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2017-01-25T14:37:13-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Mark 11:12-26 – The Withered Tree and the Cross

Last updated on: January 25, 2017 at 2:37 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Jesus Cursing the Fig Tree Mean, mean Jesus! Who does he think he is – causing a poor, helpless fig tree to wither? Obviously, he wasn’t environmentally friendly. Maybe we can wish this side of Jesus away by taking our Jeffersonian scissors to the parts of the Bible we don’t like and neatly excising them.

Mean, mean Jesus!

If our reaction isn’t necessarily one of disdain for the one who withers trees, it’s likely at least to be confusion. Maybe we’re not perturbed that Jesus withered the fig tree, but we might question why.

The truth is, once again, that you are the fig tree in this story. It’s amazing how many times God has written you into the Bible, hidden in the symbols and stories of Scripture! But here we all are, and we should not be surprised at what the Lord has to say to us, if we know Him.

When Jesus first spotted the fig tree, He noticed the leaves on it, and from a distance it looked like a healthy fig tree that was bearing its fruit in season. In ancient Israel, fig trees would bear fruit before their leaves, and so when Jesus saw the leaves, He assumed that He would find fruit.

What He found, however, was a barren tree but one that should have produced fruit. Therefore, Jesus cursed the tree, and there’s the problem. I can’t believe in a Jesus who would curse a poor innocent tree. We have a problem with God cursing things, it seems.

So why does He cause the fig tree to wither? Are we to imagine a scene from Bruce Almighty in which Jesus points His finger randomly at bits of His creation and causes them to blow up – just because He can?

The fig tree, of course, is not just a fig tree. It is the nation of Israel, God’s tree that He had carefully planted and cultivated. But in the end, Israel bore leaves but no fruit, and now God had come to judge His people.

Why should this surprise us? Isn’t this the message of the very first Psalm?

“He (the wise and righteous man) shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Didn’t John the Baptist try to warn us that when the Christ came this is what He would do? “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Luke 3:9).

If you’re offended that Jesus cursed a fig tree and it withered and died, then I’ve got some bad news for you: you’re not going to like the Final Judgment and may not be too crazy about eternity. Shouldn’t we expect that a righteous, faithful, and holy God would follow through on the promises He made to us? That He would bless those who were faithful and bore fruit and would curse those who didn’t?

From the beginning, John tried to warn us: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” The King is here, and He has His winnowing fork in His hand to separate the wheat from the chaff. The King is coming, and when He comes again to judge both the quick and the dead, some will wither before His holy Word!

Do not think it strange that Jesus curses the fig tree on the Monday before His Crucifixion, for He has come to remove the curse upon mankind and the earth.

“Do you see that fig tree?” He is saying. “That fig tree is all of you. If you fail to produce good fruit in this life, then I shall make sure you never produce fruit again! But that fig tree is also Me. Because none of you can produce good fruit on your own and all of you are doomed to die and be thrown into the fire, I am going to be that tree for you.”

“By the fruit of a Tree you died, and by the fruit of a Tree you shall live. When you presumed to feed yourself and give yourself life, on that day you surely died. But on the day when you die to yourself and bend to feed off Me, on that day you shall surely live.”

“Cursed is everyone who shall hang on a tree (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:23). And so I shall hang on the Tree for you and bear your fruitlessness for you, for my leaves are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:3). I will become for you the fruit that hangs on the Tree, the Cross, and I will be for you the Tree of Life. Eat of my fruit and become a part of me, and you shall have life.” The one who cursed the tree was cursed by hanging on a tree because man was cursed by eating from the wrong tree. And the Tree of Life died on a tree for you that you might live.

Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance. You have had Advent to prepare for the Life which is Christ, and you also have Lent. Hear, then, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how He said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:18-20).

Seek Jesus, the Tree of Life. Seek to be united to Him today, and so shall you be made into a tree of life that bears good fruit when He comes.

Prayer: Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words which we have heard this day with our outward ears, may, through thy grace, be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of good living, to the honor and praise of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

Point for Meditation:

Meditate on your being the fig tree that deserves to be cursed and die and how Jesus has turned you into a tree of righteousness fed by Him.
Praise God for the fruit that He has caused to grow in your life.
Consider in what ways you have been barren before the Lord.
Practice thinking of every event you encounter today as an opportunity to either bear fruit in Christ or to prepare yourself to bear fruit.

Resolution: I resolve to find one way to consciously seek to eat of the fruit of life, Jesus Christ, today and to prepare the ground of my heart so that He may bear His fruit in me.

Jesus Cursing the Barren Fig Tree – U. S. Public Domain

Jesus curses fig tree

Mark 11

planted by streams of living water

Psalm 1

Tree of Life

2017-01-04T18:36:08-05:00

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1 John 5 – The Holy Trinity

Last updated on: January 4, 2017 at 6:36 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

******St. John wants you to know something. He wants those who believe in the name of the Son of God to know and remember that you have eternal life, and he wants you to continue to believe in the name of the Son of God (verse 13.) This is the same John who wrote in his Gospel, “but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31.)

John is so concerned that you not only believe on the Son of God but continue to believe in Him that he gives many different ways of knowing that we abide in God.

In the first place, John reminds us that the entire Trinity bears witness to itself: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. While John’s clearest statement of the Trinity, verse 7 of Chapter 5, is disputed and is not in the earliest manuscripts, the fact that there are three in heaven who bear witness to the Truth – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – is still true. We seem, however, sometimes to focus on the work of the Son, apart from that of the Father of Spirit. But John is clear that all three work together to bring us eternal life and all three bear witness to the Truth. John speaks about the Father who is light (1:5) and love (4:8). He teaches that we have fellowship with the Father through the Son (1:3), and that the Father has love for those He makes His children (3:1.) It is the Father who sent the Son to be the propitiation for our sins (4:10), and believers abide not only in the Son or Spirit but also in God, which in this case must refer to the Father (4:15.)

The Spirit gives witness by helping us to know that God abides in us (3:24), and from other passages we know that the Spirit does this by dwelling in us. The gift of the Spirit in us is itself one of the ways we know that we abide in Him (4:13.) Here in Chapter 5, verse 6 we read that it is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is truth. The Spirit bears witness not only in heaven but also on earth (5:8.)

But John reminds us that there are even more things that testify to God in us and to the eternal life we have in the Son. On earth, we have the testimony of the Spirit, the water, and the blood (verse 9.) The Spirit we have already talked about, but what about the water and the blood? God has testified to us about Himself and His work in our lives by the baptism of Christ (the water), by which the Christ was anointed and by which He began His public ministry. God has testified as well by the blood of Christ that was shed on the Cross (the blood.)

The entire life of Jesus Christ, therefore, is a testimony to you. But since these things are past, how can they still testify to us? John himself, an eyewitness of the Son, has written to us that we might know the truth, that we might have fellowship with God, and that our joy may be complete (1:1-4.) Through the Gospel of St. John, in which we read of the life of Jesus Christ, we have a perpetual testimony of the work of the Trinity in our lives. For this reason, we should read the Bible every day because it is one of God’s appointed means of abiding in us and we in Him. In the Scriptures, we still hear God’s testimony about His Son, just as we heard from the beginning. How, then, can we ever give up reading and living by the Scriptures?

To help us participate in the life of Christ, the Church has instituted the Church year, in which we celebrate the life of Christ throughout the course of an entire year. Today we are at the end of our celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ (tonight is 12th Night!); tomorrow, we will be celebrating the Epiphany of Christ to the Gentiles, and after that we will celebrate Christ’s fasting in the wilderness for us, and of course after that the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection.

But God testifies to us by the water and the blood in another powerful way: through the Sacraments. Through the water of baptism we are given the privilege of being brought into covenant with God and made heirs of salvation. By baptism, we are brought into the life of Jesus Christ. By the Lord’s Supper, we continue to participate in that new life that God has given to us, and we feed off of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. What powerful, continuing witnesses!

To these witnesses we must add the witness of the Church itself, which is the Body of Christ on earth, and through which all of these other witnesses are mediated.

But of all the witnesses that John records, by which we may know that we have eternal life in the Son, John spends the most time teaching us about love. We should not forget that love is a testimony of the presence of God in our lives. John’s constant message is that if we love God we will keep His commandments, for only those who love God will keep His commandments without sin. If we love God, we will love the brethren as He first loved us. By this love, we ourselves and the world will know that God abides in us and we in Him.

On this 12th Day, on this last day of the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, remember the witnesses that God has given you of His abiding in you. Whenever you are weak or forgetful, remember the ways God comes to you to remind you of His presence and actually bring Himself to you. It’s easy to get distracted in life, and it’s easy lose courage in our spiritual life.

But rejoice! for God has called you His child. He has given you eternal life, He has sent His Son to be the propitiation for your sins, and He has promised to abide with you if you abide with Him.

Thank God for St. John, that he wrote 1 John so that he might bear witness to us of the Word of life and of our fellowship with God and that our joy may be complete.

May we, who are the children of God as John was, who have the testimony of God as John did, who have eternal life as John did, bear witness to Son in the world. May we be the light of the world as Jesus was the light of the world. And may we do this by loving one another as He first loved us.

Resolution: I resolve to spend some time remembering today the fellowship I have with God and the means by which He comes to me.

Prayer: Father, thank You for sending Your Son to be the propitiation for the sins of the world; Jesus, thank You for cleansing me from sin by Your blood and for giving Your life for me; thank You Spirit for abiding in me and testifying to the Truth. Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, may I bear witness to you in love as St. John did before me, that I and others may have fellowship with. Amen.

Point for Meditation:

Make a list of the ways in which God has testified about Himself to you (see those listed in today’s meditation). Look over this list throughout the week and especially before you go to church this Sunday. Consult it during the week at times when you are weak or forgetful.

The Hospitality of Abraham (Icon of the Holy Trinity) – U.S. Public Domain

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Epiphany

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the water and the blood

2016-12-07T18:51:31-05:00

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Mark 1:29-39 – He Came to Heal and Save

Last updated on: December 7, 2016 at 6:51 pm 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. As Gregory of Nazianzus taught: “That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved.”

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. The various parts of the ministry of Jesus Christ interpenetrate all each other: they are all part of the same whole, which is the life of Jesus Christ. And it is that life into which we enter in Baptism and in which we have eternal life.

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, so that our faith might be increased. His work in our lives is to proclaim Himself to us that we might be united to Him. 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 first wrote this, my parish in Hot Spring, Arkansas 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? And often this food lasts more than a single 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, 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. It’s what we might call “habitual recollection” or “practicing the presence of God” or “praying without ceasing.”

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. This feast, of course, is the sign and wonder that accompanies the Word every time we celebrate the Holy Communion.

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.

Demon Possessed Man Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

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Bible reading and prayer

Capernaum

healing

Jesus casting out demons

Jesus’ miracles

Perichoresis

2016-11-30T17:17:19-05:00

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Matthew 27:45-56 – Christ wasn’t the only thing that died on Good Friday

Last updated on: November 30, 2016 at 5:17 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

** Rending of the Veil of the Temple **So this is what it has all come to. Three years of teaching about and living in the Kingdom of Heaven, and this is what it has all come to. He wasn’t kidding about going up to Jerusalem to be delivered to death, a death on the cross. Not just three years but 2000 and three years. All of the promises made to Abraham, everything revealed to Moses, and all of the promises made to David. They all converge here, and it seems as if they have come to nothing.

Out goes the Light of the World, and darkness envelops the world for good. He who was divine seems to be abandoned by God, and He cries out, helpless after all.

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

In the rematch of the ages, God vs. Satan, it looks like Satan has finally won.

And often our lives look and feel like Good Friday or Holy Saturday. Jesus has died, and that’s that. Yes, we know all about the promised Resurrection, but today all I see is the death of the Lamb of God. And I think: “Is this all there is?” It seems to me like much of life, where death still seems triumphant and where things seem to have gone tragically wrong. Some of us may feel this way especially on a day like today, when the fate of the nation seems to hang in the balance, and the balance seems weighted the wrong way.

How powerful sin and death must be, that they were powerful enough to kill the King of Glory! How powerful, that they seem to separate even Father from Son, Son from Himself, and body from soul. So powerful are they that they must have their Day, and it is a long and dark one to me.

But even here, even on Good Friday (an ironic name indeed!), there are hints of victory. Even in death and dying, there are hints of the resurrection to come. Nature seems to be God’s harbinger. Did you notice how it was dark for three hours before Jesus died? It’s as if Nature were telling us what would happen. But did you also notice how the earth quaked and the rocks split? It’s as if they were dying with Jesus and showing how great that death was. But it’s also as if they are showing us that the old world was about to be torn in two so that a new world could come. Did you notice that?

Did you notice what else happened when He died, when the darkness was at its greatest? The veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. This veil was the enormous, thick veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. How embarrassing it must have been. It’s almost as if the Temple itself had ripped its pants at the most embarrassing part of its anatomy!

In fact, the ripping of the veil was a symbol and harbinger of what would happen in 40 years, just as Jesus had prophesied, when not only the veil but also the entire Temple would be destroyed. It’s as if immediately, when Jesus died, the Old Covenant began to die as well. Like a bad Hollywood actor of old, it took the Old Covenant a long time to die on stage, but it began to die at the moment Christ died. For at that very moment, the old was being torn down to make way for the new, even if few could see what was really happening.

And did you notice how when the rocks were split, so did the graves, those markers of death? It’s as if, unbeknownst to just about everyone, Death itself had begun to die and as if from this time Death was a marked man. At the moment Christ died, the saints of God were about to be resurrected. Coming out of their graves after the resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. St. Matthew can’t keep the Resurrection out of the Crucifixion, for they hang together!

And something else amazing happens in the midst of all this death: a pagan comes to know the Son of God. As a result of the earthquake and other things that happened, the death of Christ brings a Roman centurion to exclaim, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

Often to me, this life seems like a Good Friday. There is still so much suffering and dying and death. How powerful sin and death must be that they still have the power over all of us in this life, 2000 years after the Crucifixion. It still appears as if Jesus is locked in mortal combat with sin and Death and Satan.

But that’s not true. How powerful the death and resurrection of Jesus must be, that 2000 years later the graves of the saints of God cannot contain them and that one day there shall be a resurrection of body and soul. And pagans are still coming to Christ, 130 million in China alone, according to the latest reports. The earthquake that is Christ, who destroyed the Old Covenant and Temple so that He might create the New and better one, is still rippling through the universe. And a strange earthquake it is, whose vibrations and power do not abate but only seem to grow stronger.

And so in this life of death and suffering, we cry out with a loud voice to God, and, yielding up our spirits to Him, He receives us. He receives us because there is One who was born that He might die and who died that we might live.

The 2000 and three years were not a waste after all: it’s just that we’ve been blind.

“On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I shall see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as an everlasting ordinance” (Exodus 12).

This Passover is an everlasting ordinance, as He promised. It’s one that we still celebrate today: “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).

In that death which seemed so dark, He gave us His Body and Blood. Having made all things ready the night before, at the Last Supper, He prepared Himself to be a perpetual Passover for us. What else could He have done? In spite of His impassioned pleas in Gethsemane, what else could He have done? He who for His entire life made Himself a living sacrifice could only make Himself a living sacrifice in His death as well.

That sacrifice, that offering, that death, still lives in us today.

Therefore, let us keep the feast by offering ourselves up to Him, by crucifying our flesh, and by offering ourselves as living sacrifices; joined in death with Him that we may be joined in His life!

Prayer: I earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness, mercifully to accept my sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant that, by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, I, and all thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. And I offer and present unto thee, O Lord, my self, my soul and body, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee. And although I am unworthy, through my manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice; yet I beseech thee to accept this my bounden duty and service; not weighing my merits, but pardoning my offences, through Jesus Christ my Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen. (From the Holy Communion Service of The Book of Common Prayer)

Points for Meditation:

What signs and symbols of the resurrection do you see, even in this life of suffering and death?
Take time to meditate today on Christ’s death on the Cross for you.
In what ways do you still need to die to self?

Resolution: I resolve to find one way to die to my self today, that I might be better united to the death of my Lord.

Rending of the Veil – In the U.S. Public Domain

Passover and Last Supper

tearing of the veil

Temple

2016-11-29T19:19:09-05:00

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Matthew 27:27-44 – Christ, the Bullied One

Last updated on: November 29, 2016 at 7:19 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

** Christ Crown of Thorns **Whenever I used to see someone getting beat up or pushed around by a gang of people in the movies, like some of the many biker movies of the 60s I’ve seen, I have a visceral reaction. I get mad or become sorrowful. Something about the injustice of it all gets to me. I have the same reaction when I see or hear about bullying in schools, a common occurrence.

But how does it feel when the Son of God Himself is the one being picked on? What makes the bullying of Christ all the more startling is the knowledge that He could have chosen to do something about it if He wanted to.

For all of those who have ever been bullied or ganged up on, for all of those who have been unfairly persecuted, and for all of those who have borne the injustices of this world to any degree, we have Jesus Christ today.

It’s really remarkable how God could enter into human history, as one of us, and allow Himself to be so abused by us. Knowing what we know of Jesus, it’s repulsive in the extreme and almost incomprehensible. And yet here it is again, as we read about the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ one more time.

Everyone in the world seems to be joining in on this gang pummeling, torture, and execution. And, in fact, we ourselves have joined in. This, what we are witnessing today in Matthew 27, is the consequence of your sins and my sins and the sins of the world. It started with the betrayal by Judas, one of the 12 whom Jesus had hand-picked and who had lived and traveled with Him for three years. The hastily assembled Sanhedrin, the leaders of Israel – the high priest, chief priest, scribes, and elders – are next. They falsely condemn Him, spit in His face and beat Him, mocking His prophetic nature.

The spitting part is personal to me. I always looked up to my oldest brother Paul growing up. He was 2 ½ year older than me (strange – he still is!), and he helped open up new worlds of knowledge, music, and movie-making to me. But he was, like a lot of us Erlandsons, not at the top of the social heap in high school and might have fit into the nerd category.

One day when I (and I think my other brother was there as well) was up at the local elementary school with Paul, a group of high school students showed up. They began giving Paul a hard time – I’m not sure why. Bullies don’t really need a reason, except to make themselves feel superior. They began taunting him. One of them punched him in the chest and another spat in his face. I remember wondering why he didn’t do anything about it but also knew that he couldn’t. I felt sorry for him and humiliated as well.

And that’s how I feel today, reading about my Lord. As if this weren’t enough, Peter, the Rock, denies Jesus three times and goes to lick his wounds. Pontius Pilate passes Jesus around like a hot potato, doesn’t defend Him, and decides to send Him to be crucified.

But first, Pilate’s soldiers gather a whole garrison around Him and begin to mock Him. They strip Him, put on a scarlet robe, and crown His head with a crown of thorns. They mock Him as the King of the Jews, spit upon Him, and strike Him in the head with the reed that had served as His scepter.

Then the crucifixion itself begins, and He is treated as a criminal and crucified with criminals. The people who pass by show no pity but blaspheme Him, asking Him to come down from the cross if He is the Son of God.

Where are we in this picture? The disciples have all fled, and we were once among those who bullied Him. We were among those who rejected Him and reviled Him. We, by our sins, have had our part to play in the sad story we read today. We were the ones who made His suffering and death necessary.

But no Christian can ever believe the story ends there: we know what this suffering and death are all about. Knowing this, we still cannot help but be sobered by what had to happen.

I see us in another character in today’s story, and that is Simon of Cyrene. Like Simon, we must take upon us the Cross of Jesus. We, who were the ones He came to be with and the ones He came to die for, must be united with Him. We must unite ourselves to Him in His death, that we might unite ourselves with Him in His Resurrection.

And so, like Simon, we must take up His cross today. Life isn’t always fair to us Christians, either. Just as our Lord was reviled, we too will find that sometimes we are reviled. As Christendom loses its hold on the U.S. and the Western world, we will see more and more that the world is a bully to Christians. It’s remarkable that there was ever a time when this wasn’t clear and didn’t seem to be the norm.

There are some who will call us ignorant and intolerant and accuse us of hypocrisy and many other things. And even if we don’t face immediate hostility or persecution, there are any number of ways in which this fallen world can seem to bully us. Life itself seems to be the greatest mocker, sometimes whispering and sometimes shouting that if Jesus Christ really is God then why doesn’t He come down and make everything right? If He truly is God then why doesn’t He deliver us out of all our difficulties?

I myself wish that all were immediately right with the world and that the bullyings and injustices of the world would cease this moment. It didn’t stop for Jesus, not before He had been bullied, tortured, and killed, and it won’t stop for us, either, not during this life.

Why do we expect that Jesus had to suffer for us but never suspect that we might have to suffer for Him? In this life, we will have to carry a cross. It can either be the one that justly crucifies us as criminals or the one that we carry with Jesus that crucifies the Old Man so that the New Man may live in us.

Take heart today, therefore, in the bullying and mocking of the world and in the cross that has been assigned to you today. As a Christian, that bullying and mocking and that cross are no longer means of torture and punishment. Instead, they have become the means of being united to your Lord.

Use the pain and suffering, the bullying and mockery, in your life today as a means of remembering and being united to the pain and suffering, the bullying and mockery, that ultimately redeemed the whole world.

Prayer: O God, you know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: Grant us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers, and carry us through all temptations; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Almighty God, whose beloved Son willingly endured the agony and shame of the cross for our redemption: Give us courage to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen. (Prayers from The Book of Common Prayer)

Points for Meditation:

In what ways does the world seem to bully or mock you? How might you understand such things in a new light today?
Spend some time today thanking Jesus for His sacrifice for you.

Resolution: I resolve to carry my cross for Jesus today, whatever that cross may be.

Christ being Crowend with Crown of Thorns – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

2016-11-28T16:44:18-05:00

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Matthew 27:11-26 – Hath God said? Has the Kingdom come?

Last updated on: November 28, 2016 at 4:44 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

** Christ before Pilate **If you have a pen or pencil, I’d like you to take it out. I have a little exercise I think will help you to understand the Word of God to you this morning.

Have you got a piece of paper and pen ready? Actually, since you’re probably in front of your computer, you can write it right here on this Give Us This Day. Or you can write it on your printed copy.

Here’s what I want you to write. First, write down “The King has come”

Underneath this, I want you to take the word “has” and move it to the beginning of the sentence, but leave everything else in the same place.

What have you now written?

“Has the King come”

Look closely at these two sentences. They both contain the same four words and in almost the identical order. All that’s happened is that you’ve slightly rearranged the words.

And yet in slightly changing the statement of truth, “The King has come,” to the question of doubt, “Has the King Come?” you have completely reversed the meaning.

Hath God said?

Hath God said that you shall not eat of every tree?”

This is how Satan thinks and works. You see, he doesn’t have words of his own: all he can do is take God’s work and His words and corrupt them. He asks questions that make us doubt God and His Word.

God clearly said to Adam and Eve: “If you eat of the Tree . . . you shall surely die.”

And Satan came along and said, “You shall not die.”

And so this morning, God says to you that the King of kings has come. But the Satanic question, asked by many, is: “Has the King Come?”

In Matthew 27 we see three kinds of people: Pilate, Judas, and the chief priest and elders, who don’t have a lot in common. But the one thing that unites them is that they are all people who didn’t receive Jesus as the King who had come.

Oh yes, there is a fourth kind of person who is not willing to accept the King the way He comes as king – and that is the group composed, to some extent, of you and me and all humanity.

The first questioner of Jesus Christ the King is Pontius Pilate. For him, and those like him, Jesus Christ was an inconvenient King.

Pontius Pilate was the governor of Jerusalem and Judea. During his ten years as a governor, from the years A.D. 26-36, Judea had thirty-two riots. The Jews hated the Romans and were constantly on the verge of rioting, and Pilate himself was often the cause for rioting.

In the year A.D. 26, shortly after Pilate become governor, Pontius Pilate came riding into the city of Jerusalem with his troops bearing their standards, carrying medallions of Caesar on them. This infuriated the Jews, and the rioting Jews first came by hundreds and then by thousands to the home of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem and staged a demonstration for five days. Pilate was incensed with the protestors and killed some of them. Pilate was finally removed from office in A.D. 36 because of his brutal handling of the Jewish riots of that year.

So for Pontius Pilate, admitting that Jesus Christ was a king would have been highly inconvenient: it might have even meant he would lose his job.

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, Pilate had already arrived in Jerusalem with 600 troops, ready for another riot. He didn’t want a king who would create a royal mess for him. And so, for the sake of keeping the peace, Pilate refused to acknowledge Jesus as King, even though he had some idea that He was. Though it meant war with God, Pilate wanted to keep his human peace.

Sometimes we’re like Pilate. Sometimes, it’s inconvenient for us to acknowledge Jesus as King. Maybe, in the midst of friends or relatives who are not Christians, we’re willing to act as if Jesus Christ were not King. Or maybe, we know that if we truly allow Jesus to rule as King in our entire lives we will have a riot on our hands – a riot of our old man, the sinful nature.

Nothing will stir up your natural propensity to sin and exalt yourself faster than truly proclaiming that Jesus is King. And that means rearranging your life to please and obey Him. It might be inconvenient to get up on Sunday morning to worship the King.

Because it might inconvenience him, Pontius Pilate denied the King. Instead of proclaiming that Jesus Christ the King had come, Pilate in essence said, “Has the King come?”

Are you willing to follow Pilate?

There is a second questioner of the King in Matthew 27, and that is Judas Iscariot, whom we read about yesterday and who was probably looking for a political king. Disappointed, he represents those for whom Jesus Christ seems like a weak or wimpy king.

The apostasy of Judas Iscariot was probably not just a sudden moment in which he betrayed His King. His betrayal of His Lord was likely to have been a gradually growing disillusionment with Jesus as King.

It’s likely that Judas accepted Jesus as King, as Messiah, and yet rejected Him as the same. Although this sounds contradictory, the truth is that Judas likely accepted Jesus as King, but only on Judas’ terms. Judas wanted Him to come and rule in the way Judas expected, as a political king who overthrew the hated Roman Empire.

But then Jesus began to say some disenchanting things, such as “My kingdom is not of this world.” And what about John the Baptist dying and apparently coming to naught? What would have been Judas’ reaction to Jesus as King when he refused to allow the people to make Him king by force on their terms, and not His? After the feeding of the 5000, the people came to make Jesus king by force, and what did this King, this Messiah do? He retreated to go off and pray by Himself. Some king! “Wimp!” we can almost hear Judas thinking.

You see, Judas’ mastering passion was ambition and greed. He wanted a King with whom he could rule here on earth and parade himself around as someone. He wanted a king whose earthly treasure would be divided with him.

But this King Jesus talked about being a servant and dying. When this King came riding in on a donkey, humbly and lowly, Judas had had enough. By the time that Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, as a mere servant, it was only a small step to complete betrayal for Judas. Jesus was not the king who ruled in an earthly and immediate way like Judas wanted, and so Judas rejected Him.

But aren’t we too often like Judas, accepting Jesus only as a king in our image, and not truly as the King of kings and complete Master of every aspect of our lives?

We all love the hypothetical Jesus, the one who stands for whatever we want Him to be. Too often, we say we want this hypothetical, figurehead Jesus of a King, but we don’t really want Him as the King of kings. We don’t really want Him to rule in our lives as the dread, sovereign ruler over our entire life, the one who has the power of life and death over us. We will not let Him rule in His way, according to the rules of His kingdom. He can rule in our lives, alright, but only when He rules as we’d like Him to.

What if the King comes to you in unexpected ways – ways that you didn’t desire and plan for? What if He comes to you in the lowly things of life? What if He comes to you in suffering?

What if He comes to suffer, and what if He as your king asks you to suffer for and with Him? Would you still receive Him and hail Him as King?

What if there were no mountain top experiences and no ecstatic visions, but instead, He offered a life to be lived by faith, one humble day after another? What if the path to glory is through humility and the way to rule in His kingdom is to serve? And what if He asks you to love, to give up yourself and your own ambitions, and to accept what He is trying to tell you and has been trying to tell you for some time? What if He didn’t instantly answer all of your prayers or help you out of every mess you were in the way you expected to be helped?

What if He comes lowly, riding on a donkey into your life? Will you still receive Him as your king and vow to obey Him? Or will you follow Him in the way Judas Iscariot followed Him?

There is a third kind of person who rejects Jesus Christ as King in Matthew 27, and that is the chief priest and elders. They rejected Jesus as King, Matthew tells us in verse 18, out of envy. Jesus was very popular with the people because He demonstrated the power of God with His miracles and the truth of God with His words. But the truth He spoke was different from what many of the Jewish leaders were teaching, and so they saw Him as a competitor to be eliminated.

They were kings like Herod: they didn’t want another king, because they wanted to be kings. This isn’t surprising, because they acted as if they were God. So Jesus the King was a threat to their own rule, and so they rejected Him, murdered Him in their hearts, and then put Him to death.

It’s not just the chief priests or elders who have a problem with pride and envy: too often we too want to be God instead of God. We’ve coronated ourselves, and we sit on our man-made thrones, ruling by our own selfish desires. This is the essence of sin.

We want Him to do our will and don’t want to do His will. Sure, we’ll submit to Him, but only when it fits in with our plans and our will. We want to be God, or at least the king, and that will lead to a rejection of the true King every time.

We say with our lips that Jesus is our Lord. We say that we our His disciples, Christ-ians, and that we will faithfully obey Him. As Christians, most of us, if Jesus Christ were here in the flesh and told us to do something, would say “Yes, Lord, right away, Lord.” And we’d be glad to do it.

But the King comes to you in this life through those who have His authority and are to act as His representatives. If the King sent an angel, you’d probably also obey. But what if He asks you to submit to the people in your life that He has put in authority over you? Will you do it? What if the King asked you who are children to obey your parents? Do you obey as you would the King? What if the King asked you to submit to the dictates of your boss? Your pastor preaches and exhorts you to apply the Word of God in your life: do you listen and obey as to the Lord?

Even the circumstances of your life are things allowed by the King. Do you kick against them and curse the King? Or do you see the circumstances of your life as the lowly donkey on which your King comes to you each day?

You see how it’s not just Pilate or Judas or the Pharisees who had a problem with the authority of Jesus in their lives.

There is one final group of people in Matthew 27, although they’re hiding in the shadows. . . . It’s the disciples themselves. Though they’re scattered; though they hide; though like Peter they deny their Lord and King . . . the King came for weak human beings just like them. He came as one of them.

Though they failed Him time and time again, He loved them. Though we have failed Him time and time again, He loves us to the end, and He died on the Cross for us. The King came in a lowly form, as a human, as a helpless baby. He came riding on a donkey to die and to die the most horrific and lowest form of death by crucifixion.

But this is the same King who has the power to rise again from the dead and to destroy sin and death. This is the same king who restored Peter and breathed out His Spirit on those weak men on the day of Pentecost.

It is this King who has come and who rules over you every day of your life. Brothers and sisters in Christ: behold your King has come. May He rule without measure in your lives!

Prayer: To Jesus Christ our Sovereign King
who is the world’s salvation,
All praise and homage do we bring
and thanks and adoration.

Your reign extend O King benign,
to every land and nation;
For in your kingdom Lord divine
Alone do we find salvation.

To you and to your Church, great King
We pledge our heart’s oblation;
Until before your throne we sing
In endless jubilation.

Christ Jesus, Victor!
Christ Jesus, Ruler!
Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer. Amen. (Words by Martin B. Hellrigel)

Points for Meditation:

What are some of the areas in your life where the King rules? How have you been responding to the King’s presence and commands?
What are some ways in which the King seems to disappoint you? How might you see Him and His rule in a different light today?

Resolution: I resolve to consider one area of my life today where I may more faithfully acknowledge my King and His rule in my life.

Christ Before Pilate – In the U.S. Public Domain

2016-11-24T20:27:18-05:00

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Matthew 26:47-56 – How to endure the Gethsemanes in your life

Last updated on: November 24, 2016 at 8:27 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

** Arrest of Christ - Bosch **Today we come to the Word of God.

When we say “the Word of God,” we often use it in two different senses of the Word. We say, on the one hand, that the Bible is the Word of God. In its strongest sense, we see this when the prophets say things like, “Thus says the Lord.”

We also use “the Word of God” to mean the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. In both cases we have the revelation of God to man, and the two are joined more intimately than we can imagine.

But today, I see before me a strange dance. I see, on the one hand, the Word of God, those ancient prophecies of the Israelites, spoken by the prophets of old. Matthew, especially, pays attention to the fulfillment of Scripture, especially at both the beginning and the end of His Gospel. “So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,’ which is translated, God with us” (Matthew 1:23, quoting Isaiah 7:14). Matthew also draws attention to the fulfillment of Micah 5:2, about the shepherd who would come from Bethlehem; to the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15 and lamentation of Rachel weeping for her children at the slaughter of the innocents; and to John, the voice of one crying in the wilderness spoken of in Isaiah 40:3.

Something interesting happens in Matthew 26: we see Jesus, the Word of God, choosing to lead a life that will fulfill the perfect will of the Father, as spoken through those ancient prophecies. Here, in Matthew 26, we see the ancient, immovable, written Word of God spread out before us. And here, in Matthew 26, we see the living, incarnated Word of God changing the steps of His life to be in perfect harmony with the Word, the will of the Father, spoken by the prophets.

This conforming of the will to the will of the Father is no easy thing for Jesus, and we’re mistaken if we think it is. Have we, like the disciples, fallen asleep so soon? Don’t you remember the agony of the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane, immediately after which the betrayer and the armed multitude came for Him? He’s just asked for the Father to take this terrible cup from Him.

Leave it to Peter to offer a way for Jesus to avoid the will of the Father. Good old Peter. The one who would not have his feet washed by his Master, the one who denied that the Son of Man should ever go to Jerusalem to suffer and die, is now the one who would stop this prophecy one way or the other. Poor Peter! One little sword among so many swords and clubs and men. It’s a good thing Jesus intervened. Little did Peter know that Jesus could have defended Himself very easily. He could have called twelve legions of angels to protect Himself.

But there’s that little matter of the Word of God, which Jesus knew must be obeyed. How could the Scriptures be fulfilled, if Jesus had delivered Himself? How could the will of the Father be kept if He chose His own will instead?

Jesus seems almost amused by what is happening. Was it really necessary, He asks them, to bring so many men, with swords and clubs? He was theirs for the taking any time earlier. “Aren’t these rather bizarre circumstances under which you’re arresting Me?” He seems to ask. It’s as if Jesus is, even at the last, teaching. He’s teaching them that the secret betrayal and seizure at night, all the Mickey Mouse trials He’ll undergo, the Crucifixion – all of it– suggest that something very strange and momentous is taking place.

Even the end of verse 56 is a fulfillment of the Word of the Lord, even if it’s only me and not St. Matthew that’s pointing it out. “Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled.” “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter” (Zechariah 13:7).

It’s tempting to admire Matthew’s cleverness in putting together a story that manages to cobble together so many different Old Testament prophecies. What an insightful writer he is! Of course, it was Matthew who learned to correctly understand the Old Testament from Jesus, and not the other way around.

What strikes me today about how Jesus the Word of God submits to the will of the Father through the written Word of God of the Scriptures is this: that because He knew the Scriptures, He knew what He had to do. And then, knowing and loving the Father, He did it.

The same is true for you today. If you know the Word of God, intending to do the will of the Father, then you will know what you need to do. I’m not saying that if you randomly open up your Bible to a verse that you’ll suddenly be enlightened as to what to wear this morning or whether you should get the grande or the venti at Starbucks. But if you know the Word of God, then you will know the will of the Father in all of the important things.

In fact, since I’m assuming that many, if not most, of you know your Bibles well, that if you just sit still for a few moments, God’s will for your life would come streaming into it. Probably more than you want it to. I’m not saying it’s magic, but if you put together the written word of God and an honest heart that truly desires the will of the Father, there’s a good chance you’ll end up with wisdom, and the blessing of having done the will of the Father.

This provides an enormous incentive to know the Word of God better. It’s no use cutting corners, and a lazy hermeneutics that reads verses out of their larger context have often gotten men into trouble. But as you learn to read the Word of God richly and deeply so that it gets into the fibers of your muscles and the fissures of your brain and the blood of your heart, then learning and following the will of the Father becomes possible. For when you read the Word of God in this way you are united to the Word of God, the incarnate One who not only perfectly understood but also perfectly obeyed the written Word.

When you submit yourself to the Word of God, seeking the will of the Father, then you, too, will be enabled to endure the Gethsemanes the Father has willed for your life.

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:

Meditate on your life in reading the Word of God. Is there some aspect of reading, studying, or meditating on God’s Word that He is calling you to work on?
What aspects of His perfect will does the Father seem to be impressing on you today through the Holy Spirit?

Resolution: I resolve to read the Word of God tomorrow (you’ve just done it for today!), looking for His will for my life.

The Arrest of Christ by Hieronymus Bosch – Public Domain

Uncategorized

arrest of Jesus in the Garden

conformity to God’s will

2016-11-22T18:23:45-05:00

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Matthew 26:17-30 – The Lord’s Supper

Last updated on: November 22, 2016 at 6:23 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

** Last Supper **One of my favorite painters is the surrealist Salvador Dali. In 1976 Dali painted a painting titled “Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Metres Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln,” (commonly called “Lincoln in Dalivision). In this painting, he used 252 tiles that, when seen up close, look like his wife, Gala, looking out a window, with other images thrown in. But as you move back from the painting, a picture of Abraham Lincoln emerges. Not long after this, the world of photo mosaics was born.

And that’s what the Gospel of Matthew is like. The entire meaning of the Gospel, the Good News, is about to be revealed in a startling way so that all of those wonderful individual pictures Matthew’s been showing us now reveal themselves to be part of a much larger picture.

For several chapters, now, Jesus has been teaching about the coming of the New Covenant and the cataclysmic events that would usher it in. He actually began teaching about it in the very first words of His public ministry: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). He then proceeds to talk about the Kingdom and the blessings it will bring upon those who are poor in spirit and who hunger and thirst for righteousness, after which He teaches about the new Law in the New Covenant. He demonstrates that there is a new power in this New Covenant by the many miracles He performed.

In choosing the 12, He prepares for the continuation of this New Covenant after He must die and be raised up and then ascend into heaven. He tells parables about what life in the kingdom will be like, and He miraculously feeds both the 5000 and 4000 as a way of teaching about how He will feed those who hunger after righteousness in the New Covenant.

Beginning in Chapter 16, He begins to teach about a terrible price that must be paid in order for this New Covenant to be put into place. That price is His own life, which He will give for the life of the world, and it will involve a sacrifice on the part of His disciples as well. He teaches some more about the coming of the New Covenant, teaching in many different ways that Israel of the Old Covenant has rejected her Savior, killing the prophets and soon the Son Himself. His harshest words are for the leaders of Israel, who should have prepared the people and led them to the Messiah and the New Covenant but who instead are determined to keep the people in great darkness. And then He teaches about how terrible the events will be that mark the fullness of the coming of this New Covenant.

Here in Chapter 26, when we come to the Last Supper and the institution of the Lord’s Supper, suddenly the entire book of Matthew comes into focus. Each of the stories and teachings we have heard are all part of the larger picture of the coming of the New Covenant and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. But it’s not until we come to Matthew 26 that things start to make more sense. The Lord’s Supper bridges the gap between Jesus’ teaching about the New Covenant and it being put into effect. It’s amazing how short the account of it is. It would look rather unobtrusive, if we weren’t already alerted to its immense significance. In Matthew’s account, he spends 9 verses talking about the preparations for the Passover and the coming betrayal of Him. The description of the actual supper lasts only 4 short verses, and then Jesus and the disciples leave for the Mount of Olives.

It all happens so quickly, that it would be easy to miss. O.K., so Jesus is at the Passover with His disciples. We would expect that, since this was a required feast, and we’ve heard about Jesus going to Passovers before. We’ve been hearing about Jesus being betrayed and going to die and then being raised up on the third day for some time, and it seems time to get the inevitable over with. We all know that Jesus has to go into Gethsemane to pray and be betrayed and then experience the terrible events of the Passion and Crucifixion.

So why this interlude with the disciples at the Passover? It’s just a religious obligation, and one that was part of the Old Covenant, isn’t it?

But these 4 verses are not only what connects the parts of Matthew’s Gospel: they’re also what connects us to Matthew’s Gospel and the narrative of the coming of Christ and the New Covenant. Just as Jesus had gathered up His chosen 12 apostles to be His Body and continue the work of the Incarnation, now He also provides the means by which they will continually be fed and strengthened to be His Body and do His will on earth. In the Lord’s Supper He gives Himself to them for heavenly food, the bread which comes down from heaven. In this supper, He gives Himself to them, His Body and His Blood, that they might become His Body and be one with Him.

Having established His Church and given Himself to her by His supper, He also made it possible for that Body to continue to live and be one with Him, even after the 12 were dead. In this humble supper, He seals the New Covenant for all time, even as all of the Old Covenant is consumed and fulfilled within the New Covenant. All of the sacrifices of the Old Testament and all of the feasts and festivals are contained in this humble meal. All of the Gospel, from the Incarnation in which the Father gives His Son and His Body and Blood for us to the Crucifixion to the Resurrection and the Ascension, are served to us, here in this humble fellowship meal.

Here is the Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Here is the meaning of all that God had told Israel 1500 years before, and here is the meaning of our lives 2000 years later.

Here is the betrayal of mankind, Adam’s sin being repeated by Judas, and Adam and Judas’ sins being repeated by us. But here also is the sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world, for all who eat with faith. Here is the Crucifixion of our Lord for our sins, and here is our own death. But here also is His Resurrection and our new life with Him.

This humble supper is the fulfillment of the Passover and the prediction of the Crucifixion. It is the fulfillment of the Incarnation, and the prediction of the Resurrection. For us, it is the fulfillment of all, because in it we find Christ. In it, we remember God’s promises and mighty deeds and we anticipate the future hope of glory. And in it, we come to understand the meaning of the narrative of our lives and all of the smaller images that sometimes don’t make sense by themselves.

It would be easy to read these 4 small verses and pass by as if nothing particularly significant had just happened. It would be easy to read them quickly and without due attention because we’ve seen it all before.

But here is the meaning of our lives. Here is the New Covenant. Here is Jesus Christ, His life, His Body and His Blood, offered to us anew, each and every time we come to this humble supper.

So now is the time to prepare for the next time you come to this supper. Do not treat it lightly. Do not pass over it, as if it were nothing. For in it, is Life itself, for in it, is Jesus Christ, who is the New Covenant and all its blessings.

Prayer: Almighty God, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ has ordained in the Holy Sacrament the perpetual memorial of His death and the communion of His risen life; grant that when in obedience to Thy command, we keep the feast, we may approach Thy table with love and humble hope; that, discerning its sacred mystery, we may feed by faith upon His Body and Blood, and be made partakers of Thy heavenly grace; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Points for Meditation:

If you are in anguish because of sin or difficult circumstances, remember the heavenly food Jesus offers to you at this time.
How might you more adequately prepare to eat the Lord’s Supper the next time it is offered to you?

Resolution: I resolve to prepare adequately for the next time I come to the Lord’s Supper.

Last Supper – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Uncategorized

Body and Blood of Christ

Last Supper

Lord’s Supper and the Church

New Covenant

Passover Lamb

2016-11-20T17:28:47-05:00

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Matthew 25:31-46 – You’re a King

Last updated on: November 20, 2016 at 5:28 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

** David Miles - TheThrone in Heaven Patheos **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 now), 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 three 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 three 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, 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 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 with 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 was very near to Christ, and those around heard it. We live in a God-drenched world.

God is accessible. In The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard uses the illustration of electricity. 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, and 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 and spouses.

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!

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 His will, as it is in heaven.

David Miles, The Throne in Heaven – used by permission of the artist

2016-11-18T13:45:02-05:00

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Matthew 25:14-30 – The Natural Gifts, Redeemed

Last updated on: November 18, 2016 at 1:45 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

** X-Men cosplay **Having paid close attention to the last three 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 the Temple.

Historically speaking, then, to whom is He speaking? It’s probably a good thing to know this 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? We should understand from the beginning that the greatest talent and 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? Do you know right where He is when you need Him, and yet most of your life He’s invisible to you?

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 by his being 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. We often miss how God uses spiritual gifts in our lives today 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. And we therefore 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 someone else, 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 (super)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 the X-Men 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 one of the better gifts: the ability to manipulate anything made of metal) 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.

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Gregory of Naziansus

Parable of wicked and wise servants

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