the Craftsman

December  14th

 The work has need that the Craftsman come, the King himself, and repair the house which now lies decayed under its roof. For He made the body and the limbs of clay… O You Ruler, You just King, who hold the keys, who opens life… truly in need we speak these words, entreating Him who shaped the race of man, that He would choose not to speak His doom on us, who here in sadness and in prison sit sorrowing all the glad journey of the sun. When on us the Lord of life shows forth His light, may He be a shield to our souls, clothe the frail mind with splendor, and grant us worth, whom He chose to His glory…

from the Christ of Cynewulf

But you, LORD, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations. You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her; the appointed time has come. For her stones are dear to your servants; her very dust moves them to pity. The nations will fear the name of the LORD, all the kings of the earth will revere your glory. For the LORD will rebuild Zion and appear in his glory.

He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea. Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the LORD: “The LORD looked down from his sanctuary on high, from heaven he viewed the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death.” So the name of the LORD will be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the LORD.

Psalm 102:12-22 (NIV)

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Here is Sidewalk Prophets Oh What a Glorious Night on Youtube and Spotify.

On that topic, because it’s hilarious, and I can’t resist:

Also because the image from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic is boring, but here’s this year’s calendar, if anyone’s interested.

Exceeding expectations

December 13th 

The Lord has displayed His holy arm in the sight of all the nations; all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. …See, My servant will act wisely; He will be raised and lifted up and greatly exalted. Just as many were appalled at You [Him] — His appearance was so disfigured that He did not look like a man, and His form did not resemble a human being — so He will sprinkle [like the blood of a sacrifice is sprinkled for atonement] many nations. Kings will shut their mouths because of Him, for they will see what had not been told them, and they will understand what they had not heard.

Isaiah 52:10, 13-15 (HCSB)

Not, Lord, because I have done well or ill;
Not that my mind looks up to you clear-eyed…
Not that I, wretched, wander from your will;
Not now for any cause to you I cry,
But this, that you art you, and here am I.

Come to me, Lord: I will not speculate how,
Nor think at which door I would have you appear,
Nor put off calling till my floors are swept,
But cry, “Come, Lord, come any way, come now.”
Doors, windows, I throw wide; my head I bow,
And sit like some one who so long has slept
That he knows nothing till his life draw near.

from George Macdonald’s Book of Strife in the form of a Diary of an Old Soul

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Here’s The Rose Ensemble‘s version of the Star in the East on Youtube and Spotify respectively.

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…and here is an image of a two year old light shell from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic.

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

The second Adam’s second coming

December 2nd

So the LORD God said to the serpent, “…I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Genesis 3:14-15 (NIV)

We have tested and tasted too much, lover –
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

O after Christmas we’ll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning –
We’ll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we’ll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won’t we be rich, my love and I, and please
God we shall not ask for reason’s payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God’s breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour –
And Christ comes with a January flower.

Advent, Patrick Kavanagh

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Not strictly a religious poem (in fact, I pretty sure some of those lines are actively anti-religious), but it’s always struck me, and I’m reminded to to pray for the person that first shared it with me every time I see it.

In keeping with our general Advent theme, here’s Andrew Peterson’s The Dark Before the Dawn on Youtube and Spotify.

…and here is an image of the Whirlpool Galaxy from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic, just because.

Helping humans, not ‘humanity’

November 18th 

For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Titus 3:3-7 (NASB)

The New Testament way of looking at humanity is not the modern way. In the New Testament men and women exist, there is no such thing as “Humanity,” the human race as a whole.

A materialist says—Because my religious beliefs do for me, therefore they are satisfactory. Not in the tiniest degree. The test of a man’s religious faith is not that it does for him, but that it will do for the worst wreck he ever knew. If every one were well brought up and had a fine heredity, then there are any number of intellectual forms of belief that would do. The materialistic line works like a searchlight, lighting up what it does and no more, but the daylight of actual experience reveals a hundred and one other facts. It does not show a clear simple path, but brings to light a multitude of facts never seen before. The evolutionist looks at man and says, What a glorious promise of what he is going to be! The New Testament looks at man’s body and moral life and intelligence and says, What a ruin of what God designed him to be!

from Oswald Chambers’ Shadow of an Agony
(Humanity and Holiness)

Last day of Passover week

April 26th 

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’ ”

 

First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:

“This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”

Then he adds:

“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”

And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Hebrews 10:1-23 (NIV)

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…and, for your listening pleasure, here’s Michael Card’s A New and Living Way on… Google Music and Spotify, because apparently no one on Youtube likes that one.

Edit: obviously, I screwed up the dates on here. I really do know how to use a calendar, I swear.

What good is a dead Messiah?

January 30th 

…Jesus Christ our Lord, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh, and was established as the powerful Son of God by the resurrection from the dead according to the Spirit of holiness.

Romans 1:3-4 (HCSB)

A lot of people have died for a good cause. The problem with the apostles is that their good cause died on the cross. They believed Jesus to be the Messiah. They didn’t think he could die. They were convinced that he was the one to set up the kingdom of God and to rule over the people of Israel. In order to understand the apostles’ relationship to Christ and to understand why the cross was so incomprehensible to them, you have to grasp the attitude about the Messiah at the time of Christ:

E. F. Scott says: “To the people at large the Messiah remained what he had been to Isaiah and his contemporaries – the Son of David who would bring victory and prosperity to the Jewish nation. In light of the Gospel references it can hardly be doubted that the popular conception of the Messiah was mainly national and political.”

One can detect in the New Testament the apostles’ attitude toward Christ: their expectation of a reigning Messiah. After Jesus told his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer, James and John asked him to promise that in his kingdom they could sit at his right and left hands (Mark 10:32-38). What type of Messiah were they thinking of? A suffering, crucified Messiah? No, a political ruler. Jesus indicated that they misunderstood what he had to do; they didn’t know what they were asking. When Jesus predicted his suffering and crucifixion they didn’t know what he meant (Luke 18:31-34). Because of their background and training they believed that they were in on a good thing. Then came Calvary. All hopes departed of Jesus being their Messiah. Discouraged, they returned to their homes. All those years wasted.

But a few weeks after the crucifixion, in spite of their former doubts, the disciples were in Jerusalem proclaiming Jesus as their Savior and Lord, the Messiah of the Jews. The only reasonable explanation that I can see of this change is 1 Corinthians 15:5 – “He appeared… then to the twelve.” What else could have caused the despondent disciples to go out and suffer and die for a crucified Messiah?

Yes, a lot of people have died for a good cause, but the good cause of the apostles died on the cross. Only the resurrection and resultant contact with Christ convinced his followers he was the Messiah. To this they testified not only with their lives and lips, but with their deaths.

from Josh McDowell’s More Than a Carpenter (Ch. 6)

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Again, #include std disclaimer here; I agree with what I’ve posted, not necessarily the writer’s whole body of work. The E.F Scott quote McDowell uses comes from Kingdom and the Messiah, which I have not read, because it’s hella long (and likely horribly out of date, though, on the bright side, that means it’s probably in the public domain). The rest is obviously from More Than a Carpenter, which I have read.

I tend to take a very dim view of most apologetics (besides my C.S. Lewis fangirling of course, but, even there, Lewis at his most compelling focuses on his personal experience and psychological landscapes. He also leans more towards rhetoric than logic, because of his classical/dialectical focus, and isn’t the most thorough of philosophers… and isn’t that a laugh? viewing Lewis as part of the Quietist tradition? but anyhow…). But if I suspend any criticism regarding facts, reasoning and style, McDowell’s work is, like most apologetics, heart-opening, more than mind-opening, and that’s what’s most needed I think; once your heart is cracked open, it’s very easy to have an open mind.

The glorious liberty of the children of God

January 16th

“The past events have indeed happened. Now I declare new events I announce them to you before they occur.”

Isaiah 42:9 (HCSB)

It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil. As, then, the creatures whom he had created reasonable, like the Word, were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being good, to do? Was he to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifference to the ruin of his own work before his very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if he had never created men at all. It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of himself.

What—or rather Who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God himself, who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For he alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world. He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in his love and self-revealing to us. …pitying our race, moved with compassion for our limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery, rather than that his creatures should perish and the work of his Father for us men come to nought, he took to himself a body, a human body even as our own. dwelt. Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, he surrendered his body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This he did out of sheer love for us, so that in his death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in his body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men.

 

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The title is a reference to Romans 8. The excerpt is from Athanasius’ On the Incarnation (chapter 2). And for your listening pleasure: Secret Ambition by Michael W. Smith, on Youtube and Spotify respectively. (Note, it’s Michael W. Smith, so it’s the ninety-est of 90s songs.)