Easter and the failure of the body

The sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, but always lurking, failure of the body is a preaching of the Law. It breaks down our pride and exposes for what we are : dying sinners. Like all Law preaching it can harden us against God or empty us to hear and receive the Gospel.

In  the Easter season the preaching of the resurrection is especially sweet to the those with cancer, the aged, the sick, the Alzheimer patient and family. To see Christ take some fish and eat it is no sideshow. It is a promise that our bodies now decaying will be restored, will be like Christ's, wounded yet glorified. The promise is that we will eat, gather, taste eternal life. We will share the resurrection of the body that never fades or weakens.

The Eucharist is an sacrament of this promise. We eat the Supper with our bodies. Sometimes we can barely chew. But we eat the body of Christ. We drink his blood. We swallow. We receive. This is the life that Christ brings from the grave for His saints, freely, by his own work. Not some ghostly myth not some fairy tale floating, but real life, the life we know absent the awful sting of sin, the corruption at work in our flesh.

Your fiddle break comes right after I get back and whoop her brother and her pa and sing a chorus

Tennessee Stud by Doc Watson and the Nitty Gritty Dirt band off the classic 1972 album "Will the Circle be Unbroken".

Some albums and songs stand in your memory for a certain time in your life. That is how it is for this album. In college in Chicago in the early 1980's I and my friends knew a guy who was older than us and a bit strange, well, really strange.

Anyway, one day a group of us were in a record store in Chicago and he went on and on about this album and how great it was. I bought the album. He was right. This album served as an introduction to much classic bluegrass and country music for me. And whenever I hear any tracks from it I remember going to the record store with friends and the music we found and the streets of Chicago and that strange dear friend. I wonder where he is now. 

Buildings Falling Down 7

Somewhere in eastern Catawba county

Buildings Falling Down 6

Somewhere in eastern Catawba county

Here scour sin away down to innocence

Here is born in Spirit-soaked fertility
a brood destined for another City,
begotten by God's blowing
and borne upon this torrent
by the Church their virgin mother.
Reborn in these depths they reach for heaven's realm,
the born-but-once unknown by felicity.
This spring is life that floods the world,
the wounds of Christ its awesome source.
Sinner, sink beneath this sacred surf
that swallows age and spits up youth.
Sinner, here scour sin away down to innocence,
for they know no enmity who are by
one font, one Spirit, one faith made one.
Sinner, shudder not at sin's kind and number,
for those born here are holy.

Fifth Century inscription, in the Lateran baptistry, perhaps by Leo the Great
Cited by Aidan Kavanaugh, The Shape of Baptism, 49.

The Babylonian exile is Christ on the cross

The great Babylonian exile by which God punished his people and then restored them to the land is best seen Christologically. The exile is fulfilled in Christ. His great cry of dereliction is the final and full exile of God's people. On the cross, Jesus is Israel in Babylon weeping by the foreign rivers of death. It is this exile which purifies Israel. It is this punishment by which "the guilt of Jacob is atoned for" ( Is 27:9). It is the full fruit of the removal of his sin (Is 27: 9). On the cross the Lord slays the great Leviathan, he destroys Jerusalem and in the resurrection restores her. The restored and blossoming vineyard of Israel is the glorious resurrected body of Christ, his church.


The preceding are thoughts on Isaiah 27: 1-9, below.

In that day,
   the LORD will punish with his sword—
   his fierce, great and powerful sword—
Leviathan the gliding serpent,
   Leviathan the coiling serpent;
he will slay the monster of the sea.

 2 In that day—

   “Sing about a fruitful vineyard:
 3 I, the LORD, watch over it;
   I water it continually.
I guard it day and night
   so that no one may harm it.
 4 I am not angry.
If only there were briers and thorns confronting me!
   I would march against them in battle;
   I would set them all on fire.
5 Or else let them come to me for refuge;
   let them make peace with me,
   yes, let them make peace with me.”

 6 In days to come Jacob will take root,
   Israel will bud and blossom
   and fill all the world with fruit.

 7 Has the LORD struck her
   as he struck down those who struck her?
Has she been killed
   as those were killed who killed her?
8 By warfare[a] and exile you contend with her—
   with his fierce blast he drives her out,
   as on a day the east wind blows.
9 By this, then, will Jacob’s guilt be atoned for,
   and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
When he makes all the altar stones
   to be like limestone crushed to pieces,
no Asherah poles[b] or incense altars
   will be left standing.

Footnotes:

When I try to face the Devil, the world and my sinful flesh all by myself

Moralism versus the Gospel in Youth Ministry

Moralism versus the Gospel in Youth Ministry


Ministry leaders are seeing a major problem among youth groups – an emphasis on behavior modification over the Gospel.

In a series featured on The Gospel Coalition website, several ministers discussed their concerns with how youths were being taught in the church, namely with messages aimed more at keeping them out of trouble.

"Many youth pastors preach moralism over the gospel in order to protect students from self-destruction," said Cameron Cole, director of youth ministries at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Ala. "Unfortunately, law-driven ministry often yields the opposite of its intention; law and pressure often inflame rebellion."

Cole doesn't see a lack of Gospel teaching in youth ministries when it comes to salvation and justification. He believes youth pastors may even be "more faithful" than senior pastors in "helping their flock understand Christianity as saving relationship rather than cultural religion."

But when it comes to sanctification, or the process of being set apart for holy use, youth ministries are getting it wrong, Cole believes.

"Youth ministry often focuses on emotional exhortation and moral performance," he observed. "A legalistic tone frequently characterizes the theology of sanctification in youth ministry."

According to Brian H. Cosby, associate pastor of youth and families at Carriage Lane Presbyterian Church in Peachtree City, Ga., such teaching has led to widespread belief in "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" where "we are supposed to be 'good people'" and where God is more like a "cosmic therapist" or "divine butler."

But Cole understands why youth ministry tends to focus on legalism and behavior.

Simply put, "youth pastors want to see changed lives," he noted.

"Wanting validation for their tireless labor, youth ministers occasionally focus on behavior modification as a means of providing tangible proof of the efficacy of their ministry. A kid carrying his or her Bible to school, signing a chastity pledge, or sporting a WWJD bracelet may appear like signs of spiritual progress – the fruit of ministry labor for a youth pastor."

Cole cautioned, however, that "if these actions come out of a student misunderstanding Christianity as a code of behavior rather than heart transformation through the Holy Spirit, then they do not necessarily reflect lasting life change."

Parents aren't helping the situation either. Wanting their children to be moral, parents sometimes view "the church exclusively as a vehicle for moral education, rather than spiritually forming them in Christ, and put pressure on youth and senior pastors to moralize their children," Cole pointed out.

The Birmingham youth director stressed the need for youth ministry to be viewed not as a venue for entertainment and moral teaching but as a serious teaching and discipleship ministry.

And youth pastors, he stressed, need to view themselves as sowers who plant Gospel seeds for harvest down the road.

Quoting Mark Upton, a former youth worker and current pastor at Hope Community Church in Charlotte, N.C., Cole said, "If anyone asks you about your ministry, tell them you will let them know in ten years."

Apparently, Tommy James Wrote Sweet Cherry Wine about Jesus

So he says here. 

And if you are too young to know who Tommy James is, please don't tell me about it :)



Here is part of the interview:

SF: Earlier you mentioned “Sweet Cherry Wine.” Is that a metaphor?

Tommy: Yes. It’s a metaphor for the blood of Jesus.

SF: I know you say you converted to Christianity. How did that transformation take place?

Tommy: Well, I don’t worship every Sunday; I worship every day. Every hour of every day. It’s just me, it’s part of me. I became a Christian in 1967. I was brought up Catholic, but I really didn’t know my faith very well, didn’t know what I believed, why I believed what I believed. And in 1967 I was listening to Billy Graham at Shea Stadium on television. And we were writing, as a matter of fact, and I put the guitars down and started listening. And he just gave the most amazingly lucid teaching on why Jesus came. I had never heard it put quite that way before. I had heard a lot of over-my-head sophisticated kind of things growing up, but I never really heard the gospel message quite like that. And there’s a moment, I equate it to hitting a champagne glass – a crystal champagne glass with a fork – you know how you get that pure tone? That’s kind of how I felt when I heard Billy Graham explain why Jesus came. And I knew I’d heard the truth. It’s too simple and too beautiful to not be the truth, and not be God, you know what I mean? And I was actually high at the time, it’s true. It just cut right through everything that was going on with me, and I got right up to the TV and put my hand on the TV and made my commitment right there.

SF: Do you find any disparity between religion and doing drugs?

Tommy: Oh, God, yes. I mean, the point was that the message of the gospel cut right through all that for me. And unfortunately I didn’t quit doing drugs for several more years, but the point was that God never let go of me. I just had my rear end pulled out of the fire, and I got rescued. And I’m very appreciative of that. I can’t tell you how appreciative of that I am. So to me it’s a very street level kind of thing. Everybody in the band converted at different times. But I certainly don’t recommend anybody do it that way. (laughing) I feel like I got saved in spite of the fact that I was doing it, not because of it.

A Rich and Merciful Merchant

And these words ... He shows His desire to heal the affection of our weakness by sharing them, and to check our fear of enduring pain by undergoing it. In our Nature, therefore, the Lord trembled with our fear, that He might fully clothe our weakness and our frailty with the completeness of His own strength. For He had come into this world a rich and merciful Merchant from the skies, and by a wondrous exchange had entered into a bargain of salvation with us, receiving ours and giving His, honour for insults, salvation for pain, life for death.

Leo the Great, Sermon 54.

Death like a wild fierce animal

It is appropriate and necessary that at the time the “mystery” (the Creed) is handed over (to catechumens), the “resurrection of the dead” is included. For at the time we make the confession of faith at holy baptism, we say that we expect the resurrection of the flesh. And so we believe. 

Death overcame our forefather Adam on account of his transgressions and like a fierce wild animal it pounced on him and carried him off amid lamentation and loud wailing. Men wept and grieved because death ruled over all the earth. But all this came to an end with Christ. Striking down death, he rose up on the third day and became the way by which human nature would rid itself of corruption. He became the first born of the dead, and the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 

We who came afterward will certainly follow the first fruits. He turned suffering into joy, and we cast off our sackcloth. We put on the joy given by God so that we can rejoice and say, “where is your victory, O death?”

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Commentary on Isaiah 3.1.25