January 5 – 1 John 5

Epiphany

eternal life

Jesus’ name

meditation

prayer

testimony of the Spirit

The Father

the Trinity

2014-12-03T00:23:34-05:00

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Wednesday of First Sunday in Advent – Mark 1:29-39

Last updated on: December 3, 2014 at 12:23 am By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Mark 1:29-39

Why did Jesus Christ come into the world? Sometimes we think it was only to die on the Cross, and of course the Crucifixion and Resurrection are central to understanding the ministry of our Lord.

But if all He did was come to die on the Cross, then why did He spend three years ministering publicly before then? It’s important in the work of Jesus our Lord that we don’t separate one part of His ministry from the others. Jesus came to die on the Cross to save sinners, but how could He die on the Cross unless He were first born and took on human nature to redeem it? And it’s not as if He only took on human nature only so He could die – He came to redeem our fallen nature, and this relates to His whole ministry.

The birth of Jesus, His public ministry, His death, His Resurrection, His Ascension, His sending of the Holy Spirit, and His session and ruling at the right hand of the Father are all part of the same ministry of reconciliation and redemption. Returning to our idea of perichoresis, we might see all of the parts of the ministry of Jesus Christ as interpenetrating all of the others.

Therefore, what Jesus did for three years, even before His path to the Cross is important for us and instructs us. And what do we find Him doing? He is baptized, or anointed as God’s Messiah. He is tempted and defeats the Devil. But especially He comes to teach about Himself. This teaching takes two forms that also must never be separated: His words and His deeds.

Verse 28 of Mark 1 is a fascinating verse. After Jesus has just cast out a demon, the people don’t just say, “Wow! What is this new power you have?” Instead, they say, “What new doctrine is this?” In their minds the miracles Jesus performed were clearly related to what He taught regarding Himself and His Kingdom. When Jesus taught in verse 21 in Capernaum in the synagogue, the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught as one having authority. This authority and teaching was then confirmed by the miracles of Jesus, especially in casting out demons (Jesus has authority over Satan and His forces) and in healing (Jesus has authority over creation and human bodies.)

Therefore, in today’s lesson, we find Jesus healing again and teaching.

When Jesus healed, therefore, He healed because He came to redeem the world, including our sick bodies. But He didn’t heal everyone. In fact, He couldn’t have healed everyone even if He had wanted to because He was limited to being in one place at a time.

In our lives, Jesus is not obligated to heal our bodies, even though we know that ultimately because of His life on our behalf we shall all be completely healed in heaven. But He heals us sometimes that our faith might be increased. His work in our lives is primarily to proclaim Himself to us. As in His day, this comes through the words and deeds He performs in our midst.

In fact, if we look for it, we will see that Jesus is constantly at work in our lives. Sometimes, when we have had minor illnesses (even as I originally wrote this, my parish was being wiped out by a stomach virus), Jesus heals us, and we don’t even notice because it naturally would have gone away. But isn’t it His grace the same?

Often, when we withdraw to a solitary place to pray and offer up our problems to Him, He heals us. And often we don’t return thanks because we haven’t seen it as His work.

How many times does His Word come to you each day? If you are reading your Bible every day, He comes at least once every day. But doesn’t He also come to be with you and redeem you throughout the day, as the Scripture you have ingested and digested becomes a part of you and feeds you throughout the day?

I’m convinced that for those who have been faithful Christians for a long time and have faithfully maintained the godly habits of Bible reading and prayer, that Jesus proclaims Himself to you in silent ways that are subconscious because He has become so much of a part of your life. Through the testimony of the Holy Spirit, as He permeates your being, your natural habits are trained to become godly habits. Each of these is, in reality, Jesus speaking and ministering to you through His Spirit.

Sometimes I lament the lack of miracles in my own life (the advent of Jacqueline, my wife, is the one exception). But then I remember that Jesus is with me through His Spirit in a more powerful way. Instead of having one dramatic moment with Jesus, He offers me a continual feast with Him. When I accept the invitation, we eat together throughout the day in a quiet way with very little drama but a high degree of satiety.

What’s even more amazing is that because He has sent His Holy Spirit to us, He can work in all of our lives at once and is no longer limited to just Capernaum or Jerusalem at a given moment.

The same Jesus who came with such authority to Capernaum and Peter’s mother-in-law and the synagogues of Galilee is here with us today. Let’s respond with amazement, praise, and obedience.

Prayer: Praise be to You, Lord Jesus Christ, because You have come with authority into my life. Thank You for ministering to me every day, through Your Word and through Your actions on my behalf. Give me eyes to see You again, and heal me, that I may arise and serve others in Your name. Amen.

Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve to meditate today on the ways Jesus Christ reveals Himself to me each day. I further resolve to seek His presence each day and to acknowledge the ways He has come to me. If possible, I will re-discover one way He has been coming to me that I have been ignoring.

Give Us This Day

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Bible devotional

Bible reading and prayer

Bible study

daily devotional

healing

Jesus casting out demons

2014-11-25T00:25:11-05:00

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Tuesday of Sunday Next Before Advent – Revelation 1:9-20

Last updated on: November 25, 2014 at 12:25 am By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Revelation 1:9-20

Who is Jesus Christ?

There are many ways in which He has revealed Himself to us, and all of these are important. Sometimes I think the dominant way contemporary Christians see Jesus is as a good friend. He’s kinda just one of the guys, though definitely the leader of the pack. We can almost picture Him in blue jeans, and we’re sure He would never be caught dead wearing vestments! At other times, particularly in contemporary praise choruses, it’s almost as if He’s our lover, and we sing passionately about our feelings for Him.

But I like St. John’s way of seeing Him. Now before we see Jesus as John saw Him, we should remember a few things about John. This is the same John who Jesus saw fishing with his brother James and father Zebedee when He called John to Himself. This is the John who spent 3 years of his life following Jesus as His disciple and the same John who saw the many miracles of Jesus and heard His teaching. He is the John who saw Jesus transfigured in all His glory on the mountain, the John who witnessed His Crucifixion, and the John who took Jesus’ own mother in with him to his home. He is the disciple whom Jesus loved and who reclined intimately on the breast of Jesus at the Last Supper.

Because John hung out with Jesus for 3 years, and was one of the 3 closest friends of Jesus, we might expect John to see Jesus as He appeared to him when He was still on earth. We might expect him to see Him as the one who now called Him “friend” and no longer a slave or servant.

But how Jesus Christ actually reveals Himself to John is so glorious, so awesome, so terrifying, that John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, when he sees Him falls at His feet as if dead. This is not a conscious act of prostration before Jesus that John commits: it’s an unconscious, involuntary reaction that St. John has when he sees Jesus Christ in His glory. It is a reaction of fear, the kind of fear that makes a grown man who has seen persecution and has been exiled to Patmos quake in his knees and lose control of his bodily functions.

What was it that John saw? Why would he have this reaction to one he loved so much and was so intimate with?

What John saw was Jesus Christ as He is. What he saw was one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. What John saw was One whose head and hair were white as wool and as white as snow, and whose eyes were like a flame of fire. He saw One whose feet were like fine brass as if refined in a fiery furnace, and what he heard was One whose voice was the sound of many waters. He saw the One who had seven stars in His hand and a sharp two-edged sword that is living and powerful and can pierce, even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and can discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.

John saw all this and One whose countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. So he fell at His feet as if dead.

Is this the way we see Jesus Christ? Is this the way we come into His presence? I don’t think it is most of the time, or, for some of us, ever.

It’s important to realize that John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and, as other parts of Revelation make clear, he is partaking of a heavenly worship service. John is seeing a vision of Jesus Christ as He is when He comes to us in our worship on the Lord’s Day.

But is this how we see Him? “Come as you are,” we’re told. “We’re a church that’s for people just like you. Come in your blue jeans, as Jesus would come. Come slurping your Starbucks, and come at the last minute. Come with your head filled with your plans for what you’ll do with what’s left of your weekend. Come and sing happy, uplifting songs that will make you feel good about yourself and get you in the right mood.”

“Come, sit casually, and listen to a lecture about how to lead the good life or an inspirational talk about how you can solve life’s problems and help yourself to the good and successful life. Come be entertained by our light rock band and preacher who knows a lot of good jokes and anecdotes.”

The Jesus to whom John came – the Resurrected, Ascended Christ who sits enthroned on the right hand of God and is the King of kings, surrounded in glory by the 4 Living Creatures and 24 elders and a rainbow and lightnings, thunderings, and voices – is the same terrifying God that the Old Testament prophets saw. This Jesus Christ is the God of Glory who Moses saw on Mt. Sinai, when He saw the God of Israel, under whose feet was a pavement of sapphire (Exodus 24:10), and who made the top of the mountain a consuming fire (Exodus 24:17), and made Moses’ face shine. The Jesus Christ that John saw was the One who holy Isaiah saw, surrounded by cherubim and seraphim, the sight of which made Isaiah cry out: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (6:5).

This is the Lord of Glory who Ezekiel saw, the One sitting on the throne, surrounded by angels and the living creatures, lightning and the noise of many waters, and fire all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When Ezekiel saw it, he fell on his face (1:28).

This Jesus Christ who John saw, and whose presence made John fall at His feet, this Jesus Christ is the Resurrected and Ascended Lord who we worship. Let us come into His presence seeing Him for who He is!

This is the Lord who has revealed Himself to us. Mercifully, He is also the same Lord who laid His right hand on John and said to him: “Do not be afraid.” And so, knowing that we come before a Terrible, Consuming Fire who makes us want to fall down dead, we also come boldly before the Throne. This same Jesus who is the Shekinah Glory and is Heaven itself, is also the One who was born a baby and made man for us.

Let us come before Him today and every day with both fear and trembling, with praise and thanksgiving, and with quiet confidence in His mercy and goodness to us.

Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve to spend some time today meditating on who Jesus Christ is, especially as He has revealed Himself in glory. As I do this, I will listen for His voice and what He is telling me today is pleasing in His sight.

Prayer: O God, who on the mountain revealed to chosen witnesses Your only-begotten Son, wonderfully transfigured in dazzling clothes and burning fire; Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the distractions of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in His beauty, who with You, O Father, and You, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, world without end. Amen.

Revelation of Jesus Christ

Jesus in heaven

meditation Anglican

prayer

prostration before God

St. John’s vision of God

the glorified Christ

2014-11-21T22:31:50-05:00

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Saturday of Trinity 22 – Matthew 25:31-46

Last updated on: November 21, 2014 at 10:31 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Matthew 25:31-46

We Americans are the richest people who have ever lived. I’m using statistics that are now almost a decade old (and I think these numbers are even higher), but 34% of our families own 2 TVs, and 40% own 3 or more. Our average family has 2 cars, while 18.7% of us have 3 or more, not to mention computers, VCRs, stereos, houses, etc. We live longer, with better medical treatment than ever before, we have unlimited access to things to entertain us, and our choices in food are so great that they’re bewildering.

We live like kings, and yet the perception of many of us is that we are just getting by, perhaps because we are comparing ourselves to the wrong thing: the celebrities and the super-rich of the world

In the same way, we Christians are the richest people on the face of the earth. Every Christian is inheriting the greatest kingdom ever known. And yet as we live in this sinful world, we sometimes complain about what is not yet here – heaven in all its glorious perfection – instead of being thankful for the good things we already have in the kingdom of God.

But there’s something you should know today: the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus has been talking about for 3 chapters has come! The King is on His throne, and His kingdom is here, although not in all of its power and glory. You might also want to know that you have been privileged to rule with the King, starting today.

The Kingdom of Heaven, as I’ve said before, has 3 temporal aspects: initial, progressive, and final. This is true both corporately, for the kingdom as a whole, and for lives of individuals. Christ’s Kingdom was initiated at His first coming, and in our lives at baptism, and in our justification. His Kingdom is progressively revealed throughout history and in our lives through the process of sanctification. Finally, His Kingdom is consummated at the final judgment, and in what is the final stage for us, our glorification.

There is a dangerous tendency sometimes to think more of the first and the last, than about the middle. We read the Old Testament or the Gospels and see God acting in power there, and we think about God’s final defeat of His enemies at the end of all time. But do we pay enough attention to His establishment of His kingdom here and now?

John the Baptist proclaims the coming of Christ before Christ’s public ministry. And what does he say? What he doesn’t say is “Look! the Kingdom of Heaven is 2000 years or more away, and God is far from you!”

What he does say, in Matthew 3:2, is “Repent . . . for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

When Jesus sent out the 12 disciples in Matthew 10 and gave them power to do the things He did, He told them to say as they healed the sick and spread the gospel: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

That same kingdom is here this today! The King is here. He came to earth, and the genealogies of Matthew and Luke demonstrate that He was born of the kingly line: it was because He was a king that Herod wanted him killed, and even at His death Pilate unwittingly testified to His kingship.

He sits at the right hand of the Father now, from where He rules both heaven and earth.

He is here. Jesus Christ is present on planet earth, wherever you are at this moment, and He is still the King of Kings. Is He somehow here less completely than before the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension?

God is now. He inhabits all time, and His rule is established forever. The same King who proved His mastery over the natural forces of land and sea and over the supernatural forces of darkness, over sickness and death, is here now. He witnessed your conception and birth, and He will be present, watching over you on the day you die.

He’s here, in space. God has become man and has tabernacled with men. And yet sometimes we feel that God is far off.

I believe that many of us carry around in our heads a mistaken mental picture of God. I believe that many of us see God sitting around in the vast void of space and that heaven is somewhere infinitely away among the stars. Such a view of God makes prayer very difficult, and the presence of God is so remote that He cannot be in every square inch of our lives.

But what if God inhabits the space all around you, as a spirit lives within a body, so intimately connected that you can’t easily separate them? When God the Father spoke to the Son from heaven on a few occasions in the Gospels, that voice is very near to Christ, and those around can even hear it. We live in a God-drenched world.

God is accessible. Most people today have had electricity so long that it has ceased being a miracle to them. But even in the 20th century there were homes that had no electricity. Through programs of rural electrification, such as the TVA, suddenly electricity became instantly accessible. All one had to do was to know how to gain access and a world of radio and central heat and air conditioning, of electric lights and appliances, opened up. It was as if someone had said to those people “The kingdom of electricity is here!” We can imagine their surprise and joy when they discovered this newfound access!

In the same way, the kingdom of God is here and now, accessible to all who are part of the Kingdom. But all too often, like the TV or radio waves that are bouncing around the walls this very minute, we forget about God or believe His power to be too remote.

The King, whose kingdom you live in, comes to you every day. The same King, Jesus Christ, who gave blind Bartimaeus back his sight, the same Lord who gave Lazarus back His life, the same Lord who wept, and whose bowels were filled with compassion while here on earth, is here in your presence today. He’s present in the sacraments, and in His word. He’s present in prayer and in the Body of Christ around you.

But If the Kingdom of God is Here, then we should begin ruling with Christ Now! You and I, in Christ, are seated in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:6). We have started to rule with Him. Rule? Rule what? A king’s rule is the range of his effective will. You already have rule over several countries that God has given you. The question you need to ask yourself is not “Do I have the authority to rule?” but “How should I rule?”

You’re to rule yourself first and foremost, meaning body, mind, and soul. This is the

point of Christian maturity. You have material resources that God has given you rule over, and you have been given daily labor by Him that you are to govern. You have God-given relationships that you are to govern, especially those of us who are parents.

We pray for this effective rule every day: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven (i.e., that all would progressively come under His rule and will).

The amazing thing is that we get to co-operate in establishing His Kingdom by doing His will. “My bread is to do the will of my Father,” He said, and He might just as easily have said, “My daily bread is to do the will of my Father.”

Because Christ rules, and we in a lesser way, we can even say that Christ rules through us. He isn’t here physically on the earth, but through His Church He is. He rules through the Church, who is His Body, as He dwells in us through His Spirit.

As with His earlier disciples, He commissioned us to do the same things He did while on earth. In John 14:12 He said, “He who believes in me, the works that I do shall he also do; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father” and later, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you.”

And so we rule in God’s kingdom the same way Jesus Christ did: we serve, for “He who wants to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven, let him be the servant of all.” You must serve those who God has put under your rule. The life of a parent is a never-ending work of feeding, cleaning, diapering, praying, educating, training, playing, disciplining, and sacrificing.

As Jesus teaches us today, in Matthew 25, we rule by loving. When the Son of Man comes in all His glory with the angels to judge the nations, on what basis will he separate the sheep from the goats? On whether or not in His name they fed the hungry and gave drink to the thirsty. On whether or not they saw a stranger and invited him in, or visited those who were sick or in prison.

By doing good works, by loving, and by serving (that is, Christ in us), we rule in the kingdom of heaven. If you do these things – if you rule by serving – great will be your reward in the Kingdom of Heaven!

Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Points for Meditation:

Look for opportunities today to care for someone who has a need. Look for opportunities to console those who are lonely or discouraged.
How might it change the way you look at your life to think of it as a rule that God has given you to exercise?

Resolution: I resolve to ask the Lord for one way He wants me to rule in His kingdom today and, having heard His will, to go out and do it, as it is in heaven.

2014-11-20T18:10:18-05:00

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Friday of Trinity 22 – Matthew 25:14-30

Last updated on: November 20, 2014 at 6:10 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Matthew 25:14-30

Having paid close attention to the last 3 chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, this parable strikes me in a different way today. Jesus is still talking in that long red-letter passage about when “these things shall be,” of which the disciples inquired. He’s still talking about what He is about to do: His Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, which entail the coming of the New Covenant and the destruction of theTemple.

Historically speaking, then, to whom is He speaking? It’s probably a good thing to know first, rather than jumping in and applying it to ourselves out of context. In the first century, at the end of His earthly life, what might constitute the talents that the master had given, and who might be the good and faithful, and the wicked and lazy servants?

The wicked and lazy servants seem to be Jesus’ favorite whipping boys: the scribes and Pharisees. They had been given the Law, the very oracles of God, and they had been given the Temple. They were given the keys to the kingdom. They were the ones to whom God had entrusted His little lamb. And what had they done with these great talents? They had hidden their true nature from the people, where they could not be profitable to them.

The good and faithful servants, then, are all of those, including the tax collectors and prostitutes, who had turned to Jesus in faith and had received the Word from Him.

When we apply this parable to ourselves, the most important thing to consider is which kind of servant are we? What have we done with the talents or treasure which God has entrusted to us? Before we apply the word “talent” to what we now call talents, it’s wise to consider that the greatest talent, the greatest treasure, that God has given to us is Himself in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Before I hear about how well you’ve used the intelligence, charm, communication skills, and wisdom God has given you, I want to know what you’ve done with that greatest of treasures: Jesus Christ.

Have you realized His worth? Have you sold all to seek Him? Or have you buried Him somewhere in the crevices of your life. You know right where He is when you need Him, but most of your life He’s hidden?

I think there’s an interesting relationship between what we do with the treasure of Christ and what we do with the gifts and talents God has given us. This is seen most interestingly in a man BC and a man AC (Before Christ and After Christ in his life). Most of us have known people who have turned from a life without Christ to a life with Christ. Is he the same man AC?

Spiritually speaking, we know He is not. And yet when God has made Him a new creature, does God rearrange his face? Does He make the man any smarter or dumber (I’m not talking about wisdom here but about raw IQ points), or give him increased physical strength? We know that these things remain the same. In the same way, I believe that when God changes a person’s life when he is united to Christ that He doesn’t give that person an entirely new personality with entirely new gifts and talents.

And yet that’s the way we think of spiritual gifts most of the time. Because we’re used to thinking in terms of speaking in tongues, a gift which was not there at one time in a person’s life and then was, we miss how God uses spiritual gifts in our lives today. And we undervalue the gifts that don’t seem extraordinary.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus rightly said of Christ’s Incarnation, “What is not assumed is not redeemed.” By this He meant that Christ had to be human in every way in order to redeem every part of man. One implication is that Jesus came as God and man to become the perfect man, one whose natural gifts and talents were completely redeemed and made perfect.

When, through, the Holy Spirit, we are given spiritual gifts, therefore, I don’t think that we usually receive new talents or powers but that instead we have been freed and empowered by God’s grace to use our “natural” talents in the way in which they were intended. Take, for example, the intellect. A man with a powerful intellect could use that intellect for hateful, despicable purposes towards another, or he could use it for selfish, prodigal purposes, becoming a connoisseur of knowledge but not putting it to any good use.

Or, redeemed by Christ, he might become the next C.S. Lewis who used his natural gift of intellect to defend the honor and glory of God and show Him to a generation (and more than a generation). C.S. Lewis didn’t suddenly become smart when He became a Christian. But C.S. Lewis BC didn’t use his intellect for the spiritual gift of edification, teaching, or wisdom until the Holy Spirit had made that “natural” gift a “spiritual” gift.

I’ve been watching the X-Men movies lately. They naturally appeal to me. I used to draw all sorts of pictures of freakish monsters of all different sizes and abilities, and I’ve always been fascinated by a comparison of various powers. Some of the powers that mutants have seem to be pretty dull and wimpy, while others blaze in glory and are godlike. At one point in one of the movies, Magneto (who has the ability to manipulate anything made of metal: one of the better gifts) turns to a teenage mutant who has the ability to manipulate fire and says to him: “You’re a god among insects.”

St. Paul and others may be a god among insects compared to some of us. But you have been given the greatest talent and gift of all: Jesus Christ. And by Him all of the natural abilities you were born with, and all of the experiences you’ve had since then, have been redeemed.

How you treat this greatest of gifts, Christ Himself, will govern how you treat all of the other gifts and talents He’s given you. Giving these gifts and talents back to the Lord won’t necessarily magnify them in the eyes of the world. A man with little natural intelligence who becomes a Christian will not suddenly become Albert Einstein. But he might become the most loving father, the most faithful gardener, or the most fervent worshiper of God.

It may seem as if God has given you only a few small things. But use those few small things through the Spirit, and you will inherit the greatest thing of all: everlasting life in Christ.

Prayer: Receive, O Lord, all my liberty. Take my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. Whatsoever I have or hold, You have given me; I give it all back to You and surrender it wholly to be governed by your will. Give me only your love and your grace, and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more. Amen. (Ignatius of Loyola, from the Spiritual Exercises).

Points for Meditation:

What natural talents has God given you? How might they be used in a more spiritual way, as God intends?
Meditate on what it means to be made a steward of the mysteries of Christ.

Resolution: I resolve to choose one gift or talent that God has given to me and find one way to direct it to God’s purposes today.

daily devotional

Parable of wicked and wise servants

meditation Anglican

2014-11-18T00:21:35-05:00

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Tuesday of Trinity 22 – Matthew 24:29-41

Last updated on: November 18, 2014 at 12:21 am By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Matthew 24:29-41

There was a thought-provoking book published a few years ago titled The Black Swan. It provides an insightful perspective into seemingly improbable events (i.e., a ‘black swan’) and our thinking that surrounds them. The author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb contends that black swans underlie most everything within our world, but we usually fail to acknowledge the possibility of a black swan event until after it occurs. According to Taleb, most people focus only on things that we already know – or think we know – and that we generally fail to consider what we don’t know. The result is that most people are not able to look beyond very narrow confines, and these severely limit their horizon. Most people therefore are blind to the possibility of significantly large events.

And yet, as today’s lesson demonstrates, large, unexpected, significant events do happen.

There are three ways we might interpret today’s passage and others like it. For reasons I’ve described in other Give Us This Days, I believe that historically speaking, Jesus is talking to His first century disciples about the things that must shortly happen, beginning with His Crucifixion, and continuing with His Resurrection, Ascension, and the destruction of the Temple and the Old Covenant.

Futuristically, this passage could be read in terms of Christ’s Second Coming. Even though I don’t believe that’s what Jesus had in mind, the warnings about Christ appearing and no one knowing the day or hour could be applied to the Second Coming.

But as happens so often in writings on such passages, I don’t learn much about what such a passage might mean for me today. If I look at what Jesus meant historically, I’m stranded 2000 years ago and reading about events that have already happened a long time ago.

On the other hand, if I look at Christ’s Second Coming, I’m looking at something that might not come for a very long time. Millennial cults have been around for at least a millennia and, like the poor, will always be with us. Of course, they’ve all been wrong. And I kind of like the idea that the older Prayer Books have a table that lets you calculate Holy Days until the year 8400! (If you have a 1928 Prayer Book, you’ll find it on page lvii, right before Morning Prayer begins.)

But I am stuck here in the present, and even my discussion about the future in previous paragraphs is now in the past. (Strangely enough, it might be in the present for someone who happens to pick up this Give Us This Day and is just coming to that part!)

May I suggest, in keeping with what I’ve written before, that the cosmic consequences for the work of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago are so powerful that they continue to be felt until the present day and will continue to be felt until the Second Coming? Furthermore, the work of Jesus Christ in creating the New Covenant has a Trinitarian time dimension to it.

What I mean is that the New Covenant, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, has a past, a present, and a future. The work of God in redeeming the world had an initial or definitive beginning 2000 years ago. It certainly continues to have a progressive aspect as it is worked out in history, even as we live it in the present. And it will, one day, have its final consummation in the future. Like any good story, God’s story of redemption has a beginning, middle, and end.

And I’m here in the middle, which is organically connected to both the beginning and end. I know what Jesus has done, and I know what He will do in the end. This means that I should have a pretty good suspicion of what He will do in the present with me now.

And so here’s where today’s lesson applies to you and me. I can’t claim to have figured out that Jesus Christ will return in glory and judgment on Tuesday of the 22nd Sunday in Trinity of the year 2012. But I do know that Matthew 24 sounds a lot like things that are going on in the world today (and as they have for 2000 years). I do know that people are acting as they did in the days of the Flood. They eat and drink and marry. They grow up and get jobs, and they grow old and die. Life is lived as if one day will be pretty much like the next, even as life gradually changes.

We’re all uniformitarians when it comes to our lives. We pretty much bank on things being the same, safe and predictable. And yet we know that life isn’t always like this. We’ve all made important decisions that forever changed our lives. We grow up and move out and go to college. We begin the grand adventure called marriage and undertake the Herculean labor of being parents. We know people who become desperately sick or die, or we have brushes with death ourselves.

At such moments we realize that life will not always continue the same way, day after day. At such moments, I suspect that even the agnostics and atheists have their consciences pricked that maybe there’s more to life and this God person just might be real (and worse, might be what something like what evangelical Christians say He is!)

Haven’t we all had moments where a foolish driver (maybe yourself!) drove in such a way as to jeopardize your life? I can’t count the number of times when accidents have been averted while I was in a car, either as driver and passenger, and some of them rather serious ones. In those moments, my heart becomes a rocket and tries to escape my ribcage and flee for his life. I snap to attention, and everything else in life goes away for at least a few moments. Whatever problems I thought I had become clear and minor, for just a moment.

But after we turn out to be O.K., we go back to being uniformitarians and go back to life as usual. We go back to the ultimate game of hot potato, the cosmic round of musical chairs, in which we continue to play the game of life, only dimly aware that at any moment that timer might ring and we might be the one with the hot potato in our hands or no chair to sit on.

And today, since you are here in the present, and Jesus is with you, He’s telling you to not go back to the game of life and your uniformitarian ideals. Consider today’s Give Us This Day as a gentle wake up call (and don’t you dare hit the snooze alarm!)

“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (verse 42).

Actually, I think I do know what hour the Lord is coming. I think He’s coming right now – No – I know that He’s already here. Just because Jesus isn’t coming to finally separate the sheep and the goats and to judge the quick and the dead doesn’t mean that He isn’t coming and has not, in fact, already come.

Maybe one of the best ways to read today’s passage is not only to fear the Lord for when He might come in judgment but to love the Lord who is already here in peace.

Prayer: Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that Thy Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Points for Meditation:

How strong of a sense do you have of the Lord’s presence here and now? What are some things you could do to strengthen this sense?
How might today’s wake up call change or color your day?

Resolution: I resolve to allow the presence of the Lord change the way I live today.

destruction of the Temple

coming of Christ

2014-11-13T09:45:32-05:00

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Friday of Trinity 21 – Matthew 23:24-39

Last updated on: November 13, 2014 at 9:45 am By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Matthew 23:24-39

Sometimes when I read the lesson for the day I feel like I’m in a biblical supermarket. The Lord offers me so many choices for what to talk about. Other times, it seems as if there’s only one thing to meditate on and for some reason it doesn’t compel my heart. I feel like that today.

Here I am, walking down the aisles of the biblical supermarket, la dee da. What have we here? I pick up a can and it says “Condemnation of the Scribes and Pharisees.” No, I just ate that yesterday, let’s see what the next shelf of cans says. “Stern Judgment against the Scribes and Pharisees.” That seems pretty much the same, even though it does come in different flavors. It seems as if that’s all God has available for me today, so I guess it’s one of those days when I’ll just have to be thankful that I’m getting any spiritual food at all today, even if it’s not what I wanted.

But what’s this? I come to the end of today’s aisle, and what do I see? Still within the walls of Matthew chapter 23, immediately following the lengthy section of woes against the scribes and Pharisees, I find something different. I expect Jesus to continue in the same judgmental tones, but what do I see?

I find one of the most compelling pictures of Jesus in all the New Testament. The one who is stern and judgmental suddenly becomes soft and maternal! I’ve had cases of theological whiplash before, but this is ridiculous! It doesn’t make sense at first.

And then it does. How can Jesus go from perhaps His most withering condemnation to perhaps His most tender compassion in the twinkling of an eye? What unites these two passages is Jesus’ concern for those He loves. What He desires is for His people to come to Him, but what He got, especially from those who should most have known to come to Him, was rejection. Jesus is a man of great passions; the Son is a God of great love.

What motivates Jesus throughout Matthew 23 is not a fundamental desire to judge mankind but a deep longing to gather His people to Himself. What the Lord wants is to gather us, His children, to Him, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings.

This touching picture of the Master’s love for those He came to redeem is sandwiched between two terrible, catastrophic passages. Before it is the rest of Matthew 23 and the woes He pronounces upon the scribes and Pharisees. He calls them sons of hell and pronounces 7 woes upon them! They are guilty (verse 32), serpents, and a brood of vipers (verse 33). How can they escape the condemnation of hell? On them will come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah (verse 35)! All of these things will come upon this generation (verse 36).

On the other side of Jesus as the mother hen lies Matthew 24 and Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple, the sign of the end of this Old Covenant age and the coming persecution of Jesus’ disciples. All of the things that Jesus warned the scribes and Pharisees about will come soon, to the generation to whom Jesus is speaking!

And yet in the middle of these two chapters of doom is the picture of Jesus the mothering hen. Matthew is a master of dark and light as great as Rembrandt. His use of chiaroscuro reminds me of another painting to which I’ve referred before: Geertgen tot Sint Jans’ Nativity (which may be seen here: http://www.suite101.com/view_image.cfm/329238 or here if you are an aficionado and want to look at every detail: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgibin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG4081 ).

The dark regions of Matthew’s picture, chapter 23 verses 1-36 and chapter 24, make the miniature but bright region of verse 37 of chapter 23 shine with unsurpassed brilliance. Verse 37, however obscured in these chapters, is the harbinger of Matthew 26: the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. In this one small verse we see the hope of glory, even when things are beginning to look very dark.

Ever since Matthew 16, Jesus has been talking about His own death. Back then things still looked pretty bright, and Jesus’ talk of a time of darkness seemed out of place. By Matthew 23, things look very dark indeed and will only grow darker, and this one verse of light is very welcome indeed.

And yet in a way that only God, the Master Artist, could have arranged and executed, the darkness and the light mingle. In this one verse, in which the Son as Judge is transfigured into the Son as Compassionate Lover, we experience a foretaste of the mystery to come. For the one who is Judge will soon become the one who takes upon Himself the judgment of the world. The one who pronounced woes upon the scribes and Pharisees and condemned them to Hell will soon experience Hell for them. And the ones upon whom doom and damnation ought to come are offered protection under His wing.

It’s all right there in verse 37. And it all hangs upon one small phrase. All of this could be avoided. The doom of both chapters 23 and 24 could be reversed, if. Jesus would gather us under His wings and protect us if.

If what? If only we were willing. If only we were willing, Jesus would take upon Him the curse that is rightfully ours. If only we were willing, Jesus would keep us safe.

The strange thing is that as Christians we all know this in an ultimate sense but miss it so often in more proximate senses. We know how willing Jesus was to protect us as a mother hen: He proved it on the Cross. But what’s strange is how often we forget that Jesus wants to gather us under His wing on a daily, momentary basis.

So there it is. I know what Jesus wants from me today. He wants me to live in Matthew chapter 23, verse 37, right there, under His wing. He wants me to learn from the grave mistake of the scribes and Pharisees and to humbly come to Him once again.

You know what? That’s exactly what I’m going to do!

Prayer: I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through the belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism,

Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,

Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,

Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,

In obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In prayers of patriarchs,

In predictions of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

I arise today

Through God’s strength to pilot me:

God’s might to uphold me,

God’s wisdom to guide me,

God’s eye to look before me,

God’s ear to hear me,

God’s word to speak for me,

God’s hand to guard me,

God’s way to lie before me,

God’s shield to protect me,

God’s host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me abundance of reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness,

Of the Creator of Creation. Amen. (St. Patrick’s Breastplate. Also see

hymn #268 in the 1940 Episcopal hymnal)

Points for Meditation:

In what areas of your life do you need to come under Jesus’ wing?
What image of God’s protective love might help you remember to come to God for help?

Resolution: I resolve to come under Jesus’ wing today, consciously choosing to come to Him for safety and peace.

Christ’s judgment

Christ’s love

Christ’s tenderness

St. Patrick’s Breastplate

meditation Anglican

prayer

Willing

woe on Pharisees

2014-11-04T22:23:31-05:00

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Wednesday of Trinity 20 – Matthew 20:17-34

Last updated on: November 4, 2014 at 10:23 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Matthew 20:17-34

Have you ever wanted to be great?

I think that’s been a dream of mine since I was little. One of my earliest ways of obtaining glory for myself was to become a great football player. As kids, we used to play at a strip of field at Kenwood Elementary School in Champaign, Illinois, only a block away from our house. I used to be very fast and quick (Mr. Outside), while my twin, Danny, was good at bulling his way through defenders twice his size (Mr. Outside).

Because I was fast, especially in long distances compared to my peers, I also wanted to be the world’s record holder in the mile. Jim Ryun was my hero, and he held the world record in the mile from 1966, at 3 minutes 51.1 seconds (I’m doing this from a 35-40 year old memory – I wonder if I’m right!), until 1975. But every year more of my peers seemed to be as fast, and I knew it was all over in 7th grade when a stupid sprinter almost caught me in the mile during P.E. class. The best mile I ever ran was a 5:26.

I’ll spare you my foray into politics but feel I must make mention of my desire to obtain glory by becoming a famous writer. I’ve always wanted to write, ever since I was in second grade and in fifth grade started on a novel about a fictitious family that sounded suspiciously like my own, except that the twins were not named Danny and Charlie but Danny and Danny (this way, there was comedic material in the confusion of names, as well as a way for me to exempt myself from the stupid things the kids in novel did). Somehow, my first novel, Tomorrow is for No One, never found a publisher, much less make me a famous novelist.

There’s a part of me that still wants to be great. But if not as a football player, miler, politician, or writer – then what? Maybe there’s another way to think about human greatness.

Who are the great men and women of history?

Most naturally, we might think of people like Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Charlemagne, Napoleon, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Some might more naturally think of people like Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, William Shakespeare, Beethoven, or Picasso. We might think of world leaders or even some of the heroes of the Bible.

But Jesus’ teaching on greatness calls into question the standard by which we measure greatness. Greatness, in our common understanding of greatness, comes in a number of different varieties. We call some great simply because of the magnitude of their accomplishments. Julius Caesar and Napoleon are generally considered to be “great,” based on the magnitude of their dreams and successes. As grand as their achievements are by certain standards, there’s a part of us that realizes that world conquest and domination is not a good measure of greatness. We know this because we would stop short of calling Adolph Hitler great, in spite of his incredible achievements.

Some are great because they have nearly superhuman powers: Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, and a host of other athletes we idolize. Others are great because they’re excellent at what they do: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and the scientists, writers, composers, and artists such as those I listed above.

All of these are great in their own way. And all of them will pass away with this earth.

But today Jesus offers wannabe great men like myself a way to achieve true and permanent greatness. The funny thing is that it’s 180 degrees away from the normal paths to human greatness. Normally, greatness begins and ends with me. I’m great because I’ve done this. It’s all about me and what I’ve done and the attention that people pay to me.

Not so in Jesus’ kingdom. “Whoever desires to be great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave.” As many times as I’ve read, heard, and meditated on this passage, it still jars me. Not as much as it used to, but it jars me, because it is so contrary to everything the world tries to teach me. In fact, to most people it will probably sound nonsensical. How can being a servant – or slave – be a path to greatness?

It depends on how you measure greatness. If your goal is to have everyone bow before you and serve you, then serving is a lousy path to greatness. But if your goal is to be like God and to share in His far greater glory, then this is the path to glory.

I find great encouragement in this passage. I completely acknowledge how difficult this path is. There are times when I silently serve and almost begin to think to myself, “What a waste of my gifts and talents!” There are times when it seems as if no one recognizes the many sacrifices I make to serve others. I’m taken for granted, ignored, overlooked, and underappreciated.

I’m still not too crazy about it when the Lord asks me to serve in a capacity in which I know I’m not very good, but the truth is that I’ve sort of grown to like it. There’s something contagious about serving, something more mysterious and profound than mere human glory.

In fact, in my more lucid moments I realize just how joyful and glorious serving is because I realize that by serving I am being like my Master. And that’s what I really want, after all. What I really want is for the invisible audience of One to notice me and feel as if I’m pleasing to Him. For what seems like slavery and thankless drudgery here on earth is perfect freedom and laudable worship in heaven.

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. If I want Jesus, all of Jesus, then I must come to serve Him as He first served me. Everything about His life, from the way He was born, to the beginning of His public ministry and His teaching and healing, to His washing His disciples feet, to His praying for the disciples, to His Passion, to His Crucifixion scream out SERVICE AND SACRIFICE!

If that is how the King of Glory came to us, then that is how we must go to Him, where we will find greatness. The amazing thing is that He who is glory is willing to share that glory and greatness with me. I can have no true greatness and glory of my own, but because of the humility of God who became man and the sacrifice of the Cross, I have been offered true greatness and glory. But I have to share it, which in this case, is just fine with me.

Do you want the greatest glory and greatness of all? Then learn to be the servant of all. The greatest glory and most glorious greatness you could ever hope for is the glory and greatness of Jesus Christ. By serving Him, as He first served and by serving Him by serving others, you are united to Jesus Himself. And where is He? In the glory of the Father, at His right hand in heaven.

That’s what serving does, you know. Heaven and earth are usually invisible to each other, and sometimes this clouds our minds. On earth, serving in humility looks like an invisible and thankless way to nowheresville, while in heaven it is a visible and glorious sharing in the life of the Son. On earth, human greatness and success look great, but in heaven, it is often an invisible and insignificant thing. Human greatness is often invisible in heaven because often it has more in common with the Other Place than it does with Heaven.

I don’t need anything else today. I can still keep my dreams, if I want, but I’ve now got all I need. All I need is to figure out where the Lord wants me to serve today, for if I do this, then He shall call me great. And great I shall be!

Prayer: O Father, whose service is perfect freedom, help me to seek not to be served but to serve; help me to know the joy of laying down my life for You that You may raise me up. Show me where it is that I should serve today and help me to serve with joy and gladness, with diligence and devotion, remembering that it is You I serve in all I do. Unite my service to Jesus, my Lord’s, that I may share in His greatness today. Amen.

Points for Meditation:

How much do you desire greatness? What are the ways that you’ve been trying to achieve it? Are they God’s ways?
How has God served you today? Do your daily tasks today as if serving God, and remember the greatness He promises you!
Do you go to church more to serve or be served?

Resolution: I resolve to eat my daily bread today, serving however the Lord asks me to serve, that I may share in His greatness.

2014-10-27T18:17:15-05:00

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Tuesday of Trinity 19 – Matthew 17:1-13

Last updated on: October 27, 2014 at 6:17 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Matthew 17:1-13

All of the life of Christ is one piece, like the tunic which He wore to His death and for which the soldiers cast lots. His Transfiguration is therefore of a piece with His Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.

In the Incarnation, when God was made man, the glory of the Lord, the glory of Jesus, was revealed. We saw it with the angels and the shepherds and, later, the wise men. The glory of the Lord shone through all of Jesus’ public ministry, in his preaching, teaching, and healing, and here in the Transfiguration, for one brief moment, we see Him in all His glory.

And then it’s back on the road to Calvary and the Cross. The Transfiguration is a foretaste of the glory to come, but which will come only after the Cross. At the Cross, the glory of the Father in redeeming mankind was revealed, made more clear and glorious to all by the Resurrection.

In the Transfiguration, we, along with Peter, James, and John, see, however briefly, the glory of Jesus. This is who He really is, and we are privileged to see it for this brief, shining moment.

What strikes me today, like a brief but brilliant bolt of lightning, is that the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ is also my own transfiguration and the transfiguration of the human race and, indeed, the cosmos! God is all-glorious, whether I see Him or not. His glory is simply who He is: I AM. And yet He’s invited me to be a witness to, and even a participant in, His glory.

It would be all fine and good that God has revealed Himself in all His glory, but what good would that be if we were still in our sins? What good would it be to see the true God in an unmistakable, almost blinding way, only to have Him return to heaven and strand us, still rotting and decaying in our sins?

This is why the Transfiguration must lead to the Cross and the Cross to the Resurrection. And we participate in each of these through Jesus Christ.

This means that we, like Jesus, must also be transfigured. The Greek word used for transfiguration is metamorphao, from which we get our word “metamorphosis.” The change God effects in us is indeed a metamorphosis, only even greater than that of a caterpillar to a butterfly. In fact, the metamorphosis in us is, as it was for Christ, only a completed revelation of what God has already done for us.

The exact nature of this Transfiguration which God takes us through is often misunderstood. Sometimes, for example, our conception of heaven is seriously messed up! We view it as something totally different from earth, something superhuman to the point of incomprehensibility. Therefore, we can’t think much about it, and it doesn’t penetrate into our earthly lives. Because it’s entirely future, it has little relevance to us or little impact on our lives.

But in Matthew 16:28, the verse right before the passage about the Transfiguration, Jesus says that some of the disciples will see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. His kingdom, therefore, must be present now.

The Transfiguration follows immediately after this; it is the demonstration that the Kingdom of Heaven is here now. I find hope in this, and glory. It cures me of my malaise that is induced by thinking sometimes that Jesus is here with me less now than at the Transfiguration.

Jesus is here more than ever before: His kingdom is growing progressively and steadily, and it is progressively being revealed to all men. The Kingdom of Heaven is here now, and it is within each one of us because Christ is in us and His rule extends to us, who are His body.

So this process of Transfiguration in men has already begun, and we are already in the process of being revealed as who we truly are.

But glory doesn’t come to us totally and at once. First, there is the suffering of this earth. We see through a glass darkly the fullness of things to come. But as with Jesus (and we must always look to Him for our example) we know that after the suffering there is glory to come: the same glory which Jesus displayed at the Mount of Transfiguration is the same glory He is progressively displaying in us.

We too will be manifested as sons and daughters of the light: slowly and partially here in this present life and finally and dramatically in the life to come. “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

The trick is in looking for those moments of transfiguration in this life, in which God reveals Himself to us as He will in heaven and in looking for those moments in which we are transfigured, however, briefly, into what we shall one day be.

When you look at yourself, what do you see? Do you see a weak or aging or balding or expanding body? Do you see a terrible sinner or merely an average, ordinary human? Or do you see a new creature, redeemed and being transformed into the likeness of the Son of God?

Is your daily life a random collection moments of experience that just seem to happen one day after another, or are your moments infused with the anticipation of seeing and being with God in whatever you’re doing at this very second?

When you look at the church, what do you see? Do you see only the shallowness or faddishness or sad divisions that mark parts of the church? Or do you see the Body of Christ filled with the glory of God, the New Jerusalem that has descended from heaven?

In this life, we can’t live on the Mount of Transfiguration 24/7. It just isn’t going to happen. But you might be amazed where you might find this Mount in this life, if you seek the One who dwells there. And when you do find yourself there, in the presence of Moses and Elijah, and Peter, James, and John, remember who you really are: you are one transfigured by Jesus Christ!

Prayer: Father, thank You for making me one of your children and translating me from the kingdom of darkness into Your glorious kingdom of light! Show Yourself to me today that I might behold Your glory, and in Your light see myself. Protect me from the Evil One and the false images of Your holy ones that he seeks to plant inside me. Today, let me see You as you are that I may be like You. Amen.

Points for Meditation:

What moments of transfiguration have you experienced before?
Close your eyes and probe your heart. How do you see yourself?

Resolution: I resolve to meditate today on who Jesus Christ has made me to be and to look for moments of transfiguration today.

the glory of the Lord

the Kingdom of Heaven

The Transfiguration

2014-10-26T12:36:35-05:00

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Monday of Trinity 19 – Matthew 16:13-28

Last updated on: October 26, 2014 at 12:36 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Matthew 16:13-28

One thing’s for sure: contrary to what atheists would have you believe, heaven will definitely not be boring!

I say this because even in this life God is constantly desiring to show us new things and take us to the next level. I’ve discovered that I went through 3 phases of watching the Batman TV show made in the 60s. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be Batman. I had a Batman cowl, a Batman TV shirt, the coolest electronic Batman game, and once I even had a bowl of Batman ice cream that I remember as being different psychedelic colors. I liked Batman because he was a hero. When I was a little older, I thought Batman was a show for little kids and not nearly as good. And when I became a young adult, I saw all sorts of campy things that made the show enjoyable again.

I’m constantly discovering new levels of reading the Bible, and one of my not so secret missions in writing Give Us This Day is to learn to see things I haven’t seen before.

We do get bored, even with God, in this life. But contrary to this life, in heaven, we’ll give up ourselves and complacency and toys, and we’ll want to go to the next level that God is willing to take us to.

As a teacher, I’ve always wanted to take my students to the next level that they were ready for and desired. Jesus, being the perfect Teacher, takes His disciples, particularly Peter, to a dramatically new level today, not once, not twice, but four times.

In His first teaching, Jesus tests His disciples to see what they already know. It’s not clear in the Gospels exactly how clearly He had taught His disciples the answer to the all-important question He’s about to ask. Often, He seems to prefer teaching by example, and by leading His disciples with parables. He begins by asking an easier, warm up question that establishes a context for the all-important question and implies a distinction between those who answer this question in different ways.

“Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”

They tell Him that some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

And then Jesus asks part 2 of the question: “But who do you say that I am?”

It’s interesting that Jesus asks all of the disciples, but it’s Peter who answers. Peter’s justly famous answer is: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus immediately calls Peter blessed, but not in exactly the way we might expect. Why does Peter answer, and not the others? It could be because he’s always the impetuous one. But Jesus has a different answer. He calls Peter blessed because flesh and blood has not revealed this to him but the Father in heaven.

Peter gets an ‘A’ on this assignment. This was not merely a test of his ability to memorize that Peter had passed: he had to demonstrate some original (even if it did come from God) thinking about who Jesus was. He made explicit what had been implicit: he had internalized what Jesus had been teaching.

Most of us teachers would have been overjoyed and stopped there. But not Jesus. He pushes Peter further and in his second teaching plants some seeds. Continuing with His theme that revelation and salvation are from God, Jesus announces to Peter that he now has a new name: Peter, or “Rock” (maybe better: “Rocky.”) On this Rock, Jesus will build His church. Furthermore, Jesus will give him the keys to the kingdom.

But these are things that haven’t happened yet. The same God who revealed that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God must also have foretold these things about Peter. Jesus was greater than Peter first imagined Him to be, and now Peter is told that he will also be greater than he imagines himself to be.

We know how Peter’s story turns out and who he turns out to be. But take a look at the very next story of Peter, and imagine that it is this person about whom Jesus says He will build His church.

The third lesson Jesus teaches is when His teaching takes a dramatic new turn. Now that the disciples, led by Peter, understand that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus wants to take them further. “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day” (verse 21).

Now that the disciples have understood that Jesus is the Messiah, He must show them who the Messiah really is, and so He begins to teach about the Suffering Servant. It was difficult enough to get the disciples to understand that He really was the Messiah, the Son of God, but now He has more to teach.

But this teaching doesn’t seem to fit with what the students have just learned. Say it ain’t so! Peter, the star pupil, gets up and takes Jesus aside and rebukes the Master! “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”

Peter’s feeling was understandable. If Jesus were the Messiah, why would He have to suffer many things, and then be killed (Peter probably never even heard the part about being raised on the third day!)? It just doesn’t seem fair. Don’t you think Jesus was maybe a little hard on Peter? Couldn’t He have corrected Peter more gently? Why is He suddenly such a hothead?

“Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” (verse 23). He sounds like me and my kids sometimes. I hope for and envision great things for them, I love them and teach them and pray for them. But when they act in ungodly ways, I sometimes let them have it!

It’s hard to feel exactly what Jesus must have felt and know exactly how Jesus said these scathing words. But, surely without knowing it, Peter was speaking the Satanic line. Jesus knows Satan. He’s wrestled with Him before, in the temptation in the wilderness, and here He sees him again. Maybe He knows that an even greater temptation will come when the hour comes for Him to be betrayed and delivered to the Jews. Maybe, for a moment, He’s genuinely tempted to take the easy path to messianic glory, and He knows He must resist, even if the words come from his own familiar friend in whom He trusted. Peter, in spite of his profession of Jesus, is still following the things of men, and not the things of God.

Jesus uses this temptation to continue His dramatic new teaching, and so He now presents his fourth teaching for today. Not only will the Messiah suffer many things and be killed, but His disciples also must be willing to suffer for Him. Usually, we read this astounding verse, verse 24, knowing that Jesus will die on the cross and be raised from the dead. But how must it have sounded to the disciples before they had seen the Crucifixion and Resurrection?

Not only will this Messiah suffer and die, but those who want to be His disciples and follow Him must deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him. But He’s just told us that He will suffer and then die. This Jesus is not only greater than any of the disciples imagined; He will also suffer more and appear defeated. Peter, who heard such blessed pronunciations of who God had called him to be, now heard about his own need to suffer.

As with Peter, Jesus is calling you to the next level of faith in and commitment to Him. He’s asking you to come to the next level of love in your relationship with Him. While still in this life, this next level will require that you give yet more of yourself to Him, and this will be a painful process. Neither you nor I have completely denied ourselves that we might follow our Lord. We are all still too mindful of the things of men.

But by taking up your cross, Jesus is calling you to the same blessings He offered Peter. Come, sit at the Master’s feet a while today. Listen to Him as He tells you what He wants you to learn and to do next.

And stay tuned: you ought to be here for tomorrow’s lesson! Same Bat time, same Bat channel.

Prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, draw me by Thy love that I may deny myself, and, taking up my cross daily, may follow after Thee, until I am like Thee and with Thee where Thou art. Amen.

Points for Meditation:

What is the next lesson that the Master is trying to teach you?
In what ways have you been acting like Peter, as God’s adversary? In what ways are you resisting the Lord’s teaching and leading?

Resolution: I resolve to listen to my Master today until I have heard His next lesson. Having heard it, I resolve to put it into action in one way today.