Ascension

Once noble, earth’s dust heard the Lord’s command
To burst forth with abundant sustenance.
So grass and trees and all food-bearing plants
Were ready for the lively creature band.

Then, hallowed even more, the lowly dust
Was touched by God to make in His likeness
Mankind to take dominion and to bless
The earth, to be obedient and just.

Had Adam trusted Providence, then Eden’s sod
Would ever have produced enough for all.
Yet reaching up too high, he then did fall
And brought upon mankind the wrath of God.

The serpent, for his part, received the blight
Of eating dust and making violent war
With those in whom God’s image he did mar
By tempting them to turn from God’s pure light.

Then He who breathed His life into the earth
Condemned it to grow thistles with the wheat,
Compelled the man to labor in the heat,
And cursed the woman with a painful birth.

Now dust we are and go to it again,
And dust and ashes mark our deep regret.
But the Covenant God would not forget dust yet,
For as the dust will number Abraham’s kin.

Awake, and sing, O you who dwell in dust
For earth has given back the Holy Dead,
And through the One who took away our dread,
We rise again from deadly sin and lust.

For God’s own Son took dust to be His frame
And sanctified the earth by treading here.
He breathed again on those that He held dear
And cleansed them from their deepest dusty shame.

Now blessed are we who would have died alone.
All who receive the Word as fruitful soil
Are noble through the God Incarnate’s toil,
For in Him earth’s dust sits on heaven’s throne.

“Ascension” © 2008 Teresa Roberts Johnson

The Egyptian Mother’s Dirge

I will arise and flee this curséd land
Before my precious firstborn, dying, screams.
I should have run away when bloody streams
Slew fish, and rivers reeked on every hand.

If swarms of frogs and flies and biting lice
Could move me not, then sick and dying beast
Or painful, noisome boils must, at the least,
Stir up desires to end this foolish vice

Of spurning God’s relentless mercy sweet.
But still I watched the hail and locusts fall
Until the dark obliterated all
So that we dared not go into the street.

All this, and yet when time had come to go,
My mutinous feet were firmly fixed in place.
And I, rejecting God’s redeeming grace,
Was baptized in distress too deep to know.

“The Egyptian Mother’s Dirge” © 2008 Teresa Roberts Johnson

In His Name

Because my days have recently been a whirlwind of moving vans, boxes to pack and unpack, taking care of family business, and getting adjusted to a new home and work situation, I haven’t posted for a while. I should really be studying or doing chores, but I have one issue burning within me, crying out to be put it into words. I beg your indulgence, for I realize that my words will be clumsy and unworthy at this point.

Having been a church member all of my life, I’ve witnessed an appalling number of injustices carried out in the name of Christ. We Christians have a way of making our Lord over into our own image and then using that image to pummel unsuspecting people who do not fit our idea of what constitutes a “good Christian.” I’ve been reading an interesting book by Dave Burchett called When Bad Christians Happen to Good People, and a passage jumped out at me. I simply must share it:

The church should be in the business of addressing spiritual illness. When you are deathly ill, you don’t start thinking of going to the health club: “Well, this will be a good time to get in shape. I feel horrible, and I think I’m going to die.” Yet many churches have somehow communicated that only the spiritually healthy are truly welcome at church. (page 19)

There are many who seek a leadership position in the Church not for the purpose of serving Christ by seeking the lost and binding up the broken hearted but for the purpose of cleaning up the Church town. As a result, they expend a great deal of what should be Gospel energy mowing down the spiritually weak like some spaghetti-western sheriff with a vendetta the size of Texas. While it is true that sinful lives need the transforming power of Jesus Christ (and Burchett is quick to point out that part of the Church’s mission is to diagnose and treat such situations), it is just as true that the Church is designed to be the hospital for sick sinners. Our Lord earned the wrath of the Pharisees because He broke bread with people who were considered inferior. (”I thank God that I am not like this tax-collector.”) But those whom the Pharisees disdained were precious to Christ precisely because they recognized their need for His cleansing grace.

Yet we, the self-sanitized self-righteous, would greatly prefer to have people clean up their lives of the sins that we find repugnant and THEN join our ranks, where they can help with the building program and bring casseroles to dinners for people who are already overfed. But there are two problems with that attitude. First, if people were capable of cleaning up their own lives, Jesus Christ would not have had to die, and there would be no need for the Church. (”Go ye therefore and teach all nations . . .”) Second, we overlook the tremendous beams in our own eyes every time we demand perfection from other people.

The fact is that every “good” Christian is also a sinner, yet God loved us anyway. True, He loved us too much to leave us in our sins, and it is our responsibility to seek the path of holiness and to point others to it. But it is not right for us to take someone who is struggling with sin and push him into the ditch, to berate him when he doesn’t want to stay for the pot-luck dinner, to ignore him when he misses a few Sundays, or, worse yet, to be thankful when he just disappears and stops darkening our pristine chapel doors with his sin-induced problems and what we consider to be his constant failures. I am convinced that on the Last Day, many of those who were written off by “good Christians” will receive their Lord’s “Well done” because despite their apparent failures, they were constantly striving to overcome their sins. Self-righteous people, on the other hand, do not feel they have anything to overcome.*

The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. As His followers, we have a duty to Him to provide support and aid to each other in the midst of the warfare. And make no mistake, it is nothing less than spiritual warfare that fuels the fires of sin in each of us, whether the sin is an addiction or a feeling of superiority. If you doubt that we are all involved in such warfare, read C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. And as you read (or watch) the latter, realize that there are things much worse than orcs and ring wraiths that haunt our steps and threaten to undo us.

Perhaps the root problem is selfishness, arising out of a lack of love for those whom God sent His only Son to die. We are called to love each other with a holy love, and to forgive each other as we would be forgiven. Even those who stomp on the weak deserve to be forgiven. But they should not be allowed to continue on their path of destruction, running roughshod over those who are frail in the faith or those whom God is testing with trials. As we learn to love each other, we learn that the family of God is a strange and awesome place to spend our time in preparation for eternity. By its very nature this family contains people who struggle with all manner of sin. The key is that they must be struggling; they must not assume that they are too far gone to have any hope or that they have already achieved a level of sinlessness that precludes the need to struggle. The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. If you recognize your brokenness, then He can help you; there is no such thing as being beyond hope when the Creator of the world is seeking you. But the self-righteous among us do not truly see that we are all lost apart from Christ.

Let us as Christians make a pact. Let us show the face of Christ to His family, as well as to all of those who have come to us to find out what Christ is all about. Let us throw aside our own pride, genuinely loving those for whom Christ died. Any disdain we feel for “real sinners” is not fitting, for we are in that number. And if love does not motivate us, then at least let us remember that there is judgment waiting for those whose actions lead the little ones astray.

 

*Flannery O’Connor wrote a fantastic story about self-righteousness called “Revelation.” I commend it to you as Sunday-afternoon reading.

Cleft of the Rock

“Show me thy glory, Lord,” was Moses’ plea.
But God in love refused to let him see.
Swift death it was for man to view His face.
Even His prophet could not gain this grace.

So Moses stood where YHWH told him to
And in that rock a crevice He did hew.
The Lord passed by and sheltered Moses there
Revealing what humanity could bear.

Another Rock God’s glory did disclose,
That Rock from whom life-giving water flows.
For in Christ’s face the Father was revealed.
His followers saw God’s splendor unconcealed.

They touched the Son of God and handled Him.
He, no illusion, walked and spoke with them.
Christ, cleft for Moses, Stone not cut by hands,
Refused on earth but chief in Heaven’s plans.

Now we, partaking of His blood and bread,
Take shelter in the Rock who is our Head.
We taste and handle God’s consuming fire.
In Sacrament we find Moses’ desire.

“Cleft of the Rock” © 2008 Teresa Roberts Johnson

Laver of Life

Lord Christ, who cleansed the Jordan
When the waters touched Thy head,
Touch Thy people, purify us.
For our cleansing Thou hast bled.

Precious Giver, Thou art given
By thy Father for our sin.
Wash us with thy blood of crimson
That we may be pure within.

We, baptized into thy covenant,
Need thy daily washing still.
Bathe our feet, Lord, in thy goodness.
That our hearts may seek thy will.

Thus beautiful, our feet will follow
In thy paths of righteousness,
Bringing tidings of thy mercy
To the nations thou shalt bless.

“Laver of Life” © 2008 Teresa Roberts Johnson

A Prayer for Faith

Give to me Thy steadfast shield,
Constant in both grief and bliss.
Unafraid of serpent’s hiss,
Undiluted faith I’d wield.

Grow in me the lively tree,
Planted by the river deep.
Resting in Thy ample keep,
Bearing fruit to honor Thee.

Grant me Thy best legacy:
When I take Thy sacrament
Teach me ever to repent
Through thy shepherd’s ministry.

Guide me through the valley dim
Walked by Christ and saints as well.
Take away the fear of hell
Fix my gaze on only Him.

“A Prayer for Faith” © 2008 Teresa Roberts Johnson

Atheist Artist

Flailing wildly at the solid Stone,
The frenzied sculptor works alone
Not to build or to create
But only to obliterate
The image that indicts him as a thief.

When each attempt more futile than the last
Stares back at him, he falls aghast
At failing utterly to dim
The Stone that speaks its life to him.
Still he declines in willful disbelief.

“Atheist Artist” © 2008 Teresa Roberts Johnson

Heaven Scent

She knelt in anguish as He took His seat,
He whose earthly life would end in shame;
She whose sins would drive the bitter blame
As nails to bruise His journey-weary feet.

Then with her tears she cleansed away the dust,
And on those feet she used her hair to spread
A spikenard sweet, anointing not His head
For God’s Anointed He already was.

So in the place of Eve she worshiped Him,
The Seed whom God had promised to supply
To crush the serpent’s head, and though He die,
To live again, His people to defend.

Anointed thus unto His death, He stood,
To shield her against those who scolded sore,
Reminding them His value was much more
Than frankincense and myrrh from rarest wood.

For on the cross He soon would break sin’s bands,
And in His dying, Death itself would die.
Soon blood would blend with spikenard raised on high
As life would pour from wounded feet and hands.

He would lie three days in the mournful tomb
Before the stone rolled back with Heaven’s force.
And Mary, bringing spice to scent his corpse
Would find Him sweeter than the Garden’s bloom.

“Heaven Scent” © 2008 Teresa Roberts Johnson

The Trinity, the Eucharist, and the Church

If there is one doctrine that most needs to be taught clearly and rightly in these perilous days, it is the doctrine of the Trinity, with a special emphasis on correcting the errors that have obscured the truth about the Holy Spirit. The One who at Creation brooded the formless chaos into order, at the Incarnation generated the perfect Second Adam, and at Pentecost brought forth the Church to be the continuing Body of Christ throughout the world—He who is the Third Person of the Trinity is often accused of acts that are totally against His nature. On the one hand, it is common to hear that the Spirit is “doing a new thing,” which upon careful analysis seems to be a clever way of disguising immorality and false doctrine. But it is just as bad that the Spirit’s majestic role in worship is sometimes reduced to the level of a circus sideshow, as though His purpose is to bring worshipers into a chaotic frenzy. This desire for individualized emotional spectacle often results in an attitude of disdain for any worship service that is conducted in decent liturgical order.

Yet the fact remains that the Holy Spirit’s nature is shown forth most clearly in liturgical worship, for His role is to bring order out of chaos and to point men to Christ rather than to Himself or to the worshiper. The Spirit’s influence is present through the reading of the Scriptures that He inspired, through the utterance of prayers that rise to the throne of heaven only because He indwells the people of God, and most obviously, through the consecration of the elements, the point at which in many liturgies He is invoked by name to descend upon the bread and wine “so that that they may be for us the Body and Blood of Christ” and so “that [Christ] may dwell in us and we in him” as a unified and universal body of believers.

The illustration Christ has given us for this Spirit-filled phenomenon is the feeding of the multitudes. Through His blessing, five barley cakes and two fish—barely enough lunch for one hungry child—broke out of their boundaries and became enough to feed thousands. Similarly, the invocation of the Spirit and the Word in the Eucharist enables the feeding of the Christian multitudes so that we can first commune with God and with each other and then return to the world carrying baskets of grace to take to the nations in fulfillment of the Abrahamic blessing and in obedience to the Great Commission.

That Commission, given at Christ’s ascension, is a defininitive Trinitarian moment. Christ asserts that all power has been given to Him, and we know from other passages that the One who gave Him this authority is the Father. Christ then gives the command for the Apostles to teach and baptize into the Trinity, and He closes by saying that He will be with them always. As we know from John’s Gospel, His presence with us is enabled through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent at Pentecost. Just so that the Apostles would know that they could do nothing in their own power, He made them wait 40 days before He sent the Spirit to empower them to carry out His commands.

This passage points out the truth that although the three Persons of the Godhead are distinct, they are interdependent and share the same purpose, to the extent that the presence and work of one of them implies the presence and work of the others, as is seen in such cosmic events as Creation, the Incarnation, the Baptism of Christ, and the Transfiguration. Philip was told that he had seen the Father because he had seen Jesus (John 14:9). Similar language can be seen in John 14:17-18, where Christ promises to send the Holy Spirit to indwell His people, and then He says, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” So, will Christ send the Holy Spirit, or will He come to us Himself? And the answer is seen in the Great Commission and echoed in the Eucharist: “Yes.” St. Paul speaks of the Spirit’s work in the Sacraments thus: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit” (I Cor. 12:13). An ancient liturgy called The Sacramentary of Serapion invokes the Logos in the Prayer of Consecration, and in that same vein, Cranmer’s liturgy of 1549 and the 1928 Eucharistic liturgy both include a prayer to the Father to send down both Word and Spirit to sanctify the elements.

It is through the unity of the Trinity, and according to the Nicene Creed, specifically through the work of the Spirit, that the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church finds unity.The beautiful conclusion to the Prayer of Consecration summarizes the functional relationship among the Persons of the Trinity and finishes sealing the Sacrament:

. . . through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.

After that point, the elements are never mere bread and wine again. They have become holy food for holy people. The grace that makes the bread a Sacrament is the kind of power that profane magicians can only wish for. But this grace is not magic. This grace is life Himself, more particularly the Lord and Giver of life that we acknowledge in the Nicene Creed. And it is this Holy Spirit who sanctifies not just the bread and wine but the people of God. Thus sanctified by the same Spirit, though we may meet in different cities and even at different times, we are drawn into unity with each other and with God. St. Paul indicates that it is in partaking of the Eucharistic bread that “we, though many, are one bread and one body” (I Cor. 10:17). The progression here is astounding, especially when you realize that in the early Church, the people brought the Communion bread, much as the lad did in the miracle of the feeding of the multitudes. So it goes something like this:

1. The congregation brings the bread as an offering.
2. The duly appointed priest, standing in the place of Christ, asks God to sanctify the bread.
3. The priest breaks and distributes the Sacramental body of Christ.
4. We partake of the Sacrament by faith.
5. We are transformed by the Sacrament so that we are the one bread, one body of Christ.
6. As one bread and one body, we go forth to feed the world with the Gospel message.

The Trinitarian unity that is found in the Eucharist transcends all boundaries of time and space, as we worship and live in the power of the God who is outside these limits. In union with Christ, communicants find unity with the other members of the Body of Christ. That is why it matters what happens among Christians. Disunity tolerated within a congregation diminishes all, for we are all connected through the Sacrament. As Christ warned, a house divided is in danger of falling. That is why it is so important that we strive to make and keep the peace.

Faith

In James 1:2-8, we read the extraordinary command for Christians to “count it all joy” when their faith is tried. This kind of thinking is quite alien to the world, and unfortunately, even to many Christians. It is useful to realize that a large portion of the New Testament is devoted to helping Christians avoid the sin of despising God’s discipline. As a negative example, the writers of the New Testament often point to the failures of the Israelites—in the wilderness, under the judges, in the kingdom, and in the long, slow decline as the brief period of Davidic majesty crumbled from the effects of ongoing sin. The epistle of James is written to those whom he calls the Diaspora, those who, like the Old Testament Israelites were exiled and scattered. Though their outward circumstances are bleak, James graciously shows how they (and by extension, we) can avoid the calamities that fell on Israel and instead behave as fellow heirs with Christ. The key to such a transformation is the kind of faith that results in gratitude and obedience.

Several years ago when I was going through spiritual counseling, I was given the task of writing about faith. Most of what I wrote had to do with the object of our faith as Jesus Christ and with faith being a gift from God and not something I had within myself. I answered the question of Faith in what? (or in Whom, to be precise), but I didn’t adequately deal with the implications of objectively trusting in Christ. It is essential that we objectively trust the Son of God. But what is it that we expect Him to do? Certainly, we know He can save us from the penalty of sin. But faith should never stop there. It is not enough that He will take us to heaven when we die. What does it mean right now, in this moment, for me to have faith?

The author of Hebrews says that “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). My counselor said that he considered that definition inadequate. But I am now convinced that this definition, when taken in context, encapsulates the very essence of faith. The key to understanding Hebrews 11:1 is found in Hebrews 11:6, which states that “without faith, it is impossible to please God for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Thus there are two aspects to faith. We must objectively believe “that He is,” that He is God, that He is undeniably real, and that He is sovereign over all things. But we must also objectively believe that He rewards “those who diligently seek Him.” We must understand that those who seek the Lord with all their hearts while He wills to be found cannot fail to receive His best gifts now and forever. Our problem is that we don’t view His gifts in the way that He does.

Consider how Satan undermined Eve’s faith. He questioned whether God had her best interest at heart. Satan planted the seed of doubt, but she watered it and tended it. She began to feel that God was selfishly withholding the one thing that would make her life complete, the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, she did not trust His perfect providence to give her every gift that she needed for that moment and beyond. Thus, the first sin was not just in the eating. It was in the loss of faith in the goodness of God. It was a denial that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. Such doubt always leads to disobedience as we reject God’s clear path to joy and gallop off down the wide rode to the world’s way of rewarding ourselves.

The author of Hebrews takes up James’ theme to “count it all joy.” He quotes from Psalm 95, saying that the Israelites had seen God’s mighty works on their behalf for 40 years, yet still were not grateful for His providence. It wasn’t bad enough that these people who had been cruelly treated as slaves grumbled at the trials they endured on their trek to redemption. They even received blessings as though they were trials—they complained because God rolled back part of Adam’s curse by providing daily manna, a plentiful supply of nourishing food that did not require them to till the ground by the sweat of their brow! With such a sinful attitude, they were unable to withstand temptation in other areas, and ingratitude led to idolatry and worse. Their rebellion serves as a negative example to every succeeding generation. The ingratitude demonstrated by the Israelites in the wilderness, and by any who would despise the trials God uses to refine us, is ultimately the result of “an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God” (Heb 3:9). It is only with a believing, thankful heart that we can cheerfully obey Christ in the midst of trials, knowing that His intent is only to do what is best for us. Through our lives He has chosen to show His grace to the world, and the opportunity to see that grace on a personal level is magnificent. Would the man who was blind from birth have traded his years in darkness for the opportunity to be healed by the Son of God?

Unfortunately, in these days of the prosperity gospel, the notion of blessing is skewed. I once heard a radio preacher expounding upon the Beatitudes. He boldly stated that when Jesus said, “Blessed are you when ___,” He was referring to earthly things—a fine house, big cars, and even perfect health. Since I have none of those, I suppose I should wonder about my salvation, right, or at the very least I should question my commitment to Christ? Of course not! If we see our lives through the eyes of faith, we know that all our worldly goods are no better than heaps of trash when compared to the excellence of Christ’s riches. How much faith does it take to serve Christ when we live in luxury and ease? That was Satan’s question when he got permission to afflict Job. But as the response of faithful Job proves, our faith is refined through testing, so in a real sense such trials are blessings in themselves. At Christmas, when we sing “Away in a Manger,” we ask God to “fit us for heaven.” In so doing, we are asking for trials, because they burn away the dross, leaving our faith refined and pure, and preparing us to better serve in the Kingdom. Thankfully, temporal blessings also abound, but those should never be our main focus, and all of our worldly blessings should always used in the service of Christ. If we hold onto such things with a fierce grip, it hurts much more when God takes them away to give us what we really need.

An excellent example of joy through trials is found in the life of the Apostle Paul. To the world, he must have looked like a colossal failure. This energetic man once had a promising future as a Pharisee. But he turned his back on the world’s notions of prosperity because he heard a higher calling. Since many of the churches he served were poor, he often had to take temporary employment in tent-making just to survive. He was hated, hunted, beaten, falsely accused, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and eventually martyred. Yet he lived in immense, unstoppable joy because he focused on the riches he had been given in Christ. The greatest treasure he had found was the white hot light of the presence of Christ that blinded him and brought him back to repentance, that brought him to the Savior who gave him daily strength and new mercies every morning. Paul basked in the sweet presence of Christ, and his sufferings proved his kinship with the One who suffered most of all. For the product of our faith is that we become more like Christ as we suffer for His sake.