Sermon: Advent 3 (Gaudete)

14 December 2008 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 11:2-11 (Isa 40:1-11, 1 Cor 4:1-5)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

We opened this Divine Service by singing an Introit from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again will I say, rejoice.” Because of this, today is known as “Gaudete” which is Latin for “Rejoice.” Even in the midst of Advent, a time which, for the Church anyway, is a time of focus on our sins, of meditation upon our need to repent, a season of yearning for the Lord to return to deliver us from this body of death and from this valley of tears – we are to “rejoice in the Lord always.”

The rose-colored candle on the Advent wreath has been lit as a symbol of our joy. Isaiah repeats anew the oracle from the Lord that the preacher is to “comfort My people.” Our Lord Himself can hardly contain His joy at His own report of what is happening: “The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

And yet, where is John the Baptist? He is in a dungeon not long for this world. Can John partake of this joy?

It seems that everyone has been invited to the party except for John, the last of the prophets, the one of which our Blessed Lord said that among those born of women, no-one is greater.

So is John to rejoice as well? Is there good news for John in his prison cell?

And what about those among us who are downtrodden, the oppressed, the falsely accused, the persecuted, the sick and dying, the lonely, those gripped by chronic pain, the depressed, those with distressing family problems, those with nagging doubts, people facing medical tests, those whose jobs are in jeopardy, and every other source of grief and anxiety? Do they have anything to rejoice about?

What about people around the world who live in squalor, who are subject to civil war and military occupation, people who are decimated by AIDS or leprosy, the families facing hyperinflation in Zimbabwe and Christians staring down the sword in Saudi Arabia? What about the victims of terrorism in India and those persecuted for the sake of the Gospel in China, Russia, and Scandinavia?

Is it not an insult for us to sit here in comfortable surroundings and tell the world to “rejoice” and to “rejoice always?”

Dear friends, nobody can be ordered to rejoice on command. Rejoicing is the natural response to kindness and mercy. This is why our Introit which begins “rejoice” from Philippians is coupled with Psalm 85: “Lord… you have brought back the captivity of Jacob. You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people. You have covered all their sin.”

We are not told to rejoice in the sense of a legalistic “do it or else,” but rather we are reminded of the Lord’s goodness and mercy. For no matter what happens in this brief life, this current world overcome by sin and death, we have eternity to look forward to. We have been forgiven of all our sins! We have full communion with our loving Father through the very real forgiving work of the Son as sealed upon our foreheads by the baptismal waters which bequeathed to us the Holy Spirit.

This is why the early martyrs could go to their deaths singing hymns and praising God. This is how Christians, no matter how poor and hungry, can join together as a family and pray the Lord’s prayer with transcendent joy. This is why, when Christians partake of Holy Communion – no matter the circumstances, be it at a death bed, in a prison camp, or on a battlefield, the act of partaking of the sacrament is called a “celebration” and the pastor who serves the body and blood of the Lord is called the “celebrant.”

For the worst thing that will happen to us in this life is that we will die. And we know this will happen anyway. But the good news, the cause of rejoicing, the reason for the rose colored candle and the joy of the Eucharistic celebration, is that death will no more hold us than it held our Lord! All the suffering, all the bad news, all the causes of pain and sorrow in this life are to be wiped away in an instant, in the blinking of an eye. Our Lord is coming to restore Eden, to give us life, to bring us into harmony with the Triune God and all of creation! He has done this for us – it is as much a matter of history as Caesar Augustus and Pontius Pilate, of Bethlehem and Calvary, of the Jordan River and every baptismal font in every church in history.

The promise that brings us such joy in the midst of suffering is as tangible and solid as this marble pulpit and can be tasted and ingested in nothing less than the physical realities of bread and wine, which are truly the Lord’s body and blood, the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the One who is there in the flesh to bring you joy without end.

For what do we see surrounding our Lord Jesus? “The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

The imprisoned and the falsely accused, the faithful prophet who is to be beheaded, believers of every time and place who suffer in body and spirit, those who mourn and doubt, those who struggle in vain to feed their families or strive to avoid bloodshed and violence – can indeed all rejoice. For the worse their conditions are in the present, the greater their joy when the Lord returns to create a new heaven and a new earth.

For the same apostle who exhorted us to “rejoice… always” also proclaims: “judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God.”

Our joy is not in this life of sin and sorrow, dear friends. Our joy is in Christ, who made full atonement for each one of us, who provides the Church with “stewards of the mysteries” to celebrate the sacraments and to proclaim the Good News, to bring comfort to you, His people, bearing the good tidings that the war is over, that our iniquity is pardoned, the messenger who holds the Lord’s body aloft and says: “Behold your God,” the God who will “feed His flock like a shepherd” and who “will gather the lambs with His arm, And carry them in His bosom.”

These holy words conveyed by stewards and prophets, by Scripture and the Holy Spirit, have comforted and filled our brothers and sisters with joy since the Lord sent His Word among us to do His work of re-creation – joy even in the most adverse conditions and cause of suffering.

Those times when we around us and we are bereft of joy because of what we see are precisely the times to look up and be filled with every reason to rejoice – because we have not only a promise, but a Savior, not only a blessed hope, but a holy assurance that we see now with the eyes of faith, but that we will see with our eyes when the time comes:

See, the Lamb, so long expected,
Comes with pardon down from heav’n.
Let us haste, with tears of sorrow,
One and all to be forgiv’n.

So, when next He comes in glory
And the world is wrapped in fear,
He will shield us with His mercy
And with words of love draw near.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

An Aaron Wolf Twofer

One of the most frustrating things about the Missouri Synod is our intellectual inbreeding.

What I mean is that most of our thinking and writing is done "in house." Unlike great theologians, philosophers, social critics, and other thinkers from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Reformed, and Evangelical traditions, we Lutherans largely find our best minds "preaching to the choir."

One felicitous exception is LCMS lay theologian, historian, thinker, journalist, and writer par excellence Aaron D. Wolf, who is one of the editors and columnists at Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture. Fr. Hollywood readers may remember a post from two years ago highlighting Aaron's brilliant piece about Christmas and church music - an article that introduced me to Martin Luther's favorite composer, the glorious Josquin des Prez. [Have I really been blogging that long? +HW]

Aaron has broken out of the Missouri ghetto and is a voice for not only Lutheranism, not only conservatism and confessionalism, but full-blown unapologetic traditionalism - not only in the sense of Evangelical Catholic Christianity, but also in matters of Western Civilization and American conservatism.

His writing is delicious, laced with poetic turns of phrase, deep with rich and provocative thought, and spiced with puns and irony. Aaron's columns are Chestertonian, while at the same time reflecting contemporary American life in a very different era and culture than that of G.K.

A couple recent Aaron Wolf offerings:

• Aaron tackles the culture of death in this dark and ironic look at Planned Parenthood.
• Aaron not only comments on the recent scandal in Illinois, but also takes a swat at an American sacred cow from American history/mythology.

Thanks again, Aaron, not only for your insights, but for being a voice of Traditional Lutheranism in a very dark world of gnostic and entertainment based religiousity. And thank you for being a "thinking man's conservative" - as opposed to doling out the usual blather in the conservative world more suited to the realm of professional wrestling than of critical thought and commentary.

Dear readerm if you're looking for interesting reading from a conservative persuasion, check out Chronicles online. Better yet, support Chronicles with a subscription to the journal itself, or give out subscriptions for Christmas gifts.

Subversive Radio

To the dismay of readers who are still using dial-up, I've added yet another widget to the right-hand margin of this blog labeled "Subversive Radio." Hopefully, if Homeland Security is doing some kind of keyword search, I won't be in too much trouble for advocating subversion, though I suspect my advocacy of the abolition of the Federal Reserve might have gotten me on the radar screen anyway. Was that cat not out of the bag? Oops, mea culpa...

Although most Father Hollywood readers already know about Issues, Etc., if you don't, you might want to have a listen.

Issues, Etc. is a rarity among radio programs. Its slogans - which by the way are not the usual marketing schlock, but are rather accurate descriptions of the programming: "talk radio for the thinking Christian" and "Christ-centered, cross-focused talk radio" - say it all.

In a secular culture dominated by intellectual mush, violence, crassness, shock-value, and outright blasphemy, and over and against a Christian culture characterized by charlatans, fads, "the theology of glory", and anti-intellectualism - Issues, Etc. is truly subversive radio at its finest. And, as a bonus, if you're like most people and can't get the show on broadcast radio, you can get it at your convenience by podcast.

This is marvelous technology for people like myself whose work doesn't afford a lot of time to listen to love radio. In between classes, for example, I can load up the "on demand" page and listen to a segment of previous programming. I'm always educated and edified when I do so. I'm genuinely impressed with the program and the people who run it.

This is a program run by conservative, confessional Lutherans who don't equivocate in their confession, and yet, have a format that is open to different viewpoints and representatives of a variety of Christian traditions, engaging timely topics of interest to the thinking, cross-focused Christian from the perspective of orthodox, Biblical Christianity.

You will find interviews with seminary professors, pastors, laymen, experts in many different fields from all walks of life. The host of the program, the Rev. Todd Wilken, maintains a refreshing, respectful decorum and intellectual climate unlike many other conservative radio shows that devolve into a kindergarten class or a screeching tirade. And, the program is just plain interesting and engaging.

So if you'd like to take part in the holy subversion against the world, the devil, and our sinful flesh, click on the Issues, Etc. widget and join the resistance.

Sneaux!

We had snow yesterday for the third time in 17 years (the last was Christmas Day, 2004).

It became an "event." Morning devotions were called off, as faculty and students alike ran through the halls from windows to doors - just in case the snow would stop before we got a chance to see it.

Due to the unprecedented nature of this event (at least in the lives of many of my students, some of whom never saw snow in New Orleans before this), 6th grade Religion class was spent throwing snowballs and getting cold fingers and soaked clothing.

Our 6th grade homeroom teacher even made a "bonhomme de neige" - even if he was a pygmy (see picture below).

The Times-Picayune ran an article with some great pics, and can be found here. [And here is an editorial from a few days later +HW]

Meanwhile, here are a few more memories of the "snowstorm of ought eight".

Sermon: Wednesday of Advent 2 (Populus Zion)

10 December 2008 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Mark 1:1-8 (Isa 40:1-11, 2 Pet 3:8-14)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

We’ll all familiar with the old saying “Don’t shoot the messenger.” And the reason is, obviously, messages are not always good news. Sometimes the messenger has to carry bad news. And even though it’s not the messenger’s fault, he makes for a convenient target.

The Lord spoke to the prophet Isaiah and told him to deliver a message. He was told to:

“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!...

Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended,
That her iniquity is pardoned;
For she has received from the LORD’s hand
Double for all her sins.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the LORD;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth.’”

But for speaking these words of comfort, this prophet Isaiah, this voice of one crying in the wilderness, was put to death by a wicked king by being sawn in half.

Why would such a messenger bearing comfort be executed? Well, one man’s comfort is another man’s discomfort. Isaiah told the oppressed that they would be freed – which was not well received by the oppressor. For every valley that is to be exalted, there is a mountain to be brought low.

And yet, holy Isaiah continued with his preaching, faithful unto death.

Seven centuries later, another Isaiah-like messenger came to the wilderness to be a prophetic voice crying out. He preached the same message of comfort as Isaiah. His name was John, and he was also a holy messenger – in fact, the last prophetic messenger. He too preached comfort to the people of God and exhorted: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make His paths straight.” And John’s message of repentance was likewise met with mixed reviews. All of Judea came to be baptized by him, but there were also those who refused to repent.

One of those whose hearts were hardened, who held the same title of “king” as the one who executed Isaiah, put John into a prison and ended up beheading him.

Faithful John, like faithful Isaiah before him, was cut in two.

Another messenger, the holy apostle St. Peter encourages us with beautiful words such as his divine testimony that the Lord “is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance,” and that “[W]e, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.”

And yet, that little word “repentance” is what turns what is otherwise seen by the world as a harmless and sentimental “do-gooderism” into something offensive and worth killing over. St. Peter was likewise put to death by a king, being crucified in the name of the Roman Caesar like his Lord before him.

Quite often, God’s messengers are not merely shot, but sawn in half, beheaded, crucified, burned at the stake, thrown to hungry lions, beaten, tortured, imprisoned in lonely cells, and being removed of all worldly comforts.

And still these messengers proclaim. They proclaim in the course of life, they proclaim while dying, and through the Word of God, they proclaim centuries after their deaths. They continue to preach “comfort” – not in the sense of wealth and ease, of a carefree lifestyle, of a favorite recliner, or a berth on a cruise ship. Rather these holy messengers preach an eternal comfort in which “He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm.”

This message of ended warfare; of pardoned iniquity; of a new heaven and earth; of One mightier than all of us who baptizes us not only with water, but with fire and the Holy Spirit – is indeed the message that brings comfort to the Lord’s redeemed, those who have been baptized with water by messengers throughout the centuries, and those who have heard the good tidings proclaimed by preachers and who in turn believe in Him who sent them.

The proclamation of the Gospel is not received any better today than it has been in the past. The very idea that mankind is sick and in need of help is offensive to our human pride – which clings to our old Adam and deceives us into thinking we need no Savior. The message is as scandalous as ever, and the old evil foe seeks nothing less than the silencing of the message through the silencing of the messengers.

But nevertheless, the Church still proclaims and confesses. She still remains faithful to the message of the good tidings of the once and future coming of our Lord Jesus. She continues to wait with joy and repentance, for the advent of her Bridegroom. She continues to exhort the world to repent and believe this good news, and even today, is treated as though she is bringing bad news.

Dear friends, sometimes the messengers do get shot. You may incur the wrath of your family for suggesting that every person is in dire need of being in full communion with our Lord and with the Church, that they ought to be praying, drinking in God’s Word, and assembling with the faithful to receive the Lord’s Most Holy Body and Blood. Your friends and neighbors may treat you as some kind of an oddity for believing and teaching that the coming of our Blessed Lord is not a mere myth or a quaint story designed to make everybody comfortable. For clearly, the prophetic voice of “comfort” does not bring comfort to those who stop up their ears and refuse to repent. And in some places, Christians are still being rounded up, persecuted, harassed, gagged, and sometimes even imprisoned and executed.

But no matter how Satan may try to silence the One who crushed his skull, the Word of God goes forth and never returns void.

Let the Church continue in her prophetic message of the prophets, apostles, martyrs, and saints; the good news of our Lord incarnate, crucified, resurrected, and victorious; of sins forgiven, of the Gospel proclaimed, of sacraments administered, and of repentant and joyful lives immersed in the Holy Spirit unto eternal life. Let us sing with saints around the world as we praise God for these faithful messengers embodied in the life and preaching of the Holy Forerunner:

Our thanks for John the Baptist
Who till his dying day,
Made straight paths for the Savior
And heralded His way!
In witnessing to Jesus
Through times of threat or shame
May we with faith and courage
The Lamb of God proclaim.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A NOLA Musical Interlude

Last Saturday, we managed to visit the new Borders on Canal Street for their grand opening. The store, located in a particularly luscious part of New Orleans, is magnificent. And needless to say, you will never get bored hanging out or talking with the staff. There are always interesting people to talk to in the Crescent City.

A local music sensation, Theresa Andersson played in the coffee shop.

What can you say about Theresa Andersson? She is a Swede who followed her musical dreams not just to the States, but to where some of the greatest music in the States originates: New Orleans. She went from only hearing Allen Toussant's music in Sweden to actually having him record music with her in her kitchen (more on that later). Having landed in the Crescent City, she just never left. I could not detect even the hint of a foreign accent. She has now become well known in the local music scene where she has been performing since 1990. She may be on the verge of a national or even international breakout. Mark your calendars for February 4, when she will appear on Conan O'Brien. She will also have a track on an upcoming Starbucks compilation CD. Her YouTube videos have gone viral.

She can do it all: violin (any style, including playing it like a guitar with a slide mechanism), guitar, dulcimer, drums, and an ethereal angelic voice. And she has an absolute blast playing music. You can't fake the spontaneous joy she exudes while playing.

Her latest CD, Hummingbird, Go!, was recorded without a band and without a studio. More accurately, she was the band, and the studio was the small kitchen in her historic shotgun house right here on the West Bank in historic Algiers Point, a stone's throw from the ferry station on the Mississippi River. Her latest style of performance is to actually sample music on the fly: violin, drums, guitar, tambourine, chimes, and all the vocals - along with anything and everything else to make music (such as a Barq's root beer bottle, thumping her hand against a microphone, and a vinyl record of a friend's drum riff). The samples are then looped, and she layers in live performance over top the almost-live performances which run in a big loop governed by a series of pedals and knobs, which she turns on and off with her feet, with great precision.

It sounds like a gimmick, but it is anything but. It is sheer virtuosity - mesmerizing both to watch, and to listen to. Watching her play is a little like observing an organist with both hands and both feet flying away, managing to create heavenly harmony out of what appears to be neurological chaos. For me, this is like watching a miracle - as I can't even come close to being able to multitask like that). The catchy YouTube above ("Na Na Na") has over 700,000 hits. She has a performance of a more bluesy/jazzy, almost retro song that really highlights her voice, called "Birds Fly Away" on YouTube as well, and you can watch it here. If you want to see her really rip up the violin while playing an old American spiritual (that as a bonus even mentions our Blessed Lord), check this live performance out.

Fans of the Swedish language will be pleased to know that one track on Hummingbird, Go! is in Swedish ("Innan Du Går", which she recorded with Ane Brun, a famous Norwegian songstress who now lives in Stockholm).

Watching Theresa Andersson perform live just a few feet away in a Borders coffee shop was a real treat. It was Quintessential Big Easy. You can see the street cars ambling along Canal Street through the window behind the stage, as well as last year's Mardi Gras beads dangling from the old, twisted live oak trees that line the venerable old boulevard. She performed for a good half hour, and in between tunes, explained all about her "recording studio" (you can see the fridge covered with magnets in the video above) in a genuinely self-deprecating way. She even gave individual names to the different voices she recorded in (known collectively as "The Kitchenettes"), explaining their individual personalities, complete with gestures and a little acting out of their "behaviors." Musicians are at their very best when they are having fun doing what they are doing. And the crowd, which did more than just give lip-service to diversity, likewise had fun watching her have fun with her instruments and her harried pedal-pushing with bare feet. If Theresa Andersson doesn't make you smile, you must not be human. In spite of the almost comical way the music is performed, she can make real and quality music that is haunting, melodic, soaring, and inspiring, as well as fun, imaginative, playful, and daring.

In other words, Theresa Andersson is a microcosm of New Orleans itself.

As a timely postscript, here is an article from the Dec 12 Lagniappe section of the Times-Picayune.

Straight Talk on Gun Control

I don't think this will change anyone's mind, but here is a cogent, rational, and straight to the point examination of the issue in light of recent events.

War is peace...

...freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and it's not a bailout, says Chrysler.

If they could make cars like they can sling you-know-what, they wouldn't need the non-bailout. If they invested wisely, spent money on R&D instead of slick marketing and instead of donating millions to the re-election campaigns of the same politicians who will now definitely be handing over billions of dollars of OPM, if they built a decent car, if they knew how to run a business - then they wouldn't need a slick marketing campaign to fleece the American people.

After my previous car died, we did our homework. The highest rated cars in the category we were interested in were Toyota and Honda - many of which are built in American plants by American workers. The American cars, for the most part, ranged from sub-par to outright junk. We went with the Toyota and are very happy. I've had exclusively American cars since 1981. Most of them were mediocre at best. The last one I was really happy with was my 1992 Saturn - which was made before GM took over Saturn. Our next two Saturns were simply inferior. None of my American cars could hold a candle to the quality of my Toyota (with the exception of the 1992 Saturn, which I got rid of only because it couldn't pass a government-mandated emissions test after 240,000 miles due to the fact that it was only running on three cylinders (!) - though even with that handicap, it was still holding up well. But like I said, that was a pre-GM Saturn, before the creativity and innovation were sucked out by the corporate vampires.

When you make junk, guess what? People don't want to buy it. No amount of Orwellian slogans, celebrity endorsements, scantily-clad women, or commercials shot in wide-angle with special effects will turn a rusty tin can into a gold ingot - which is to say, will turn a Chrysler into a Toyota or a Ford into a Honda.

Not enough people want to buy Chrysler's product. That's why they're failing! So what are we going to do? Force the American people through confiscatory taxation and/or inflation of the money supply and debt spending to reward Chysler's incompetence with billions of dollars plus the burden of having the government nationalize and run a business and engage in central economic planning. That's called Socialism - whether it is done by Democrats, Republicans, or both.

So, instead of allowing the old dinosaurs to fail and be replaced by upstart companies with new ideas, with an ear to the market, with the ability to allocate resources from the carcasses of the dying companies - we're going to prop up the Big Three like the main character from Weekend at Bernie's and try to revive the decaying corpse with a green blood transfusion. We're going to rob the hungry entrepreneur Peter to pay the bloated ne'er-do-well Paul. We're going to nationalize the out-of-date and out-of-touch industrial behemoth and try to turn it into a moneymaking operation, competitive with the leanest and meanest manufacturers run by the finest minds around the world - all using government bureaucrats to oversee it.

Yeah. That always works. Just ask the Soviet Union.

Prosperity is right around the corner, Comrades! Big Brother is watching!

Facing the Orient in Tulsa

Thanks to the Rev. Christopher Hall for for this article about the resurgence of traditional liturgical practice in the heart of the Bible Belt, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The article features both a Roman Catholic bishop and a Lutheran pastor from the Missouri Synod (the latter is actually a "sidebar" article that follows the main one) who have both reestablished the traditional "ad orientem" (literally: toward the east) focus for conducting the Divine Service (in which the celebrant and congregation all face God together for prayers and during the consecration) .

Radical changes to the liturgy by Roman Catholic innovators led to a virtual abolition of ad orientem worship in the Roman communion - and the practice spread to be almost universally embraced by American Lutherans. Churches built since Vatican II almost never have traditional altars. The 1960s were a time when the movers and shakers of the culture felt that God was too big for his britches and that reverent worship had to be changed to make it more "folksy." This led to the guitars and handshaking of the 60s and 70s, and morphed into the faddish "contemporary worship" of the me-centered 80s.

Today, there are actually adult Missouri Synod Lutherans who have been to church their entire lives and never participated in liturgical worship. Fortunately, it looks like there is a movement afoot to repudiate the excesses of that rebellious era and a desire for liturgical authenticity and piety over and against entertainment and marketing.

I remember the mantra from my Catholic high school that was used to justify a lot of radical changes, such as the departure of the use of a chalice of precious metals, from the use of wafers, from the use of reverent music and from the idea that dressing up for church services was befitting of the decorum of worship. The sound-bite was: "The Mass is supposed to be a meal." That throw-away line embodied the justification of a lot of liturgical mischief. Of course, it is a meal, but the implication in the slogan is that the Mass is just a meal, an ordinary meal.

The reality, of course, is that it is not just a meal. It is an extraordinary meal. It is mystical and miraculous. It is transcendent, and it is the one meal in which adoration of the food and drink is adoration of Christ. At no other, more ordinary meal - no matter how elegant - is it ever appropriate to worship that which is eaten and drunk.

I see this return to traditionalism as a re-orientation not only to the orient, but to the transcendent. It's nice to get good news in liturgical matters - both in the mainstream press and in our beleaguered synod.

There are some excellent quotes from the Rev. Mason Beecroft in the article. I've never met him, but he comes across as an articulate and theologically astute representative of our communion.

Sermon: Advent 2 (Populus Zion)

7 December 2008 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 21:25-36 (Mal 4:1-6, Rom 15:4-13)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

At first glance, these are hardly comforting words. But when we consider the state of the world, the fact that we are poor miserable sinners living in a culture of death, surrounded on every side by the enemies of the cross – both within and without – we absolutely can take comfort. For in spite of all of this, we confess a Savior who is coming back – not to condemn us, but to rescue us. For listen to the rest of the passage: “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.”

Jesus did not come, does not come, and will not come – to condemn the world, but to save it. He does not come to abuse His bride, but to rescue her. He does not take on flesh to destroy us, but to save us. And when we see these horrific signs – distressing things in the sky and heart-rending situations here in earth – it is precisely then that our Lord tells us not to lose hope, but to “look up and lift up your heads” because our “redemption” – not our condemnation – is drawing near.

Our Blessed Lord is frank with us about how terrible this world will become before His second Advent – not to frighten us, but to steady us. For when it gets bad for the world, it is getting better for us – since it means the lifeboat is all the closer. We should not be shocked at anything we see in this world presided over by the prince of darkness. In fact, we Christians should be so jaded as to the depravity of the devil that anything we witness in this life ought to be par for the course. What should we expect – that Satan has some sense of decency? But as bad as it gets, we have a promise. No matter how arrogant and brazen the devil becomes in his temporary reign of chaos, we know the end of the story, that the Satanic chaos will end and that the divine paradise will replace it.

There is enormous comfort in this. The Bible was not written to leave us bereft of hope. To the contrary, listen to St. Paul’s exhortation: “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” The Word of God is a beam of light shining in a veritably dark and dismal world. It is truly a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, a ray of glory to guide us through the dreary midnight of the soul – and this Holy Word is here for us whenever we need it.

For we don’t worship a God who wants to terrify us and take away our hope. The false god of hopelessness is just a deception of the evil one. But the One who crushed the evil one’s head is none other than the Crucified One. And it is in this season in which we ponder not only the Lord’s first Advent when He took infant flesh “for us men and our salvation”, but also His future Advent, when He will come in His glory to bring us with Him to the right hand of the Father. He is coming again not to betray His bride, but to protect her, love her, and draw her to Himself for all eternity. Hear the words of the Holy Apostle: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

In receiving the Holy Spirit, we receive strength to endure all trials, sufferings, and crosses. Every evil that we have had to endure has been borne by our fathers and mothers in the faith before us. Every physical ache, every spiritual pain, every regret, every agony of body and soul, every sin we have committed and every sin carried out against us has plagued our ancestors in the faith before us. And it is only by grace that the Holy Spirit sustained our forbears – be it through torture in the arena or tied to the stake, through a hostile world and an evil culture, through their own sins and lack of faith, through sickness and even death, through doubt and fear, through stress and anxiety, and through every craft and assault of the evil one. The Holy Spirit has comforted, strengthened, and sustained the Church through the centuries by the same simple means: the Holy Word of God preached and taught, Holy Baptism administered in the name of the Triune God, Holy Absolution pronounced by called and ordained servants in an unbroken chain back to the apostles, and in the very salvation that we can taste and see in the eating and drinking of the Holy Supper – all given to us to fortify our faith and to purge away our sins, to bring us into communion with our Heavenly Father through the reconciling ministry of His Holy Son – all given to us through the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit.

We can indeed take great comfort knowing that our trials and temptations have all been experienced before, and our Lord is there carrying our cross, bearing our sins, and dying our death in order that we might be liberated from the burden of God’s wrath, from the deserved punishment for our transgressions, and ultimately, so that we might enjoy life, abundant life, never-ending life, life as it was always meant to be.

In this light, nothing has the power to separate us from God’s love. When we fall, He is there to lift us. When we stumble, He is there to right us. When we wander, He is there to retrieve us. When we die, He is there to raise us.

And the Lord Jesus, in His mercy, warns us to be watchful and vigilant in these last days: “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Unrepentant and willful drunkenness and carousing and being weighed down with the cares of this life are all signs of those who have lost hope. When a person has no belief in our Lord and no faith in His coming, there is no reason for him to “take heed to himself” at all.

“Watch therefore, and pray,” says our Lord. This is what we are doing, dear friends. Even if you don’t feel very watchful or very prayerful, this is why we’re surrounded with God’s Word and why we avail ourselves of His Sacrament! This is what it means to be watchful and prayerful: soberly keeping this life in perspective and praying that the Lord’s name may be kept holy – even when our own strength is far from sufficient. For it is in those times that we learn best that the Lord’s grace is sufficient for us.

And so here we are, dear brothers and sisters, watching and praying, waiting and hearing the Word of God, listening to the Lord forgiving us our sins, and entering into a mystical communion with Him through His body and blood.

Let us continue to keep vigil – even when the world falls deeper into depravity. Let us continue to pray – even when prayer seems to be the only thing we have the power to do at all. Let us not allow the devil to rob us of hope, tempting us into drunkenness and depravity, into treating His Word with contempt and spurning His grace or taking His mercy for granted.

Advent gives us yet another opportunity to confess our sins, to recommit to the Christian life, to live daily in baptism, to be called back to repentance, to place our trust in our Heavenly Father and not in our own wealth or works, not based on our own feelings are desires, and not rooted in our own strength or ideas. Advent is yet another reminder that we are not in control. And far from being a burden, this is a great comfort – for it just means that God is in control.

And lest this terrify us, let us remember that our God is gracious and merciful, that He took flesh to save us, not to condemn us, and that He not only lay in the manger, but hung in the cross – to pay for our sins. And death itself no more held Him than it will hold us. We have His promise on this, and His pledge – not only in the resurrection, but in the communion we share with Him in His body and blood.

Take heart, dear redeemed and beloved of the Lord! For hear anew the ancient prophecy that is yet to be brought to fruition for all who cry “Lord have mercy”, for all of us who continue to struggle in this life and flesh:

“But to you who fear My name
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings.”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A Little Revival

A musical interlude featuring some of the beautiful flora and fauna of Louisiana (the Bengal tiger is, like our Indian-American governor, not completely native to the Pelican State).

And, as a bonus, there is cowbell!

Bon temps, y'all!

Sermon: Wednesday of Advent 1 (Ad Te Levavi)

3 December 2008 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Mark 13:24-37

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

How different are our Lord’s two advents! At the first Christmas we see a newborn baby, helpless and vulnerable, completely under the protective care of His mother, lying in a manger among the food for beasts. He comes meek and mild, not offensive to anyone, no-one trying to place Him on a cross, no-one seeking to silence the words of the Word.

Well, almost nobody.

King Herod, the servant of the devil, was indeed trying to snuff out this true King of the Jews whose very existence proved that Herod was a pretender.

Like the evil Pharaoh before him, Herod resorted to the vilest of low conduct, to the most base of cowardly acts, the most unthinkable depth of depravity imaginable – to order the murder of newborn children.

Even while in the womb, Satan and his demons sought the Child’s destruction. For the meek and mild would grow up to be strong and potent. The vulnerable and helpless One, through his helplessness on the cross, would turn the devil into the helpless one, crushing his head with a mortal blow that is a true coup de grâce, a blow that results in grace given to all mankind.

For the devil knew full well what we all know – the baby Jesus did not remain a baby.

Satan’s attempt to tempt the Son away from the Father was an epic failure. Satan’s attempt to use an ambitious and selfish bureaucrat like Herod to snuff out the life of the infant Christ, though resulting in bloodshed, was also doomed. Satan’s use of the scribes, Pharisees, priests, and another effeminate Herod – in league with the Pilate, the governor of the realm of the Caesars – likewise failed miserably. For in dying on the cross, our Lord defeated death and gave us life.

Satan could not hold Him in the tomb, could not keep him from proclaiming His victory in Hell, could not prevent Him from rising from the dead, was impotent against the sending out of the apostles with the Holy Spirit, and still is helpless to thwart the divine plan to proclaim the Gospel around the world.

And this is where we are today, dear brothers and sisters. Even as we are surrounded by the purple of the season, by trees and lights, by Advent hymns in the church and by Christmas carols in the world. It seems that even the stones are unable to hold their silence and refrain from shouting “Hosanna!”

And though we look back in time to the baby Jesus, flesh of our flesh, the helpless One given to us to be our Brother and Savior, we also look forward in time, and into eternity, to the conquering Jesus, flesh of our flesh, the mighty One given to us to be our Judge and our Advocate.

And how different that event will be!

Instead of a bright star leading the magi to the Holy Child, we learn that the sky will darken, stars will fall, as the Holy God-Man comes in the clouds with “great power and glory.” Instead of angels coming to see Him, “He will send His angels, and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven.”

This earth, to which our Lord came to redeem us, will be destroyed. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” but the Word of the Lord endures forever! We are to be watchful and sober, for these are not trifling matters. As we watch the world crumble around us, fall deeper into evil and chaos, descend into a state where good is deemed evil and evil treated as good, as life is disregarded and where the murder of infants is not only tolerated but celebrated, as the roles of male and female that not only made all of us possible through procreation, but also made our blessed Lord’s incarnation possible, are reversed and distorted – it is easy to lose hope.

But this, dear friends, is the time to have hope! All of this has been prophesied. For even when it looks like the devil is turning things to his advantage, we know that he has already been defeated. He is in his final desperate days, awaiting his final destruction in the lake of fire. And we can see the signs coming, even as we can read the seasons by looking at fruit trees budding and blossoming with new life, re-emerging from the dead of winter and the dreariness of dormancy. No matter what passes away, no matter what we lose, no matter what is taken from us – the Word of God “will by no means pass away.” God’s Word is eternal, it abides, and it pleads for us in the Person of the Babe of Bethlehem.

But for the time being, we, like the children of Israel, must watch and wait. We know the days are short, and we know that the time of our Lord’s Advent is at hand. Listen to our Lords words: “Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.” He is telling us not to drop our guard, to remain ready. For at a moment’s notice, He will appear to usher in the end of time. The time to repent is now. The time to be immersed in the Word of God is now. The time to live in your baptism, in daily repentance, in the life of confession and absolution – it is now!

Our blessed Lord is tipping us off. Hear Him: “Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning—lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”

Let us keep watch, remain vigilant, and rejoice in just how close our redemption is! It is as close as the flesh and blood that lay in the manger, that hung on the cross, and that descends upon our altar in a miraculous communion for us to eat and drink. It is in this Holy Sacrament that we can indeed “watch” – for the Word made flesh who prepares us to watch for Him, is already here with us!

Let us be watchful and repentant, even as we prepare for our Lord’s victorious Advent, singing:

Lift up your heads ye mighty gates!
Behold, the King of glory waits.
The King of kings is drawing near;
The Savior of the world is here.
Life and salvation He doth bring;
Therefore rejoice and gladly sing.
To God the Father raise
Your joyful songs of praise. Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Strange Buildings

Check out these 50 Strange Buildings of the World.

No comparison. Nothing to see here, folks.

Ben Bernanke is something else. He assures us that there is "no comparison" between the current recession and the great depression of the 1930s. Of course, he was singing a different tune when he was crying "wolf" to arm-twist Congress to authorize nearly a trillion dollars in bailouts. He assures us that the worst of the housing crisis will be over by the end of the year. Somebody give this man a drug test, or at least find out what planet he lives on.

The main problem with the Federal Reserve system is that our monetary system, and thus our entire economy, is based on lies and promises as empty as the gold reserves and as worthless as the pot-metal our coins are made of. Bernanke's braying has the same "ring of truth" as the noise a penny makes when tossed on a table. And he's not alone. When promises of bailouts for corporations and cradle to grave benefits for citizens are made by the likes of Bernanke and his bosses - all with money that doesn't even exist given that we are awash in debt with nothing in reserve - we really need to consider where the money comes from.

Just as the bubble of the happy-go-lucky 1920s burst and the market came crashing down in 1929 - with the result of some 12 years of misery known as the great depression (which was the "correction" to the illusion of prosperity that the "boom" really was) - we're looking at a very similar bursting bubble, a Wall Street nosedive, and hard economic times ahead. It is inevitable that there will be a hard correction for the years of the reckless spending on credit that we have engaged in. The bill is due, and there comes a point at which you can't rob Visa to pay MasterCard. But Bernanke is telling us, in effect, something we love to hear: "Yes we can!"

However, notice in the article that Bernanke is telling the American people one thing, and the president another. He refuses to submit to an audit, and believes World War II got the United States out of the depression - a myth of oversimplification told often in middle school text books, but one that a "depression scholar" ought to realize is nonsense. He is also arguing that the welfare state is going to make this depression better - not worse. But debt and spending and a lack of prudence based on the perception that there are no risks are the source of the problem - not the solution. The false sense of security of bailouts and welfare will make that debt worse, not better. It won't encourage prudence, frugality, and industry. We've seen how long it took AIG to parlay its billions of dollars of virtually blackmailed corporate welfare into utterly irresponsible employee perks.

If we could spend our way to prosperity, especially by being on a war footing, we would not be in a recession right now. The differences between the 1930s and now do not put us in a better position to weather the storm. By contrast, we are today the world's largest debtor, we actually have negative savings, a hostile country holds a huge amount of our treasury notes, we have an alarming trade deficit, our economy is now based on the low-wage non-exportable service sector instead of high-wage exportable manufacturing, we have millions of "helpless" people dependent upon government programs, the dollar is the world's reserve currency and when those dollars repatriate we're looking at large scale inflation, and the last remaining vestige of gold backing to our currency is "gone with the wind" of the fast-talking central bankers and Capitol Hill flimflam men. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...

We're only at the beginning of this recession/depression (our crash only started less than two months ago!) - and Bernanke has the gall to cite statistics at the height of the great depression as evidence that, because we haven't gotten there yet, the situations are not analogous? Is he serious?

But what else should we expect? In an honest political system, Berkanke would be in prison. But in an honest political system, printing presses would be restrained by hard currency. "Helicopter Ben" has been caught in lie after lie, in economic fallacy after fallacy, and still is permitted to continue lying and running the American economy into the ground. He has as much integrity as the fiat money he oversees - both are shamelessly fraudulent. The emperor has no clothes, and Bernanke doesn't have the common courtesy to at least wrap himself in a towel.

The United States used to hang counterfeiters. Now we give them titles, highly paid government jobs with generous perks, and hand them the keys to the mint so they can steal from us with complete immunity from any and all consequences. If he were managing a private company's books the same way, he would be sharing a cell with the folks from Enron and Arthur Anderson. And if Bernanke had any personal honor, he would resign.

At least Greenspan has admitted, if only a little, to his part in the failed experiment of a centrally planned economy. The Soviet Union learned the hard way that it can't be done. And instead of learning from history, we arrogantly rewrite it and claim to be exempt from the same forces. "It can't happen here." "We are too big to fail." We might as well let our federal government bureaucracy redefine the law of gravity.

Deep down inside, Bernanke surely must know better - even if he has become a laughingstock just like his Iraqi "minister of information" counterpart shown above.

Liturgical Question (LSB)

Sometimes the most annoying things are the smallest - like paper cuts.

Does anyone know why the following language was changed in the Te Deum Laudamus from The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH 1941) - which is actually the 17th century Book of Common Prayer (BCP) translation - to the following Lutheran Service Book (LSB 2006) version?

TLH (p. 37):

And we worship Thy name ever, / world with- / out / end.

LSB (p. 225):

And we worship Your name for- / ever and / ev- / er.

I do understand the rest of the revisions: the modernization of words like "vouchsafe" becoming "grant" and the antiquated Elizabethan pronouns (e.g. "Thy") being replaced by contemporary English (e.g. "Your"). Not that I'm a big fan, but I find in singing or speaking the Te Deum, these changes are relatively easy and unobtrusive.

But this "world without end" being changed to "ever and ever" is terribly awkward. First of all, the TLH and LSB versions are sung to the same tune. The pointing is identical - except this line. To those familiar with the traditional chant, this change is glaring. The final four notes of the line fit well with "world-with-out-end" - especially after ending the first chanted note logically with a comma (ever,). It is broken up naturally, and flows off the tongue. But by contrast, the "new and improved" version ends the first chanted note awkwardly in the middle of a word (for- / ever) and causes three syllables to have to be chanted over two notes (ev-er / and) - requiring the word "ever" to be underlined. It is clunky, unnatural, and (worst of all) entirely unecessary.

English speaking Christians have been chanting the Te Deum basically the same way for nearly five centuries. Is there some newfound doctrinal issue of translating the "in saeculum saeculi" of the Latin original as "forever and ever" instead of the traditional "world without end"? Even the less-than accurate translation of "non horruisti virginis uterum" as "You humbled Yourself to be born of a virgin" is retained (albeit with a footnote indicating a more accurate traslation: "You did not spurn the virgin's womb").

What gives?

Sermon: Advent 1 (Ad Te Levavi)

29 November 2008 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 21:1-9

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Once again, the Christian Church finds herself in Advent, a season of hopeful waiting for her Bridegroom to come.

For most people, their wedding is one of the rare times in which they participate in extraordinary pomp and formality. The wedding party might dress in tuxedoes and elaborate gowns. The bride and groom might be transported in almost royal fashion – in a prestigious foreign car, or a limousine, or maybe even in a horse-drawn carriage.

Not many modern brides would be too thrilled to see their beloved bridegroom showing up on a donkey, without even a saddle, but rather sitting on some spare clothing.

But love conquers all. For in this scene, the Bridegroom is not conveyed by a Rolls Royce or a Bently, but is rather “lowly, and sitting on a donkey.” And see how His bride greets Him! “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD! Hosanna in the highest!”

And this Bridegroom is not just anyone, for this is a royal visitation: “Behold, your King is coming to you.” This King is not a pretender like Herod, nor even a temporary Caesar waiting to be assassinated by his own family. This Bridegroom-King is Jesus, Christ the Lord, the King of the Universe, very God of very God! And yet here He is, entering the Royal City of His royal ancestor David, plodding along like David’s lesser son Solomon mounted on a donkey. This Jesus is David’s greater Son, who is also the Son of God.

He describes Himself as “the Lord” – not just a silly title of nobility or a clever nickname that entitles the bearer to wear baubles and elicit the bows and scrapes of those around him. No indeed! He is the very King of Kings and one and only Lord of Lords! And this is His royal triumphant entry into Zion. He is drawing near to His throne and crown. The name “Lord” is how the children of Israel, seeking not to take the Holy Name of their God in vain, addressed their God. When we confess “Jesus is Lord,” we are proclaiming “Jesus is God!”

The idea of God in human flesh is the literal beating heart of the Christian faith, the Incarnation of the Divine in the bodily form of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is why His bride again celebrates His Advent, His drawing near, His coming. For in coming into our flesh, He redeems our flesh. In dying, He dies as our Most Holy Sacrifice, the “Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world.” His Advent leads to the cross, the tomb, the resurrection, and His eternal reign – all in human flesh.

And though our Lord’s royal entrance into Jerusalem would be followed in less than a week by His ignoble expiration on the cross – He is still God. And as God, He is still in His wise and perfect providence – calling the shots. As our Lord prepares to celebrate the Passover to end all Passovers with His disciples who are soon to be apostles – our Lord finds Himself in need.

What a bizarre turn of phrase from the mouth of our Blessed Lord Himself: “if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them.” When He says “the Lord has need,” He is not only identifying Himself as Almighty God, but declaring Himself to be “in need.” This Greek expression can be understood as “to be in want” or “to lack.” Obviously, Jesus needs his donkey and colt for His triumph. He “needs” them. But since when does God ever “need” anything? What kind of a Lord do we have who “lacks” and then sends people to run errands for Him to fill His needs?

We’ve often heard Dr. Luther’s famous quote from Freedom of a Christian, where he says: “God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does.” And while this is true for us today, at that point at which our Lord prepares for His triumph, we see the Lord “in need.”

Of course, His riding in on a donkey instead of a stallion is illustrative of both King and Kingdom. Our King is a humble King. To be in human form is a degradation for Him from His divine state. Even if Jesus were to be the Caesar, the conqueror of the world by might of arms – His Incarnation would be a humiliating demotion. And so here He is, God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, whose Kingdom will have no end, sitting on spare cloaks on a donkey. And His humiliation is nowhere near complete.

Our Kingdom is also not like the kingdoms of this world. It is not a state, not a bureaucracy, not a dominion by force of arms, not an empire of governors and satraps, of laws and armies – rather this Kingdom is rooted in love – divine love of a Creator who refuses to turn His back on His rebellious creation, His wayward children, His errant bride. He endures the ultimate humiliation for her sake, out of love, and in spite of all appearances, remains the Conqueror – even while being at the same time, the Victim.

For in having a King who “has need,” a King who knows what it is to be in a state of want, of hunger, of thirst, of grief, of anxiety, of temptation, of pain, and even of death – we also have a High Priest and Advocate who can sympathize with our want and need. We have a Good Shepherd, who, by virtue of His taking away our lack, we can proclaim: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”

Dear brothers and sisters, our Bridegroom withholds nothing from us, His bride. Nothing is too good for us, no gracious gift is too costly. Just as every husband vows to do, our Bridegroom lays down His life for His beloved, to protect her from being ravaged by the devil, to cloak her nakedness and protect her modesty, to bring her joy, and to provide for her a beautiful home. There is nothing our Bridegroom will not do, no humiliation too great, no pain too severe, no amount of His body and blood to be given and shed is too voluminous for Him to share with His bride, His Church, His Zion, His sheep, His people.

And so, here we are, dear brothers and sisters, waiting and watching anew, like the virgins with their lamps trimmed in expectation, with the time drawing near, with excitement building, and with our joy hard to contain. And yet we continue to wait. We continue to be vigilant. This is a time of focus and devotion. For “our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.”

Our Lord is coming soon! He will come at the end of time to restore us to eternal newness. He will come at the end of our lives to take us home to live with him in His kingdom forever. He will come today, lowly, veiled in the forms of bread and wine, bearing gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Our King comes to recreate the world anew; to remake us whole, wholesome, and holy; to redeem His Church and bring them into eternal fellowship and communion with Him whose Name we praise with our shouts and chants of “Hosanna.” “Blessed is He who cometh in the Name of the Lord!” For His Name is above every Name. And it is a Name given to us even as a bride takes her bridegroom’s name as a gift and a pledge.

Our Bridegroom, our King, our Lord, our God, our Priest, our Savior is coming in the flesh “for us men and for our salvation.” And “this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Is WalMart Antichrist? ;-)

Courtesy of Failblog.

Alice's Restaurant

Probably the funniest eighteen minute song ever recorded. A blessed Thanksgiving Day to all.

Mathematics Disproves Atheism

The father of modern Atheism, philosopher Antony Flew, shocked his followers by becoming a Deist. What convinced him to finally reject Atheism were the mathematical implications inherent in the complexity of DNA (which is also part of what led microbiologist Michael Behe to reject Darwinianism and to write Darwin's Black Box). The vast complexity and precise order of life (which was largely unknown until DNA was discovered) combined with the problem of origin is mathematically insurmountable for those, like Flew, who are determined to follow "the argument no matter where it leads."

Here is a mathematical refutation of Atheism from his 2007 book There is a God, pages 75-78:

I was particularly impressed with Gerry Schroeder's point-by-point refutation of what I call the "monkey theorem." This idea, which has been presented in a number of forms and variations, defends the possibility of life arising by chance using the analogy of a multitude of monkeys banging away on computer keyboards and eventually ending up writing a Shakespearean sonnet.

Schroeder first referred to an experiment conducted by the British National Council of Arts. A computer was placed in a cage with six monkeys. After one month of hammering away at it (as well as using it as a bathroom!), the monkeys produced fifty typed pages - but not a single word. Schroeder noted that this was the case even though the shortest word in the English language is one letter (a or I). A is a word only if there is a space on either side of it. If we take it that the keyboard has thirty characters (the twenty-six letters and other symbols), then the likelihood of getting a one-letter word is 30 times 30 times thirty, which is 27,000. The likelihood of getting a one-letter word is one chance out of 27,000.

Schroeder them applied the probabilities to the sonnet analogy. "What's the chance of getting a Shakespearean sonnet?" he asked. He continued:

All the sonnets are the same length. They're by definition fourteen lines long. I picked the one I knew the opening line for, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" I counted the number of letters; there are 488 letters in that sonnet. What's the likelihood of hammering away and getting 488 letters in the exact sequence as in "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"? What you end up with is 26 multiplied by itself 488 times - or 26 to the 488th power. Or, in other words, in base 10, 10 to the 690th.

[Now] the number of particles in the universe - not grains of sand, I'm talking about protons, electrons, and neutrons - is 10 to the 80th. Ten to the 80th is 1 with 80 zeros after it. Ten to the 690th is one with 690 zeros after it. There are not enough particles in the universe to write down the trials; you'd be off by a factor of 10 to the 600th.

If you took the entire universe and converted it to computer chips - forget the monkeys - each one weighing a millionth of a gram and had each computer chip able to spin out 488 trials at, say, a million times a second; if you turn the entire universe into these microcomputer chips and these chips were spinning a million times a second [producing] random letters, the number of trials you would get since the beginning of time would be 10 to the 90th trials. It would be off again by a factor of 10 to the 600th. You will never get a sonnet by chance. The universe would have to be 10 to the 600th times larger. Yet the world thinks the monkeys can do it every time. [Gerald Schroeder, "Has Science Discovered God?"]

After hearing Schroeder's presentation, I told him that he had satisfactorily and decisively established that the "monkey theorem" was a load of rubbish, and that it was particularly good to do it with just a sonnet; the theorem is sometimes proposed using the works of Shakespeare or a single play, such as Hamlet. If the theorem won't work for a single sonnet, then of course it's simple absurd to suggest that the more elaborate feat of the origin of life could have been achieved by chance.

Sermon: Thanksgiving Eve

26 November 2008 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 17:11-19 (Deut 8:1-10, Phil 4:6-20)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

In the tenth leper, we see a beautiful illustration of the Christian life. Ten lepers were in dire need. They were not only diseased, shamed, and exiled – but they were also dying. “For the wages of sin is death.” These ten men – at least one of whom was already scorned by the people of God for his ethnicity – understood full well the implications of sin and of being outside of the assembly of the people of God. In their desperation, they came to the Master seeking mercy.

These ten were cleansed. They were healed. The cross they bore for the burden of their sin and the sin of man was taken away from them by the One who would bear all sin upon His one great cross. The lepers were told that they were not only biologically healed, but made ceremonially clean in a way that would satisfy the priests and the law of the Old Testament.

But only one of these ten came back to give thanks. In the Greek, giving thanks is “euchariston.” In the Latin translation, this thanksgiving, “gratias agens”, is related to the idea of being an “agent” and of “grace”.

This “foreigner”, as our Lord calls him, is the only one of those who have been healed who has become an “agent of gratitude.” He is the only one who returned to the physical body of Christ to “eucharist”, to give thanks, for the agency of grace given to him. He is the only one who falls down in worship to “pray, praise, and give thanks.”

And notice another agency that our Lord ascribes to the healing of the leper: his “faith” – that is his “belief” – which our Lord says “has made you well”. The faith that drove this leper to come back to Jesus to worship and thank him is the faith through which he was made well in the first place. But there is even more, for the Greek word often rendered into English as “made you well” is also understood as meaning “saved you.”

The other nine were also saved, also cleansed, also healed, but their healing is only temporary. Indeed, all ten of these lepers will die – in spite of our Lord’s miracle. But this leper’s faith has done more than rid him of a skin disease, it has saved him. The non-thankful nine will hopefully repent of their ingratitude. For even God’s grace can be refused by those whose lack of gratitude demonstrates a lapsed faith, a lack of eucharist and a lack of grace and faith.

This, dear brothers and sisters, is one of the clearest illustrations of the Christian life in all of Scripture.

For like the lepers that encountered our Lord, you too were hopelessly disease-ridden and covered with shame. Sin has literally infected all of us to the point of terminal illness. And yet, what happens? Most of you were brought to the Master in your swaddling clothes. Most of you were cleansed and shown mercy by baptismal water without even realizing it was happening. You were given eternal life, and your terminal sinfulness was washed away and replaced with eternal holiness. If there were any priests of the Old Testament to declare you to be in accordance with the Law, you could have received their blessing.

You who hear the Word of God in this place have come back, like the grateful leper, to fall upon your faces in worship before the Master. You have come to “praise God with a loud voice” – with song and psalm – for the purpose of partaking in the Eucharistic celebration, the agent of grace – which is not only a meal of thanksgiving, but a paradoxical gift of the very faith that has “made you well” and “saved you” – in the holy words of the prophet Moses: “bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains and springs… of wheat… a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing…. You shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good He has given you.”

We deserve nothing but leprosy, want, and death; and yet our gracious Lord gives us healing, an everlasting feast, and eternal life. We deserve starvation, but we are given the living bread of the Eucharist that is also the Word “from the mouth of the Lord.” We deserve the cup of the Lord’s wrath, but we are given the Eucharistic wine of the sacrificial blood of the Son Himself! We deserve a dry desert, but we are given “fountains and springs” of living water. We deserve the punishment reserved to those who do not believe, but we receive faith itself. We deserve what we have merited, but we are given the free gift of grace.

It is only in receiving a free gift that a “thank you” is appropriate. It is only in being given life by the very Author of Life, through whom all things were made, that it is possible to fall upon one’s face in worship. It is only by grace that the Christian, having received all, can indeed “return” and praise God “with a loud voice.”

The leper has nothing in himself to put his faith in. But the leper has a Master, a Redeemer, a Good Physician – which is both the source and the deposit of his faith. The leper has his life. His shame has been put to flight. He has hope, and even more. He has the “agent of grace,” the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of the Lord, the healing waters of baptism, and the hope and certitude of eternal life and the promise of resurrection. He has been freed from his dungeon, and made an heir of the King and a son of God.

This is how it is that the Christian can learn, along with our holy father in the faith, St. Paul, “in whatever state… to be content.” We can have contentment even as we “know how to be abased” and “to abound”, “both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” Even when the economy booms and when it busts, when jobs are secure and when they are in doubt, when times are prosperous and when they are lean – for we confess with the holy Apostle: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

This is the Christian life of thanksgiving, of Eucharist, of grace, of falling before the Lord in worship. It is the faith that saves us and brings us contentment. “And my God will supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.