Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-12-20
There is a bit in an old Laurel and Hardy comedy where the boys are caught in a situation, Ollie impersonating a rich guy and Stan his servant. “Call me a cab,” Ollie commands, thinking of a way they can escape.

“What?” asks the typically bewildered Stan.

“Call. Me. A. Cab,” Ollie patiently orders.

Stan says, “All right. You’re a cab!”

Fast-forward 90 years or so to this election season. In fact to many aspects of life today, and politics, and in the church. Labels have become virtually meaningless. They have not become obsolete, because everybody is quick to proudly adopt a label, or to smear someone with another label. But labels are now fungible, malleable, chameleon-like.

In the same way, statistics don’t lie; but statisticians do.

President Trump identified himself as a very stable genius, a manner of self-description people usually leave to others than themselves, and usually to posterity. Today, critics immediately challenged one, two, or all three of those words. Kamala Harris is described, by Democrat handlers, as a “moderate,” but she would have considered that an insult during the primaries. We recently were told that Antifa is not an organization but an idea… the distinction holds no difference to shop owners seeing their life-dreams torched street by street, city by city by thugs in identical costumes.
The irony is most bitter in religion of the 21st century. Joe Biden calls himself a “man of faith” (faith in what?) but bristles when priests and cardinals deny him the Eucharist because he denies Catholic Church teaching, for instance on abortion.

If the church, the Bible, Jesus’ teachings do not mean anything – if your opinion is superior to the Revealed Word – what is the point of adopting certain labels, claiming to be a Catholic? Some pastors deny the divinity Of Christ, and the Virgin Birth. Are their salaries the same as taking money under false pretenses?

We all evolve, change opinions, and learn. President Trump used to be accepting of abortion, as was I at one point; and a lot people I know. But science, experience, and conscience “spoke” to us. When politicians who also are aware of science, hear of experiences, and have consciences – when they switch “sides” or switch parties — they cannot fail to know where they fight life’s battles now: Who their new friends are. And what effects their defections will have. I refer to conservatives and Catholics who support the party of abortion-on-demand.

This is not in a vacuum; these new rules – or lack of rules – are a microcosm of life today. Heresy is as old as human nature; its first appearance was in the Garden.

“Relativism,” it is called: What’s OK for me is all that matters; There is no right and wrong; You are free to make up your own rules…

I wonder why many people today rebel against Christianity, democracy, capitalism, when the fruits of our civilization have advanced, refined, and are blessings to so many. To ignore our heritage, to decline to defend our values, and surrender to the enemies of our souls… seems like a crime in itself.

If America does not undergo a spiritual awakening, it does not deserve to continue as the Republic we inherited.

Returning here to the political context, and to shifting labels: Politicians and pollsters do not even know what they mean when they profile and predict about the “evangelical” community. Ah, the “faith-based.” Yes, “family values voters.” Some “evangelicals” have enormous differences between them.

Just as Jesus did not die for denominations or missions organizations or charities or movements or committees, but for individuals – you and me – so will the redemption of America not depend upon parties, movements, organizations.

America will be redeemed, revived, and resuscitated by citizens. Individuals. You and me.

If someone wants to know our label, we can use the one that was a perfect description when this noble project of a Constitutional Republic began – Citizen Patriots.
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Click: Who Am I

12-8-14

This is awfully secular, but a lot of us have memories from television’s black-and-white days. On Thanksgiving afternoon, before, after, or in-between the turkey and four varieties of carbohydrate side dish meals, a local station would air Laurel and Hardy’s “March Of the Wooden Soldiers,” based on Victor Herbert’s “Babes in Toyland.” The tenuous connection to Christmas was trouble in Santa’s workshop, but it was enough to usher in the Christmas season.

Now, black and white movies are most obsolete. Laurel and Hardy have been banished, too. My friend Jean Shepherd’s classic “A Christmas Story” does make it annual appearance now, usually in a 24-hour cycle on TCM, but closer to Christmas, warning boys everywhere to be careful not to shoot their eye out. But. Thanksgiving is no longer the starting-line for the Christmas race.

After Hallowe’en, these day, stores start festooning aisles and windows with Christmas decorations and merchandise. Some stores before THAT. Observant chambers of commerce start decorating Main Streets with lights and messages while pedestrians underneath often still wear shorts and Ts.

You know the complaints, because you probably complain, as most of us do – and not all from a theological perspective, of course: everyone has internal Tackiness meters and Tawdry antibodies in our systems. I hope. It is all too early… too cheesy… too pushy… too commercial…

… and, of course, even atheists take note, very little about Jesus. And “He is the reason…” etc. Shop owners and greedy legal consultants can say that secularists should not be offended, but in truth merchants, window decorators, chambers of commerce, and many of our neighbors, could not care less about the advent of Jesus, the Incarnation of Jehovah, God-with-us, the Word made flesh, the Savior of humankind. But: Disney characters around a cartoon manger do not cut it, folks.

“Getting ready for Christmas,” it is argued. “All for the kids.” Heaven forbid. Never in the history of ideas has a civilization worked so hard to commemorate a holy event by straining so mightily to deny its holy significance.

Interestingly, “getting ready for Christmas” does not depend on commercial, sanitized fluff, and never did. God does not need our sophisticated understanding to become flesh and dwell among us. He did not, despite the announcement via angels, 2000 years ago. Nor did He, approximately 700 years before those events, when He prophesied through Isaiah the birth of the Savior.

A great teaching of Mark Driscoll laid out many of the prophesies, meanings, and fulfillments concerning Christ’s Incarnation – God becoming human and living amongst humankind:

Jesus will come from the line of Abraham. Prophecy: Genesis 12:3. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:1.

Jesus’ mother will be a virgin. Prophecy: Isaiah 7:14. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:18–23.

Jesus will be a descendent of Isaac and Jacob. Prophecy: Genesis 17:19 and Numbers 24:17. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:2.

Jesus will be born in the town Bethlehem. Prophecy: Micah 5:2. Fulfilled: Luke 2:1–7.

Jesus will be called out of Egypt. Prophecy: Hosea 11:1. Fulfilled: Matthew 2:13–15.

Jesus will be a member of the tribe of Judah. Prophecy: Genesis 49:10. Fulfilled: Luke 3:33. 

Jesus will be from the lineage of King David. Prophecy: Jeremiah 23:5. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:6.

Jesus’ birth will be accompanied with great suffering and sorrow. Prophecy: Jeremiah 31:15. Fulfilled: Matthew 2:16.

Jesus will live a perfect life, die by crucifixion, resurrect from death, ascend into heaven, and sit at the right hand of God. Prophecies: Psalm 22:16; Psalm 16:10; Isaiah 53:10–11; Psalm 68:18; Psalm 110:1. Fulfilled: 1 Peter 2:21–22; Luke 23:33; Acts 2:25–32; Acts 1:9; Hebrews 1:3.

Many Old Testament writings prophesy the coming of the Messiah and His birth. All without snow bunnies and frosty snowmen. No electric lights, no cartoon characters, no commercial jingles. For those who have not read Isaiah (especially) 52-53, many of its themes and words are familiar anyway through the citations of Christ, St Paul, the Book of Revelation, the libretto of Handel’s “Messiah,” which was not a poetic paraphrase but the actual words from the Bible.

God let the world know Christmas was coming. Shame on us: unlike the shepherds in Bethlehem’s hills, we KNOW the tremendous spiritual significance of this humble birth that was also the most life-changing moment in history.

He is coming. He was coming. He died and rose. He will come. He rises every day. “If He be lifted up…” We lift Him up. We are crucified with Christ. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He sits at the right hand of the Father. He comes again with glory. He is forever Mary’s son, the Babe in the manger.

The Resurrection is as real – and is as fresh – as the Incarnation, the birth of the Holy One. They are new every day, or should be to us, and renewable as sources of Truth and Strength and Life.

Actually, Christians could, and perhaps should once in awhile, think of the Easter message on Christmas Day, and celebrate the advent of our Lord, Jesus’s birth and Incarnation, on Easter Sunday.

It is the same Message; He is the same Savior. We could even exchange gifts at random times. After all, the Father’s Gift to a lost humanity was not meant for one day, one season, or one people, or one time.

For ever and for ever, amen: Jesus, the Gift that keeps on giving.

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A relatively new song that has become a commercial standard but also a sacred favorite, sure to find a hymnbook home is “Mary, Did You Know?” by Mark Lowery (lyrics) and Buddy Greene (music). Sung here by the Christ Church Choir to images from “The Passion of the Christ,” all reflecting our message that what was, is; and what is, was, in the providence of God.

Click: Mary, Did You Know?