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On March 13, 2019 By In Scribblings, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

Herbertian Lessons for Lent

Guest post from Brian G Daigle, Headmaster of Sequitur Classical Academy

I live in an area where Mardi Gras is in full swing, and I can remember from my upbringing that Fat Tuesday was a last-ditch effort at debauchery before the pseudo-spiritual practice of “giving something up for Lent” really began. In my youth, I would give up some kind of chocolate or candy, something that appeared to be a fast, and I would join others around me in sharing with friends and family what I’ve given up and why. Around day thirty it would turn into some kind of joke about how long I’ve been able to go without this first-world luxury. My aristocratic sacrifice was hardly creating in me a clean heart. Those imaginings still haunt me and each year I must consider anew why this kind of extended fast ought to be recognized. (more…)

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On February 12, 2018 By In Family and Children, Wisdom, Worship

Some Thoughts on Lent & Fasting

Every year around this time the internet is flooded with essays and interviews concerning Lent: Should we observe it? If we observe it, how should we observe it? And so on. Good folks disagree about these issues. But it is a good discussion to be having. I thought I’d chime in on the issue. Hopefully, I can help keep people thinking through the issue.

First, let me clear some ground here. I agree with many of my brothers who despise some of the Lenten practices. There are people who have superstitious views of the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, for instance. Here in Louisville, KY, we even had one church who set up shop in a local business so that you can get your ashes to go. This was a one-stop shop for groceries and a dose of humility and repentance. People who do this sort of thing are, in most cases, viewing the imposition of ashes as some type of talisman that is going to keep God off their backs for a little while longer. I have witnessed people through the years from many branches of the Christian church act as if the religious ritual itself (whether it is the imposition of ashes, fasting, attending worship, going to revival services, or whatever) was an end in itself. After you do the deed, then you are free to live any way you want outside of the time of that special rite. According to what God said through the prophet Isaiah in his opening salvo, he has never taken kindly to superstitious views of religious rituals (cf. Isa 1.10-20. Mind you, the rituals that God is condemning in Isaiah are the ones that he himself set up. These were not manmade rituals. These were God’s own rituals that were being abused by superstitious views.) Superstitious views of the imposition of ashes or even fasting have no place in the Christian Faith. (more…)

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On April 4, 2015 By In Theology

What Happens the Day Before Easter?

The Passion Week provides vast theological emotions for the people of God. Palm Sunday commences with the entrance of a divine King riding on a donkey. He comes in ancient royal transportation. The royal procession concludes with a Crucified Messiah exalted on a tree.

The Church also celebrates Maundy Thursday as our Messiah provides a new commandment to love one another just as He loved us. We then proceed to sing of the anguish of that Good Friday as our blessed Lord is humiliated by soldiers and scolded by the unsavory words of the religious leaders of the day. As he walks to the Mount his pain testifies to Paul’s words that he suffered even to the point of death. But hidden in this glaringly distasteful mixture of blood, vinegar, and bruised flesh is the calmness of the day after our Lord’s crucifixion.

After fulfilling the great Davidic promise in Psalm 22, our Lord rests from his labors in the tomb. Whatever may have happened in those days prior to his resurrection, we know that Christ’s work was finished.

The Church calls this day Blessed Sabbath or more commonly, Holy Saturday. On this day our Lord reposed (rested) from his accomplishments. Many throughout history also believe that Holy Saturday is a fulfillment of Moses’ words:

God blessed the seventh day. This is the blessed Sabbath. This is the day of rest, on which the only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works . . .(Gen. 2:2)

The Church links this day with the creation account. On day seven Yahweh rested and enjoyed the fruit of his creation. Jesus Christ also rested in the rest given to him by the Father and enjoyed the fruits of the New Creation he began to establish and would be brought to light on the next day.

As Alexander Schmemann observed:

Now Christ, the Son of God through whom all things were created, has come to restore man to communion with God. He thereby completes creation. All things are again as they should be. His mission is consummated. On the Blessed Sabbath He rests from all His works.

Holy Saturday is a day of rest for God’s people; a foretaste of the true Rest that comes in the Risen Christ. The calmness of Holy Saturday makes room for the explosion of Easter Sunday. On this day, we remember that the darkness of the grave and the resting of the Son were only temporary for when a New Creation bursts into the scene the risen Lord of glory cannot contain his joy, and so he gives it to us.

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On April 18, 2014 By In Scribblings

The Royal Banners Forward Go

Rembrandt

The royal banners forward go;
The cross shines forth in mystic glow
Where He in flesh, our flesh who made,
our sentence bore, our ransom paid;

Where deep for us the spear was dyed,
Life’s torrent rushing from His side.
To wash us in that precious flood
Where mingled water flowed and blood.

Fulfilled is all that David told
In true prophetic song of old;
Amidst the nations, God, saith he,
Hath reigned and triumphed from the tree.

O Tree of beauty, Tree of light,
O Tree with royal purple dight;
Elect, on whose triumphal breast
Those holy limbs should find their rest;

On whose dear arms, so widely flung,
The weight of this world’s ransom hung
The price of humankind to pay
And spoil the spoiler of his prey.

O Cross, our one reliance, hail!
So may thy power with us avail
To give new virtue to the saint
And pardon to the penitent.

To Thee, eternal Three in One,
Let homage meet by all be done
Whom by the cross Thou dost restore,
Preserve, and govern evermore.

Written by 6th century bishop Venantius Fortunatus, translated by John M. Neale.

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On April 18, 2014 By In Scribblings

Tasting Death

person of christ“Christ took death, ‘even death on a cross’ (Phil. 2:8). The subject of this dying—the One who dies–is God the Son. He obeys unto death. In his original form he was immune to death, but he assumed a form that was mortal. He went towards death, choosing it and tasting it, deciding not to be its master but its victim, and accepting a destiny according to which it would be a sin for him not to die. The Son of Man must suffer. Death was obedience. Not dying would be disobedience.

Besides death, it was death in its most aggravated form. Not merely because the cross involved indescribable pain, but because in his case it was the occasion, the instrument, and the symbol of the curse due to sin. He experienced death unmitigated and unqualified: death with the sting; a death without light, comfort, or encouragement. The long, long journey from Caesarea Philippi to Calvary was a long journey into a black hole involving not only physical and emotional pain, but a spiritual desertion beyond our imagining.

In his agony he would cry and not be heard. He would lose all sense of his divine Sonship. He would lose all sense of his Father’s love. Into that tiny space (his body, outside Jerusalem), and into that fraction of time (the ninth hour, Good Friday) God gathered the sin of the world, and there and then, in the flesh of his own Son, he condemned it (Rom. 8:3). On that cross, at that time, the Son knew himself only as sin and his Father only as its avenger.

Here was the singularity. The Logos, the ground of all law, became lawlessness, speechless in a darkness beyond reason. He so renounced his rights that he died; and he so made himself nothing that he died THAT death. He did not shrink from the connection with flesh. And when a second great step was called for, he shuddered, yet resolutely accepted the connection with death. He became flesh, then went deeper, tasting death.”

-Donald Macleod, “The Person of Christ”

(Hat-tip to my friend Justin Dillehay who posted this quote on FB this morning.)<>реклама на щитах стоимостьэффективная реклама услуг

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On April 18, 2014 By In Theology

Judas Played a Reversed Role

 

Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor. 30 So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

– John 13.26-30

Judas, be hasty. Take this unleavened bread, dipped in bitter herbs. Be hasty. Leave at night. Plunder me of my silver

—

11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night…

None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians…

33 The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” 34 So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. 35 The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. 36 And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

– Ex 12.11-12, 22-23, 33-36

Israel, be hasty. Take this unleavened bread, dipped in bitter herbs. Be hasty. Leave at night. Plunder me of my silver.

Judas is playing to the same instructions as Israel had in Egypt, in some sense. Jesus is Egypt, he is the firstborn who dies.

But on the other hand, Judas left the house during the meal. God had strictly forbidden leaving the house during the meal. Had he done that in Egypt, he would have met the destroyer in the street.<>game mobileпродвижение москва

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