faith – Mum's devotional

…and more Kierkegaard, because I am a lying liar who lies

January 2nd

Now the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith.

The talk asks you, then, or you ask yourself by means of the talk, what kind of life do you live, do you will only one thing, and what is this one thing? The talk does not expect that you will name off any goal that only pretends to be one thing. For it does not intend to address itself to anyone with whom it would not be able to deal seriously, for the reason that such a man has cut himself off from any earnest consideration… a man can, to be sure, have an extremely different, yes, have a precisely opposite opinion from ours, and one can nevertheless deal earnestly with him if one assumes that finally there may be a point of agreement, a unity in some universal human sense, call it what you will. …One can dispute with a man, dispute to the furthest limit, as long as one assumes, that in the end there is a point in common, an agreement in some universal human sense: in self-respect. But when, in his worldly strivings he sets out like a madman in a desperate attempt to despise himself, and congratulates himself for his infamy, then one can undertake no disputing with him.

The talk assumes, then, that you will the Good and asks you now, what kind of life you live, whether or not you truthfully will only one thing. It does not ask inquisitively about your calling in life, about the number of workers you employ, or about how many you have under you in your office, or if you happen to be in the service of the state. It asks you above all else, it asks you first and foremost, whether you really live in such a way that you are capable of answering that question, in such a way that the question truthfully exists for you. Because in order to be able earnestly to answer that serious question, a man must already have made a choice in life, he must have chosen the invisible, chosen that which is within. He must have lived so that he has hours and times in which he collects his mind, so that his life can win the transparency that is a condition for being able to put the question to himself and for being able to answer it. To put such a question to the man that is so busy in his earthly work, and outside of this in joining the crowd in its noisemaking, would be folly that would lead only to fresh folly —through the answer.

from Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (Ch. 12)

Probably the last Kierkegaard post, so enjoy it

December 29th

…you say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

Matthew 23:30 (NASB)

A living generation often believes itself able to pass judgment on a past generation, because it misunderstood the Good… At some later date, it is no art to decorate the graves of the noble and to say, “If they had only lived now,” now — just as we are starting in to do the same thing against a contemporary.

The view of the moment is the opinion which in an earthly and ‘busy’ sense decides whether a man accomplishes anything or not. And in this sense, nothing in the world has ever been so completely lost as was Christianity at the time that Christ was crucified. And in the understanding of the moment, never in the world has anyone accomplished so little by the sacrifice of a consecrated life as did Jesus Christ. And yet in this same instant, eternally understood, He had accomplished all. For He did not foolishly judge by the result that was not yet there, or more rightly (for here is the conflict and battleground of the two interpretations of what is meant by “accomplishing”) the result was indeed there.

Question His contemporaries, if you ever meet them. Do they not say of the crucified one, “The fool, he would help others and he cannot help himself, but now the outcome also shows, so that everyone may see what he was.”

Was it not said by His contemporaries, especially where the clever led the conversation, “The fool, he who had it in his power to become king if he cared to make use of his opportunity, if he had only half my cleverness, he would have been king. In the beginning I really believed that it was ingenuity, that he let these people express themselves in this fashion without wishing to give himself up to them. I believed it was a trick. But now the result shows clearly enough what I more recently have myself been quite clear about, that he is a shallow, blind visionary!” Was it not said by many intelligent men and women, “The result shows that he has been hunting after phantasies; he should have married. In this way he would now have been a distinguished teacher in Israel.”

And yet, eternally understood, the crucified one had in the same moment accomplished all! But the view of the moment and the view of eternity over the same matter have never stood in such atrocious opposition. It can never be repeated. This could happen only to Him. Yet eternally understood, He had in the same moment accomplished all, and on that account said, with eternity’s wisdom, “It is finished.”

Perhaps it would require many centuries before He would be able to say that in regard to temporal existence. Yet what He is still unable to say after the passage of eighteen triumphant centuries, He said in His own age, eighteen centuries ago, in the very moment when all was lost. Eternally understood, He said, “It is finished.” “It is finished.” He said that just when the mass of the people, and the priests, and the Roman soldiers, Herod and Pilate, and the idle ones on the street, the crowd in the gateway, and the newspaper reporters (if there were any such at that time) in short, when all the powers of the moment, however different their sentiments might have been, were agreed upon this view of the matter: that all was lost, hopelessly lost. “It is finished,” He said, nailed to the cross as He was.

from Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (Ch. 8)

‘…and you can do good for them whenever you wish’

December 26th – Feast of St. Stephen

He who has pity on the poor lends to the LORD, And He will pay back what he has given..

Proverbs 19:17 (NKJV)

“If I have kept the poor from their desire,
Or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
Or eaten my morsel by myself,
So that the fatherless could not eat of it
(But from my youth I reared him as a father,
And from my mother’s womb I guided the widow);
If I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing,
Or any poor man without covering;
If his heart has not blessed me,
And if he was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep;
If I have raised my hand against the fatherless,
When I saw I had help in the gate;
Then let my arm fall from my shoulder,
Let my arm be torn from the socket…

“If I have made gold my hope,
Or said to fine gold, ‘You are my confidence’;
If I have rejoiced because my wealth was great,
And because my hand had gained much;*
…This also would be an iniquity deserving of judgment,
For I would have denied God who is above.

“If my land cries out against me,
And its furrows weep together;
If I have eaten its fruit without money,
Or caused its owners to lose their lives;
Then let thistles grow instead of wheat,
And weeds instead of barley.”

Job 31:16-25, 28, 38-40 (NKJV)

*Admittedly, this is followed by a passage about idolatry, but it interrupted the flow so… *snip snip* Heheh.

On this the second day of Christmas, I remembered that Feast of St. Stephen is traditionally a day for giving to the poor, and, as such, is associated with Good King Wenceslas. Here is the Irish Rovers’ version on Youtube and Spotify, because it’s virtually impossible to play this song straight. (Fun fact: the reason the music sounds about seven hundred years old is because it is; it was a Spring carol -which actually has much better lyrics- and then some weirdo Victorian decided to totally confuse everyone by making it a sort of limping Christmas carol.)

So oops… we have one more carol. If I were really evil, I would wait and spring it on you in January, on whatever the Eastern Orthodox date is (the 8th, I think), but this was always meant to be a one year thing, and I’d hate for my trolling to be the last thing on here.

Additionally, here is the Sinfonia of the 2nd day of Part 2 of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio BWV248. (Possibly overdone, but it’s frankly thrilling to me that there is no German in this part of the oratorio. In the famous words of whoever wrote the screenplay for Amadeus: “…it’s too brutal.”)

Truly, Tomorrow

December 16th

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be?
For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after.
Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel at me?
The thing ye behold’s a divine mystery.

translation of the O Virgo Virganum antiphon

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet he did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

Matthew 1:18-23 (NIV)

Because I got ahead of myself and covered Mary’s story in July, and the context of Isaiah’s ‘Emmanuel prophecy’ is actually pretty complicated, I thought we’d look at Joseph’s point of view, because that really required a lot of faith too, and I feel like he doesn’t get enough credit.

Here is Pentatonix’s version of Mary Did You Know? on Youtube and Spotify. (Voctave also has an amazing version with Mark Lowry, but they already got a turn, and the Pentatonix one is easier listening, even if Voctave’s is just technically wow. You know what? Just listen to both of them. There, problem solved.)

Today’s picture in last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic is boring, so here is Van Eyck’s Annunciation because I adore this painting.

Contemporaries

December 11th

But You Yourself have seen trouble and grief, observing it in order to take the matter into Your hands. The helpless entrusts himself to You; You are a helper of the fatherless. The Lord is King forever and ever… Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their hearts. You will listen carefully, doing justice for the fatherless and the oppressed, so that the men of the earth may terrify them no more.

Psalm 10:14,17-18 (HCSB)

It is eighteen hundred years* and more since Jesus Christ walked here on earth. But this is not an event like other events which pass over into history, and then as events long bygone, pass over into forgetfulness. No, His presence here on earth never becomes a bygone event, and never becomes more and more bygone —if faith is found on the earth. And if not, then indeed that very instant it is a long, long time since He lived. But so long as there is a believer, such a one must, in order to become such, have been, and as a believer must continue to be, just as contemporary with His presence on earth as were those [first] contemporaries.

O Lord Jesus Christ… Would that we might see You as You are and were and will be until Your return in glory, see You as a sign of offence and the object of faith, the lowly man, and yet the Saviour and Redeemer of the race, who out of love came to earth in order to seek the lost, in order to suffer and to die.

Oh! Wonderful, wonderful! …to offer help! and to offer it to all! To offer it— no, to shout it out, as if the Helper were the one who needed help…!

from Kierkegaard’s Training in Christianity (Invocation)

*Just… lol

Vaguely related to the subject of contemporaneousness and making things comprehensible: Chanticleer’s Huron Carol (or Twas the Moon of Wintertime) on Youtube and Spotify.

Fun fact: it is Canada’s oldest Christmas song, written by a Jesuit, Brébeuf, because they made Jesuits do all the hard work back then. Another fun fact: he ended up captured, ritually tortured and then killed by the Iroquois, not because of preaching the gospel, but just because the world was a really scary place to live in at time. (It wasn’t him alone, but people from the village he was working with, so does it really count as martyrdom? Not sure. Edit: extensive research has revealed that it was just the Jesuits and the converts that got the truly horrific treatment, so, yes, I guess it does count.)

…and here is an image of star cluster Trumpler 14 (which is just a fantastic name) from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic.

Here’s this year’s calendar, if anyone’s interested.

The other side of the river

December 9th

Jesus replied to them,* “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop. The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me. Where I am, there My servant also will be…”

John 12:23-26 (HCSB)

As… life on the other side of the great river becomes more and more the reality, of which this is only a shadow, that the petty distinctions of the many creeds of Christendom tend to slip away as well—leaving only the great truths which all Christians believe alike. More and more, as I read of the Christian religion, as Christ preached it, I stand amazed at the forms men have given to it, and the fictitious barriers they have built up between themselves and their brethren. I believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths Christ taught us—our own utter worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one another—we shall have all we need to guide us through the shadows.

Most assuredly I accept to the full the doctrines that Christ died to save us, that we have no other way of salvation open to us but through His death, and that it is by faith in Him, and through no merit of ours, that we are reconciled to God; and most assuredly I can cordially say, “I owe all to Him who loved me, and died on the Cross of Calvary.”

from The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll

Here is Voctave’s O Come All Ye Faithful, because their tenor is just fantastic. (Full warning: I’m going to fit in as many Voctave carols as I can this month; they’re good arrangements, and the singers are pretty uniformly amazing. It’s like Pentatonix for adults.)

…and here is an image of NGC 1032 in Cetus (they got the galaxy’s ‘bad side,’ which is obviously pretty hard) from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic.

Here’s this year’s, if anyone’s interested.

Paying attention

December 7th

“Look: to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams.”

1 Samuel 15:22 (HCSB)

…You see that the sun, as it rises, shows us the size of objects which we could only make out obscurely during the night. Remember that, as the inner light increases, you will see the imperfections which you have seen heretofore as basically much greater and more harmful than you had seen them up to the present. You will find in your heart all the weaknesses which you will need to lose confidence in your strength; but this experience, far from discouraging you, will help to uproot all your self-confidence, and to raze to the ground the whole edifice of pride. Nothing marks so much the solid advancement of a soul, as this view of his wretchedness without anxiety and without discouragement.

The wise and diligent traveller watches his every step, and always has his eyes upon the part of the road directly in front of him. But he does not turn constantly backward to count every step, and to examine every track. He would lose time in going forward. A soul whom God truly leads by the hand (because I am not speaking of those who are learning to walk, and who are still looking for the road), ought to watch his path, but with a simple, serene vigilance, limited to the present, and undisturbed by self-love. It takes a continual attention to God’s will to accomplish this every moment, and not a turning back upon self to assure ourselves of our condition, while God wishes us to be unsure of it. This is why the Psalmist said, “My eyes are raised to the Lord, and it is he who will deliver my feet from the snares.”

Notice that to conduct his feet safely among roads sown with snares, instead of lowering his eyes to examine every step, he raises them instead to the Lord. We never watch over ourselves so well as when we walk with God present before our eyes, as God commanded Abraham. We should follow God’s will step by step.

Whoever conforms to it in all things watches over himself, and sanctifies himself in everything. If then we should never lose the presence of God, we should never cease to watch over ourselves, but with a simple, affectionate, serene and detached vigilance; while that other vigilance that we seek for self-assurance is sharp, uneasy and full of self-interest. It is not in our own light, but in that of God, that we must walk. We cannot see the holiness of God, without being horrified by the least infidelities. We examine ourselves, not for our own interest, but to follow the advice, and to accomplish the pure will of God. Moreover, we abandon ourselves in his hands, and we are as glad to know ourselves in the hands of God as we should be sorry to be in our own.

…Our life is a continual combat, but a combat in which Jesus Christ fights with us.

from Fenelon’s Christian Perfection (6 – Faults and Temptations)

I was pretty sure that I’d already posted part of this passage, but I couldn’t find it in my index. So, sorry if this is redundant.

Here’s Pentatonix’s God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen on Youtube and Spotify.

…and here is an image of another galactic collision (in Corvus) from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic.

Here’s this year’s calendar, if anyone’s interested.

The life of faith

December 4th

Abraham’s defects are clear and his sins obvious, but his nobility is extraordinary. Abraham is never presented as a saint or as a type of sanctification. Phases of his life may be used to present these, but Abraham himself is the type of the life of faith in its failures and in its successes.

from Oswald Chambers’ Not Knowing Whither

For no flesh will be justified in His sight by the works of the law… But now, apart from the law, God’s righteousness has been revealed — attested by the Law and the Prophets — that is, God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, since there is no distinction.

…the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.. This is why the promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace, to guarantee it to all the descendants —not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of Abraham’s faith. He is the father of us all in God’s sight. As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations. He believed in God, who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.

Romans 4:13,16-17 (HCSB)

Here’s 4HIM’s of What a Strange Way to Save the World Youtube and Spotify. (No one’s done a really good cover of it yet. The Gardiner Sisters do have a faster version with nice harmonies, but it seems weird to have only girls singing Joseph’s part, and changing the rhythm makes the close of the chorus a little… less thrilling.)

…and, re: the ‘things that do not exist,’ here is an image of the star-forming region S105 (and the star S106 IR) in Cygnus, from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic.

Here’s this year’s, if anyone’s interested.

‘Not a thing for skies and stars’

December 3rd

Faith also helps us to use the world as not abusing it. It is good at hard work, and at daily duty. It is not an angelic thing for skies and stars, but a human grace, at home in kitchens and workshops. It is at home at every kind of labour, and in every rank of life. It is a grace for every day, all the year round. Holy confidence in God is never out of work.

Spurgeon, in Around the Wicket Gate (To Those Who Have Believed)

Then the Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre… he saw three men standing near him…

“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.

“There, in the tent.” he answered.

The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!”

Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him. Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. So she laughed to herself: “After I have become shriveled up and my lord is old, will I have delight?”

But the Lord asked Abraham “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.”

Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid.

But He replied, “No, you did laugh.”

…Then the Lord said, “Abraham is to become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him so that he will command his children and his house after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just.”

Genesis 18:9-15,18-19 (HCSB)

Abraham laughed too, by the way. People always forget that. On that whole subject, the title of this post was almost “The really, really, really, long road to Bethlehem,” but it won’t let me use italics up there.

Here is Tim Foust and The Hound + The Fox’s version of We Three Kings with some really kickass harmonizing on Youtube and Spotify. It’s one of my favorites (though I should probably add that my favorites are more determined by which are the most fun to belt out at the top of one’s lungs at any time in the two months preceding Christmas -yes I am one of those people- than any musical merit they may or may not have).

…and here is an Einstein Ring in the snappily-named galaxy cluster SDSSJ0146-0929 from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic. Here’s the link to this year’s, by the way, if you’re interested in being up-to-date.

Hearts wide open

November 25th

Open wide your hearts also.

2 Corinthians 6:13 (NIV)

We need a larger faith. What is the use of light if we do not use it? We need a faith that will personally appropriate all that we understand, and a faith so large that it will reach the fullness of God’s great promises; so large that it will rise to the level of each emergency as it comes into our life.

We need a larger love. We need a love that will love the lost as He loves them, overcoming our repugnance to every personal condition, and delighting to suffer or sacrifice for their salvation with the joy that counts it no sacrifice. We need a larger joy. We need a joy that will not only rejoice in the gifts of God, but will rejoice in God Himself and find in Him our portion and our boundless and everlasting delight. We need a joy that will not only rejoice in all things, but rejoice evermore. We need a joy that even when we do not feel the joy, will “count it all joy,” and rejoice by faith

We need a larger experience. We do not mean by this any mere state of emotional feeling, but a larger range of Christian living, a bringing of Christ more into everything; an experience that will prove Him in all situations, amid secular business, exasperating circumstances, baffling perplexities, extreme vicissitudes; and, going all round the circle of human life, will be able to say, “I have learned the secret, in every state in which I am therewith to be content. I know how to be abased and how to abound; I know how to be full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” That is a large experience. That is a degree in the school of Christ that will outweigh all the D.D.’s of all the colleges.

from A. B Simpson’s The Larger Christian Life