The incarnation is an incomparable mystery -- the Word made flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, fully God and fully man. That mystery is reflected in how the Bible came to us, and is preserved in the doctrine of organic (as opposed to mechanical) verbal inspiration of Scripture. Here's Louis Berkhof:
We cannot explain the interpenetration of the divine and the human factors in Scripture, any more than we can explain that of the two natures in Christ. Scripture presents itself to us as an organic whole, consisting of several parts, that are interrelated in various ways, and that find their unity in the central, all-controlling, and progressively unfolding, thought of God reaching out to man, in order to redeem him from sin and to bestow upon him the blessings of eternal salvation. And therefore we should not ask where the divine ends and the human begins, nor where the human ends and the divine begins. We might just as well ask where in man the soul ends and the body begins. No such line of demarcation can be pointed out. Scripture is in its entirety both the Word of God and the word of man. (Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology, pp. 154-155)
My wife was looking for Advent materials to use in teaching Sunday school this morning. She came across a good article called Preparing Children for Advent on the website of Creighton University. I encourage you to read the whole thing (especially if you have kids) but here's a wonderful explanation of the storyline of Advent using clear, simple language. This is so good I think I'm going to use it when I teach our adult class next Sunday.
We can tell our children about Isaiah, the prophet. We can tell them that God has wanted to be the one who would lead and take care of his people. But they rebelled against God, and demanded kings, just like all the peoples around them had. So, God let them have kings. As it turned out, there was one bad king after another. And God sent prophets to the people and the kings to remind them of the agreement - the "covenant" - God made with them: I'll be your God and you be my people.
Now the way the people made someone a king was to pour a bit of oil on their head. The one who was "anointed" this way with oil became the king. Well, the prophets began to tell the people that God would send them "an anointed one" (the word they use to say "anointed one" in Hebrew is "Messiah.") In fact, they said that this Messiah would be called "Emmanuel", which in Hebrew means, "God is with us."
So, the message of the prophets was about a promise - that God would save his people from all that they were suffering. The prophets use such wonderful images to tell the people that they could expect and hope for a day when "every tear would be wiped away." It would be a day of great peace - "the lion would lie down with the lamb" and the people will beat their spears into hooks to prune trees with. And, the most unbelievable promise of all: "death will be no more."
We all know now that what God was preparing his people for was the coming of Jesus, the Christ (Christos in Greek means "the anointed one.")
Romans 7:4 says: "Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God." What struck me here is the implication that dying to the law is the same as no longer belonging to the law. I now belong to the risen Christ. This is a common thread throughout Paul's writings. It's explicit in Galatians 4 where Paul uses the contrast between Isaac and Ishmael to draw out the imagery of the law as guardian or master. Paul repeatedly returns to the language of Roman slavery to remind his readers who they belong to if they are in Christ. They no longer belong to the law/sin. Now they belong to Christ/righteousness.
I love this from John Piper:
. . . instead of belonging to the law, which demands and condemns, we now belong to Christ who demands and gives. Formerly, righteousness was demanded from outside in letters written in stone. But now righteousness rises within us as a longing in our relationship with Christ. He is present and real. By his Spirit he helps us in our weakness. A living person has replaced a lethal list. (Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die, p. 81)
The Conversation is one of the best films ever made. I'm not one to just throw such a statement out there. I've seen thousands of films. The accepted classics, generally agreed upon masterpieces that I likewise admire and laud. I've also seen many sleepers that sneaked up on me. Coppola's 1974 film is both, a quiet gem that, in my opinion, is as disturbing and fascinating as any of the great films of Bunuel, Ozu, Welles, Bresson, Antonioni. Such a simple scenario, explored not with grandiosity, but rather a beautifully modulated central performance by Gene Hackman (reputed to be his favorite role) and script by the director.
As chronicled in Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down the Army Rangers of Task Force Ranger viewed the Delta Force operators in their midst with envy and awe. In ways both obvious and subtle the D-boys radiated their elite status. No guard duty or "fun" runs for these guys. They spent their down time in more creative ways.
When the force had first moved in, the pigeons had owned the hangar, crapping at will all over people, cots and equipment. When one of the D-boys got nailed while sitting on his cot cleaning his weapon, the elite force declared war. They ordered up pellet guns. The birds didn't have a prayer. The D-boys would triangulate fire and send a mess of blood and feathers plopping down on somebody's cot. Did these guys know how to kill time on a deployment or what? They all had custom-built weapons with hand-rifled barrels and such. Gun manufacturers outfitted them the way Nike supplies pro athletes. Some days Delta would commandeer a Black Hawk and roar off to hunt wild boar, baboons, antelope, and gazelles in the Somali bush. They brought back trophy tusks and game meat and held cookouts. They called it "realistic training." (pp. 59-60)
Aboard the giant C-141 Starlifter, when the air force blueshirts insisted that they all stay in their seats, the D-boys just blew them off. Right after takeoff they unrolled thermal pads (the shiny metal floor of the bird turns ice cold at altitude) and insulated ponchos, stuck earplugs in their ears, donned eye patches, swallowed "Blue Bombers" (Halcyon tablets), and racked out. They taught little tricks like wrapping tape around the pins of their grenades to make sure none accidentally snagged and pulled on a piece of equipment. They wore knee pads when they went into a fight, which made it easy to quickly drop and shoot, and stay there for hours if necessary. If it was hot, they didn't walk around in full battle gear. They wore T-shirts or no shirts at all, and shorts and flip-flops. They all had sunglasses. If they'd been up until all hours, they slept in a little in the morning. When they went out on a mission, they took the weapons they thought they'd need and left behind the stuff they didn't. With the D-boys, all of whom were ranked sergeant first class or higher, rank meant nothing. They all, officers and noncoms, called each other by their first names or nicknames. They were trained to think and act for themselves. Nothing was done by the book for its own sake; they were guided by their own experience. They knew their weapons and tactics and business better than anyone, and basically ran their own lives, which was an extraordinary thing in the U.S. Army. (pp. 151-152)
This photo caught my eye because it's a view I'm familiar with when feeding my son.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - A young girl eats some food as displaced Afghans queue to receive relief aid from the UNHCR, on December 1, 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan. As temperatures begin to drop around the country, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Afghan government are providing relief supplies, to help some 200,000 vulnerable people cope with the harsh winter, including blankets, sweaters, plastic sheets, jerry cans and bags of charcoal. (Photo from Getty Images)
I've wanted to read Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden ever since seeing Ridley Scott's adaptation a few years ago. The book and movie tell the story of the October 3, 1993 mission by Delta Force operators and Army Rangers into downtown Mogadishu to capture associates of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Things went badly wrong, and as they say, the rest is history. The book is an amazing piece of combat journalism, full of amazing detail and vivid anecdotes. Like this darkly comic episode in the effort to capture Aidid.
[Major General William] Garrison knew from day one that intelligence was going to be a problem. The original plan had called for a daring, well-placed lead Somali spy, the head of the CIA's local operation, to present Aidid an elegant hand-carved cane soon after Task Force Ranger arrived. Embedded in the head of the cane was a homing beacon. It seemed like a sure thing until, on Garrison's first day in-country, Lieutenant Colonel Dave McKnight, his chief of staff, informed him that their lead informant had shot himself in the head playing Russian roulette. It was the kind of idiotic macho thing guys did when they'd lived too long on the edge. (p. 23)
Hanna Rosin speculates in The Atlantic that the prosperity gospel may have contributed to the subprime mortgage meltdown. She cites a former high-roller from Wells Fargo who claims that managers targeted church sponsored wealth-building seminars -- even offering financial incentives to pastors for every person who took out a mortgage. Maybe it isn't a coincidence that areas of the country hit hardest by the collapse of the real estate bubble are also areas where the health and wealth gospel is the strongest. Rosin also shows how new variants of the prosperity gospel are becoming popular in predominantly Latino congregations. She profiles Pastor Fernando Garay of Casa del Padre in Charlottesville, Virginia.
It can be hard to get used to how much Garay talks about money in church, one loyal parishioner, Billy Gonzales, told me one recent Sunday on the steps out front. Back in Mexico, Gonzales’s pastor talked only about “Jesus and heaven and being good.” But Garay talks about jobs and houses and making good money, which eventually came to make sense to Gonzales: money is “really important,” and besides, “we love the money in Jesus Christ’s name! Jesus loved money too!” That Sunday, Garay was preaching a variation on his usual theme, about how prosperity and abundance unerringly find true believers. “It doesn’t matter what country you’re from, what degree you have, or what money you have in the bank,” Garay said. “You don’t have to say, ‘God, bless my business. Bless my bank account.’ The blessings will come! The blessings are looking for you! God will take care of you. God will not let you be without a house!”
Pastor Garay, 48, is short and stocky, with thick black hair combed back. In his off hours, he looks like a contented tourist, in his printed Hawaiian shirts or bright guayaberas. But he preaches with a ferocity that taps into his youth as a cocaine dealer with a knife in his back pocket. “Fight the attack of the devil on my finances! Fight him! We declare financial blessings! Financial miracles this week, NOW NOW NOW!” he preached that Sunday. “More work! Better work! The best finances!” Gonzales shook and paced as the pastor spoke, eventually leaving his wife and three kids in the family section to join the single men toward the front, many of whom were jumping, raising their Bibles, and weeping. On the altar sat some anointing oils, alongside the keys to the Mercedes Benz.
In his book Something for Nothing, Jackson Lears describes two starkly different manifestations of the American dream, each intertwined with religious faith. The traditional Protestant hero is a self-made man. He is disciplined and hardworking, and believes that his “success comes through careful cultivation of (implicitly Protestant) virtues in cooperation with a Providential plan.” The hero of the second American narrative is a kind of gambling man—a “speculative confidence man,” Lears calls him, who prefers “risky ventures in real estate,” and a more “fluid, mobile democracy.” The self-made man imagines a coherent universe where earthly rewards match merits. The confidence man lives in a culture of chance, with “grace as a kind of spiritual luck, a free gift from God.” The Gilded Age launched the myth of the self-made man, as the Rockefellers and other powerful men in the pews connected their wealth to their own virtue. In these boom-and-crash years, the more reckless alter ego dominates. In his book, Lears quotes a reverend named Jeffrey Black, who sounds remarkably like Garay: “The whole hope of a human being is that somehow, in spite of the things I’ve done wrong, there will be an episode when grace and fate shower down on me and an unearned blessing will come to me—that I’ll be the one.”
The middle section of The Cost of Discipleship is a section by section exposition of Matthew 5-7 a/k/a The Sermon on the Mount. Bonhoeffer refuses to sentimentalize or take the sharp edges off these hard sayings of Jesus. The chapter on The Beatitudes is a classic. He sets the scene and then provides several paragraphs of commentary on each beatitude. He doesn't play off a spiritualized reading of the language against a more literal reading. "Poor" can have a spiritual and a temporal meaning, "mourn" doesn't mean occasionally bummed out, etc. Jesus is describing a community, the community of those who "have publicly left the crowd to join him." The community of those who "have renounced everything at his call." This is the doorway to blessing as defined by Jesus, which definition is so different from the world's, or my own. I wonder where the signs of this kind of blessedness are to be found today.
Bonhoeffer concludes on a marvelous note. Here are two samples.
Having reached the end of the beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place on this earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest, and most sorely tried of all men is to be found—on the cross of Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has found all. From the cross there comes the call "blessed, blessed." (pp. 113-114)
. . . while Jesus calls them blessed, the world cries: "Away with them, away with them!" Yes, but whither? To the kingdom of heaven. "Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven." There shall the poor be seen in the halls of joy. With his own hand God wipes away the tears from the eyes of those who had mourned upon earth. He feeds the hungry at his Banquet. There stand the scarred bodies of the martyrs, now glorified and clothed in white robes of eternal righteousness instead of the rags of sin and repentance. The echoes of this joy reach the little flock below as it stands beneath the cross, and they hear Jesus saying: "Blessed are ye!" (p. 114)
