Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

Who would not love thee, loving us so dearly?

The beautiful line from the beloved great Christmas Processional, Adeste fideles, is made elegant by a play on the word “dearly.”  “So dearly” can mean “with such intense affection,” or “at such great expense to himself.”  As we contemplate the miracle of the manger, we see that both meanings apply.  The threefold God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost truly loved us with an everlasting love, having loved us In Christ before all worlds, loving us with a love that sin does not cancel, death does not terminate, and hell itself cannot overwhelm.   But this unspeakable love was manifested at incredible pain and expense to the Divine Lover.  From the wonderful night when there was “no room in the inn,” though a humble and uncomfortable life in which the Son of Man had no place to lay His head, to the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, to the pain of the cross itself, truly He loved us both intensely and expensively.

      But sadly, this line is a rhetorical question which provokes more than one answer.  The desired answer is that this amazing love manifested in the manger and the cross arouses our love in return.  Simple logic seems to decree that great love of God calls forth an equally great love on the part of the beloved.  But sadly, there were and still are many who do not love the manger child.  Who would not love him? Herod would not, nor Pontius Pilate  nor Judas Iscariot.   They were perfectly capable of answering Divine love with cruelty and hate. Nor the reveling multitudes who use His birthday only as a time for extravagance and self-indulgence. They, like Herod and Pilate, would not love Him because of their own depraved nature.  As St John tells us, “He came unto His own, but his own received Him not.” We wish we could say that God’s dear love for us constrains us to love Him proportionately  in return. But honesty compels us to confess that the lovelessness of Herod, Pilate and Judas was only our ingratitude writ large.  If only Abelard were right, when he wrote,

“Our sins, not thine, thou bearest, Lord, Make us thy sorrow feel,

Till through our pity and our shame, Love answers love’s appeal.”

Yes, He truly bore our sins, since He had no sins of His own.  But love’s  appeal was answered only with rejection, slaps, mockery and spitting.  Surely there is nothing in the universe so defiant of simple logic, so irrational, so criminally insane, as not loving Jesus. 

      St John, the apostle who wrote most deeply about the Divine Love, spoke more wisely than our beloved Christmas carol, or than Abelard, when he wrote, “We love Him because He first loved us.”      This love, vastly earlier, deeper and more enduring, is perfectly encapsulated in the tiny babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a feeding-trough. Because he loved us so much we are bound to love Him and to love one another.    LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

GOOD FRIDAY

The special liturgy for this day is one of the great treasures of Christian spirituality.  As a sign of unusual mourning and penitence, both today and tomorrow the Church refrains from celebrating the Holy Eucharist and still in most places does not administer Holy Communion to the faithful.  In effect, we place ourselves under a sentence of excommunication as we remember the crime of our Saviour's death.  Today's liturgy is merely a "liturgy of the Word," which Anglicans of another generation called the Ante-communion.

Two further features of the Good Friday liturgy are the Solemn Collccts and the Reproaches which are chanted or read during the Veneration of the Cross.  Both of these have archaic qualities which recall the earliest centuries of Christian history.  In the "Solemn Collects" we remember that in His very death our Lord was officiating as our Great High Priest .  His first "word from the cross" was a prayer of intercession, "Father forgive them."  So His Church, keeping vigil with Him on Calvary, intercedes for all her children and likewise for the whole world.

The nine prayers of intercession are comprehensive, beginning with the bishops and hierarchy of the Church, proceeding with "all estates of men in thy holy Church," continuing on with various special needs, and concluding with prayers for the Jews and for the heathen.  Each intercession has a special bidding, "Let us pray for..."  One phrase runs through and unites them:  "the Lord our God."
Here we have an echo of the covenant formula which unlocks the entire Bible, "I will be your God, and ye shall be my people, and I will dwell with you."

The covenant of grace, first intimated in the Garden of Eden in God's curse of the serpent and later inaugurated with Abraham, comes into sharp focus today.  When was that promise ever so rejected, or ever so confirmed, as it was at the death of the Messiah?  When the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus Christ, human wickedness (the depravity of all mankind) reached its lowest and vilest point in His murder.  But never has the covenant promise been so ratified as it was when He prayed "My God, my God."  We might lose our way in the rest of that word of dereliction, "why hast thou forsaken me," if we forget that He was pleading the covenant promise, "I will be your God."  Never was God so perfectly "our God" as when He put forth His only-begotten Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  The covenant language in the Solemn Collects should remind us that like our dying Saviour we are pleading the promises of the Covenant sealed in His Blood.

In the Reproaches, we have a meditation on a passage from the prophet Micah.
Here are the original words (Micah 6:3--5).
O my people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you?
Answer me!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
And redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam.
O my people, remember what Balak, king of Moab devised,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.

This address of the LORD to Israel was part of a covenant lawsuit, in which He had called on his unfaithful and idolatrous people to to give an account of their breach-of-contract with the God who had redeemed them.  Their situation is untenable, they have no defense in the LORD's courtroom, they have invoked His curses, their doom is certain.

Micah's description of the covenant lawsuit of God against His people is recalled on Good Friday because on Calvary this untenable situation was resolved, when Jesus Christ took upon Himself our guilt and our doom, by enduring the curse which we have justly provoked.  It is of some interest that Micah describes this lawsuit as taking place "before the mountains."  He may have foreseen Jesus' walk up Calvary's hill to answer for us.  Surely it was there that the greatest "saving act" of the Lord took place.

It is truly sad that this magnificent liturgical poetry (brilliantly set to music) is so little known.  This is owing to the frivolous notion that the Old Testament allusions are somehow anti-Semitic and offensive to the Jewish people.  We must be quick to say that the address "O my people" is not directed toward the idolatrous Israelites of Micah's day, nor to the Sanhedrin which sent Jesus to Pilate, and certainly not to the Jewish people of later centuries.  The Reproaches are addressed, specifically and painfully, to ourselves, the Christian community of here and now.  Because of the "new covenant" which our Saviour announced in the Upper Room (really the ancient covenant of grace re-established and made new), we are God's covenant people.  And we too are faithless, idolatrous, guilty covenant-breakers.  I am not convinced that it was sensitivity for Jewish feelings that has placed the Reproaches in our liturgical attic.  Each time I read them I feel bound to respond, "Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy" not upon them, but "upon us."

Mercifully, the Reproaches do not end with the covenant lawsuit in which we are convicted.  The conclusion is, "We venerate the Cross, O Lord, and praise and glorify thy holy Resurrection, for by virtue of the Cross joy hath come to the whole world."

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

EPIPHANY V

The Gospel reading which we hear on this fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (or in most years, on the 25th Sunday after Trinity) is one of two or three parable using the symbols of the sower, the good seed, the obstacles to its progress, and the certainty of a good  harvest.  Another “seed/sower” parable  we will soon read on Sexagesima Sunday. You may find it on page 121 in your Prayer Book.

In the parable before us today, we see a picture of the church as a mixed multitude (usually more mixed than multitudinous)  of “wheat and tares.”  The sower (who is Christ) has sown good seed, but an enemy (who is the devil) has tried to spoil the crop by sowing bad seed which sprouts into weeds.

From its very inception, the Church, as the people of God, who profess faith in Jesus Christ, has been a mixture of  the faithful and faithless, the weak and the strong, the zealous and the indifferent, those who persevere and those who fall away, those whose presence is a blessing to the Body and those who mostly make trouble. It was ever thus, from the time of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts  5) and Euodia and Syntyche (Phil. 4:2).  The Church has always been full of imperfect people.  This is why the Church was created in the first place, to be a refugium peccatorum, a place where sinners are welcome

But ultimately, a separation of wheat and tares, a division of the true and false members of the Church is bound to come.  The Prayer Book selection sadly does not include our Lord’s explication of his own parable, wherein He said, “Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age.  The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom, all causes of sin and all evil-doers… there men will weep and gnash their teeth (Matt 13:42)."  We should note how frequently our Lord spoke of eternal damnation in very graphic terms.

Even with this dire and dreadful certainty, the chief message of this parable is that our business as servants of the householder is to wait patiently until the harvest, when the angels will be sent to make the separation finally and for ever.

But in the meantime, it is not for us to take matters into our own hands.  We do not yet know who are the wheat and who are the tares, and we are under a commandment not to make any preliminary assessments.  It is only for us to make sure that we are not weeds spoiling the crop, praying that we may be good seed, bringing forth a good harvest.                LKW

Fr Wells' Bulletin Inserts

ST SIMON AND ST JUDE, APOSTLES

The Epistle and Gospel readings appointed for this feast say nothing directly about the two apostles whom we are celebrating, but speak only in a general way of what it means to be an Apostle and by implication, what it means to be an apostolic church. But these selections are remarkable for the degree of contrast between them.

The Gospel reading from John 15 (words uttered in the upper room the night before our Lord’s arrest and crucifixion at a time when Simon and Jude were present), strikes a solemn note and hardly sounds like good news at all. Jesus tells us that His followers are in for a hard time. “If the world hate you … If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  Christians have no right to expect to be popular.  Persecution is our normal state.  “The tyrant’s brandished steel, the  lion’s gory mane” did not come to a halt when the Roman emperor Constantine became a Christian.

We all should be aware of the cruel persecutions which Christians today suffer in Islamic countries. In one principal ally of the Unites States. Christian worship is prohibited and it is illegal even to own a Bible.  The sufferings of the Christian communities in Egypt, Iran and Iraq are well documented, even if barely known among Christians here.  But such persecution of Christians is far from unknown in our own country.

The reading from the Epistle to the Ephesians, however, tells the rest of the story. To be a Christian is a great privilege, even in a non-Christian world, even in a secular society, where our Lord is still held up to ridicule, and where the Gospel is the faith, it seems, of a shrinking minority.

Paul was speaking of us when he wrote “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens of the saints, members of the household of God.”  In this great text,  Paul reminds us that we are no longer what we used to be, strangers and foreigners to the kingdom of God.  Our faith, our new birth, our incorporation into Christ make us true members of His body,

Has given us a special status which separates us from the sinful world in which we yet live. In this kingdom of God we are fellow-citizens with Abraham, Moses, David, Simon and Jude, Peter and Paul, with the blessed Mother, and all the rest. Paul and his first readers knew the value of citizenship. We are citizens of a kingdom greater than Rome or the USA, or any earthly kingdom.  But better than this, we have been adopted even into the royal family, the household of God Himself.    LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

TRINITY XIX

Late in Trinity Season the Prayer Book gives us a series of six Sundays with readings from Paul’s great Epistle "to the Ephesians."  We spend as much time with this Epistle as the entire season of Lent. We place quotation marks around the words “to the Ephesians” because the manuscripts leave the address blank and our best guess is that Paul wrote this letter to the Christian community at Ephesus as a circular letter to all the churches of the region.

Today’s selection is full of practical wisdom, including the beloved memory verse, “be ye kind one to another.”  But practical wisdom is frequently expressed in mysterious language, “that ye put off the old man,’ and “put on the new man.”  These explicit directions have challenged the translators to come up with words which make more sense.  Here are a few attempts: “Put off your old nature ,... put on the new nature.” (RSV) “Put off the old self, put on the new self.” (ESV), or “leaving your former way of life, you must be made new in mind and spirit” (NEB).

What Paul was getting at in this contrast of old and new, was the familiar contrast of Adam and Christ, “As in Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive.” Adam, “the old man” is the fallen sinful human race,” but Christ, the virgin-born “new man,” inaugurated a new humanity.  These respectively stand for the old and new creations.

But more practically speaking, the old Man and new Man refer to each of us, both before and after we become one with Christ through faith in Him. Paul speaks quite graphically, of stripping off and putting on, as we strip off soiled clothing and put on new garments. He frequently speaks of “putting on” Christ as our clothing.  The baptismal liturgy of the ancient Church carried this out ceremonially by giving the newly baptized a special white garment. There was a charming trace of this in the white baptismal dresses which used to be used at christenings.

Paul never suggests that this transformation from old to new man, from Adam to Christ, is an instantaneous event or (much less) the result of some program of moral self-improvement. Bluntly, we are told here to “become what you are.”  You are already new men and women in Christ: now it is for us to become Christ-like.  People have a way of becoming like the clothes they wear. Our behavior and our life-style are shaped by the way we treat our bodies or clothe ourselves.

In the world of the Bible, a person could be identified by his garb. It is still the case that a Christian can be identified by his Christ-likeness.  If we wear Christ as a garment, the world will see Him in us and us in Him.  LKW

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Insert

TRINITY VI

This was specially written for the occasion of a Baptism in the Parish of St. Michael and All Angels, Fleming Island, Florida.

Had we  had sought  for a reading from the  Epistles suitable for the joyous occasion of a Baptism, we could not have done better than the passage from Romans 6 which the Prayer Book provides as the Epistle for this Sixth Sunday after Trinity. The sacrament of Baptism is like a many-faceted jewel, with many aspects of meaning.  The New Testament is emphatic that Baptism, whether to an adult believer or to a small infant, is the effective sign and seal of regeneration, God’s gift of New Birth.  This New Birth (or  Second Birth,  or “birth from above”) ought not be any mysterious concept.  It is simply an act of God which translates every Christian from the fallen predicament of Adam’s offspring to the redeemed status of the family of God.

Put simply, this is what Paul calls “newness of life.”  Every baptized person enjoys a new status before God, a new condition of life, an utterly new existence in God’s universe  All the baptized have been lifted out of the old creation into the new creation.

Every Baptism is another miracle made possible by the miracle that happened to Jesus on Good Friday and Easter morning. He died once for all, and was raised up into eternal glory. His resurrection was His newness of life.  Our Baptism is our death unto sin, that is, our separation, once for all, from the sinfulness of ordinary living, and our initiation into the new life under God’s reign and within that kingdom.  Our Baptism is simultaneously our death, our burial and our resurrection.  This is why the majestic Easter candle should be prominently visible at every Baptism. 

The newness of Life which Jesus received on the resurrection morning, He generously shares with us here and  now. The life we enjoy now as the ”Christian Life,”  is nothing less than His resurrection-life, a quality and condition of life,  the “abundant  life” which the non-Christian cannot know or possess.

The joy of a Baptism is our joy that yet another soul has been claimed for God’s kingdom, another person has been transferred from darkness into light, another human is no longer “in Adam” but is now “in Christ,” that another soul has been saved.  The great events which took place in early April  A. D. 30, were cataclysmic for the human race and for human history, splitting it into a Before and After, B. C. and A. D. Likewise our Baptism was our own Easter Event, the line of demarcation splitting our existence into a Before and After.

Note well how Paul speaks of being baptized into Jesus Christ. He thinks of Baptism not only as an immersion into water but as a submersion into the person of Christ, not only burial with Christ but as union with Christ.  Baptism effectively signifies that Christ’s obedience is now our obedience, His good works are our good works, His death is our atonement, His resurrection  is our Resurrection and the  commencement of our newness of life.  `LKW

Another Bulletin Insert from Fr. Laurence Wells

TRINITY V

It is a happy coincidence that the fifth Sunday after Trinity usually comes close to the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle on June 29. It is instructive to compare the Gospel for St. Peter’s Day on page 245 in the Prayer Book with today’s Gospel reading.  The central text on St. Peter’s day is “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This is called “Peter’s Confession” because it was a critical turning point, a hinge moment in the Gospel narrative, as related by Matthew, Mark and Luke.  John 6:68 is an equivalent moment, when Peter declared, ”Lord, to whom shall we go, for thou hast the words of eternal life.”  In John’s Gospel, that was Peter’s high point.

In today’s Gospel we have a slight contrast, in Peter’s words, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”  Do these words reflect a lack of faith on Peter’s part, or an insufficient knowledge of God’s mercy and loving-kindness?  While Peter surely had a knack for saying inappropriate things (think of his nattering on the mount of transfiguration, or his cowardly behavior in Pilate’s courtyard), here in Luke 5, he was not wrong at all.  This miracle and Peter’s response  to it took place early in the Gospel story, well before his great confession  of faith. 

This response recalls Isaiah’s reaction to the heavenly vision in Isa. 6:5, “Woe is me! For I am lost: for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Both Isaiah and Peter understood that a real head-on confrontation with God Himself will give us a humiliating self-awareness of ourselves as we are, frail and finite beings, damaged and ruined by sin.  It is both logical and appropriate that when we come into God’s presence in His house, we fall to our knees in reverence and adoration.

When we know who He is, then we are bound to know who we are.  That knowledge will not be altogether comfortable.  But the good news for us in today’s reading from Luke 5 is that Jesus did not grant Peter’s prayer, “Depart from me.”  The whole message of the Bible is that God has never departed from His people and never will.  We could devote an entire sermon to the theme of Biblical prayers God in His mercy refused to grant.  Jesus did not depart from Peter, but instead made him an Apostle.  Neither does Jesus depart from us.  Like Peter, we confess Him as the Son of the living God, who has the words of eternal life for us.   LKW

Fr. Wells A Bulletin Insert

TRINITY V

This Fifth Sunday after Trinity sometimes comes quite close to St Peter's Day which is an “immovable feast” set on June 29.  By a happy coincidence (probably not intended) today's Epistle and Gospel feature St Peter in a special way.

The Gospel relates an incident which occurred early in the acquaintance of Jesus and Peter.  Jesus had first met Peter in Capernaum, a fishing town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus had been a guest in Peter's home and had healed Peter's wife's mother.  Then Jesus left for a preaching mission in Judaea (an episode of which we know only a little).

What happens in the passage from Luke 5 which we read today is that Peter's relationship to Jesus, already a positive and strong friendship, is deepened and established.  Surely Peter considered it a great honor to have Jesus in his home or to lend his fishing boat to Jesus as a place to preach.  The picture of Jesus preaching from the boat to a multitude on the shore deserves to be one of our most beloved images of the Saviour.  But Peter needed to learn more about Jesus.

When Jesus was a guest in Peter's house or in Peter's boat, Peter was surely tempted to feel that he himself was in charge of Jesus, saying, “Sit here,” or “Sit there.”  Peter probably felt annoyed or possibly even outraged by the command of Jesus, “Put out into the deep.”  It was the wrong time of day for fishing, and the men were surely weary from laboring all night.  This was their appointed “quitting time,” the moment when workers cannot be detained without grumbling.

Peter addresses Jesus twice in this passage, the first time to argue and the second time to confess his sins.  In the first address Peter uses the term “Master,” a polite but unremarkable term for a teacher or rabbi.  But in his second speech, Peter addressed Jesus as “Lord.”  Peter has suddenly perceived that Jesus is no ordinary teacher or healer, but is none other than the Lord Himself.  In that one word “Lord” is the germ of the Great Confession which is read as the Gospel on St Peter's Day.

But let us be quick to say, merely addressing Jesus by the correct title is not enough.  As He Himself said, “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”  Jesus still commands His disciples to take great risks, to do things which defy common sense, to continue our laboring even when we are tired.  “Launch out into the deep!”  LKW

Fr. Wells a Bulletin Insert

TRINITY II

It is remarkable how the theme of eating and feasting keeps coming up
in the Gospels.  All four Gospels tell of a miraculous feeding of a
multitude of people.  But in parable after parable we hear of a great
banquet.  This is the case with the passage we read today from St.
Luke’s Gospel. This theme is rooted in the Genesis 3 account of the
Fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve engaged in
forbidden eating. After they had been graciously invited to eat of every
tree in the Garden save one.  In Revelation we hear of a magnificent
banquet, a marriage feast, When Christ comes again.  Between Genesis
and Revelation we enjoy the eating of our Saviour’s Flesh and Blood in
the Holy Eucharist.

In today’s passage we hear of not one but three distinct invitations or
summonses to the feast.  The first of these, “Come, for all things are
now ready,” states the amplitude and abundance of the feast provided. 
This emphasizes that in His provision for us, God has provided “all
things” necessary for our well-being in this world and in the next. 
The penalty of our sin has been paid in full. In Christ’s death and
resurrection, nothing is lacking to provide new life, here and eternal
life hereafter.

In the second invitation we see how this amazing generosity on God’s
part is met with discourtesy and ingratitude on the part of humankind. 
Which is more amazing? Divine generosity, or human indifference?  Three
separate groups refuse the invitation.  The first says “I have bought a
piece of ground,” placing temporal affairs before a solemn invitation
from the Lord who created heaven and earth. The second speaks of trying
a yoke of oxen, not knowing that he himself is the one who is being
tried, by the One who has purchased him at a great price. The third,
however, is the most insolent.  The first two offer feeble excuses and
beg to be excused.  The third rather disrespectfully announces, “I
cannot come.’  An illustration of the truth that all sin (rejecting the
invitation of God) shows incredible haughtiness on our part..

The third invitation shows, in a fine contrast, the persistence of the
generous host.  An ordinary mortal would have yielded to the temptation
to call off the supper altogether.  When our first parents refused the
kindly provision God had made for them and insisted on having it their
own way, God might have appropriately destroyed them once and for all. 
But instead we see the long and wonderful history of salvation, which
reaches from the clanging gates of Eden.

Even to this very place where we already share the marriage supper of
the Lamb.

Do we know ourselves to be the poor, the maimed, the halt and the blind
who eat of this holy supper? We are not here because we have earned
this privilege, or even less because we are wiser or worthier than the
ungrateful guests who  refused to come. Only the stubborn goodness of
God has brought us here.  LKW

Fr Wells' Bulletin Inserts

Concerning the Epistle

Today's Epistle is almost the last in a long series which began on Low Sunday of readings taken from Letters Paul did not write, but authored by John, James and Peter. Those who love the Office of Compline, will recognize the source of those words, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about..." But the main thrust of the passage deals with the unpopular topic of humility.

When St Peter wrote, "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble," he was surely echoing what he had learned directly from the mouth of his Lord and Saviour. According to St Luke's Gospel, Jesus had said not once but twice, "for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Lk 14 :11 and18:14).

Peter takes this teaching and applies it specifically to life within the corporate life of the Christian community. Whereas the Prayer Book's rendition of the passage begins at the words "All of you be subject to one another," the context stated, "likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder." And when we go more deeply into the context with the earlier verses of the chapter, we discover that Peter (remember, this is the chief of the Apostles writing) was not thinking of age groups, but of the clergy and laity within the Body of the Church. Authoritarianism excluded, power struggles ruled out, pride of place forbidden, arrogance condemned, the Church is a fellowship of love in which the disciples wash one another's feet. That upper room episode also had made its imprint on Peter's mind.

The Bible is replete with horrifying examples of men who exalted themselves but were humiliated by their Creator God. In their primal act of disobedience, Adam and Eve tried to "be as gods," but were driven out into the world as exiles, but humbly wearing the animal skins God mercifully gave them. We might mention Pharaoh, defeated at the Red Sea, or Nebuchadrezzar, forced to eat grass like an animal in his madness. The most horrifying example is Judas Iscariot who proudly sold his Lord for the price of a slave but wound up destroying himself.

In contrast to these horrible examples, we have the example of Jesus Himself, who humbled Himself on the Cross but is now exalted at the right hand of His Father.

For Peter humility is not merely a virtue to be cultivated (and a basis for pride!) but a logical response to the Judgment soon to come. Mark well his words, "in due time," and "after that ye have suffered a [little] while." Humility is not a virtue but a precaution.

Concerning the Gospel

Today's Gospel, like last Sunday's, is a parable stressing the amazing lengths to which God goes to in His work of saving us. If the doctrines of grace have become familiar to us (perhaps so familiar that we treat them with contempt!), we need take a careful look at the consternation and indignation which this message aroused when Jesus Himself preached it. Whereas "the common people heard Him gladly," the wise and the learned were filled with indignation.

The original audience surely expected Jesus to give His stories a different ending. Perhaps the banquet could be postponed to another time, a time which would not inconvenience the guests, so that they would not feel subordinate to their host! Perhaps the shepherd would do the reasonable thing and calculate that he had enough sheep already. Or perhaps the shepherd might simply wait at the door of the sheepfold, waiting for the sheep to find its way back.

The most popular substitute for Christianity, and the most dangerous, is a message which goes: God will be happy to save you if you only meet Him halfway. Or to say it another way, God will help you out if you only do your best. Or again, God kindly offers to help us and now we must cooperate with Him. If you think that is the Gospel, think again!

Such a false Gospel is enticing not only because it contains enough truth to be dangerous, but especially because it is flattering to our pride. Such an equalitarian notion of God maintains our self-esteem. The false Gospel of “God is my copilot” is very close to the Serpent's promise, “Ye shall be as gods.” 

Last Sunday we heard ourselves described in unflattering terms as “poor, maimed, halt, blind.” This Sunday the parable compares us to something lost. The stray sheep was in a desperate condition. Do not imagine that it was frolicking in a delightful meadow! There is hardly anything more pitiable than an abandoned animal. The sheep was without food and in imminent danger of wild predatory beasts. That is why sheep need shepherds. It was only a matter of time before the sheep would have died from starvation or from violent attack.

The Shepherd Himself exposed Himself to real danger in pursuing the sheep, and in that detail we have the Gospel of the Cross. The Good Shepherd, Jesus told us in John 10, is the one who laid down His life for the sheep. Our spiritual safety, both here and hereafter, does not come out of any search for God on our part, nor any equal partnership with Him. In the great work of our Saviour Jesus Christ, God has invited us to His banquet and carried us back to His fold. LKW

Fr Wells' Bulletin Inserts

LENT IV

Concerning the Epistle:

“Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise” Gal. 4:28.

In Genesis 16 and the chapters following we encounter the remarkable story of Abraham and his two sons. The elder son was Ishmael, born of Abraham's slave woman Hagar. The younger was Isaac, born of Abraham's legal wife Sarah. The elder son was born in the natural manner through Abraham's dalliance with a slave. The younger son was born miraculously, long after Abraham and Sarah were naturally capable of child-bearing.

As Genesis tells the story, Ishmael symbolizes Abraham's effort to take matters into his own hands and produce an heir through his own human strength. Isaac, on the other hand, conceived and born supernaturally, was a son for whom Abraham could take no credit, a son who demon-strated the truth of the Psalmist, “Lo, children, and the fruit of the womb, are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord” (Psalm 127:5).

St Paul, in today's reading from Galatians, develops the symbolism even further. These two sons and their mothers represent two entirely different notions of our relationship with God and the message of salvation. Ishmael represents a religion of law, good works, merit and human achievement. Isaac, by contrast, demonstrates God's grace to the undeserving and His generosity to the helpless.

As Paul develops this idea, the surprising spin comes when he points out that Sinai, in Arabia, is the source of the Law, on which Paul's opponents set so much store. And rather than contrasting Sinai with Jerusalem (as the reader might expect), Paul declares that the earthly Jerusalem (simultaneously the center of the Jewish religion of law and good works and the place of Jesus' crucifixion) has now become Sinai. The real contrast then is between the old earthly Jerusalem and the new heavenly Jerusalem.

Paul was horrified by the still popular idea that a religion of merit and a Gospel of grace can somehow be reconciled. There is no middle way, no compromise, no synthesis between the two. The pharisee and the publican can never be reconciled.

That heavenly Jerusalem is our spiritual mother, just as Sarah was the mother of Isaac. As Isaac was a freeborn son, so we, being “children of promise,” are not slaves to the law but freeborn citizens of the heavenly city. We are not slaves to the law as a means to earning God's favor and approval, for we have been emancipated, by God's own righteous act, from the powers of sin, death, and hell. And as Isaac was miraculously born of a woman 90 years old, we likewise have been reborn supernaturally. The new life we have in Christ did not come through our effort or much less through our decision, but by a miracle of grace far more powerful and wonderful than the miracle which produced Isaac.

Concerning the Gospel:

Today we enter the “second semester” of this holy season. We come to three Sundays which present to us, in turn, the threefold offices of Christ as our Redeemer and Mediator. And as we all should know, those three offices, or functions, are those of Prophet, Priest, and King for His people.

In today's Gospel, the conclusion is “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.” Next Sunday (when Lent turns into Passiontide), the Epistle begins “Christ being come an high priest of good things to come.” The Gospel begins by with Jesus asserting His sinlessness, the indispensable qualification for being the “great high priest.”

The following Sunday, we will begin with the Procession of the Palms, singing “All glory, laud, and honor, to thee, Redeemer King,” and then solemnly reading the Passion wherein our Saviour was crucified, wearing a crown of thorns, under a placard which read “Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.”

So at the conclusion of Lent, the tiny seed of Epiphany has come into its own:

“Manifest at Jordan's stream, Prophet, Priest, and King Supreme.”

At His Baptism Jesus was anointed--Christified-- by the Holy Spirit to execute these three functions. Just before Easter, we see how He does so.

Everyone thought, and everyone thinks, that he knows what prophets, priests, and kings are supposed to do. Our blessed Lord, however, always operated contrary to our expectations. That is largely why we was crucified. Had He conformed to the expectations of the crowd (the same crowd runs through all the Gospels of these three Sundays), things would surely have turned out differently for Him. But He was a very different sort of prophet, priest, and king. As a prophet, He fulfilled prophecy and brought it to an end. The earlier prophets declared, "Thus saith the Lord." Jesus Christ declares, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." As a priest, He made a sacrifice of Himself. The priests of the Old Testament offered lambs, bulls and goats, but at no expense to themselves. But in Jesus Christ, priest and victim are one and the same. As a king, He took the form of a servant. Pontius Pilate asked in amazement, "Art thou a king then?" King Jesus, plying the trade of a carpenter and dying a criminal's death, turned the whole notion of kingship upside down.

His prophetic office is the one before us on Lent IV. He was the last of a succession of prophets “which have been since the world began.” Although Jesus had much to say about the future, there is a truly awful finality in all His sayings. He is God's last and final word to us because He is the Word Incarnate. Beyond His message and teaching, nothing can be added, nothing can be changed, nothing can be taken away. He is God's “yea and amen” to us, the word who is Himself the Word, the One who silences all other speaking.

Fr Wells' Bulletin Inserts

LENT II

Concerning the Gospel:

Today's Gospel is echoed in one of our most beloved prayers, the Prayer of Humble Access, with the words “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table.” This is derived from the Canaanite woman's humble plea, “Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.”

This Gospel is truly a puzzling passage. Many have stumbled in its interpretation. Some have said that Jesus was having a bad day, treated the woman rudely, but came around when she outwitted him with her clever reply. Others have opined that Jesus shared the prejudices of his Jewish race against Gentiles, but this woman helped him to overcome his narrowness. Really!

We must study the reactions of Jesus to this woman carefully. He moves from (1) utter silence, to (2) a statement of His mission, then to (3) a statement of testing, and finally to (4) a statement of delight and abundant grace. “Great is thy faith! Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”

The silence of Jesus reminds us that God is sovereign and acts on His own timetable. The statement of His mission, “but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” reminds us of the great separation and demarcation which runs from “the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman” in Genesis 3 to the final separation of the sheep and the goats at the Last Judgment. And yes, indeed, God truly tests us. No person of faith will claim that God has never tested him. The untested person probably has no faith at all or faith in small degree.

Possibly (and here we cannot be sure) the Gentile woman only knew of Jesus as a wonder-worker, someone who could simply oblige her desires, like the nine lepers who were healed and promptly abandoned Jesus. Her words “thou son of David” surely appear to recognize Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world, but that had to be tested.

The scene changed when the woman expressed her own humility, unworthiness, and utter dependence on Divine grace. The woman has no one else to go to; she has no other option, no other place to look for healing. Jesus is her last resort. Her prayer is the prayer of desperation.

When we learn that we too are just as needy as this woman, having no Saviour but Jesus, and are truly the dogs eating crumbs from God's table, then we too will hear Jesus's own voice speaking to us here and now, “Great is thy faith! Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”

Concerning the Epistle:

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification,” St Paul writes in the passage we read today from I Thessalonians. Paul is well known for his unfolding of the great theme of Justification, God's gracious act in simply declaring sinners to be righteous when we look to Christ as our Saviour. That simple faith unites us to Christ so that His righteousness becomes our righteousness and God accepts us as perfectly righteous in His sight.

But as joyful a message as this is, there is more. The rest of the Good News is continued in the word “sanctification.” Whereas Justification is a judicial decree, declared once for all when the sinner turns to Christ, this is continued in a process which has no end in this lifetime. Paul wrote elsewhere “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Put simply, the Christian is not only a man who believes in Christ, but a person undergoing a process. That process is called sanctification.

Sanctification means becoming holy. In this text in I Thessalonians Paul was thinking of passages in the Old Testament, such as Leviticus 19:2. “You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy.” That sounds like an impossible command. Jesus did not make matters any easier when He said, “Be ye therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). We know what this word “perfect” means: faultless, without blemish, surpassing all standards of excellence. Paul tells us this is the will of God for us.

At this point we are bound to feel a bit of spiritual frustration and say, “That is too hard. God is asking too much of us.” We can hide behind a mask of false humility and say, “Oh, I know I will never be perfect.” That trite saying all too frequently really means, “I am satisfied with myself exactly as I am; I feel no need to improve.”

God never commands anything He does not give grace to fulfill. When our dear Lord said, “Be ye therefore perfect,” His words were both command and promise. “Be ye perfect” can also mean, “you will be perfect.”

Holiness, sanctification, perfection (these three words are all the same) have been called “the moral result of Christ's atoning work.” They refer to the inward moral rehabilitation, in which sinful hearts slowly become pure hearts, unclean minds become clean minds, impure lives become pure lives. That is God's will for us and His work in us. It has been well said that God loves us enough to accept us as we are, but too much to leave us as we are.

Fr Wells' bulletin inserts


LENT I

Concerning the Epistle (a splendid passage woefully neglected in sermons)

For anyone unfamiliar with the word “paradox,” this is the term for a a statement which seems to contradict itself but actually points to a deeper truth. The Christian faith is full of paradoxes. The Gospel is all about how God hates sin but loves sinners. That makes no sense to the unbeliever, but it is the Christian's joyful hope. This Gospel is a far cry from the lying message which claims that God ignores sin and indulges sinners.

Today's reading from 2 Corinthians concludes with a series of magnificent paradoxes. Describing his own ministry, and by implication describing the ministry of the whole Church, Paul writes,

“as deceivers, and yet true
as unknown, yet well known,
as dying, and behold, we live,
as chastened, and not killed,
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,
as poor, making many rich,
as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”

Although Paul was writing in his own defense, in the face of critics and detractors, in each step of the sevenfold series in this text, Paul was thinking of the Lord Jesus. In the desert of temptation, Jesus was falsely accused by Satan by pretending to be the Son of God: “If thou art the Son of God.....” In His earthly life and ministry Jesus was unknown, dying, chastened, sorrowful, poor, and having nothing. That was the route which led Him directly from the humiliation of His baptism with sinners to the shame and disgrace of His death on the cross.

If mankind or any human individual had designed for itself a Saviour (or a god!), we would surely have come up with something very different. We would have preferred a god (notice the small g, which indicates a false god) which winks at sin, ignores evil, and shuns suffering. We would surely have chosen a messiah who was rich, successful, popular, entertaining, and undemanding. Because Jesus taught and lived the “way of the cross,” He was none of those things. The cross, so prominently placed at the threshold of our churchyard, stands as God's stern rebuke to all earthly notions of success.

Yet He is now acknowledged as true and well-known (“the Way, the Truth, and the Life”). Once poor, He has made us rich. Once “having nothing” (even stripped of His very garments), He is now Lord of heaven and earth.

Concerning the Gospel:

Recapitulation” is a helpful word for understanding today's Gospel. To recapitulate means to repeat or re-tell; the current slang term “re-cap” /_almost_/ expresses what we are talking about. The New Testament frequently presents Jesus as the One Who Recapitulates, the one who relives the history of His people. In His visit to Egypt as a child and in His Baptism in the Jordan , He was reliving or replaying the history of His Israelite people. He was particularly “re-capping” that history as He spent 40 days in the wilderness, as His ancestors had spent 40 years there.

But the recapitulation runs are deeper than just the history of God's  covenant people, Israel. What we see in today's Gospel is a repetition of the very oldest story in the history of mankind, the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, that sad, moving and haunting story told in Genesis 3. Both stories involve the devil presumptuously making suggestions. To Adam and Eve he said, “Ye shall be as God.” To Jesus he said “If thou be the Son of God.” In both instances, in Eden and in the desert, Satan used a clever and insidious sort of logic. Adam and Eve were indeed made in “the image and likeness of God,” Jesus was indeed the incarnate Son of God, and the devil tried to use both facts to his own evil advantage.

But the recapitulation goes only so far. We know how the temptation of Adam and Eve worked out, with their tragic rebellion and banishment from God's presence, a sinful condition for all their descendants who sinned in them and fell with them, and misery and suffering for all mankind. But the temptation of Jesus has the very opposite conclusion: He rejects Satan's suggestions, resists the power of sin, and scores a decisive victory. J. H. Newman expressed this splendidly in Hymn 343: Stanzas 2 and 3:

O loving wisdom of our God, When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight, And to the rescue came.
O wisest love! That flesh and blood, Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe, Should strive, and should prevail.

Each one of us has chapters in his life which he would like to re-write, to tell his story with another conclusion. But thanks to the Gospel we are not trapped in the sad words of the Rubaiyat, “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.” In His victory over sin and Satan, the victory finished on the Cross, realized in His resurrection, but initiated in His temptation, Jesus has given each of us a new biography, with a New Life, having a new conclusion. When Jesus said, “Get the hence, Satan,” He proclaimed a new outcome and a new destiny for each one of us.

Jesus not only recapitulated the history of His people; he reversed it. And as He reversed our story, He redeemed us by undoing what we have done.

Fr. Wells bulletin inserts

ASH WEDNESDAY

On Easter morning we will sing St Paul's words, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Today we begin with the first part of that antithesis, with words which echo Genesis 3, "Remember, O man, that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." It is too bad that the advocates of politically correct language have dropped the key word of that solemn formula, "O man." As each man woman and child is marked with ashes, we are reminded of a jarring fact. Each of us is a member of the human race and is therefore "in Adam." The address "O man" is directed simultaneously to the individual and to the entire human family. To delete it obscures that truth.

The formula is adapted from even more solemn words in Genesis 3, from that painful conversation which God held in turn with the serpent, with Eve, and with Adam just before they were banished from the garden. After He had dealt with the Serpent and with Eve, God said to Adam:

Cursed is the ground because of you,

In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,

and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

till you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken.

for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

However you choose to read the mournful tale of Genesis 3 (as myth, or as poetry, or as a parable which echoes a terrible moment in clock-time history), we have in those words a powerful description of the human condition. Doomed to death after a lifetime of drudgery in a world where the very ground itself is cursed. This terrible predicament did not just happen at the caprice of a cruel god. No, this is the result of Adam's sin.

On Ash Wednesday we make not one but two trips to the Altar rail. The first trip reminds us again of what St Paul wrote, "For as in Adam all die." We are all, by virtue of our humanity, under that curse which sent our first parents out of the garden into a world of thorns and thistles. But the second journey to the Altar rail, when we receive the Body and Blood of our Saviour, reminds us that "even so in Christ shall all be made alive." The first trip recalls the terrible moment when, in Milton's words at the end of Paradise Lost, "They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way." But in the second journey, we are permitted to run breathlessly like the disciples to the empty tomb of Jesus of that first Easter morning.

The ashes on for foreheads remind us that we are truly "in Adam." The Body and Blood which we will receive remind us that we are "in Christ."

Fr. Wells' bulletin inserts

QUINQUAGESIMA

In today's Gospel, our dear Lord invites us to join Him on a journey, a journey which will end at the foot of His cross. This is an invitation to join Him once again for the forty day pilgrimage which we make together in His church in the holy season of Lent. As the Twelve “understood none of these things,” we might not understand the purpose or value of any special Lenten observance. When Lenten rules are outlined each Quinquagesima Sunday, for many of us “this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.”

We find ourselves in today's Gospel as the blind man. His physical blindness echoes the spiritual blindness of the Twelve. He came to Jesus begging for a miracle: “And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight.” Remember that Baptism, which in ancient times was the climax and conclusion of Lent, is presented in the NT and in the Church Fathers as an “enlightenment,” the gift of spiritual sight. Lent can be for us, if we use it holy season properly, a rescue and healing from spiritual blindness.

Here are some specific suggestions for things to do in Lent.

1. Be in church for every service, Wednesday and Friday.

2. Observe all Wednesdays and Fridays as days of abstinence (in plain language, keep all meals meatless those two days.)

3. Remember that Lent is no time for parties, concerts, movie-going, unnecessary restaurant meals and the like.

4. Make an extra effort to be diligent in private prayer, Bible reading, and cultivation of a deeper spiritual life.

5. Special almsgiving and works of corporal mercy. Like Advent, Lent is a fine time for a parish food drive.

Lent is not, emphatically not a “religious emphasis season” when we do things we can leave behind at the end of Holy Week. It is always sad to see the drop in attendance which seems inevitable after Easter Day. Lent is a time to develop new habits of spiritual discipline. It is a time to learn the value of keeping every Friday of the year (save those in Christmastide) meatless, as a weekly memorial of our Lord's death. The habits of Bible reading and keeping a personal prayer life should take root in our lives for the remainder of the year.

In our own spiritual poverty and blindness, we must come before Crucified and Risen Saviour and cry out, “Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me.” In keeping a good and holy Lent, we also may receive our sight. That's what He wants for each of us.

***

In our study of today's Epistle, we have been re-reading a fine little book by D. A. Carson with an unusual title: _The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God_. The author points out the necessity for calling the love of God a “difficult” topic. Had he written “the difficult doctrine of the Trinity,” or “the difficult doctrine of predestination,” it would have caused no surprise, since everyone agrees those are challenging or controversial topics. But what is “difficult” about the love of God? Everyone assumes that God's love is an easy and self-explanatory matter.

Today's Epistle is St. Paul's great hymn on charity, an unusual poetic outburst on his part. Practically every modern translation replaces the grand old King James Version's word “charity” with the modern word “love.” While the term “charity” has its drawbacks, the word “love” has been so debased that it is almost misleading.

Whereas our English word “love” is used for a wide variety of things, ranging from God's mercy toward sinners to a child's delight in ice-cream, the language of the New Testament had a fairly large number of words for love. It is remarkable that the NT writers did not use any of the words familiar to their readers. They went out of their way to find an unusual word. This is the word agape, pronounced ah-gah-pay.

Agape refers to the unparalleled, unequaled, undeserved and unexpected love which God has for sinners. This is the word which the King James Version translates as “charity” in I Corinthians 13. In spite of our efforts to tame this word through slobbering sentimentality, it remains a unique kind of love, love like the world had never seen, love made visible in the cross of Jesus.

As we begin once again our annual journey “up to Jerusalem” to be with Jesus on Good Friday and Easter Day, today's Epistle reminds us that the whole purpose of keeping Lent is our personal renewal and increase in “faith hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity.” Lent, with its discipline and self-denial, should teach us that the charity of God is to be shown forth in the “love and charity with your neighbours” of “all who profess and call themselves Christians.”

The Christian life has no place for spitefulness, mean-spiritedness, unkindness, especially toward those who have wronged us. As we read I Corinthians 13, we see Paul's portrait of Jesus (“charity suffereth long, and is kind...”), the world's first truly charitable Man. But Paul's point, and the point of Lent, is that charity is the greatest of virtues, which we must implore God to pour into our hearts. LKW

Fr. Wells bulletin inserts

SEXAGESIMA

These Pre-Lenten Sundays have unusually distinctive Collects. And in case you are not familiar with the term Collect, this word is the name for brief prayers which sum up or “collect” the private petitions of God's people; that is why there is or should be a slight pause between “Let us pray” and the Collect itself, to allow for the people to pray silently for a moment.

On Septuagesima and Sexagesima, the proper collects strike a solemn, almost sad, tone. Today we pray to be “defended from all adversity.” Last Sunday, we acknowledged that such “adversity” sometimes comes as the “just punishment for our offences.” These two prayers (BCP pages 118 and 120) might well be read together as examples of authentic Christian prayer. Those who learn to pray this way are not instructing God, giving Him good advice, sharing information, or even telling Him how they feel or what they want. They are simply asking to be defended against all adversity and mercifully delivered by God's goodness.

These two collects are among the most ancient prayers in the Prayer Book. They seem to have been composed in the Sixth Century A. D., just after the fall of the Roman empire, at the time when heathen barbarians from northern Europe were moving aggressively into Italy, leaving disaster and destruction in their wake. Whereas the Church had enjoyed a measure of safety and security in the last days of the Roman empire, now the world seemed to be collapsing. It was a perilous time, marked by pestilence, famine and earthquake. “Adversity” was not just a word.

The parallels between that period and our own are striking. Like the Roman Christians of the Sixth Century, we also perceive that our inherited world order may well be slipping away. But here is the great difference: whereas the Christian community of the early Dark Ages understood matters in solidly Biblical terms of God's just judgment on a sinful world, modern Christians seem to have a knack for making excuses and finding others to blame. We point to the liberals (both religious and political), we denounce the secular culture, we find fault with almost everyone and everything other than ourselves.

The Scriptures tells us that Divine judgment begins with the house of God. We are not here to play; the service of God is serious business. We know what God will do with the wicked, but what is in store for the shallow and superficial? Are you ready for Lent?

***

Today's first reading begins with words of heavy sarcasm, “Ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.” A modern translation is quite helpful here, “How gladly you put up with fools, being yourselves so wise.” Paul was not paying any compliment to his Corinthian readers. When he called them wise, he meant the very opposite.

These new Christians, not rooted and well-grounded in the Faith, were in danger of being seduced by a substitute Gospel, a false Christianity. In contrast to our easy-going tolerant sort of religion, this for Paul was no small matter. A few verses before our reading begins, Paul had compared them to Eve in the Garden of Eden. “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor 11:3). When the immature Christians in Corinth cheerfully put up with “fools” in the form of false teachers, they were like Eve, falling for the lies of the devil.

Our world, and along with it, the Christian community of our time, have listened to many false teachers. Like the Corinthians, we have “suffered fools gladly,” but we have only proved ourselves to be fools ourselves. We have not been wise.

The doctrinal and moral errors which trouble us are not simple mistakes which we can solve by debate, argument and controversy. They point to something deeply wrong in our fallen human nature. As Paul wrote elsewhere, “they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools....” (Rom 1:21-22).

Ash Wednesday is at hand, when we are solemnly reminded, “Remember, man, thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” Those terrifying words are reinforced with a grim ceremony, when our foreheads are disfigured with ashes. But almost always, someone will get the giggles seeing the entire congregation looking so funny. That is not altogether wrong or inappropriate. As we recall our mortality and the shortness of our earthly life, we should know ourselves to be the victims of a dirty trick, a horrible cosmic joke, in which we have been robbed by Satan of our original righteousness, our communion with our Creator, and the gift of eternal life. Our disfigured faces will remind us that the Image of God has been disfigured almost beyond recognition. Ash Wednesday sets us on the process of restoration for that Image.

Satan himself is the ultimate fool, because he wanted to be more powerful than God. In our unregenerate life we indeed put up with him and become foolish like him. May we turn more and more to Christ, who is our wisdom, our righteousness and our peace. LKW