Fourth Sunday in Advent

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 80
Phil. 4:4-7
John 1:19-28

From the Bible Illustrations of Gustave Dore'

With Christmas so close at hand it may seem a little difficult to go through even one more Sunday of Advent. We want to burst forth into the next season and rejoice. Well, very soon the time for that will be upon us (in fact at sundown this Christmas Eve). Right now, however, it is time to think through the meaning of today’s scriptures for the last Sunday in Advent, and not to miss it.

Again we are given that mysterious image of John the Baptist, the burning and shining light who bore witness by his life and death to Jesus Christ. “He must increase, and I must decrease,” said this prophet, this man whose unique vocation was that he bridged the Old Testament and the New. Two weeks ago we saw that all of the scriptures bore witness to Jesus Christ; and now, this last prophet of the Old Covenant bears direct witness to Christ, baptizing Him, and seeing the Spirit of God come upon Him as a dove out of Heaven. This last prophet of the Old Covenant is the first prophet of the New Covenant. The Lord said through the prophet Isaiah, “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert (Isa. 43: 19).” God called this prophet, this unique prophet, to show that the new thing, the New Covenant spoken of by Jeremiah the prophet (Jer. 31:31f) was upon them. John’s father was a priest under the Law of Moses, a descendant of Aaron. Therefore, John was also, by that Law, a priest. Yet, John the son of Zechariah, went into the desert to be the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “prepare the way of the Lord.”

Advent is about the last things, and especially meant to remind us that Christ will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead, to make the heavens and the earth new, and to rule forever on His throne, surrounded by saints whom He has redeemed from sin and death to rule forever with Him. But, as we have seen, instead of having us read the many passages of scripture that deal very directly with eschatology- the study of the end- the Gospel readings appointed by the Church give us a glimpse of Christ’s second coming by reminding us of events that happened when He came at first. The first week we saw that His kingdom brings judgment on the very House of God in the midst of the holy city, and cleanses it by driving out those who defiled it by their practice of unrepented sin. The picture ought to inspire the healthy fear of God, and to make us repentant and resolute to live in such a way that we will be among those who remain in His house forever, instead of being driven out to spend eternity in outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And now, thanks to the wisdom of the Church, we are reminded of the Baptist who prepared the way of the Lord by preaching repentance and cleansing. John the Baptist bridged the Testaments and prepared the way for Christ by offering hope, by giving sinful people a chance to start over again. The sinners who came to him were given a new beginning, hope and cleansing- themselves cleansed rather than tossed out as the Lord tossed out the money changers when it was the temple that was cleansed of evil presences and practices. In other words, the vocation of John the Baptist was to prepare people to see Jesus as the Messiah, and the preparation was repentance, the only way to be prepared to meet the Lord. The Advent message of repentance is necessary. Modern popular religion tells everyone that they need not repent of their sins, but rather that everyone is accepted with all of their ungodly baggage. The truth is, some churches are simply helping people go to Hell, due to the false teaching of Satan’s ministers. The truth is, the real ministry of the Church is the most important and serious thing in the world. Here we deal with things more important than mere life and death. We speak and administer the word and sacraments that have to do with eternal destiny. We give out both a warning and hope: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

Now, about the comings of Jesus Christ, and the life of this mysterious John the Baptist, we should dig a little deeper. The word “Christ” is from the Greek for the Hebrew word Meshiach (מָשִׁיחַ), or as we pronounce it in English, Messiah. We have come to call the Lord by two names more than all others, Jesus and Christ. The one means Salvation- Y’shua (יְשׁוּעָה). The other means “the anointed” – Meshiach. The implication is the Old Testament expression, “the Lord’s Anointed.” This comes with two pictures, as the word "messiah" is sprinkled generously throughout the pages of the Old Testament. The word speaks of priests and kings, and the anointing comes by the hand of a prophet.

The first men to be called meshiach were the brother of Moses, Aaron the High Priest, and his sons the priests. The King James Bible uses the phrase “the priest that is anointed.” The original Hebrew is h’ kohan h’ meshiach (חִכֹּהֵן חִמָשִׁיחַ )- “the priest the messiah.” The second class of men to be called messiah (meshiach) are the kings. David would not stretch forth his hand against Saul, because he was “the Lord’s anointed.” That is, the Lord’s messiah. Every priest was a messiah, and every king was a messiah. And, yet, the scriptures clearly speak of the one Man who would be both priest and king, and who would be the only hope of the whole world, being the one Jews call H’ Meshiach- The Messiah. So, first Messiah is the priest, and then after that He is the King.

His two comings are foreshadowed in these pictures. First he came as priest. The Epistle to the Hebrews is the most explicit New Testament book that tells of Christ’s priestly ministry when he came the first time, and does so in light of the hope of those who look for His second appearing. As the priest He offered Himself as the sacrifice. The Book of Leviticus tells us clearly how a priest made kippur, that is atonement, for a repentant sinner who confessed his sin to the priest and brought a sacrifice. The real meaning is that the priest himself is the atonement, and offers the animal because he cannot sacrifice himself. This is a type and shadow of Jesus, who did offer Himself as priest and sacrifice when He came the first time. The importance of the Suffering Servant passage to the clear New Testament proclamation of atonement cannot be overstated. You will find it in the 53rd chapter of the Book of Isaiah. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

This Suffering servant, after His death in their place, rises and takes up a ministry of intercession for sinners. “When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” A dead man cannot prolong his days unless he rises again. In this passage, His death and resurrection are priestly, because he dies as the one true sacrifice, the atonement, and after rising “he ever lives to make intercession for them,” that is, for those who come to God through Him (Hebrews 7:25). The Old Testament sacrifices on those altars foreshadowed His true sacrifice, just as our sacrifice on this altar, in which nothing is killed, proclaims it. In fact, there is only one Mass (Eucharist or Holy Communion), and always when it is offered anywhere in the world by the Church, it is joined to the one true sacrifice on Calvary.

When he comes again, the image of Messiah as King will be fulfilled in all of its glory. This is the terror of all that is evil, and it is the hope of the Church. It is a certainty that he will come on the Last Day to judge the living and the dead, to establish Heaven on Earth, to rule and so grant peace forever. Both testaments speak of His coming as the King Messiah. Daniel saw one coming in the clouds of Heaven as the Son of man to rule with the Ancient of Days; Moses saw that “the Earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Our eternal hope is not based upon imagination and conjecture, but upon the sure promise given in and by Christ’s resurrection from the dead. We are given the “sure and certain hope of the resurrection on the Last Day.” It is the only such hope, and it is impossible to separate that hope from Jesus Christ, because immortality, the hope of eternal life, is granted through His resurrection. So writes Saint John about those who, due to this hope, purify themselves: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (I John 3:2).”

John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord by his message of repentance. Pondering these pictures of the Messiah as priest and King we are both warned and encouraged with both fear and hope. This is the meaning of Advent. It is of eternal consequence that we give heed.

Fr. Wells' bulletin inserts

ADVENT IV

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Today's Epistle ends with a familiar verse, “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” That sentence, with a little tweaking by Archbishop Cranmer, is included in the Blessing which concludes the Prayer Book Eucharist.
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The key word of both the text and the liturgical blessing is Peace, a word we hear often this time of year as Christmas approaches. It was also a key word in the song the angels sang to the shepherds: “And on earth peace, good will toward men.”

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When these two texts are compared, some striking facts emerge. First the source of this peace must be God Himself. Peace does not just happen by accident; it is a Divine gift. Second, this wonderful peace which can come only from God cannot be analyzed or dissected; it can only be experienced. Third, this peace is not undifferentiated or willy-nilly; it is a special gift from God to a particular group, “men with whom He is pleased,” to give a more accurate translation. Fourth, this Peace is inseparably linked to the Person of Jesus Christ.
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Peace, as the New Testament uses the word, has a double dimension. It is an inner tranquility which overcomes fear and anxiety, but at the same time (and this is more basic) it is a new relationship with God. Peace is the opposite of war and comes only after the end of hostility and wrath. The story of mankind from the rebellion of our first parents, Adam and Eve was a history of our mutiny against our Creator and of His holy displeasure, which the Bible calls wrath. But God took the initiative in subduing our sin and resolving His righteous anger. This Divine initiative achieved the peace which the angels sang about.
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In the upper room, the night of His betrayal and arrest, Jesus spoke of this peace. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). It was not just an ordinary greeting on Easter morning when the Risen Lord confronted His disciples, “Peace be with you.” Because of what Jesus had accomplished, a whole new situation had come to pass, an unexpected state of affairs between God and sinners, a drastic reversal which Jesus called “peace.” Peace is the expensive gift paid for by His perfect obedience, His Cross and His empty tomb. This gift is the peace described by Paul, “For He himself is our peace.” That sentence, from Eph. 2:14, should end with an exclamation point; this is a startling, amazing, miraculous peace. As Paul said elsewhere, “making peace by the blood of His cross.” This bloody peace is the peace which made the shepherds rush to Bethlehem. May it be ours this Christmastide. LKW

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Today's first reading, from Philippians, was undoubtedly chosen because of one short verse: “The Lord is at hand.” It would be easy to read the whole passage and skip this verse altogether, as it seems to be an interruption to Paul's flow of thought. He might simply have written, “Let your moderation be known unto all men....Be careful for nothing...” But between these two simple commands Paul inserted a bold statement concerning the proximity of Christ's coming.

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The message of St John Baptist is summed up in the announcement, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Jesus continued to preach that message, and here we see that Paul carries on in the same tradition, with one important change. Instead of “the kingdom of heaven,” Paul says “the Lord.” In Jesus Christ Himself, in His person and work the reign of God had become real, actual, visible and tangible within a sinful world. As the first truly obedient Man, whose unique obedience brought Him to His cross, He inaugurated the kingdom of God on earth. Where Jesus is, the Kingdom is there.
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But Jesus is now in heaven! Is the kingdom not here?

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Imagine the excitement, both fear and delight, which would have gripped a small city in the hinterlands of the Roman empire if someone had announced, “The emperor is on the outskirts of our town.” Paul expected his readers to have just such a reaction. That excitement gives point and edge to the moral advice he was dispensing.
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Paul's announcement is as true and as exciting today as it ever was. Today is the last Sunday before Christmas, a day when even the secular world becomes giddy and frantic. Even the most cynical unbeliever cannot resist the awareness that Something Is About To Happen. Those outside the community of faith try to convince themselves, “It is just another day,” but they do not seem really to believe that. Even a rumor of God being made flesh is unnerving to the ungodly.

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And to the Faithful, “The Lord is at hand.” The same Jesus who now reigns in heaven comes to us now in the sacrament of the Altar, when He gives us His body and blood in the form of bread and wine. Every celebration of the Eucharist foreshadows His visible personal Coming at the Last Day. But at the same time, every Eucharist brings us face to face with Bethlehem. We remember the shepherds who saw the infant Saviour. Did Mary allow them to hold and caress the babe? We are given a privilege just as great when we see, take in our hands, and even eat His flesh in the blessed Sacrament. “The Lord is at hand.” LKW

The myth of consensus

The following was posted on Dec. 27, 2007, by Albion Land:

For Shame!

BETHLEHEM, December 27 (AFP) - Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Following the Christmas celebrations, Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.

But the ladders encroached on space controlled by Armenian priests, according to photographers who said angry words ensued and blows quickly followed.

For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.

A dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen were sent to try to separate the priests, but two of them were also injured in the unholy melee.

"As usual the cleaning of the church afer Christmas is a cause of problems," Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh told AFP, adding that he has offered to help ease tensions.

"For the two years that I have been here everything went more or less calmly," he said. "It's all finished now."

The Church of the Nativity, like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City, is shared by various branches of Christianity, each of which controls and jealously guards a part of the holy site.

The Church of the Nativity is built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born in a stable more than 2,000 years ago after Mary and Joseph were turned away by an inn.
Posted by Albion Land at Thursday, December 27, 2007
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Jerusalem Boxing Day

In England the Feast of Stephen, Dec. 26, is also called Boxing Day. The name comes from the boxes that have to do with Christmas gifts. In Jerusalem, Boxing Day can be December 24, or the 27, depending on when tempers flare between the holy men of the Two One True Churches. If only 2007 had been an unusual year, but it wasn't. This almost annual event is merely a symbol of how well they get along in general.

The lesson for modern Anglo-Catholics is simple. Get over your inferiority complex. Stop looking to Rome or Orthodoxy with misty-eyed sentimentality. Instead, get a grip on reality in the following ways.

1. Grasp the fact that the Great Schism is between ancient imperial East and the ancient imperial West (i.e. Rome and Constantinople), not between the "ancient churches" and us. Sadly, they just don't get along with each other, especially without Anglican help.

2. The real consensus of the Church Catholic is best expressed in the pages of our very own Book of Common Prayer, better than any other single source. Why? Because it sets forth the catholick Faith of the Universal Church without regard for the styles and fashions that have blown it about since the early middle ages. It contains the Creeds in every major service, and teaches the Biblical Faith according to the most ancient universal Tradition.

3. For all the talk about the Church Fathers, it is the Book of Common Prayer that relies on the actual Patristic method for establishing doctrine, i.e. the Faith as received and set forth in the Bible. If you doubt that, then actually read the Fathers. You will be shocked, some of you, by how much they come across like Evangelicals--they even "proof text."

4. The real Anglo-Catholics have all departed this life, having lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries. If you are among their true followers you will not denigrate or belittle the Book of Common Prayer, or their confidence in the Anglican position.

5. That Anglican position is that we are already fully part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The real Anglo-Catholics did not look to Rome or Orthodoxy to save them and give them authenticity. Rather, they asserted the claim that our Apostolic Succession is second to none, our Protestant doctrine fully Catholick, our sacraments fully valid, and they were confident that our very existence is a gift to help heal very old and very sad divisions. This last item they acted on quite energetically, humbly but firmly.

6. Only one Church exists in the Earth. The Holy Union is monogamous, Christ having one bride in that mystical union to which He is faithful as the Bishop of our souls and Husband of one wife.

7. Therefore, our antiquity is equal to theirs. This is for the following reasons.

a. The whole Church began at the same time, and the whole Church was baptized in the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, the same day when the Apostle, St. Peter preached the Gospel to the crowd.

b. Our history is not merely five hundred years old. This is not simply because the Church existed in Briton from Apostolic times. Even more so, it is because the whole Church was born on the same day, which Church we belong to no less than the children of Rome and Constantinople.

c. Every Christian is part of one generation, as God has children, but no grandchildren (see this).

So, if you want to follow the Anglo-Catholics (who restored balance in their time no less than the Reformers did in theirs, or the Caroline Divines in theirs), then have confidence that your own Anglican heritage is catholick in that it is full and complete. That is what they stood for, humbly but firmly. They would not encourage the inferiority complex that too many of you have.

This raises questions for discussion

concerning Anglicanism and Orthodoxy today

(Note, I believe our next installment of the Layman's Guide to the 39 Articles could be fairly early next week. If for any reason it comes too close to Christmas, look for it during the twelve days of the brief season.)

My recent posting, Speaking only for myself, has had two more comments this very day from two sources. The first is an unidentified life long member of the Orthodox Church (who, if he/she? wants to continue in this discussion, will, I hope, use his name or create an online "handle") and the second is our own Fr. Laurence Wells. I added my own perspective, which in no way disagrees with the theology of Fr. Wells. Like him, I vigorously defend the full Biblical revelation of the Atoning and propitiatory death of our Lord, as expressed so well in our own service of Holy Communion:

"All glory be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world."

A growing number of modern Orthodox writers reject the plain meaning of these words, even though they are not a Western innovation, but are a perfect summary of passages from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and of I John 2:1,2. The language of sacrifice has been denigrated, ridiculed and treated with such contempt that I must reject their opinion as utter heresy, just as, if not more, damning and more deadly than anything ever taught on the subject.

But, is it Orthodoxy? The words I have quoted above, for example, are an authorized part of the Western Orthodox Rite (called often, and in memorial honor, The Liturgy of St. Tikhon).

Below are the comments, and it may be best for genuine discussion to take place very openly. But, comments are no place for frustrated writers to make up for not being published. If any of you, who want to comment, have a complete book in your head, spare us the Tome, and keep it reasonably brief. Once you get on a pedestal you cease to converse. We have sermons here, but it is our own Continuing Anglican clergy who post them. Besides, if you write twenty-thousand words in a never ending series of comments, no one will read them anyway. "Brevity is the soul of wit," but endless repetition is the sole of witlessness.

Many years ago, when I was still a layman, a priest whom I greatly admired was in the process of joining one of the numerous Orthodox churches. With convert zeal, he attempted to convince me to join him in such an adventure. He placed into my hands two books by Bishop Kallistos Ware (then known simply as Timothy Ware) and some less erudite writings by Fr Thomas Hopko All of these I read with a fairly open mind. This was in 1979, when the Continuing Church did not appear to have much of a future.

When I had finished this exercise, I then knew exactly why Orthodoxy was not an option for me, why in fact it is fraught with theological errors far more dangerous than Roman Catholicism.

It is easy to point out the shortcomings of a kind of Orthodoxy which attacks Dr Hart and which Fr Wasson deplores. It would be more to the point to come to grips with the errors of EO at its best: the denial of original sin, denial of our Saviour's work as the penal substitute for us, denial of Justification as the Scriptures teach it.
LKW

8:04 AM

Anonymous said...

My family has been Orthodox for as long as anyone has knowledge. While there are many problems in the Church, I have never, ever met a single individual in any parish in any country with the attitude expressed by these blogs - I think these broad statements about the Orthodox based on 3-4 bloggers is completely unwarranted. While these bloggers are certainly worthy of censure - and I certainly pray they will seek help for their total capitulation to numerous passions - the best thing anyone can do is simply ignore them.

12:31 PM

Fr. Robert Hart said...

I wish it were only 3 to 4.

Most of these fellows are converts and self-loathing westerners. But, truth is, if you are a faithful EO, they are your problem, whether you have run into them yet or not.

3:33 PM

Fr. Robert Hart said...

Fr. Wells wrote:

"It would be more to the point to come to grips with the errors of EO at its best..."

I must take a deeper look at two things here. 1. They do not deny original sin, but rather define it short of inheriting guilt. They see mankind as fallen into sin and death (as one coin with two sides), and sin as the consequence of death for all human beings after Adam's Fall. 2. Not all the Orthodox deny penal substitution and justification (indeed, up through the 18th century it was proclaimed very well in many Orthodox venues, and is still very popular on Mt. Athos). In fact, by reconciling St. Anselm and EO teaching, my brother has shown the un-Orthodoxy of this brand of unorthodoxy.

The problem with both of these denials, when and where they do occur (and, it is obvious that the disease is spreading), seems to be an inability to see God as the Lawgiver, and a disdain for Law as such. They use the word "forensic" as if God was not the Author of the Law and Commandments. They detest the revealed language of sacrifice as if it is more profitable an exercise to explain away Scripture than to attend to the wisdom therein. And, the root seems to be the anti-Western cult that is so important to so many of them. Anything, even heresy, is their preference over what they deem as "western."

But, what a slippery animal. Is this really E. Orthodoxy, or the latest fad? The Anonymous commenter above claims never to have come across any of these problems. I wonder where he lives, and still hold out hope for the E. Orthodox there, wherever that may be.

Verses from the "Acolyte's" Bible

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that we may debate which is the One True Church." (Not John 3:16)

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: er, that is if we believe all that stuff by Anselm." (Not I John 2:1,2)

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to explain the distinction between Divine Essence and Energies according to an Aristotelian paradigm." (Not I Tim. 1:15)

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And he shall set the sheep on his East hand, but the goats on the West. Then shall the King say unto them on his East hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For ye argued well that East is East and West is West. Then shall he say also unto them on the West hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For ye lost the argument, and did not join the right Church. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the smart guys into life eternal." (Not from Matthew chapter 25)

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, because D[ivine]." (Not John 1:14)

Tomorrow I will get serious again. I promise.

Speaking only for myself

and not claiming to speak for my church body (the ACC-OP), a comment I just posted and replied to, has moved me to say something that may prove controversial.

My wife and I, on behalf of the parish, have spent most of the afternoon and evening laboring to meet the desperate needs of a homeless person on a freezing night, something that normally I would not mention, but keep secret. After all this, I find myself doubly irritated by the activities of Eastern Orthodox bloggers who have been expressing their madness and hostility in reaction to my brother's beautiful column about one of the most loved and holy people my family ever knew.

Yes, we called her Aunt Susie because, in the 1960s, Maryland was still a Southern State with Southern culture-it was a title no one would use today (nor did I know any reason not to suppose she was a flesh and blood aunt, being a child at the time), and so almost modern PC "liberals" presume they have some right to act like self-righteous morons about it. But, God knows, no one meant any disrespect, indeed, just the opposite. She was half Black and half Cherokee; to us she was family, as beloved as any relative, and respected far more.

My brother's column, that I reproduced on The Continuum, has been maligned by the kind of Orthodox Christians I think of as "the usual suspects." They are angry because David Bentley Hart dared to contradict a beloved Abbott, some mostly harmless geezer who presumes to tell the world that only in the Eastern Orthodox Church can there be any holiness. On one of their blogs (that someone linked to The Continuum without our approval), some demented blogger demonstrated his own racism, complete with images, from his own overtly racist heart, of a black face minstrel, and references to something he called "the magical negro" and to "mammy," to accuse my brother of covert racism. God, how ironic. His own bigotry against Aunt Susie (she will forever be family to me), for being a Protestant, caused him to vent fully by using his racist bigotry (complete with racist imagery that he imposed on the whole story), as a defense. He could not defend the Ortho-Chauvinism of the beloved Abbott, so he deflected the bigotry of his own evil heart on to my brother's First Things column.

As if this was not demented enough, the comments on that blog have taken a twist and turn to the "usual suspect" complaint that my brother does not appreciate the essential divide between "East and West" over the question of "Divine Simplicity" against the difference between "Essence and Energies." You may wonder what this kind of academic theology (and, academic is the most it can be) has to do with real life, indeed with Christianity at all, especially against the holiness of a real life saint whom these One True Churchers would exclude from the Church altogether, simply for not belonging to the correct country club. Frankly, it has nothing to do with real life, and nothing to do with God and His Son Jesus Christ. (That absurd little "Acolyte" says that Western Christians perceive of God merely as the Highest Being among beings, making no distinction between created and Wholly Other Uncreated. He says this is the difference between "Western" Christianity and Orthodoxy. What does that mean? It means, he has a completely false understanding of "Western Theology." And, don't tell him that Augustine is a Saint in the East as well as the West, because you would ruin his whole day).

The Two One True Churches have a lot to learn. They demand our respect, but don't try to earn it. The Roman Catholics have yet to speak with humility, despite the obvious moral failure of their system. They still talk down to the rest of us. Certain members of the Orthodox Church (except for notable exceptions, such as my brother and Fr. Partick Henry Reardon) need also to demonstrate humility and charity, if only to strike a balance against the hate mongers and overly academic theology bloggers who give their whole Church such a bad name.

Many years ago I felt great respect for Rome and for Orthodoxy, and felt the burden to gain their respect for Continuing Anglicanism. Now I feel very differently. It is high time that the Two One True Churches demonstrated humility and charity, for right now they are failing to earn our respect.

Third Sunday in Advent

I CORINTHIANS 4:1-5

MATTHEW 11:2-10

As we ponder the Epistle and Gospel appointed for this day, in light of the Collect, we see that John the Baptist is a model for one of the essential features of ordained ministry in the Church. It is the duty of every bishop, priest and deacon, by the grace of God, to live up to this calling: "The ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." It is essential to the very nature of the ordained ministry that a man "be found faithful," and that his life and teaching present a constant message that is part warning and part comfort. A warning that "we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (Romans 14:10)," and the comfort of imparting strength to persevere by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The words, "stewards of the mysteries of God" sum up the priestly ministry as expressed in our Ordinal: "And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments."For every Divine mystery (μυστήριον) is both of these, God's word and his sacraments.

In light of the Collect, and of the message of Advent in general, the Church is saying to us, from generations past, that the priestly ministry in the church has as its purpose to prepare each person to meet Jesus Christ face to face when he comes again in glory, and when each of us stands before his holy presence. Who better than John the Baptist can so model this ministry, a man who was both priest and prophet? He was a priest, the son of a priest who was named Zechariah, as we learn from the opening of the Gospel of Luke. The Levitical priesthood was inherited, as we know from the Law of Moses. John's priestly ministry was quite unusual, as his offering was the oblation of baptism for every penitent who came in sincerity to be cleansed in his mikvah, his baptism. And, John was a prophet who proclaimed the word of the Lord. He spoke the word of the Lord by the banks of the waters of Jordan. He was not preaching his message simply to add another idea to the eschatology of Judaism, or to promote an intellectual curiosity. Jesus was about to arrive on the scene, and John's message was to make ready a people to follow him.

John was sent "in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to to the children, and the disobedient to wisdom of the just (Luke 1:17)." The angel Gabriel combined words from Malachi with words from the Books of the Kings (Malachi 4:5, I Kings 18:37), a truly angelic commentary on scripture. Three years ago, my sermon was a bit lengthy, a Bible Study in which we saw that Elijah "turned the hearts" of the people of Israel back to God through his miraculous victory over the prophets of Baal. "The wisdom of the just" is the wisdom of our fathers. Today there is increasing pressure on clergy to conform to a new standard, and to reject the word of the Lord as it has been revealed, received and taught by all of our fathers, both our Jewish and Christian fathers, and above all Christ the Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6,7) or Last Adam (I Corinthians 15:45) of the new and redeemed humanity. But, following the model of John the Baptist, every faithful steward resists the pressure to rewrite God's Law, the pressure to grant permission instead of absolution, the pressure to call evil good, and good evil; for a faithful steward turns the disobedient to the wisdom of the just by teaching right doctrine, and calling for repentance. He remains faithful to what has been declared from the beginning, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est ("That which is believed everywhere, always and by all").

The faithful steward preaches his message to make ready a people, each member of the Church and those will hear and become members, for the same Christ who was here before, for the day that is coming when each of us will see him as he is, risen and glorified. That day will be the time when unbelievers will be filled with dread to look upon his holy face. To prepare the heirs of salvation and eternal life is what our mysteries are for, and why we must be faithful stewards.

The message from the Gospel reading appointed for today is this: Do not look to be impressed by the standards of this world. Do not look for a man to be "charismatic" in secular terms, but rather see and know that he is charismatic in the truly Biblical sense of that Greek word. That is, look to the gifts of God that come through a faithful steward, and know that each has the grace, or gift (χάρισμα, charisma) of Christ's own ministry. What did you expect to see here? What do you want to see? A king? A potential CEO or President, a man with worldly wisdom? Someone with razzle-dazzle who can charm or mezmorize? A skillful or exciting entertainer? These things may impress the carnally minded. All you see here, with natural eyes, are men. We do not live in king's houses.

Neither can a faithful steward allow himself to be "a reed shaken with the wind." He must not present new and exciting doctrines, or claim to have revelations that set him apart from or above the teaching of the Church in every age. St. Paul warns about the winds of doctrine that blow in the absence of God's apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11f). That is, when instead of listening to faithful stewards, "people heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears," that "they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (II Tim. 4:3,4)." Such fables plant what he also called "the doctrines of demons (I Tim. 4:1)." If only we would be reeds shaken with the wind, we could invent whatever new and strange doctrine it takes to have a following. Not merely a cult following in the sense that is shunned and rejected by society, but the respectable sort of following that eats up "a new thing" other than the only authentic "new thing," that is, the Covenant established by Christ (cp. Isaiah 43:19 with Jeremiah 31:31-34).

But a faithful steward is not a superstar with the worldly and carnal sort of "charisma," and he is not willing to teach windy doctrinal innovations that blow the people around. The faithful steward reminds everyone that Jesus Christ is coming, and we must all be prepared to meet him. Unbelievers will cry out to the mountains and hills to hide them from his face, while believers will see him as he is, and be transformed after his immortal likeness to become partkers of the Divine nature. The faithful steward reminds everyone that it is and shall be "either-or." Each person will be in one of two camps: Either the coming of Christ will be dreadful and the gloom of darkness, or it is the great joy of eternal life, and the brightness of eternal day. Are you prepared? Which camp will you be in? Which camp are you in right now?

The mysteries that we teach center around the Gospel, and if you understand that Christ died for your sins (I Corinthians 15:3) and was raised again for your justification (Romans 4:25), you know how to repent and be forgiven, free from all sin and every barrier between your soul and God's mercy. You may also receive the mysteries that we administer, and be absolved from your sins, and feed on him as the Bread of life and so live forever. The faithful stewards are here to be instruments of Christ's salvation for all who are in the camp of joy, those who will be glad at the Lord's appearing.

Fr. Wells' bulletin inserts

ADVENT III

Of all the praiseworthy characters of the Bible, the one whose company we would enjoy least is St John Baptist. He is not the sort of person we would wish to have as a dinner guest or as a fellow traveler on a cruise. But he is the saint who features prominently in the liturgy of the last two Sundays of Advent. And if the Baptist does not appeal to us, our Lord paid him the highest of all possible compliments: “Truly I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matt 11:11).

John was great because he was the last in the long succession of Old Testament prophets “which have been since the world began.” But John was the only one to see Jesus Himself. The Son of God was seen by Abraham, Moses, Isaiah and all the rest in a visionary way. John was privileged to see Him in the flesh.

John's prophetic ministry was threefold, as it related to (1) Jesus Himself, (2) Herod Antipas, and (3) the chosen people Israel living in A.D. 27—30. As far as Jesus is concerned, it was John's privilege to baptize Him and to announce Him publicly. “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world .... He must increase and I must decrease.”

As for Herod Antipas (son of the Herod who tried to murder the Christ Child), John's preaching was distinctly controversial and provocative. John publicly denounced this Herod for his immoral life—casting aside one wife to marry another who was the wife of his brother. For that sermon, John lost his life, and probably most Christians today would be in firm agreement with the Herod family that preachers should not meddle into such things. And if we and Herod are in agreement, we must be in disagreement with Jesus.

But John's sternest words were directed to the huge multitude which went out to hear him preaching on the banks of the Jordan. “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?......Now is the axe laid to the root of the trees.” The expression “generation of vipers” is probably an allusion to the “seed of the serpent” in Genesis 3:15, the reprobate race perpetually at enmity with the “Seed of the Woman.” So the last great voice of Old Testament prophecy echoes the earliest expression of the Gospel, the Protevangelium.

In addition to pointing out the actual presence of the Messiah, John preached the necessity for repentance, the moral house-cleaning which is imperative as the Lord approaches. As we contemplate John in the Advent liturgy, we face the question: What would John have to say to us? LKW

****************

During these final two Sundays of Advent the liturgy features the odd and unfriendly person known as St. John Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, who was born just six months before him. Although he is narrated in the New Testament Gospel, this man was the last of the Old Testament prophets. In this “goodly fellowship of the prophets,” he was the only prophet actually to see Jesus face to face. The One Whom Isaiah and all the other Old Testament figures saw only by faith, John was permitted to see right in front of him.

The message of John is summed up in the words, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The expression “kingdom of heaven” means the active reign of God. The word “kingdom” sounds like a political institution or territorial entity; the phrase is better translated “kingship of God.” John's message was simply that God, who rightly claims rule in His creation, can no longer be defied or challenged, since He is about to re-assert His royal authority in the world He made.

Almost at the beginning of history, our earliest ancestors set out to overthrow God and remove Him from His throne. That was the original sin; that is still the essence of all sin. But John announced that in Jesus Christ, the “Lamb of God,” God was about to gain the upper hand and resume control of His world. That was to be His “kingdom.”

John says this kingdom “is at hand.” That expression puzzles us. Did he mean the kingdom has already arrived, was shortly to arrive, or would arrive sometime in the future?

All three of these answers are correct. Because Jesus was physically standing in the middle of the crowd listening to John, the reign of God had already commenced. His perfect obedience and sinlessness showed that the victory over evil was already underway. But very soon, in just three years, that perfect obedience would bring Jesus to His cross and to His empty tomb. That was the decisive victory which proved and made sure that the old kingdom of sin and Satan was overthrown forever.

But the final victory, when Jesus will hand over the kingdom to His Father, will not come until the end of history. This good news of God's reign is summed up in the words, “Already, but Not Yet.” We live between two points of time, the coming of the kingdom in the life of Jesus on earth, and its perfection when He shall come again. And as we look forward to that arrival, John's message to us is simply to “repent,” to change our minds and and to change our lives so that we may be ready for Him when He comes in His glory. LKW

For a generation

A bit more about Advent II.

"A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation." Psalm 22:30

"So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations." Matt. 1:17

Earlier tonight, after our Wednesday service of Evening Prayer at St. Benedict's, during a Bible Study that follows, a question arose about the Gospel reading we had this past Sunday (Advent II) from the 24th chapter of St. Matthew. I saw it coming, as we were reviewing that passage. The question was, what did Jesus mean in v. 34?

"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."

Many explanations have been offered over the years. Some say, he was speaking of a generation mentioned in v. 32, those who will see the fulfillment of "all these things." That is quite possible. However, it requires us to see the word "generation" only as we have come to use it in our own time, namely the people born roughly within the space of a few years who live in a certain time, all of whom will be dead and gone within a span. In fact, the word γενεά (genea), the original Greek word used, primarily means fathered, that is begotten or generated.

Therefore, in an odd sort of way, the quotation above from the twenty-second Psalm, by combining both meanings of the word "generation," helps us get to the point. If you read the opening of the Gospel according to Matthew, you will find only thirteen generations "from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ." The fact is, Matthew skipped one generation, a fellow named Pedaiah (I Chronicles 3:17-19); but why? Why did he name only thirteen? Was it to make a point? Was it to draw our attention to the words of the Psalmist?

"A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation."

What is the generation, then, or the seed counted as a generation? The best answer reminds us of the truth of the Gospel, of our Baptism, and of what it means to be "in Christ." It reminds us of a related word, a compound word that uses γενεά (genea), i.e. παλιγγενεσία (paliggenesia), translated in Titus 1:5 as "regeneration." By that regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, we are in Christ.

To be in Christ means that we have one Father. "God has no grandchildren" as the old saying goes. Indeed, that is absolutely true, for every Christian has the same Father, and that is God. No matter how long the Church is on the Earth, God has never become a grandfather. If the Church were counted as more than one generation, by now it would be the largest Ancestor worship cult in the world. But, the truth of the Gospel has, as part of its glorious declaration, that in Christ we are all children of one Father.

By παλιγγενεσία, each one who is in Christ belongs to the one γενεά that will never pass away. When the Son of Man comes He will find faith on the earth, for His Church will be present among the nations of mankind, one generation because no matter how many centuries it is preserved by God's grace, everyone in it belongs to the same household of faith and has the same Father.

That is the answer that best fits Matthew 24:34.

The charism of sarcasm

The following are re-posted in response to the hard knuckle treatment dished out to us from certain self-appointed spokesmen of one of the Two One True Churches, namely adherents to fashionable trends among Eastern Unorthodox members of the Orthodox Church. Warning: Satire is the most serious sort of silly business and should not be tried by amateurs. Do not attempt this at home.

Re-posted From Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The True One True Church

My e-mail contacts keep me abreast of theological blogs, and make me aware of ongoing disputes. For example, recently the encouraging and beautiful meeting between the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch was used by one self-appointed Roman Catholic apologist as a springboard to attack the validity of the Metropolitan's title, and to set up an apologetic for Rome against Orthodoxy. I think the Pope would be saddened by this use of the news about such a wonderful meeting, and the road to unity.

Nonetheless, I have decided that I agree with the Roman Catholic apologists who say the Orthodox Church is not the One True Church; and I agree with the Orthodox apologists who say that the Roman Catholic Church is not the One True Church. In this matter they both prove their points; they are both right.

On the Pontifications Blog, Al Kimmel stated it as one of his "Laws" that "any church that does not claim to be the One True Church is only a denomination or sect." I like Al, personally, but I must say that he has stopped short of the full logic of this allegedly self-evident law. We should go a step further. So here is my Law: Anyone who does not claim to be, all by himself, the One True Church, and to possess in his person the fullness of the Catholic Church, is not a church, but only a part or member of the body.

Therefore, I am announcing now, after much consideration , that I have decided that I (as in me, myself, yours truly) am the One True Church- just me and no one else. Yep. Unless you are me you cannot enter into the fullness of the Catholic Church. I am sorry about the uncertainty of everybody else's eternal standing; but, hey, that's how the cookie crumbles.

Re-posted from Wednesday September 06, 2006

Interview from 2004

I just found this paper from home (Maryland) that I had brought to Arizona with me. That year the Western and Eastern Calendars had the same dates for Holy Week. I believe that this two year old interview best exemplifies the thinking of people who see a wide gulf fixed between "East" and "West"- so wide that any attempt to acheive unity must be resisted at all costs. Wouldn't want that now would we? - Fr. Hart

Interview with Fr. Vladimir Dimitrios

Eastern Shore Press

April 10, 2004

This is an interview with Fr. Vladimir Dimitrios, priest of the One and Only Orthodox Church, located in Weston (West of Easton).

Eastern Shore Press: Fr. Vladimir, thank you for allowing this interview, and congratulations for the ground breaking of the Orthodox Church your new congregation is building here in Weston.

Vladimir Dimitrios: Thank you.

ESP: Father, my paper wanted me to interview you because, as you are the only Orthodox priest we can find anywhere around here, you have been elected to be our paper’s expert on all matters Orthodox. I am sure you can see how practical that is.

VD: Yes, and I applaud your sense of practicality.

ESP: As you know, this year, the Western and Eastern Churches are holding Easter on the same day, something that has not occurred in living memory.

VD: Properly speaking, there are no Western churches, not really.

ESP: Well, let’s get back to that thought later. Father Vladimir, on this special holiday do you have a message to give to the people who read this paper? Something about the true meaning of Easter? A message about Christ and the Gospel?

VD: That’s not what matters.

ESP: What? Well, Father Vladimir, in your own words, can you tell us what it is that matters?

VD: Yes. We’re not Western. That’s what matters.

ESP: But, don’t you and the Western churches, the Catholic Church for example, preach the same Gospel?

VD: No.

ESP: Don’t you believe in the same God?

VD: Belief in God has never been a central doctrine of the Orthodox Church.

ESP: Wait a minute! I know you- why just six months ago you were an Episcopal priest at St. Cuthbert’s. You were called the Rev. Mr. Roger Brown!

VD: We never speak of those days.

ESP: But, you’re a recent convert. Who made you an expert?

VD: The newspaper did.

ESP: Oh, that’s right. But, are you sure you speak for the Orthodox Church? Are you really a proper representative of the Orthodox Tradition?

VD: Look, I’m wearing a black Cassock, aren’t I?

ESP: Well, yes.

VD: And look at this beard- not a goatee, or even a silly little beard like Errol Flynn wore in Robin Hood. This is a big bushy beard. How can you be more Orthodox than that?

ESP: We wouldn’t know.


______________________

Monday morning

We had quite a lot of offerings this weekend, including sermon notes from Fr. Kirby, and the next chapter of The Layman's Guide to the Thirty-Nine Articles that Fr. Wells and I are providing (soon I will list the links on a separate page). Also, as you scroll down, you will find my Advent musical offering, and I hope you enjoy it. If you listen you may notice a bit of theology in the music, that the musical line that goes with the refrain, "Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel," is announced twice. I trust that the appropriateness of that double announcement (in my fugue) sends a clear message.

A Layman's Guide to the Thirty-NIne Articles

Article III

Of the going down of Christ into Hell.

As Christ died for us, and was buried: so also it is to be believed that He went down into Hell.

De descensu Christ ad Inferos.

Quemadmodum Christus pro nobis mortuus est et sepultus, ita est etiam credendus ad Inferos
descendisse.

Fr. Laurence Wells

When we arrive at Article III, we do well to remind ourselves that this series is entitled "A Layman's Guide to the Thirty-nine Articles." I say this because laymen typically have a preconception of the word "hell" which is not appropriate here. When it is not reduced to street slang, hell usually means the place of eternal punishment, a place clearly taught in the NT and most frequently by Our Blessed Lord Himself, as in Matt. 25:41, "Depart from me you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." The state of eternal punishment is not the "hell" alluded to in the third Article, and we might just as well get this out of the way before we begin.

In the Latin text which underlies the Articles as we have them, the expression is "ad inferos." This is, of course, a quotation from the Apostles' Creed. Other ancient Latin texts use expressions like "ad infernum" or "ad inferna." These may be more precisely translated "to those below," or "to the condition below" or "to the places below." The paraphrase on page 15 of our Prayer Book, "He went into the place of departed spirits." is an accurate rendition, actually an improvement on the language of the Article.

But what is it all about? Why does this worse-than-difficult phrase from the Apostles and Athanasian Creeds get special treatment and special affirmation in the Articles? This phrase the last to be added to the text of the Apostles Creed and was challenged even before the Reformation by Bishop Reginald Pecock (d. 1460, a highly original theologian who was found guilty of heresy for various reasons). In the Reformation era its meaning was disputed between the Lutherans and the Reformed, with conflicting interpretations among the Reformed. A German Reformed pastor by the name of Walter Deloenus, ministering in London, denied the truth of the Descent. He was rebuked by his Reformed brethren, but the issue had been raised and a dispute ensued. Evidently Cranmer felt it necessary to say something on the point.

It is interesting that Article III as we have it in the final version of 1571 is briefer and safer than the original version in the Forty-Two Articles of 1553. In the earlier form, not only was the Descent stated as a fact, but an interpretation was added: "The body lay in the sepulchre until the resurrection, but His ghost departing from Him was with the ghosts that were in prison or hell, and did preach to the same, as the place of St. Peter doth testify."

The Descent of Christ into Hell has continued to be a matter of debate There has been and still is a wide variety of interpretations. These are neatly summarized in competent article by Daniel R. Hyde entitled "In Defense of the Descendit," published in a small-circulation journal quaintly entitled "The Confessional Presbyterian." Dominie Hyde (to give him his proper Dutch Reformed title) lists seven truly different interpretations.

1. The earliest goes back to writers like Rufinus and Cyprian. "Descended to those below" simply means "He was buried in a tomb." This would explain why it is omitted in the Nicene Creed, which affirms Christ's burial as evidence of the total reality of His death. In the various early local Creeds, we find references either to burial or to descent. The first to combine the two as separate truths was an Arian Creed of AD 359.

2. Another very different view is that Our Lord went to the place of eternal punishment (hell in the colloquial sense) to endure further misery after He expired. That is easily refuted, not only by referring to the original Latin but also by reflecting on His final Word, "It is finished." This view, however, still circulates among radical Protestants.

3. A third interpretation is that Jesus entered the intermediate state (called Sheol or Hades) in order to preach the Gospel to those who never accepted it or knew Him in their early lifespan. Apart from I Peter 3:19 and 4:6 (both obscure), Scriptural support is lacking. Hyde quotes a Patristic writer, Philastrius of Brescia (fl. 380) calling this notion a heresy. It remains popular, however, among Anglican theologians generally considered sound, such as the Evangelical E. A. Litton and E. J. Bicknell.

4. Yet another interpretation holds that Christ descended into this intermediate state in order to manifest Himself to those who had, in some sense or other, known and accepted Him. This was the view of St Thomas Aquinas and has recently been re-articulated by Pope Benedict XVI. Many Anglicans and many conservative Evangelicals defend the difficult clause with such a construction. Either the third or forth interpretation, or a combination of the two is depicted in Byzantine iconography.

5. Another interpretation holds that Christ entered into the lower world to confront Satan, announce His victory, and demand the release of enslaved humanity. This is associated with the Gospel text Luke 11:21, "When a strong man [namely Satan] fully armed guards his own palace [that is, the nether regions], his goods [captive humanity] are safe; but when One stronger than he [the "stronger one" being Christ] attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil." Having roots in certain Mediaeval traditions of "the harrowing of hell," this became the classic Lutheran view. While this may seem quite close to the fourth view, there is a subtle and important difference, which accounts for Calvinist versus Lutheran disputes. For all their differences, the first four views agree that the Descent was the final stage of Christ's humiliation. As Flannery O'Connor expressed it, "You Can't Be Any Poorer Than Dead." But by locating the "strange and dreadful strife" in the Underworld itself, the Descent has become the first stage of the Saviour's exaltation. His victory began not at the empty tomb but in the lower world itself.

6. Most of the Reformed were satisfied with a less dramatic and more sober interpretation. Without explaining the motive for the Descent and without venturing an explanation for what it accomplished, it states merely that between the moments of His final breath on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter morning, Christ experienced the existence of all dead people. That is is apparently the view in the Prayer Book's laconic paraphrase, "He went into the place of departed spirits." It is more amply expressed in the Westminster Larger Catechism, "Christ's humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day; which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, He descended into hell."

7. Yet another interpretation uses the word "hell" in a purely figurative manner. In the pain and anguish of Gethsemane and Calvary, and supremely in the cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?", our Lord experienced torment of body and soul equal to or even surpassing the worst of eternal punishment. This was the interpretation advanced by John Calvin and is commonly taken to be a "Calvinist" interpretation. No matter that this interpretation was advanced by three Roman Catholic theologians in the 14th and 15th centuries.

It is sometimes objected that such a view displaces the Descent chronologically, putting it before the actual death and burial. But by the same token, some presentations of the third, fourth and fifth views place them after the Resurrection, during the Great Forty Days between Easter and Ascension Day.

Those who have labored with the writer may be wondering what is his own take on the matter. As a parish priest who preaches frequently on the Atonement, normally working through a Passion narrative every Lent, I confess that I have not resisted the homiletical possibilities of any of these, except for the second and third which I consider seriously flawed. The fourth and the fifth make thrilling sermons and are generally faithful to the Gospel message, but I would be hard put to demand that anyone subscribe to such teaching. Both of these stand close to the boundary between reveled truth and religious speculation and seem inclined to look across it. In such an area we must be reverently cautious.

Interpretation Seven has the great merit of taking seriously the reality of our Savior's penal suffering for us. It is quite correct in what it affirms, but is hardly what the original writers of the Creed had in mind. So we are left with Interpretation 6. Our Lord was truly dead in every sense. Whatever happens to the souls of dead people happened to Him. Whatever their condition is, He shared it to the uttermost. And because He has been there, it holds no terrors for me.

****

Fr. Robert Hart

Modern writers have presumed to denounce and repudiate the relevant line in the Apostle's Creed. Their lack of respect for the wisdom of the Church is symptomatic of fleshly confidence and pride. One does not come to the Creeds to be a critic, but to be taught by the ancients who knew the Scriptures well.

Fr. Wells has provided a thorough explanation of the Descent into Hell. Indeed, the issue was exactly what he said, death not punishment. Christ had borne the full weight of our sins on the cross. The descent into Hell is about the reality and complete nature of His death. It was not like death, nor was it a partial death. He died as truly, and completely, as all men.

One mystery that seems tied to the subject at hand is told by St. Matthew, the resurrection of various saints who came out of their graves with Him (Matt. 27: 52, 53), taking part of His rising as the first fruits from the dead (I Cor. 15:20). The story is told briefly, and without elaboration. But, it is stated plainly enough to foreshadow the coming harvest, that is, the General Resurrection on the Last Day, when all who belong to Christ will rise again to immortality, their share by grace of His unending life.

In the final analysis it seems that we are told only a very little, that death is meant to remain a mystery to us, a terrible reality that we are not permitted to master. What truly matters is that death, whatever it is in the darkest and most hidden reality that even the Risen Christ chose not to disclose, holds no terror to true believers. The Lord, who assumed the fullness of human nature into His Divine Person, was there ahead of us, and He had no trouble finding the exit.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Psalm 23:4

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Cor. 15:55-57)

And, this will naturally lead to the next Article.

Fugue on Veni Emmanuel

Also at my You Tube account.

Advent 2 Sermon Notes

“[W]hatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”+

We start with what might seem like a statement of the obvious in this verse from the Epistle. Whatever was written in the Bible was written for our learning, or “instruction” as some translations put it. But, in fact, certain parts of the Bible may not seem particularly instructive: histories which may seem to some dreary and mostly full of human failure and sin, long genealogical lists of ancestors, prophetic predictions about the fate of nations now long gone, laws about ceremonies no longer practised in full even by the strictly observant Jews.

However, even these parts of the Scripture are very instructive indeed, if only we will pay attention. Those histories and genealogies remind us that God is not an abstraction or an idea, irrelevant to our everyday lives, but the living God who has interacted with a long line of real, ordinary, “flesh and blood” people. People who had names, but people whose identity and history would have been long forgotten if it had not been for the choice of God to make a covenant with particular families and nations at particular times, and to never break that covenant from His side, through countless generations. The persistent failure of many of even those chosen people to live up to their part of that covenant is itself a lesson and a warning. “Strive to enter the narrow gate, for wide is the gate leading to destruction” (Matthew 7:13 + Luke 13:24) was the way Jesus put it. Similarly, the lost nations of the past against whom doom was spoken are a lesson because their doom arrived just as God said it would. And the ceremonial law speaks symbolically of the holiness of God and the need for fallen, rebellious humanity to be “put in restraints”, so to speak (Galatians 3:23-24, 4:24-25).

But the Bible does not just reveal God's unique justice and faithfulness, as against our tediously common disloyalty and unrighteousness. For St Paul speaks in the originally quoted verse of the hope to be drawn from the Scriptures. And what is this hope based on? “[P]atience and comfort (i.e., perseverance and encouragement) of the scriptures”. Now, there is a small exegetical question to be asked here. Does the author mean we gain hope through our patience, and also through the encouragement or consolation we gain from the Bible? Or does he mean that both the patience and the consolation are from the Bible? While there may be some ambiguity in the grammar, there seems to be little when the context is taken into account. The verse before includes a quotation from one of those scriptures “written aforetime” (Psalm 69:4) and refers to Christ's selfless persistence in the face of suffering: “Christ pleased not himself … 'the reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.'” Also, the verse following groups the patience and consolation together again as from the same source, God.

So, the “patience and comfort” are obviously intrinsically linked and both able to be learnt from the Bible. How does the Bible do this? It shows us over and over again that “those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” as the Prophet Isaiah said (40:31). Not just by saying things like Isaiah did, but by giving us the history of men and women of faith and patience, and how God encourages and strengthens them. We also find that, many times, this came from the Word of God itself, as Psalm 119, the longest chapter of the Bible, makes clear.

What does this patience, this waiting upon the Lord, refer to? At its base it means never giving up, especially on obedient faith towards God. It's amazing how much of the spiritual battle is patience. St Paul in talking of spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6 says: “having done all, to stand.” Jesus spoke a number of parables urging this dogged persistence (e.g., Luke 14:28-32, 18:1-8). Never, ever stop praying. Never despair of God's forgiveness, freely offered to the penitence of loving, living faith. Never say to yourself, “I give up, it's not worth the effort” in serving God or neighbour. Never use past failure as an excuse for present passivity. Never observe the small but knowing steps backward from God with careless indifference. Never put the Bible on a shelf merely to gather dust. Never stop going to Church or fulfilling your ministry in the Church. Never allow fear, sorrow or pain of the moment to rob you of the certainty that God loves you and plans eternal joy for you. Neither allow the deceptions of the world, the flesh, or the devil to pull you away from the purity of gospel-truth, nor to pull you towards the easy, indulgent religion of merely and unconditionally “feeling good about one's self”. Never assume your prayer has not been answered just because it has not been answered yet. Multitudinous are the stories of Christians who have experienced God's provision, but at the eleventh hour. Never permit cynicism to undermine your devotion, or anger to steal your love.

But why not? Because on the other side of patience is God's comfort, God's help. For he will never give up on us. He is faithful, as millions of his followers have joyfully discovered in their times of trouble, from Bible-times down to our own. And he will bring us to final victory, as we trust in Him. +

God, Design and Multiverse theories

I have written another essay of apologetics. This one deals with certain modern cosmological theories from a theological perspective. It was, I thought, too large too put here without "hogging" the page.

It can be found here.

Second Sunday in Advent

Romans 15:4-13

Luke 21:25-33

Taking a cue from the opening of today’s Epistle, and the last line from today’s Gospel, and of course the Collect, this Sunday has come to be called Bible Sunday. The Collect speaks of two things, one being the obligation of each one of us concerning the Holy Scriptures to “hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them;” the other being the work of the Holy Spirit as he uses those scriptures to grow within us patience and comfort that keeps us along the path to eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. And, if we think about the Epistle and Gospel for this day, we find that hope to be what our Prayer Book calls “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life.”

Recently, someone questioned me on why we refer to hope of the resurrection; after all, we hope for things that may never happen. I must disagree; we may wish for things that will never happen; but, hope cannot exist in such wishes. Or we may hope for things that might happen, but might not. But, to emphasize the meaning of hope as it relates to faith, we clarify our meaning with the words “sure and certain.” This comes from the Epistle to the Hebrews:

Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.
(Hebrews 6: 17-19)

It is clear that St. Paul never separated hope from faith, and never separated these from charity. These virtues grow together, and hope depends on faith. Hope believes, and love works; faith hopes and charity labors. What feeds us in our sure and certain hope is the word of God. Faith grows within us when we hear that particular voice, the voice of God that we discern so clearly as he speaks to us now within the scriptures. They cannot become irrelevant. Written so long ago, when they are spoken or read God himself speaks in the present. Never are they worn out.

People have asked about the Holy Scriptures, when were they put together? One very unfortunate mark of our times is the quickness with which misinformation becomes “common knowledge.” Over the last few years some con artists have discovered that one way to make a lot of money in a hurry is to write a sensational, wholly misleading but shocking thesis about the Bible or Christian Faith in general, and then sell it directly to the public. The more revolutionary it is, the better. The more shocking, the more blasphemous, above all the more sensational, the easier it is to draw attention to it, and get it promoted on TV. We have seen these sensational works, all claiming to be a challenge to the Christian Faith, each make its rise and fall before burning out entirely. One very important point about that whole new industry is that none of these authors presents the shocking alleged discovery in the truly scientific arena of the academic world. If they did, they could not make the same amount of money overnight- or ever. If these shocking “discoveries” were put through the genuine process of scientific analysis they would die a quick death and be forgotten, and no one would get to make a killing. This con art was perfected by Elaine Pagels, herself someone taken seriously by the public, but never in the real world of professional academics, where her name is not respected at all. But, if she cries about the bad reputation she has in the academic world, she does so all the way to the bank.

As a result of the sensational, irresponsible and unprofessional, thoroughly unscientific misinformation that has been thrown in the face of the public for the last few years, several people think that the bishops of the Church assembled in Nicea and began cutting books out of the Bible. Most of the people who believe this also think the Emperor Constantine was running the Council of Nicea in 325.

A few facts help to clean up this utter fiction. Even though he was the Emperor, and even though the Christians of that time knew that the Edict of Milan in 313 AD had ended two and a half centuries of persecution (a virtual Holocaust that had made the earliest times of the Church a bloodbath), and even though they knew that he had the authority to return to the older laws that had made Christianity an offense punishable by death and revive them, he was not given the power to run the Council of Nicea. When the Council met and the Emperor presumed to address the bishops of the Church, they told him that he was not allowed to address the assembled bishops of Christ’s Church. Basically, they told Caesar, the Emperor Constantine to whom they owed so much, to sit down and be quiet while they discussed the issues among themselves.

Now, about the Bible, the bishops at the Council of Nicea did not go about deciding which books were scripture, and which were not. All they did was to affirm in unity of mind that the books already perceived to be the Word of God were, indeed, just that. The Old Testament was not the issue at all, because it was declared to be the Word of God by no less a Person than the Living Word of God. These books had been received by the Jewish people for centuries, and were passed on to the Church with sure and certain authority. The process of recognizing these books was, by all accounts, the vox populi of the Jews. The Jewish people knew in what books to find that distinctive voice of God, and so it was that when Jesus Christ walked the earth and referred to the scriptures, in every synagogue of the Jews were those specific scrolls that formed the common library for all of them. We see in Luke that he read from the scroll of the prophets, reading from Isaiah and saying that scriptures spoke of none other but himself, Messiah and hope of the world.

In the earliest days of the Church this Old Testament formed the only Canon of scripture. But, by the early years of the second century we find that twenty-seven additional books were already received and quoted as the word of God; these twenty seven books forming an additional canon of scripture. These books are the New Testament. In some places a few questions were raised about II Peter, Jude and Revelation. But, over time skepticism about them disappeared. In a few places some people thought that The Shepherd of Hermas might be part of the Canon of the scriptures of the Church. But, long before the Council of Nicea in 325, the Church had defined its Canon as the books we have now, adding to the Jewish scriptures it had inherited only the twenty-seven books we call the New Testament. Again, as it had been among Israel, when the scriptures were received and recognized vox populi, so it was with the Church of Christ and the canon of the New Testament. There were no books for the bishops to delete, but rather a Canon already established before any of them had been born.

Now, why was The Shepherd of Hermas not among the books of this Canon? Again, by that same vox populi that, by the principle of whether or not the people of God recognized the voice of God, this book had not been under serious consideration. Simply put, our fathers among the Jews and the early Christians simply did not hear the clear and familiar voice of God in any other books as they heard it in the scriptures. They knew the voice of God in the Law, the Prophets, the Wisdom Literature and the Psalms. And, they knew that same voice of God in the four Gospels, the Epistles and the prophecy of St. John the Revelator. They did not hear it as the voice of God in other books (not that most of them were ever aware of the many Gnostic writings given so much undue attention by today’s money making sensation mongers).

St. Paul tells us about the high regard we must give to the Old Testament in today’s Epistle:
“Whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Think of that history of Israel, from the calling of Abraham to the coming of Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose again, the history of one people who were never allowed to give themselves over to sin and so be lost among the many pagan nations that served false gods. A people constantly purified by the prophet’s words, and many times by purging and suffering, given to captivity in Babylon but returned to their home after seventy years never to fall again into the worship of idols.

They were a people so purified that among them was found one young virgin who echoed the faith and obedience of Abraham, and more perfectly than the ancient patriarch himself. Written "afore time" was not only this history of the people through whom the Word, Jesus our Lord, would be incarnate, but the predictions made by the prophets of his life, his death on the cross, and his rising again. We all need to read Isaiah about the Suffering Servant by whose stripes we are healed, and who prolonged his days after dying, that he would live forever as the agent of the Lord’s will. We read of his suffering through the words of King David who foresaw the agonies of the Lord’s crucifixion, able to predict them in the first person as though suffering with him. We read also, in the words of this prophet king, of the joy of the resurrection of our Lord whose death was so brief a thing that he never saw corruption.

The Gospel today also gives us this hope, for the Lord himself assures us that his coming again will be our redemption, and that the fears and darkness of this age will disappear in the light of his glory. We are told to lift up our heads, not to look down and hang our heads. His coming to rule over heaven and earth, cleansing this world from all evil, from death and suffering, and all such things that will be no more, is sure and certain. And, if instead of comfort this fills your heart with fear, then consider that fear with genuine care. It means that you must cast off the works of darkness and out on the armor of light, repent from all your sins and turn to the Lord that you may enter that blessed state of sure and certain hope, and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit.

Does the voice of God fill you with hope or with dread? I hope it does one or the other. For, anyone to be indifferent to these words is the only real danger. As our Lord said in his parable of Lazarus and the rich man, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”1 Our Lord told the Church of the Laodiceans, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”2 Indifference to the word of God is a danger beyond any other, closing the ears that they cannot hear. But, even if the word brings dread, this too leads to comfort and hope since the Holy Spirit uses what you hear to bring you to repentance, true repentance from the heart, and to faith in Jesus Christ. May God grant ears to hear, eyes to see and a heart to understand, that each one who is lost may turn and be healed. 3

The Epistle today speaks of Christ’s ministry first to his own people of Israel, and his ministry through those people of Israel that believed in him and became his disciples as it extends to all nations.

“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; In him shall the Gentiles trust.”

This brings to mind the words of Simeon, that he spoke when he held Jesus as an infant: “A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” 4 This light and this glory has been known to the world because it is the purpose of God to shine the light of Christ into every dark place. Into the darkness of pagan dread and superstition, into the darkness of ignorance and foolishness, into the darkest places of sin and death. This glorious light of Christ shines into the darkest places where we try to hide from God due to our own sins; and if we respond to his mercy that same light of revelation brings comfort and hope, the sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life. The invitation is extended by his word: come, eat and be filled with the food and drink of eternal life. Come feed on the Living Bread that has come down from heaven, and with hearty repentance and true faith receive Christ through these humble means unto everlasting life with him in glory.

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”

1. Luke 16:31

2. Revelation 3:15, 16

3. From Isaiah 6:9

4. Luke 2:32