The Church’s One Foundation IS Jesus Christ Her Lord!
Dear Friends,
Well, the “lazy, hazy days” of summer are about over and cooler air has arrived right on cue in early September. Time to put away the “lite-summer-fare” and dig into some disturbing issues that have been simmering on the back burner for the past few weeks, at least the back burner of my brain.
As always, I’m deeply grateful that you’re joining us. Please share the podcast with someone you feel might enjoy it. Subscription remains free and will remain so.
And you remain in my prayers, often by name. As I proceed working on The Odyssey of King David one-man show, your prayers—for strength, health (a nasty tooth has flared up), and resources, are deeply appreciated as well.
Get out that sweater and enjoy the incoming crisp air!
Pressing On!
D. Paul
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY!
With the passage of time, “the remembrance of things past” becomes obscure, often exaggerated: That common carp found in your local pond becomes a “whopper” of a fish; that old flame magically morphs into a Rita Hayworth look-a-like; that five-foot-five-inch high jump in junior high miraculously extends to over six feet. Unless such embellishments become intentional lies, these “bountiful” remembrances are not malevolent in nature, but reflect the inexorable attrition of the mind and its memory, and the natural, human desire to cast ourselves in the most favorable light.
Most, but for the very humble among us, put ourselves at the center of an expanding narrative as our lives narrow and rapidly recede. And before the final curtain falls, who among us doesn’t want to be the protagonist—the hero—of his or her own life story. Without some measure of self-restraint, self-serving hyperbole becomes the constant companion of our senescent years. Biblically, as in life, there are always the exceptions, and the prophets of old seem to defy such simplistic profiles. They tell us pointedly and repeatedly, “I see,” and that what they see either “is” or soon “will be,” often adding for emphasis that declarative line, “For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!” Such is the case with the prophet Isaiah who tells us:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke (Isaiah 6:1-4 NIV).
What a dramatic setting Isaiah’s magnificent celestial vista offers to the technical virtuosos of Hollywood, with their artistic special effects and sound design, all underscored by the lush orchestration of a budding John Williams wannabe, as if such genius (the composer of “Star Wars”) could ever bloom again. But putting aside a well crafted mise en scène (the arrangement of scenery and stage properties), which Hollywood is more than dazzlingly capable of, there is one element of Isaiah’s vision that would elude them—the holiness of God. It is beyond ephemeral … incapable of being captured by either the genius of man or the derivative “brilliance” of AI. It is, simply put, unfilmable. On a more corporeal, fleshly level, it’s why graphic sex on the screen is so aesthetically disturbing, obscene, for, at its best (if not purist), there is a sacredness to sex—a purposeful, divine intimacy—spiritually unfilmable on celluloid or digitally, be it 24 frames per second or faster. But take heart, cinephiles, for the holiness that eludes Hollywood eludes us all, for “all” of us “have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NIV). The poet and musician put it well in that great hymn of the Church when they proclaimed:
Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in pow'r, in love, and purity (“Holy, Holy, Holy,” verse 3; text by Reginald Heber, music by John B. Dykes).
Yet, in a perverse, “topsy-turvy” twist of progressive theology (think of it as a doctrinal coup d'état) today’s apostate church declares that you and I are holy—just as we are—making sinful man the protagonist, the hero of his own “Christless” narrative. Doubt it not, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Here’s a visible case in point:
Framed by pop-psychology platitudes, below is a cumbersome, syllogistically-styled banner that currently adorns one of the prominent churches in Indianapolis:
Well, there you have it: the gospel according to Man. Yes, all of us have “felt” “excluded or unseen.” Some people will dislike you; some may even hate you, as many did Isaiah. Welcome to the “human condition.”
But, not to leave us dangling emotionally, there follows in the banner, at least supposedly, good news: “You are loved.” Now I want that, don’t you? I want to be loved! But by whom, I ask? Is it the love of Jesus they’re referring to, the great “lover of my soul?” Or is it the mushy, self-help love of the “I’m OK, You’re OK” crowd? With ne'er a passing reference to Christ, it’s hard to know for sure, but then making reference to Jesus on a church banner might be invasive, even crass to the “welcoming and inclusive” spirit of a progressive, non-judgmental congregation, whose vestry (if you’ll pardon my sarcasm) must have had a field day in putting together this “gem” of vacuous marketing sophistry.
But now that we know we are loved, by someone, somewhere, what follows dead-center in this neat little “You, You, YOU” triplet is the real zinger that throws everything askew:
“You are holy” Cool. Really, friends?
Little has changed since Jesus came to “a crooked and perverse generation…to seek and save that which was lost.” We still live in such a generation, and surely the horror that was visited upon the Ascension Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis confirms the evil in the human heart and the need for a great Savior who redeems and restores the repentant sinner. We are not made “holy” by human fiat. That is the work of a Holy God. The truth is, I know Jesus is talking to me when he addresses the murder, adultery, lies, and deceit found in the human heart. But, thanks be to God, “In Christ Alone My Hope Is Found” (lyrics by Keith & Kristyn Getty). The Apostle Paul penned it well when he wrote, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that IN HIM we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV), and the old gospel hymn reminds us, “This is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
As I grow older and hopefully more mature in Christ, the more I feel the Spirit’s sweet presence and sense the shadow of his glory and holiness—all “a foretaste,” it seems to me, of the “glory divine” yet to come. Nothing to boast about here—any self-righteousness is “as filthy rags” by comparison, for this we know to be true: “Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee.” Now there is a banner worth flying.
Amen
