Impatience with the messiah analogy

At first it was tongue in cheek--referring to Obama as "the messiah" during the campaign. After all, it was so far beyond the pale it made a point. And that ridiculous Soviet realism style art on the posters and buttons--glinting eye, jutting jaw. It all fit. A leftover from an era when God had been kicked out of the public square. But I'm tired of it. Yes. It disturbs me. I think he and his true-believer followers have internalized it at some very deep level of consciousness. We're not helping them clarify their thinking by repeating and cheapening the word messiah. So Christians particularly might just stop joking about it. 'Taint funny anymore, folks.

This morning I was reading a 100 year old sermon by G. Campbell Morgan on the resurrection with reference to Romans 1:4, the centerpiece of our faith, looking forward to the final resurrection of the saints. He says he dreams of unborn ages and new creations, and marvellous processions out of the being of God, through the risen Christ and the risen saints. Then he tells his congregation (in London) to go away rejoicing in the resurrection of Jesus because it is the message of a great confidence.

"He is King, Priest, Warrior, and Builder, and all the great relationships are linked to His resurrection because he demonstrated thereby as the Son of God.

His Kingship is an absolute monarchy. I have no anxiety about His reign. I believe in an absolute monarchy when we can find the right King. We have found Him.

As to His Prophetic mission, it is one of absolute authority. What He said is true. It cannot be gainsaid. All the words gathered from His tender lips, and printed here and preserved for us, are words which abide. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away."

As to His Priesthood, the resurrection demonstrates its absolute sufficiency. Why do you grieve God by this perpetual grieving over sin, and the declaration that you cannot believe He can forgive you?

As to His triumph, He has broken in pieces the gates of brass. He has cut the bars of iron asunder. He has triumphed gloriously, and He will win His battle and build His city. Then so help me God, as He will permit me, I fain would share the travail that makes His Kingdom come, entering the fellowship of His sufferings, for all the while the light of His resurrection is upon the pathway, and I know that at the last, the things which He has made me suffer will be the things of the unending triumph."

That others have sneaked another name into those titles, responsibilities, and 3rd person pronouns is indeed a shame, but let's not encourage them.

Learning from the past

The dueling speeches--Cheney and Obama--certainly show that we have administrations with entirely different perspectives on war and defense. WaPo version. President Obama is attempting to criminalize, after the fact, actions that were taken by the former President and Congress which were ruled legal just a few years ago. At the same time, he's attempting to shore up his support on the hard left--those who pushed him into office hoping he'd dance to their jig--who think he's backing down. Obama's view on security and defense is that of the USA/FDR of the 1930s, the drill we went through as Hitler knocked off his neighbors and threatened England--watch, wait, and talk. The other, the Bush-Cheney plan (with Congress's approval and support) was to go on the attack rather than wait any longer. Last night I heard a woman liberal on a panel critiquing the two speeches whine that Cheney had mentioned 9/11 twenty times in his speech, that it obviously was a defining moment in his mind.

I've been reading "Westminster Pulpit" the collection of sermons of G. Campbell Morgan now 100 years old. He had some interesting points about remembering the past.

The true backward look is that which sets the past in relation to God; that which lays to heart the lessons God has intended to teach by the experiences of the past; and is that which always has the future in mind. . . [commenting on Moses' use of the past] These people had been brought out of Egypt and its bondage to God, and to that freedom which was perfectly conditioned within government and within law. This was fundamental, and this they were charged never to forget. Take the Old Testament and read right through it, listening to its teachings; and whether you are reading its devotional literature, or that which is distinctly prophetic in the sense of the forthtelling of the Divine Will, you will discover how constantly these prophets, seers, and psalmists, took the people back to Egypt, and the fact of their deliverance there from. That was absolutely fundamental. V. 4, p. 10-11

Morgan goes on to make a spiritual point, and I don't think he mentions that often the escaping Hebrew people wanted to go back to Egypt where they were slaves rather than face the tough problems of the wilderness.

You look just like your mother

When my college roommate met me at the Seattle airport in 1996 after many years of not being together, I said to her, "You look just like your mother," and she said to me, "And you look like yours." Both our mothers were younger (mid to late 30s) when we first met, so that shows you how "elderly" mid-life adults look to children. Reading G. Campbell Morgan this morning made me realize how much we Americans look like our mother, England. He is preaching from that passage in Amos, which is a powerful word from God to the people of Israel of that time, but resonates down through the centuries to all peoples, Amos 8:11-13. Amos tells of a famine not of bread, but of the word of the Lord, a famine that will hit the young and healthy the hardest. And so a hundred years ago, early in the 20th century, Morgan is preaching on this passage to Londoners, citizens of the most powerful country in the world. The sun had not yet set on the Union Jack when he said this--the tiny island still ruled India and much of Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia and the annihilation of generations of its sons in WWI and WWII was yet to come

"The prophet of today will see quite clearly the cruelty of Russia, the frivolity of France, the rationalism of Germany, the civic corruption of America. But the prophet cannot forget the relation of privilege and responsibility, and he cannot forget the fiery, burning, searching words of his Lord, that it is to be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for the cities that heard his voice. . . Russia will have a far better chance in the final judgment of the nations than England, because England has had infinitely more light. . . we are living in the midst of a great famine, not of bread, but of the Word of God, what is this famine? It is a curse upon our idolatries. . . The curses of God are the harvests of man's own wrongdoing.

If we have lost our sense of the Word, and
our love for the Word, and
our confidence in the Word, and
our appreciation of the Word,
why is it?
It is God's judgement, but it is an effect following a cause. . .

So Morgan challenges the people of England to first give up the idolatry, then turn to the Word, and then there will be no famine.

The other morning I heard Father John Corapi on EWTN speaking on the culture of death and anti-life forces in America say we Americans have been "educated into embicility" and we are "slaves to our culture." Physical poverty is a terrible thing to see, he said, but if we had eyes to see the spiritual misery of our nation, we would die of fright.

The training of children

As I've mentioned before, I've been reading a chapter a day of Westminster Pulpit (10 volumes, compiled from sermons of G. Campbell Morgan preached about 100 years ago). So far I haven't found anything that doesn't speak to today's problems, just a few words with which I'm unfamiliar. In chapter 9 of vol. 2 he discusses "The Training of our children," using Proverbs 22:6--"Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it." He nailed me on this one.

. . . Christian people generally today believe the Bible to be true. A great many would . . .indulge in their own peculiar method of criticism in the presence of this particular text.

"In the beginning God created"--yes!

"And God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son"--certainly true!

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"--there can be no question about that!

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it"--well, that is open to question; we are not quite sure about it.

And in my case, I even believe the book of origins, Genesis, also believed by Jesus, which many Christians toss over the shoulder with a few grains of salt because they learned it differently in school. But he caught me indeed on this business of children. It's easier for me to grasp a 6 day creation than this one, because of what I've seen and experienced in my own life and those I love. I'll laugh at you if you explain a billion years of evolving from slug-slime, but nod in agreement if you try to sort out what happened to the kid we knew who was raised by godly parents, was a pastor for 20 years, who has left his wife and family or she's embezzled from her employer while in a position of respect and honor.

Pastor Morgan doesn't let anyone off the hook here. He's speaking to parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, pastors, Sunday school teachers and school teachers. He chides parents for setting ideals too low--that we want educated, successful, cultured, socialized offspring.

What is Jesus Christ's estimate of greatness? . . . in the Kingdom of God there is never a single blessing pronounced upon having, never a blessing pronounced upon doing. All the blessings are upon being. . . That the boy may be a Godly man, that the girl may be one of the King's daughters all glorious within, that first. Everything after, but that first. To neglect that is to lose sight of the goal and ruin our children by love which is false love. . . You have to be what you want your child to be. . . your boy will be what you are, and not what you tell him to be. . . You can't turn your child toward the Kingdom if you are a rebel.

He spends a lot of time on the word TRAIN and on "according to HIS way. . ." pointing out that what works with some won't work with all, and training is very individualized. But by far, his strongest words are for fathers--that's where Christians have failed, according to him. "Be very much and very constantly in comradeship with Jesus Christ. . . In God's name, if you do not know Christ, keep your hands off the bairns. You cannot train the boy to be a carpenter unless you are a Christian man and in fellowship with Him constantly. The parents' responsibility cannot be relegated to Sunday-school teacher, or Day-school teacher. . . all I can do in the presence of the old affirmation of ancient scripture which is fresh in its application today is to pray that my Father will keep me so near to Himself that I may know how to be a father to my children."

That's a sermon that can still make the congregation squirm in the pew.

Today's new word is SELFSAME

Whether this is British English, or just old fashioned, I rarely come across SELFSAME unless reading something old--in this case, G. Campbell Morgan, a famous expository preacher in England over 100 years ago. As long as I don't stumble while reading, I'd just move on. This time I stopped.

"In the early Bible history the throne is unnamed, but it is always there. In the early movements chronicled for us I find men in relation to the throne, submissive, at peace; in rebellion against the throne, disturbed. The throne of God is everywhere. I come at last to the point where the chosen people make their great mistake, and I hear God's explanation of it, "They have rejected me, that I should not be King over them." I come further on until I find this SELFSAME chosen people in the midst of circumstances full of terror. . . "

My big dining room dictionary has several pages for "self" as a noun, adjective, pre-fix, suffix, and a list of hundreds of words, both hyphenated and joined thereof, from self-abandon to self-wrought. SELFSAME seems to mean "exactly the same," or "precisely the same"--probably with a touch of irony or criticism in Morgan's voice, since these 10 volumes (The Westminster Pulpit) are taken from his sermons preached over a 13 year period at Westminster Chapel in London. 2,500 people were showing up to hear him preach on Sunday, so Friday night Bible classes were added and week after week, with notebooks and Bibles in hand, 1,500-1,700 people would show up on Friday night from throughout London.

SELF is one of those very busy, horrid little English words that must give second language people fits. You can say, "payable to self," in correspondence or on a check, or you can make a dress with a "self belt," although few women are sewing dresses these days, and if they are, they are probably using elastic, not the same fabric to cover a stiff material for a belt. You can say, "my own dear self" and your native born neighbor will know what you mean (although you'd sound a bit quaint), but your neighbor born in Turkey might think you somewhat egotistical to be speaking so lavishly. Then there is "self-rising flour," which really isn't because baking powder has been added to it, so there's some cheating going on, just as in "self-made man" because no one is. God was always there, from conception to life outside the womb, to self-diapering stage at the end and all the stages inbetween.