetting that the operative verb to make disciples is “teach”.  This is the work of the Church but we look for easy ways out with programs.  We look for easy ways out and results much less astounding than predicted. It is not about programs but the Promise.  The LCMS is maybe of all church bodies that are called ‘Protestant’ the one most adept at catechesis because of it’s schools and the rich tradition of the Word as clearly taught by  Luther in his Catechisms..  Further CPH has published and is publishing a type of Lutheran Confessional renaissance:  Treasury of Daily Prayer, The Lutheran Study Bible, more translations of Luther’s Works, etc.  I think Professors and Pastors Arthur Just and David Scaer have convincingly demonstrated, for instance, that the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, were and are catechetical in nature and composition. 

We have out work cut out for us:  by the Lord.  In another lecture on restoring the historic catuchemenate, Dr. Jenson reminded us that in the first centuries of the Church, the boundary line between paganism and the life and culture of the Church was clearly demarcated.  The Church took her time catechizing, (as did St. Luke for Theophilus and others) for this transition.  But, Dr. Jenson, remarked that in our day, the problem is there are many people who think they know what Christianity is and that makes teaching difficult in a different way.  And so in the love of Christ to teach the way of the Lord more accurately is part of our evangelization.

The response is Word and Sacrament but more specifically:  Catechesis and Leitourgia.  We are to let our good works shine in the darkness.  And as a Roman Catholic theologian said:  if people are stumbling in the darkness, should we not use the flashlights given us?

 I want Dr. Jenson to have the last word:

 “Because Jesus lives to triumph, there will be the real Community, with its real Banquet in its real City amid its real Splendor, as no penultimate community or banquet or city or splendor is really just and loving or tasty or civilized or golden. The church has to rehearse that sentence in all her assemblings, explicitly and in detail.

Second, the church’s assemblies must again become occasions of seeing. We are told by Scripture that in the Kingdom this world’s dimness of sight will be replaced by, as the old theology said it, “beatific vision.” It is a right biblical insight that God first of all speaks and that our community with him and each other is first of all that we hear him and speak to him. It does not, however, follow, as Protestantism has made it follow, that to listen and speak we must blind ourselves. In this age, accurate hearing is paired with dimmed vision; it is precisely a promised chief mark of the Eschaton that accurate hearing will then be accompanied by glorious sight. And in this age, the church must be the place where beatific vision is anticipated and trained.

Late antiquity suffered and lamented the same blindness with which postmodernity is afflicted, the same inability to see any Fulfillment up there before us. Gradually, as the church worked out the theology, the church made herself a place of such seeing. She did this with the icons of the East and the windows and statues of the West. Protestantism supposed that folk in the civil society already envisioned glorious Fulfillment, and needed no specific churchly envisioning, and therefore Protestantism for the most part eliminated the images and even where it retained them forgot how to use them. Protestantism’s reliance on the world was here too an illusion, but here too an illusion it got away with for modernity’s time. That time is over.”

 

Quote from Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer: +April 9th, anno Domini 1945

On this day Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis for his participation in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The Pastor had been incarcerated in the prison in Flossenburg. Below are some of my favorite quotes from Pastor Bonhoeffer:

 

“Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.”

“God alone knows our good works; all we know is His good work.”

On the Two Types of Love:

“Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ’s sake.” 

“…spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and His Word.  Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new and incomprehensible to all earthly love.”

“…this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.” 

“We are bound together by faith, not by experience.”

From Life Together

On Being Pious: 

In matters of piety, the “I will” can cause the greatest harm…”

On Being a Pastor:

The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren.  Not in the former but in the latter is the lack.  The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.

The question of trust, which is so closely related to that of authority, is determined by the faithfulness with which a man serves Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary talents he possesses.  Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power o his own, whom himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word.

From Life Together

On Life Experience:

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to thy word.  It is very presumptuous and wrongheaded to think that a man has to become entangled deeply in the guilt of life in order to know life itself, and finally God.  We do not learn to know life and guilt from our own experience, but only from God’s judgment of mankind and his grace in the cross of Jesus Christ.”

On Marriage: 

In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than some­thing personal – it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As you first gave the ring to one another and have now received it a second time from the hand of the pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

From “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell”, May 1943, Letters and Papers from Prison

On Confession and Absolution:

In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person the more destructive will be the power of sin over him,  and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart.  The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass bars of iron (Ps. 107: 16).

From Life Together

On Building up the Church: 

“It is not we who build. [Christ] builds the church. No man builds the church but Christ alone. Whoever is minded to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it; for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it. We must confess—he builds. We must proclaim—he builds. We must pray to him—that he may build.  We do not know his plan. We cannot see whether he is building or pulling down. It may be that the times which by human standards are times of collapse are for him the great times of construction. It may be that the times which from a human point of view are great times for the church are times when it is pulled down.  It is a great comfort which Christ gives to his church: you confess…, bear witness to me and I alone will build where it pleases me. Do not meddle in what is my province. Do what is given to you to do well and you have done enough. But do it well. Pay no heed to views and opinions. Don’t ask for judgments. Don’t always be calculating what will happen. Don’t always be on the lookout for another refuge! Church, stay a church! But church, confess, confess, confess! Christ alone is your Lord; from his grace alone can you live as you are. Christ builds” (No Rusty Swords, [New York: Harper and Row, 1965] 216-217

On the Cross and the Bible:

“Either I determine the place in which I will find God, or I allow God to determine the place where He will be found. If it is I who say where God will be, I will always find there a God who in some way corresponds to me, is agreeable to me, fits in with my nature. But if it is God who says where he will be, then that will truly be a place which at first is not agreeable to me at all, which does not fit so well with me. That place is the cross of Christ. And whoever will find God there must draw near to the cross in the manner which the Sermon on the Mount requires. That does not correspond to our nature at all; it is, in fact, completely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only the New Testament but also the Old. (Is. 53!) In any case, Jesus and Paul understand it in this way — that the cross of Jesus fulfills the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The entire Bible, then, is the Word in which God allows himself to be found by us. Not a place which is agreeable to us or makes sense to us a priori, but instead a place which is strange to us and contrary to our nature. Yet, the very place in which God has decided to meet us.”

From Meditating on the Word

“God is completely other than the so-called eternal verities.  Theirs is an eternity made up of our own thoughts and wishes. But God’s Word begins by showing us the cross. And it is to the cross, to death and judgment before God, that our ways and thoughts (even the ‘eternal’ ones) all lead.  Does this perspective somehow make it understandable to you that I do not want to give up the Bible as this strange Word of God at any point, that I intend with all my powers to ask what God wants to say to us here?  Any other place outside the Bible has become too uncertain for me.  I fear that I will only encounter a divine double of myself there.”

Ibid

 From Pr. Bonhoeffer’s Poem, “Who am I?”, the last stanzas (Letters and Papers from Prison):

“Whom am I?  This of the other?

Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once?  A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I?  They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.”

Cross and Comfort in Holy Week

Only St. Luke reports that the angel Hosts sang at the Messiah’s birth to the shepherds:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2: 14)

And so it is striking that St. Luke reports that the crowds cried out almost verbatim the angel Hosts’ song:

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19: 38)

“In the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth, heaven and earth are joined together in peace.” (Concordia Commentary: Luke 1:1—9: 50); Dr. Arthur A. Just, Jr.)

     We have an hour car ride to the LCMS congregation we are attending. (We are on the journey leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Churc in America). On the way yesterday, Palm/Passion Sunday, we listened to the first section of The Messiah: the Prophecy. Isaiah’s prophecies are connected in Handel’s oratorio with the Lord’s birth, but I was amazed at how apropos this Word is for Palm Sunday and Holy Week. At Christ Mass we may hear statements as, ‘The wood of the manger would become the wood of the Cross.’ It is more than interesting that Birth of Our Lord, and the sacred writings associated with it, can help us see more clearly the events of Holy Week. His birth and death is joined together for our peace.

A Meditation an Isaiah 40: 1-4 and Palm Sunday

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplish’d, that her Iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40: 1-3)

Ev’ry valley shall be exalted, and ev’ry mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40: 4)

      Isaiah 40: 1—4 is clearly associated with John the Baptizer in his holy ministry. Yet, we see thus also  in Jesus the Way, the Truth and the Life  as He made His Way into Jerusalem, the city of the King, the Temple of the Lord. (cf. Lutheran Study Bible, pages 1690—1691) He cried in the wilderness that was Jerusalem: prepare ye the way of the Lord. He made straight a highway, the only Begotten Son, true God and Man, Emmanuel for us and for our salvation. He crossed the Kidron.

       So much of the Bible is a journey, a road, a path, the way: from the central narrative of the people of Israel in the wilderness to the land of promise to Jesus setting His Face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9: 53) to the apostolic Church sent out to the ends of the earth with the Gospel. After Luke 9: 53 is His journey toward Jerusalem and Golgotha. Why? So the crooked be made straight and the rough places plain.

       Crooked and rough…We pursue roads that lead to nowhere, that are dead ends, and want to build our lives there. We see the sign, WRONG WAY and go that way. We thought life would be a pleasure cruise and we hit an iceberg or two or three and curse God. We lose our way. We get lost (see Luke 15). We set our GPS away from God…living in the wasteland of our post-modern wraths and sorrows:

“How does it feel/ How does it feel/To be without a home /Like a complete unknown /Like a rolling stone?” (Bob Dylan)

The Lord made His Way into Jerusalem and He crossed the Kidron. So many references in the Holy Writ are very easy to gloss over. St. John tells us pointedly that He crossed the Kidron to Gethsemane (John 18:1 ).  And Jesus had to cross the Kidron to go into Jerusalem. When King David heard that his son Absalom had rebelled against him and had himself proclaimed king, David had to flee Jerusalem for his life and we are told,

And all the land wept aloud as all the people passed by, and the king crossed the brook Kidron, and all the people passed on toward the wilderness. (2 Samuel 15: 23)

On Palm Sunday the true and faithful Son, the everlasting King crosses the Kidron into Jerusalem and all the land rejoiced. He comes in the Name of the Lord and passes on His Way. For the Kidron was also a detestable brook or wadi. It was the brook in which the ashes of burned idols were thrown into it by the faithful kings Asa and Josiah. (See 1 Kings 15: 13 and 2 Kings 23: 4—12). It was a brook of idolatrous waste.

“The fact that Christ crossed over this brook (Kidron) near Mount Olive symbolizes the fruit of His suffering; namely, that He would drink from the brook along the way, Psa. 110 [v.7). That is to say, He would not take a small drink; instead, He was going to drink up the entire brook of God's wrath, in which the filth of our sin flows together from every direction. And thereby He would bring us to Mount Olive; that is, He would win for us God's mercy, which is symbolized by [olive] oil. Had not Christ drunk from this brook, we would never have come to the Mount Olive of God’s grace. Since Christ also had such a sad journey through this deep, dark valley, behold, we too now can say with joy: Even though I wander in the dark valley, I fear no misfortune, Psa. 23. Finally, that this valley, through which Christ went, was a valley cursed by God, indicates that Christ in His anticipated suffering wanted to become a curse for us, so that He could obtain for us the divine blessings, Gal. 3 (Rev. Prof. Johann Gerhard, An Explanation of the History of the Suffering and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ (first published in 1663), page 48; Repristination Press)

All this He did for our comfort in the Holy City but He could not speak comfort (cf. Luke 19: 41—44). The comfort He would speak tenderly to Jerusalem would be in the completion of His Journey to outside of Jerusalem: on the Cross. On the Cross His Blood speaks a much better Word (cf. Hebrews 12: 24) to those lost in the city: as if saying, “You are found. You have been found out in your sin like Adam and Eve were found when they thought they were hid. And now, even now you are found in My Blood which is yours and not yours, the river which flows into the Kidrons of the this world from My Cross through My Body, prepared for you.

      In The Lutheran Hymnal there is a hymn section entitled, “Cross and Comfort”. There are some 23 hymns in that section. In Europe there are many roadside shrines featuring a crucifix showing the wayfarer and traveler the Way home. Indeed, cross and comfort! Indeed as the last verse of the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119 prays:

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

1. Thy way, not mine,O Lord, However dark it be. Lead me by Thine own hand; Choose Thou the path for me. I dare not choose my lot; I would not if I might. Choose Thou for me, my God; So shall I walk aright.

2. Choose Thou for me my friends, My sickness or my health; Choose Thou my cares for me, My poverty or wealth. Not mine, not mine, the choice, In things or great or small; Be Thou my Guide, my Strength, My Wisdom, and my All. (TLH #532)

The 5th Commandment Part III

This past year  abortion doctor George Tiller was killed while ushering at his Lutheran congregation in Witchita, Kansas.  Dr. Tiller was called, “Tiller the Killer”   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523581,00.html Dr. Tiller’s murderer, Scott Roeder, was convicted for the murder in January.  http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/30/nation/la-na-tiller-trial30-2010jan30     

Mr. Roeder believed that by killing Dr. Tiller he was saving lives.  Does this not agree with Luther’s assertion by not doing something to save life, you are killing?  Therefore, Roeder was saving lives.  So did Mr. Roeder actually murder Dr. Tiller?  Based upon Luther’s understanding of the office to which government is called by God to execute judgment (Romans 13), the answer is YES:   Roeder committed homicide in premeditation as much as Cain did. But still:   aren’t we supposed to save lives?     

Image of Christ the Good Shepherd from the catacombs in Rome

Imagine it is the year AD 221 and the place is the city of Rome.  The Church in Rome is meeting in the catacombs for the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day.  Roman society regularly practiced infanticide (exposing unwanted children to the elements so they may die and worse) and even more they induced abortion.  The congregation is a mixture of the plebian class (maids, slaves, day workers, etc), the noble and the merchant classes.    

 Sometime during the meeting, there is a time to exchange news.  Portia, a laundry woman, has brought her pregnant friend to the Divine Liturgy.  Portia tells the congregation, “I have convinced Lydia from the Word and Jesus not to induce abortion. I said I will help her. I ask the holy people of God to also support her in the care of her child.”  Lydia is smiling in gratitude.  The Congregation gives praise to the Lord and says the Amen.  The Episcopos (“overseer” or who is called in our day and time, “bishop”:  see 1 Timothy  3: 1ff)  assures Portia and Lydia, “This morning we will have a collection for her child.  It will not stop there in the months and years to come.  We pray for faith in Jesus for you and your child…Is there any other news?”     

 Marcellus, a very wealthy merchant living near the Tiber, speaks up.  “You see that my beloved wife is holding a baby and she was not even pregnant!”  There are smiles all around the congregation.  “Our neighbor left this infant girl outside to die…and we picked-her up and she will be adopted by me. She will have my patronym. ” Again there is the subdued chorus of soft-spoken sighs and nods of understanding all about the catacomb.  Marcellus continued, “Our neighbor has now left some 12 children to be exposed…all found dead the next day.  My wife and I bury them in the Peasant’s Field.  My wife, who is a friend of the mistress of that home, tells me that the mistress, along with our neighbor’s various concubines, have aborted some 30 children.”  Now the chorus of joy turned quickly into one of lament in the lamp lit tomb.  “Curse be upon him!” cries out a brother.  “This must not be so!”  says another. “This is like the slaughter of the Holy Innocents!”  Marcellus agrees, “Something must be done!” “Amen!” resounds from a portion of the Congregation. A merchant in purple gestures “Is it not better that Marcellus’ neighbor die than for more children be killed!  After all, the LORD, blessed be His Name, commanded, “Thou shalt not murder!”  “Indeed, as our Episcopos recently cited from the Sacred Writings that after the flood, the Lord commanded,  “”Whoever sheds the blood of man,  by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9: 6) “Are you saying that we should kill Marcellus’ neighbor?!”  “Not murder him!  But to execute the Lord’s justice for life:  to save the lives of many children!”  And with that the Congregation of the Faithful disintegrated into a debate worthy (or unworthy)  of the Forum.    

             After sometime of this debate, becoming sheer rancor, the Episcopos moved over to his chair.  This is the chair he uses to preside at the Holy Table and from which he preaches and teaches from the Holy Writings and the Memoirs of the Apostles.  Soon the Congregation fell into silence as they turned to look at their Episcopos because they knew that this was a sober time of teaching.    

             The Episcopos spoke, “Dear Brothers!  Yes, what Marcellus’ neighbor has done is under the just judgment of the Lord God!  Yes, as our brother has said from the Word, that whoever murders shall have his blood shed.  And I hear that some of you would want to kill the murderer and so save lives. And the logic of that sentence is almost unassailable: lives would be saved.  But at what cost?  What does the Lord say about His Body, His Church, using the sword?”    

               “The Lord Jesus taught us, “Turn the other cheek”  “Pray for those who persecute you.”  The beloved Apostle Paul, who was in the Church in Rome, wrote us, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12: 21)  As today, when Portia and Marcellus came to the Holy Assembly with these children to become the Lord’s!  Beloved!  The Church does not wield the sword to execute judgment.  She is not given this authority by our Lord. Again as the Apostle wrote to us many years ago, “Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13: 2-3)    

             “Beloved in the Lord!  If we were to do what the authorities are supposed to do, with whom do we stop?  Do we act as centurions and execute all those who have committed abortion and practiced infanticide?! Brothers think of it!  There would be more blood spilled than in the Coliseum!     

              “I do not know why our city and empire does not embrace the way of life and instead embraces the cold way of death. We can not confuse the way of life with the way of death.     The Lord alone is judge of these things in our city.  But if we do not embrace the Lord’s way of life, then the just judgment of the Lord will be for us doubly so:  for we were given eternal life by the Author of life.  If we seek after those who have acted unjustly in killing infants to seek revenge, remember the Scripture:  “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.” (Romans 12: 19)  Beloved!  We can only do what the Lord has given us to do and it is enough and so we must pray!  Lord, You have set us on the way of life in the midst of death.  You are the life of all the living, the death of death our foe.  We ask for your blessings upon the children You have called and will call to Your Font and Table.   In these dark days, help our good works shine as light that many may call upon You and be saved.  Amen.”     

            And the Congregation sighed deeply the Amen.  

 

Lenten Reflection I anno Domini 2010

A recent gift catalogue features an olive wood hand-held cross with this description:  “Shaped to comfortably fit into the palm of your hand as you pray and meditate, crafted to inspire you with its deep meaning in your faith.” 

It seems that a cross, the Roman means of brutally executing criminals at the time of Christ and after, was not meant to fit comfortably into the palm of my hand or yours.  Such a religious sentiment misses the meaning of the Cross in the New Testament:  as in denying your self and bearing the cross and following Christ Jesus.  The Cross is not to fit into the palm of my hand but that I am, through His forgiveness, made fit by His grace through faith into His hand, His hands still marked by the nails of His crucifixion.  But maybe a cross, can fit too neatly into the palm of the hand:  but not a crucifix, with the image of His Body.  Pr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer) wrote it better than I:

“Either I determine the place in which I will find God, or I allow God to determine the place where He will be found. If it is I who say where God will be, I will always find there a God who in some way corresponds to me, is agreeable to me, fits in with my nature. But if it is God who says where he will be, then that will truly be a place which at first is not agreeable to me at all, which does not fit so well with me. That place is the cross of Christ. And whoever will find God there must draw near to the cross in the manner which the Sermon on the Mount requires. That does not correspond to our nature at all; it is, in fact, completely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only the New Testament but also the Old. (Is. 53!) In any case, Jesus and Paul understand it in this way — that the cross of Jesus fulfills the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The entire Bible, then, is the Word in which God allows himself to be found by us. Not a place which is agreeable to us or makes sense to us a priori, but instead a place which is strange to us and contrary to our nature. Yet, the very place in which God has decided to meet us.”

And as you study the 10 Commandments, I think one begins to understand what a tight fit is the Lord’s Word of Law and the judgment is clear:  death.  Then the scope of His Word made flesh on the Cross, the Gospel, the Good News for all, and from that Cross is to accept His just judgment of death and the hope of eternal life to all those who believe in Him. Again, His cross surely does not fit into the palm of my hand or your hand.

The Most Expensive Textbook in the World

             One of the ticket shocks that most parents face when their first child goes off to college is the price of textbooks.  The price for a single college textbook can make a rare book look like a bargain!  But what is the most expensive textbook in the world?  I think it is the Bible.

             Now we know Bibles can be purchased for a pittance, given away on street corners, bought in case lots etc. The ‘average’ Bible edition is not even close to being as expensive as an average college textbook, unless we realize that “expensive” goes beyond a mere dollar amount.  So what makes the Holy Scriptures expensive, costly and  so loved?  What makes a book desired and hence expensive, and in particular the Bible? 

1.  Age…here’s a book whose narrative sweep goes back to the beginning of all things, through the sagas of families and nations, and empires and down to the birth of children, in the fullness of time, the Holy One born of the Virgin Mary.  This is a book that is older than Adam. 
2. Rarity…of all the religious volumes penned by men, this one is not about how we get to God, but the record of the Lord God Who has come to us:  first to Israel and then to all creation in His Beloved Son Jesus Christ and that is rare and absolutely unique amid all the religious tomes ever written. Every other religious tome of the major religions is about man by his works ascending to the divine:  from Mohammed to Buddha to Joseph Smith.   This book is about God in search of man, as He walked in the cool of the day in search of the man and like a shepherd who left 99 sheep in search of the one lost sheep…
3. The authorship, a good writer…yes, the Bible is a library with many human writers, good writers, but they did not write because they wanted nor desired to write great things. They certainly did not write because they had something to say about themselves or God. As Jewish theologian, Abraham Heschel once wrote:  ‘In the Bible we are not treated to various theologies of men about God.  The Bible is not man’s theology but God’s anthropology’.   Yes!   In a crossword puzzle with the theme, ‘Before and After Halloween’, all the clues were about that secular holiday and so all the answers had a word associated with  Halloween.  One clue was:  “Behind the scenes Scriptures authors?”  Answer:  “Holy Ghost Writers”.  I liked that!  But it should be singular:  Holy Ghost writer and inspirer:  “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,    that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3: 16—17).  The Holy Ghost writer wrote with and through many faithful people to set down the story of Jesus Christ in the glory of God the Father for us and for our salvation.  He wrote a book that has made the top of the charts for centuries!  And so it follows:
4. The perspicuity of Scripture:  It is written to be clear.  Certainly there are hard passages that are difficult to understand.  I think it was philosopher and Lutheran, Soren Kierkegaard who pointed that it is not the hard passages that hard, but the easy ones, like, “Do not murder”,  “Do not commit adultery”, “You shall have no other gods.”  I do not need a doctorate to understand that or, “Jesus Christ came into to the world to save sinners…of whom, I am the foremost.”  And C. S. Lewis commented that every Scripture has it’s time. And Scripture becomes clear, the veil is lifted, the puzzle is solved  in Jesus Christ.
5. Romance…and comedy and tragedy and mystery: all of this is in the Bible.  It literally and literarily has it all….
6. Controversy:  A book which is controversial sells, more the controversy the higher the sales.  The Bible has been controversial for centuries: it has been censored, banned and burned.  Every generation doesn’t like something in it.  In the Victorian Era towns tried to ban it in local libraries for it’s sexual content.  Today it is censored by the politically correct who don’t like it’s  “patriarchal language”, customs etc and so we have inclusive language translations. Or those claiming to be “Biblical scholars” go out of their way to deny the historicity of the Scriptures. 
7. Tell-all book:  Here’s a book that tells it all!  No secrets are hid!  Everything is revealed!  From a hiding Adam to Jacob the schemer to Peter the denier to Saul the persecutor.  Every foible and peccadillo of mankind is paraded before us and coming from behind, and from above and leading the way is the Lord Who reveals our sin to reveal His just judgment and then His grace and mercy.  He tells all of His will in His Word to us, for us, in us, amongst us:  Law and Gospel.   

            But so far I still have only skimmed the surface. Yes, I think all the above is true about the Bible but the true expensiveness of the Scriptures still has not been discussed. For instance:  No one ever risked smuggling into a country, say, Gone with the Wind because a government would never think of banning it!  But the Bible:  yes!  When I went to Russia years ago, it was the Soviet Union, an “evil empire”:   we could bring our own personal Bibles but not an extra one, less we ‘proselytize’! We could have been arrested and kicked out. God’s Word forever shall abide even though foes fear it! But why would the Soviets, or anyone fear a book?! God’s Word is subversive over all idolatrous tyrannies over the minds and hearts of men!  It is the active Word of God. People have risked imprisonment and even death that the Holy Scripture be heard, read and lived from the gulags of Stalin to house-churches in China to Christians living under Islamic persecution in many African nations to those who resist the tyrannies of materialism, statism, and sexual license and immorality in our own.  The Bible is so expensive because people have shed their blood for the truth it proclaims:  it points us to Jesus Christ. Our Lord said: “…you search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me.”  The Scriptures are true and faithful because they bear witness to the Word made flesh: Jesus Christ.  Men and women risked their lives for the truth who sets us free.  For instance:  when the great powers of Europe in the 19^th century colonized most of Africa, and many times ruthlessly, they brought with them the Seed of their own destruction: the Scriptures pointing to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

            Yet this still does not finally make the Bible the most expensive text book in the world.  When Jesus, true man and true God, was tempted by Satan in the wilderness three times, three times did Jesus say, “It is written”. Unlike the first Adam, the Lord did not address the tempter’s question, “Did God say…?”  (Genesis 3: 1)  The very Son of God staked His whole life on the words of the Scripture in the hour of temptation and from the cross He cried out from Psalm 22, “My God, My God why hath Thou forsaken Me?”.  He came to utterly fulfill the Law’s demands, and take the judgment that was due us all.  He lived and died for the truth of the Scripture. He lives that we live through His Word.  He made the Bible the most expensive book on earth and He did do so not with gold or silver but with His precious blood.  Truly, the old custom in printing the Bible is still right on target:   the words of Jesus are in red!  

His blood shed makes the Words of God in the Scripture, the Lord’s Text Book the most expensive volume in the world.  In fact,  more than expensive: priceless.