Month: May 2015

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Before or After?

Most of us are familiar with Paul’s warning about eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. Unworthy eaters “will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:27). So a person should “examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (verse 28).

Some Christians with sinful attitudes towards another person, let’s say toward their spouse, do not eat or drink at the communion table. Something isn’t right there, so something isn’t right here. Their marriage affects their worship.

It goes the other way, too, doesn’t it? If something isn’t right here, something won’t be right there. Worship affects relationships, including marriage. It is unlikely that a man will be faithful, engaged, eager to commune with God week by week and then be a hermit at home, at least he won’t be that way forever. It is unlikely that a woman will be humble, teachable, eager to commune with God and then be a spoiled, cold brat at home. If either, or both, are half-hearted, motion-goers here, their marriage investment probably won’t amount to much either.

Which is worse, disunity before or after worship? Which is unworthy, fussing with your spouse before taking communion or after taking communion? Paul warns about unworthy partaking not so that we will get our hearts right for this Table and then relax. The point isn’t to survive a communion table gauntlet only to be a pain in the butt at the lunch table. The point is having our hearts right for whatever table we’re sitting around. The communion table reminds us of Christ’s work that makes wrong hearts right and ready for communion wherever.

Before we eat and drink, let us examine ourselves. And after we eat and drink by grace, let us examine ourselves to see if we are guilty of profaning the image of God by our unworthy attitudes toward one another.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Inching up the Triangle

I’ve heard it described before that marriage is like a triangle with God at the summit. As the husband and wife get closer to God they necessarily get closer to each other. I like the illustration well enough. It is true that the man and the woman have their own, personal relationship to God, a relationship that in many cases existed before the wedding and one that can provide support during marriage.

But most of the Christians I fellowship with on a regular basis do not usually struggle to remember or attend to our individual access to God. “I have a relationship with Jesus Christ regardless of what happens around me.” That is true, and there is a proper way to emphasize that. It becomes a problem, though, when we value our individual access to God in such a way as to consider our spouse (or children) as an obstacle between us and God. We come to think of our husband or wife as a hurdle to get over, and then even as a hurdle to leave behind on our way to God.

There is a sense in which every man by himself and every woman by herself bears the image of God. But a married couple bear God’s image together. So your spouse–even your sinning, selfish, stand-offish, criticizing, fussy spouse–is less of a hindrance to Your fellowship with God and more of a reason for it. Christian couples should think correctly about their connection. In other words, it is not a time to congratulate yourself when you’ve inched closer to God on your side of the triangle but your spouse stays further back.

Husbands, if your wife is falling back, then your individual Christian growth (which you should pursue) will result in your loving sacrifice that, by grace, will win/woo your wife to come along. Likewise, wives, if your husband is falling back, then your individual Christian growth (which you should pursue) will result in joyful respect that will, by grace, push your husband further. Individual Christian growth that does not look to unite, even if that unity doesn’t happen overnight, is not growth in godlikeness. God unites us to Himself, He doesn’t just celebrate that He is better than us.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

An Interrogative Shovel

I value the Why? question. I think I’ve mostly lost the smart-alecky junior high attitude underneath the asking, but I still appreciate and utilize the interrogative shovel to dig for idealogical treasure.

The reason why God created the universe and the reason why God created marriage between one man and one woman and the reason why Christ came and died and rose again and the reason why we make disciples and the reason why every disciple belongs to the Church is the same reason. If we said that the reason is “for His glory,” we’d be correct but perhaps still clouded behind the Christian jargon. So again, why creation, marriage, salvation, and church?

It’s because the three Persons of God so loved one another and enjoyed their union together that He made other beings to know and enjoy that glory. The understanding and affection and joy between the Father, Son, and the Spirit is part of His magnificence. It’s what makes Him awesome. His incommunicable attributes such as omniscience and omnipotence and eternality are at work for spilling His communicable glory into us.

Therefore, the reason why God made the world, instituted family, forgives rebels, and knits His people together in one Body is so that we will have understanding and affection and joy with Him and between ourselves like Him.

We glorify God when we see His glory truly, when we say it accurately, and when we sing it wholeheartedly. We also glory God when we receive His gifts thankfully and then imitate Him through loving generosity/sacrifice for the joy of others and in order to increase fellowship between us. We glorify God vertically and horizontally, through praise and through practice, through communion with Him through Christ and communion with each other by the Spirit.

What did God want with us and for us? He wanted us to taste His love and joy in union with Him as well as in our relationships here, especially in family, both by blood and by Christ’s blood. Why? Because it’s truly glorious.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Indeed a Political Act

A happy marriage is a political act. (Note: the adjective is key in the previous sentence.) George Orwell meant as much in his dystopian novel, 1984. The totalitarian State prohibited–to the degree that they could–passionate marriages and sexual pleasure. Orwell’s main characters couldn’t vote for change but they could defy Big Brother by their adultery.

Their motivation, however, was strictly rebellion. Just do what you’re not allowed do to to stick it to the Man. Then you’re truly free. But in opposing bondage to the State Winston and Julia chose another bondage, the bondage of sin. They could not liberate themselves by their defiance, let alone anyone else, less because the government was so powerful and more because they chose to believe a different set of entangling lies.

Their misunderstanding, and Orwell’s himself, doesn’t change that the committed life of one man with one woman and their honoring the marriage bed is indeed a political act. It makes a statement to both neighbors and the nation. Such union is an embodied claim that says the president and politicians and police do not have the authority to make or break marriage however they desire. A male and female in covenant one-fleshedness are enfleshing theology. Husband and wife, then father and mother, are God-instituted relationships for the glory of the human race. This is a political act in that it declares that God is God, not the state. God is the lawgiver and not the people themselves or the lobby groups or big donors or liberal judges sitting on courtroom benches.

God instituted marriage as an incarnational reflection of His own Trinitarian, eternal relations as well as an illustration of the union between His Son and His Son’s Bride, the Church. How we love our wives, respect our husbands, raise our children, none of these are invisible, let alone hopeless acts. Through them we pledge our allegiance to the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Two Adams

There are two Adams that we need to know about. The first is Adam from Eden, the first man on earth, husband, father, gardener, and eater of forbidden fruit. The second Adam is Jesus, the eternally-beggoten Son of God the Father, carpenter, prophet, and sinless sacrifice. He is called Adam because He, too, stands at the headwaters of a people. Paul compares and contrasts the two in 1 Corinthians 15.

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45)

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:47–48)

God gave life to Adam from the ground. God gives life through the second Adam now risen from the grave. Not only do both Adams represent us, we reflect them.

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:49)

The first Adam was brought to life in glory in a garden. The second Adam was buried in a garden and then raised to life in greater glory. The first Adam lost glory for all of us when he sinned. The second Adam secured glory for all of us when He rose again. We enjoy the blessings of both the natural body and the spiritual body; we follow and image both Adams. We were born and we were born again. We are humans and we are Christians, so we eat and drink on two levels, looking to our resurrection glory like the second Adam.

For more on how the spiritual man is still a material man read this post by Doug Wilson.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

An Act of Life

To riff off Chesterton, a man cannot draw a triangle with four sides no matter how resourceful a geometry teacher. A man cannot sketch a giraffe with a short neck no matter how creative his imagination. A man cannot write iambic pentameter with six feet and only four stressed syllables no matter how free a poet he fancies himself.

[I]t is impossible to be an artist and not care for laws and limits. Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. (Orthodoxy)

More than art, life itself is limitations. A man cannot build his savings account by spending more than he makes no matter how much he increases his income. A man cannot procreate with another man no matter how official the State seal on his marriage license is. A man cannot define life however he wants. True liberty always exists within given boundaries given by God.

A sane man, a free man, will not claim he is a woman, a dog, or a result of millions of protoplasmic spasms. These are impossible. They are lies. And they imprison liberty.

When a man defines everything, he defies the truth, starting with the fact that he is not allowed to sit in the seat of the Ultimate Determiner of Definitions. When he attempts autonomy he becomes the greatest slave. God told Adam that in the day he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would die. As soon as Adam took the prerogative for himself to define what was right and wrong he lost his life.

This is why confessing our sins is an act of life. We hear and accept and act on God’s defined limits. We have sinned, but when we agree and submit to His law then we know the truth and the truth, with all its glorious limits, sets us free.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

The Day of Resting Revelry

The Church changed the day of resting revelry from Saturday to Sunday as a recognition that Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Christ’s work did not change the duration of the work and rest cycle. We still work six and stop one. But there is a different order in the cycle. We rest first and then work.

This is a spiritual reality that our weekly cycle reminds us of. We do not work to be saved, we work because we are saved. God has finished creating and Christ has finished satisfying God’s wrath. We’re not working to appease the Father but rather because the Father accepted the Son’s finished work.

In one sense this is a permanent rest. We do not ever get over the good news. We are only saved through grace by faith in Christ and every Lord’s day we affirm our rest in Him. We’re reminded of the object of our faith and taste the rest for our consciences in Christ. Our bodies benefit from the break, but even more our hearts are refreshed.

The cycle continues until He returns. The Lord’s day is not like a fat kid at the other end of a teeter-totter from six skinny days. This first day of the week is like that fat kid spinning the other days on the merry-go-round in joy. Because of how we’re made, we can’t get up more speed in our work by non-stop work. We must recognize the only One who can bless our work in fruitfulness, and one way that we revel in Him every week is by receiving the bread and the cup from His Table.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

All That He’s Provided

After God identified the man the woman as His image-bearers, He eagerly showed them all that He had made for them. All kinds of food were available to enjoy and to energize them in their work. They would constantly be recognizing God as they received all that He had given to them.

Likewise, after God identifies a believer in baptism, marking him as one who has died and risen in likeness to Christ, so God eagerly shows him all that He’s provided. All righteousness, wisdom, and redemption are available to enjoy and to energize our work. We constantly recognize God when we receive what He has given us in His Son.

This is simple, but it is a needed reminder of our need. Our lives orbit the Son; He is the gravity that holds us together. Our life cycle is given by Him; we wake and walk and work and wind down and worship week after week according to His watch. Our responsibilities and relationships are given by Him and for Him. Our joy in the process and strength to persevere are given by Him. So we keep coming to Him by faith, at least once a week to this Table that reminds us of His provision. Jesus is our Lord, our Savior, our food, our everything. Our declaration of dependence by eating and drinking honors Him.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

How to Go Glutton-Free

Previously I took a crack at a predictable sin among dieters. In light of the abundance given to us by God, a certain sort of calorie counting and package reading panic belongs with, and nurtures, a discontent person. He is not thankful for the gifts or the bounty and he thinks too much about No and not enough about Yes.

I mentioned that I might chase that exhortation with one about gluttony. Restrictions in dieting and asceticism, whether of all food or of culturally taboo foods, is often the rejection of good. Gluttony must be the opposite, craving and consuming too much of the good.

Though we might focus the contrasts between dieting and gluttony, both share the most common ingredient of discontent. Abstaining tendencies tell God (usually in an ill-defined thought) that He’s wrong for giving too much, while overindulgent tendencies tell God He hasn’t given enough. In both cases a man is being selfish. In both cases he’s telling God that He is wrong.

A man might become a glutton because he’s lazy, like the Cretans who were “always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” Being drunk on food is a way to get out of working for food. He’s discontent with God’s plan to work. A man might also become a glutton because he’s afraid. He’s unsure when or if he’ll see food again so he eats four helpings to give himself some padding. He’s discontent with God’s promise to provide.

The only way to go glutton-free is in Christ. It’s by eating and drinking in thanks. We see again how the insidious yeast of discontent makes skinny souls and how thankfulness raises fat ones.