Sing we merrily

Daniel Foucachon, a member of the congregation at Christ Church, Moscow, has uploaded (I believe the term is) some vidéo recordings from a recent psalm sing. They’re well worth a perusal. This is what a rural congregation – which isn’t abnormally musically gifted – is capable of over time, if they are willing to work at it. Some psalms and hymns are in parts, some are in canon, some are in unison.

Psalm 19
Psalm 98
Psalm 117
Psalm 119.169-176
Psalm 122
Psalm 134
Psalm 149
O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High!
The Son of God Goes Forth To War

A Useless Controversy

In Matthew 22, Jesus tells a parable in which he compares the kingdom of heaven to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son (v. 2). The hall is filled with guests (v. 10) but the king comes in to look at the guests and sees that there was a man who had no wedding garment (v. 12), so he orders his attendants to bind him and throw him into the outer darkness.

Calvin comments:

“As to the wedding garment, is it faith, or is it a holy life? This is a useless controversy; for faith cannot be separated from good works, nor do good works proceed from any other source than from faith.”

Psalm 84: Exhortation

Below is the exhortation which I will give prior to the confession of sins on Sunday morning, followed by the charge I will give after the Lord’s Supper, prior to the benediction.

***

Our opening prayer was based on Psalm 84 which speaks of the loveliness of God’s dwelling place, his courts. Even the sparrow, the Psalm says, finds a home and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, at the altars of the Lord of hosts. Didn’t our Lord Jesus Christ say that we are of more value than many sparrows? As we come to church each Lord’s Day, as we appear before God in Zion, to use the language of the Psalm, we and our young are to feel at home here. God has invited us into his house to bless us. No good thing does he withhold, say the Psalm. God has brought us here to speak kindly to us and so that we can sit at his table and eat with him. When we bring our children to the waters of baptism, when we keep them with us during the worship service, when they are fed from the Lord’s table, we are saying to them, “You are welcome, you have a place here, too.” Now where is it that the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest for herself and her young? At the altars of the Lord of hosts. It is because sacrifice for sin has been made that we and our children are welcome here. Our altar is the cross, where Jesus Christ shed his blood and offered up himself as a sacrifice once for all for sin, suffering and dying in our place, bearing the punishment we deserve. This is not an altar, this is a table, where we remember Jesus’ death in bread and wine. On the basis of his one sacrifice, once for all on the cross, the apostle John writes to Christians, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” When we come into the house for dinner, it is good manners to wipe our feet and wash our hands. This reminds us, at the beginning of our worship service, of the need to confess our sins.

***

We began with Psalm 84 and it speaks of those in whose hearts are the highways to Zion, who long and faint for the courts of the Lord; verses 6 and 7:

“As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.”

We are being sent from here on a journey through the wilderness for another week before we return to the sanctuary. But as we travel through the wilderness, heading towards the place where we have seen God’s power, glory and steadfast love, and where we know we will see it again, praising God, singing for joy and trusting in him, the wilderness will stop looking like a wilderness before long. Go, and bring water to the desert, be like rain on the parched land, and make the wasteland fruitful.

Psalm 63: Sermon Notes

Below are the notes for a sermon on Psalm 63 which I will be preaching, Lord willing, at Christ Church, Missoula, on Sunday morning.

Introduction

Our worship together on Sunday – what we do here, now – is deeply important for our lives throughout the rest of the week. There is much disagreement in the church over what form corporate worship should take – the content of the songs we sing, how formal or casual our services should be, how simple or developed they should be, to what extent the style of our music should reflect what is popular in the wider world. There are many different opinions about this, and yet it really matters. The theologian Stanley Hauerwas said this:

One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend.

Sadly, sappy, sentimental and pointless to a greater or letter extent describes what goes on in many churches today and we mustn’t think that it will have no effect. Now Psalm 63 – this inspired worship song from Israel’s hymnbook – is full of emotion directed to God: thirsting, longing for him (v. 1), being satisfied in him and praising him (v. 5), remembering him in the night (v. 6), rejoicing under the shadow of his wings (v. 7), clinging to him (v. 8), rejoicing again (v. 11). But it is not sappy or sentimental or pointless. It is a song that David sings (see the heading) as the king of Israel (v. 11). As we learn to sing this song, we’ll get a true picture of what balanced, undistorted worship looks like and what effect that will have on life throughout the rest of the week.

1. God’s king trusts amidst his trials (vv. 1-8)

As we have just seen, the heading of this Psalm tells us that David wrote this when he was in the wilderness of Judah. He is in the wilderness because, v. 9, there are those who seek to destroy his life and, v. 11, those who are liars, lying presumably about him. This Psalm looks back to a particular episode in David’s life. In 2 Samuel 15, Absalom, one of David’s sons, sets himself up at the gate of Jerusalem and spreads lies about David (vv. 1-6). Word reaches David (v. 13) and he flees because he is in danger of being killed as Absalom has amassed an army and is marching on Jerusalem (v. 14). He leaves the ark of God and its dwelling place behind (v. 25). He flees towards the wilderness  (v. 23, v. 28, end of 16.2). That is where he sets up camp (17.16) and where people bring him and his people the provisions they need (17.27-29). Those are the trials which are the context for David’s response to God in vv. 1-8.
Within this section, verses 1 to 4 and verses 5 to 8 follow the same pattern:

1.The soul looking to God as one without which it cannot survive, like the body can’t survive without the basic necessities of life
2.Recalling past experiences of God
3.Praising God because of what he has done
4.Trusting in God

David’s thirsting and fainting in wilderness isn’t so much for water as it is for God. Just as parched soil desperately needs rain, so David longs for God (v. 1). This is a demonstration of David’s trust in God. When David says, “You are my God”, this is covenant language. Do you remember the great covenant refrain that runs through the Bible? “I will be your God and you shall be my people.” David is saying, “I believe that, and I trust in you. I see that you are the one who can give me life and sustain me and I depend on you.” Flowing from his faith, David in the wilderness looks back to a time when he took part in the organised, corporate worship of Israel, as the place where he met with God, where God made himself known in a special way (v. 2). The sanctuary refers to the holy place where God symbolically dwelt amongst his people, the place where God had his throne between the cherubim above the ark of the covenant; it was the place where sacrifices were offered for sins. It was originally the interior of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting. In David’s reign, the elements of the sanctuary were divided between two separate sites (1 Chronicles 16). David brought the ark of the covenant into a tent which he had pitched for it in Jerusalem and this was the place where, from David’s reign onwards, God was called upon, thanked and praised with singing and musical instruments. Sacrifices were made at that tent when the ark was brought to Jerusalem, and continued to be regularly offered by the priests at the original tent which was pitched in the town of Gibeon. When David uses the word ’sanctuary’, it is loaded with all this meaning. Of course, God is everywhere and David did not have to go to the sanctuary to pray to God and be heard by him: he composed this Psalm in the wilderness. But he looks back to the worship at the sanctuary as the particular place where God showed his power and glory. That produces a twofold response in him:

(i) He praises God because of his steadfast love, which is better than life (v. 3). ‘Steadfast love’ could be translated ‘lovingkindness’, ‘mercy’ or ‘grace’. Notice how he draws conclusions about God’s steadfast love from seeing God’s power and glory in the sanctuary. God’s power and his glory are seen in his steadfast love, in his grace. Do you remember when Israel was encamped at Sinai and Moses asked God to show him his glory? Exodus 34.6-7:

‘The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin”’

God’s glory is his steadfast love, seen in his mercy and grace and slowness to anger and his forgiveness of sin. How does David see that in the sanctuary? Because it is the place where sin, rebellion against God, is dealt with. How can a God of blazing purity dwell in the midst of a sinful people without consuming them? When the priests offer animal sacrifices at the sanctuary, it is as if the sin of the people is transferred to the animal and the animal dies and is consumed in their place. So God’s right anger against sin is turned away, he forgives the sins of his people, and looks with favour on them and shows them mercy, sparing them what they deserve, and grace, giving them what they don’t deserve – enjoying his ongoing presence amongst them. This the power and glory David sees in the wilderness as he looks back with his mind’s eye at the sanctuary where he once worshipped. It is God’s steadfast love, which David says is better than life. Better than being alive and enjoying all that this life has to offer is to know that God has set his unfailing love upon you, in his grace forgiving your sins and in his mercy turning aside his anger; it’s a love that extends beyond this life into eternity. So David praises God (vv. 3-4a); that’s his first response.

(ii) David’s second response to what he has seen of God is to trust in him (v. 4b). The lifting up of hands in God’s name refers to David calling out to God to preserve him in and rescue him from his trials; he is demonstrating his faith in God, his trust in him. Psalm 28.2:

“Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands towards your most holy sanctuary.”

David looks back to worship in the sanctuary and what he saw of God’s power and glory there – that he is merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love – and so not only does he praise him, he resolves to continue trusting in him, depending on him, while he is away from the sanctuary in the wilderness. God’s king trusts amidst his trials

If we didn’t get the point the first time, David takes us round a second time to make sure this is fixed in our minds and in our hearts; he follows the same pattern. “Let every charge be established by two or three witnesses.” Again, David is hungry in the wilderness but it is not so much for food as it is for God (v. 5). This time, rather than thirsting for God, David’s soul hungers for him. This time David adds something. His soul does not just look to God as the one who enables him to survive, like dry land needing water. His soul looks to God as the one who will lavish upon him good things. God is not just the one who gives him a morsel of bread and a glass of water to keep his body alive. It is as if he spreads a great feast for David – the best cuts of meat, cooked by the best chefs, which he can eat until he is full. David trusts God that his soul will not want for anything; he is content. Where does this faith come from? “I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night” (v. 6). This, too, builds on what he has already said. Again David looks back to the past where God made himself known to him and we learn this time when David does this: when he is in his bed, lying awake as the hours go past. Again David responds in the same two ways as he responded to what he had seen of God in the sanctuary.

(i) He sings for joy (end of v. 7), there is praise again (end of v. 5). The thing he remembers about God, what he chews over in his mind, and which moves him to praise, is again, how God has shown his love, his grace, his mercy. He has helped him (beginning of v. 7), he has brought him near, and shielded him from harm.

(ii) David’s second response to his memory of what God has done for him is a renewed, strengthened trust in him (v. 8). He sees how God has helped him, has protected and sheltered him, and so he continues to holds on to him for dear life.

David really wants to make this clear. He depends on God as the one who alone can give him life and sustain him, and more than that, as the one who alone can satisfy him. So he looks back to a time when he was not in the wilderness, when he took part in the worship of God’s people, where God made himself known, where he revealed his power and glory in showing mercy and love, and so responds with praise and continuing trust. Corporate worship is deeply important for what happens away from the place of worship. God’s king trusts amidst his trials.

What we see here is that David is a new Israel. Do you remember how, when Israel was in the wilderness, they sinned? They did not trust the Lord to give them bread and water and grumbled that they were going to die. They were not satisfied with the Lord, they didn’t trust him to satisfy them and they looked back to what they had without him. Listen to Moses’ explanation of what God was doing. Deuteronomy 8.2-3:

“And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

That is what Israel failed to understand, but what David did know. It was also known by another, perhaps a thousand years later. In Matthew 4 (and Luke 4) we read how Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and after fasting forty days and forty nights he was hungry. The tempter came and said, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread,” to which Jesus replied, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus Christ, great David’s greater Son, is, of course, God’s anointed king and the new Israel, faithful where Israel was not. God’s king trusts amidst his trials.

This is where Psalm 63 has implications for our worship. Jesus Christ, the new Israel, as anticipated and foreshadowed here in David, is to be our model as God’s people, as members of the Israel of God, for robust worship that has purpose and direction and worth, worship that is emotionally healthy and balanced, worship that makes a difference in our lives

When we are gathered here, like we are now, on the Lord’s Day to worship God together, we are in the sanctuary, God’s holy place, not because there’s anything special about the building or the ground on which we’re standing but because by faith, in the Spirit, we have ascended into heaven. Do you remember how the service began? “Lift up your hearts: we lift them up to the Lord!” Hebrews 12.22-24:

“You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.”

It is here that God shows his power and glory in his steadfast love. What David saw in the sanctuary in shadow form, we see in glorious technicolour. What all those animal sacrifices pointed forward to and stood for has now come. How is God’s love supremely seen? 1 John 4.10:

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins”

And that love which is God’s power and glory is seen here. At the beginning of the service we confessed our sins and we heard of God’s mercy and his grace as we were assured that our sins were forgiven through Christ, because of what he did, dying in our place on the cross, bearing the punishment that we deserve for our sins. At this table, Christ has instituted a memorial of his death on the cross in which God’s love and mercy and grace are most clearly seen, as bread, representing Christ’s body is broken, and as wine, representing his blood, is poured out. As we proclaim the Lord’s death for us in this meal, we are proclaiming that he has been our help. As we eat the bread and drink the wine, our souls are being satisfied with fat and rich food and our thirst for God is being quenched, as he feeds us by faith with the body and blood of his dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And what we do here matters.

As we are sent out from here away from the sanctuary, into our communities, into our workplaces, it is a kind of being sent into the wilderness, where we are in the midst of trials and surrounded by enemies, as David was, as Christ was. And this Psalm is a wilderness psalm; we are learning to sing here in the sanctuary, as it were, so that we will be able to sing it out there in the wilderness. You know the particular trials and enemies that are waiting for you; want, sickness, particular temptations, opposition because of your faith. In those situations, we must not behave like the old Israel and grumble against God. We must not look longingly back to the time before we became Christians, if we can ever recall such a time, and remember what we enjoyed then and wish that God had never saved us. Neither must we envy the pleasures of who aren’t Christians and long to have what they have. We shouldn’t be discontent and dissatisfied and doubt God’s goodness and faithfulness, doubt that he will provide for us and preserve us. Rather, we are be like the new Israel, like David is here, we are to be like Christ, and seek God, thirst and faint for him, hunger for him, depend on him to sustain us and satisfy us. As we do that, we should look back at what has taken place here and remember how God has fed with fat and rich food and satisfied our thirst here, at this table. If we lie awake at night because of fear, or worry or sadness, we should call to mind and dwell on how God has made known to us his power and glory here, this morning, how he has loved us and helped us in forgiving our sins through Christ, as we were assured when we confessed our sins, how he has loved us and helped us by his sending Son to die on the cross in our place to rescue us from death and hell, as we will have proclaimed at this table in the breaking of bread and in drinking this cup. That will make a difference. It will bring us joy and will move us to praise God. It will strengthen our faith in God; it will cause us to cling to him who holds us more tightly. What is more, this Psalm shows us that the difference worship now in the sanctuary will make then in the wilderness is not something that should be kept hidden in our hearts; it should be visible and audible, both in here and out there. God has given us bodies, and he expects our joy and trust to be evident in our bodies – in the noise that comes out of our mouths, in our posture. We sing for joy on Monday because we have praised God with joyful lips on the Lord’s Day. We lift up our hands to God for help and mercy on Thursday evening, because we have lifted them up to him in worship on Sunday morning.

So first, then, God’s king trusts amidst his trials. We have seen what that looks like, the nature of worship and its place in fuelling faith, as well as something of the effect it has. As Psalm concludes, we see more of the fruit of that trust.

2. God’s king triumphs over his foes (vv. 9-11)

God upholds David (v. 8b), but what happens to his enemies? God will judge them, they will die and their souls will go down to Sheol – Greek word is Hades – the place of the dead (v. 9). Before the coming of Christ, the souls of all who died would descend to Sheol. There were two parts to Sheol, separated by a great chasm that none could cross, the place where wicked faced torment and the place where the faithful were comforted. Jesus spoke of it when told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. When David says that those who seek to destroy his life shall go down into the depths of the earth, he is referring to their death and their souls’ descent to Sheol where they would be in torment. What about the manner of their death? It’s not for the squeamish. They shall be killed and their bodies left as carrion to be devoured by wild animals (v. 10). And the result? David – who trusts in God, seeks for him, thirsts for him, faints for him, lifts up his hands in his name, is satisfied in him, clings to him – will rejoice in God who overthrow his enemies, and not just David, but all who trust in God shall feel triumphant because of the judgement that falls upon David’s enemies (v. 11). That is what swearing by God means; it is contrasted in the Bible with going after other gods to serve them; it’s an indication of who your faith is in. David’s victory brings joy to David and the rest of the faithful because the mischief of David’s enemies will come to an end – the lies they told to turn people’s hearts away from David, the plots they made to get rid of him. God’s king triumphs over his foes.

This is what will happen to the enemies of Christ. In his day, there were those who sought to destroy his life – the chief priests and elders of the people, assisted by Judas. Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and obviously the opportunity to kill him isn’t there today but there are plenty in the world who would like to see an end to Christianity. You may be aware of the recent release of Collision, a documentary following the debates between Brooke’s uncle, Doug Wilson, and leading atheist and public intellectual Christopher Hitchens. In the film, Hitchens says something to the effect of, “Christianity is a dangerous cult and it’s high time it was stopped.” There are plenty who, like Absalom with David, spread lies about Christ or the Christian faith to turn people’s hearts away from Christ who is the rightful king of this world. Do you recall what Absalom said to those who came to the king for judgement? He intercepted them and flattered them by saying that their claims were good and right but there was no man designated by the king to hear them, but that if he, Absalom were judge, everyone with a dispute or a cause would come to him and he would give them justice. That’s how he stole the hearts of the men of Israel. “David – God’s rightful king – won’t give you justice, but I will.” Lies against Christ are no different today. “Don’t look to Christ as the one who will solve the problems of the world and uphold justice; he won’t do anything – look to this policy, look to this statesman.” “You should be able to live that way, that’s right for you, but Christ’s won’t let you; if you leave Christ behind you will have the freedom to adopt that lifestyle.” But there will come a day when those who oppose Christ will be stopped, when those lies will be spread no more. Christ was faithful, obedient to death, even death on a cross, and so God has raised him from the dead and highly exalted him. Those who persist in their opposition of him will be overthrown and judged. God’s king triumphs over his foes

We who have trusted in God shall share in the joy of that victory. That’s the implication of these verses for us. We rejoice because the enemies of Christ are defeated and their schemes are brought to a final end. It is about the time of year that the Handel’s Messiah record comes out. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the Hallelujah! Chorus. “Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. ” It’s from Revelation 19.6, and the context of that glorious chorus is the response of heaven in the first century to the overthrow of Babylon, which was Jerusalem, the city which crucified its Lord and shed the blood of the prophets and the saints. From the verses which immediately precede it, Revelation 19.1-5, we see that true justice is done; right judgement is passed; and all that is left of corrupt and immoral Babylon are smouldering ruins. With that at the forefront of our mind, we hear the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out, “Hallelujah!”

As it was in the first century, so it will be ultimately with all those who persist in their opposition to Christ. “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” – 1 Corinthians 15.25. Sharing in the joy of Christ’s victory the privilege of those whose trust, like David, like Christ, is in God. God’s king triumphs over his foes.

Conclusion

Psalm 63 shows us why worship together is deeply important for life away from the place of worship. It is where God reveals his power and glory in his steadfast love and in his help. As a result, God’s king trusts amidst his trials. It is what will cause us to do the same. This Psalm is a model of worship that is authentically emotional, not sappy or sentimental, prayer that is robust, not pointless, worship which engages our whole bodies. The fruit of the faith of God’s king, which the worship in this Psalm embodies, is that God’s king triumphs over his foes. We whose worship is shaped by this Psalm and who therefore share the faith of God’s king will join in with the rejoicing.

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

Not for any merit

Brooke and I have just embarked on reading The Lord of the Rings aloud and I am having fun noticing things that I didn’t notice last time round. This is from chapter 2, ‘The Shadow of the Past’ when Gandalf is recounting the history of the One Ring to Frodo.

‘There is only one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond the grasp of the Enemy for ever.’
‘I do really wish to destroy it!’ cried Frodo. ‘Or, well, to have it destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?’
‘Such questions cannot be answered,’ said Gandalf. ‘You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.’

The apostle Paul writes:

‘For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence.’ – 1 Corinthians i.26-29

What age was Frodo when he took possession of the Ring (and therefore what age did he continue to look because of the Ring’s power)? Thirty-three.

Evangelistic Talk on Matthew ii.1-12

Please bear with the prematurity of this post. On Friday 11th December, we’re having an evangelistic carol service in Moscow in the University of Idaho Auditorium. This is the talk I am hoping to give. Suggestions for improvement are welcome (but the talk can’t get much longer!).

You may have heard of the four stages of a man’s life:

1. You believe in Santa Claus
2. You don’t believe in Santa Claus
3. You become Santa Claus
4. You start to look like Santa Claus

For many, the story of Jesus Christ is in the same category as Santa Claus: we have known the Christmas story since childhood and we may have believed it then but now we’re adults, we’ve grown out of it, we don’t believe it any more. After all it’s only make-believe, isn’t it? Just something for the children? Listen again to the first sentence of Matthew 2: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king…” The Christmas story is no fairy tale: it really happened, in a particular place at a particular time in history. And as we’ll see, it’s clear that it’s not just for children. It is something of which political leaders and scholars have to take notice and it’s for people from every nation. The story takes us on a journey to two towns and as we follow the journey, we’ll see who Jesus is, and the two ways that we can respond to him.

Our first stop is Jerusalem. Wise men from the east arrive and ask, “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.” God had somehow made known to the wise men the meaning of this new object – whatever it was – they had seen in the sky. As soon as the news reaches King Herod, there is no doubt in his mind about what has happened. To answer the question of the wise men he gathers together all the religious experts and asks them where the Christ was to be born. We tend of think of Christ as a surname, like Smith or Jones, but it’s a title, like Doctor or Professor. It means ‘the anointed one’, the king appointed by God. In our readings and carols, we have heard and sung about this king whom God promised would come. He would be a descendant of Israel’s great King David and also God himself. He would rescue people from the death that overshadows them. He would bring about a reign of peace and justice which would be never-ending and ever-increasing until it extends over whole earth. He would put right all that is wrong with the world.

Christmas is supposed to be the season of joy, peace and goodwill. Sadly it is so often the time of year when we are acutely aware that there is something deeply wrong with the world. Two years ago, the UK mental health charity Mind conducted a poll over the Christmas period which found that 40% of people experienced increased levels of stress or anxiety and 25% had increased feelings of depression. We find it hard to get on with those we love the most, we lose our temper with our relatives – our children, our parents, our siblings. Sadness and loneliness hits us as we remember our loved ones who have died and are no longer with us. Genesis 3 tells of the cause of all this. The first human beings wanted to be gods themselves, in charge of their own lives, so they disobeyed God by eating the fruit he had forbidden them, and we have all followed in our parents’ footsteps. But God cares about right and wrong and he has passed sentence on us: he has given us what we want. The consequences are broken relationships with one another, with the world in which we work, and most importantly with God, the source of our life and all that is good. Being cut off from him, we each face death, and after that separation from all that is good forever.

But God in his great love for the world he made hasn’t just left us in that mess. He promised that a king would come – the Christ – who would rescue us and put everything right. One of the promises God made about this king was where he would be born. So when Herod asks the religious experts where the Christ was born, they answer, in Bethlehem of Judaea, and they quote a passage from the book of Micah in the OT which says that from Bethlehem in the land of Judah shall come a governor who will rule the people of Israel. Of course, as Matthew tells us at the beginning of this episode, Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea. He is the Christ, the king of David’s line who is also God, who came to rescue us and put the world right. We need to remember that Micah was writing over seven hundred years before Jesus was born, and yet he pinpoints the place of the king’s birth. Jesus could not have arranged for this to happen. The fact that it happened just as God revealed it would, many centuries before it happened is one reason why many, many people are persuaded that the Christmas story is true, that Jesus is who Christians claim he is. The question then is how to respond to Jesus, the king. This is the question that faced Herod and the wise men, and their responses illustrate the only two possibilities that are open to us.

Herod in Jerusalem understands who Jesus is but rejects him. Herod is the king, he wants to stay king and the birth of Jesus as the King of the Jews, Christ, God’s anointed king is a threat to him. That’s clear from the way Matthew tells the story. In just a few verses, he switches back and forth between between “Herod the king”, “He that is born King of the Jews”, “Herod the King”. Do you remember how Herod responded to the news of Jesus’ birth? He was troubled. When he finds out that the Christ was to be born in Bethlehem of Judaea, do you remember what Herod did? He privily called the wise men – he summoned them in secret – and inquired of them what time the star had appeared, and thus when the child was born. When he asks them to bring him word that he may go and worship the child as well, it just doesn’t fit; he is up to no good. This is confirmed at end of the reading, where we are told that God warned the wise men in a dream that they should not return to Herod. Shortly after this Herod orders the slaughter of all the male children in Bethlehem and the surrounding region who were two years old and younger, on the basis of the time the wise men had told him the star had appeared. This is another way the rebellion we heard about in Genesis 3 shows itself. Herod, like our first parents, like each of us by nature, wants to keep the crown on his own head rather than acknowledge that it belongs to Jesus. He wants to be the ruler, rather than live under the rule of the king whom God has appointed. That is the scene in Jerusalem. Now we leave Jerusalem behind and follow the wise men to their second destination, Bethlehem, where we see their response to Jesus.

The wise men are sent on their way by Herod and the star they saw in the east now goes before them until it stops over the place where the child, Jesus, was. How different is their response to Herod’s! They have made it clear from the beginning that they want to come to the new-born king to worship him. Unlike Herod, who was troubled when the heard the news, the wise men rejoiced with great joy when they saw the star. They go into the house where the child was – the family has moved out of the stable now – and when they see the child, they fall down before him and worship him. They know what the reign of this king of the Jews will be like. The equipment of war will be thrown on the bonfire. Mortal enemies shall be friends again. There will be no more miscarriages of justice. No more will death be ever looming over them. And the wise men understand that this isn’t just for the people of Israel. His government will extend to the four corners of the earth. They recognise that this is good news and that the only sensible thing to do is to come from their faraway land and present themselves to him as his subjects. Historically, one of the ways you would show your loyalty and commitment to a ruler is by making some payment to him, bringing a tribute. That’s what the wise men do – they open their treasures and present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It’s the last one to which I’d like us to pay particular attention.

We read in one of the other accounts of Jesus’ life that it was the burial custom of the Jews to wrap the body of a dead person in linen cloths with spices. In his early thirties, Jesus was crucified – put to death on a cross by the Romans – and when his body was being prepared for burial, myrrh was used. In the gifts of the wise men, we are being given a clue about how Jesus was going to do all that God had promised he would. Unlike the rest of us, Jesus lived a perfect life, he never disobeyed his heavenly Father. He was the only man who ever lived who did not deserve to be cut off from God and face death and separation from all that is good forever. But on the cross, he willingly stood in for people like you and me who have disobeyed God and who do deserve that punishment, so that we needn’t face it ourselves. He paid the penalty in full, and that was seen when he rose from the dead on the third day; death could not hold him. Just before Christmas 2005, a new film adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was released. Towards the end the White Witch demands that Edmund be given to her; according to the the “deep magic” of Narnia, all traitors belong to her and she must kill them at the stone table. The great lion, Aslan, the true king of Narnia offers himself in Edmund’s place, so Edmund goes free and Aslan and is sacrificed by the White Witch on the stone table himself. But there’s a deeper magic that the witch doesn’t know about. When one who is blameless willingly dies on behalf of the guilty, he may return to life; so Aslan comes back to life. The Bible says that we’re all traitors to the God who made us and we face the death penalty. But Christ died in the place of traitors so that they may go free and then he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and now reigns over the whole world.

So, this Christmas, as we hear again the story of the birth of Jesus, whose response will be yours? Will you be like King Herod in Jerusalem, troubled, because if Jesus is the King, you are not? Will you – like him – pull the crown more tightly over your own head, and refuse to give it to the one to whom it rightly belongs? We’ve heard what will happen to those who continue behave like that, as if they were the rulers of their lives. Or will you be like the wise men in Bethlehem and rejoice, because Jesus is this world’s true king who can save us from death and ruin, and will put the world right? As we survey the world around us, we don’t see right judgements and fair decisions everywhere, or all the relics of war being thrown onto the fire, or universal peace. Then again, all the wise men had in front of them was a child in its mother’s arms. Yet they knew who that child was and what he would do, and so they bow before him and give their allegiance to him. Will you do the same? Will you take the crown off your own head, and stop trying to govern your life your own way? Jesus freely offers to pardon you completely for the way you have lived as if you were in charge of your life. He offers free and total forgiveness, because of his death on the cross. Will you accept that he is the king, receive the pardon he is holding out to you, and accept his rule over your life? Those who do needn’t fear the future but can instead look forward to the wonderful, glorious, sure, and certain hope of being with Christ in heaven after death, and later of being raised up to live forever in his perfect future kingdom of life, peace, uprightness and justice.

May you all enjoy a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.

The Eschatology of Psalm 8

Psalm 8 is a psalm of praise to the Lord whose name is majestic in all the earth who has set his glory above the heavens (v. 1). Verse 2 reads:

“Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”

Jesus quotes this in Matthew 21.16 in relation to the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and he says, in response to the indignation of the chief priests and scribes:

“And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?”

The might with which God defeats his enemies is the praise of Jesus by infants and nursing babies. The place of infants in God’s covenant people is not restricted to the Old Testament. Even with the coming of Christ, God regards children as an integral part of his believing, worshipping covenant people.

David considers the night sky, the moon and the stars which God has made and he stands in awe that God should care for and remember mere human beings and, more than that, set them a little lower than the heavenly beings, crown them with glory and honour, and give him power to rule over everything that God has made (vv. 3-8). These verses are quoted and expounded in Hebrews 2.5-9:

“For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”

Hebrews 1 contrasts the angels with Christ, so it seems that the contrast in Hebrews 2.5-9 is also between angels and Christ, i.e. Christ is the man, the son of man, referred to in verse 6. God has not subjected the world to come to angels; now, in the present, God has crowned his Son with glory and honour and has put everything under his feet (‘For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him’), though as we look around at the world, we don’t yet see that. Because everything has been placed in subjection under Christ’s feet now, in the future we will see the world to come subject to Jesus, and not angels. Christ is reigning now. Everything is under his control now.

Verse 6 of Psalm 8 is also quoted in 1 Corinthians 15, in which the ’son of man’ is again identified as Jesus.

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” – 1 Corinthians 15.22-28

Christ has been raised from the dead, and when he returns to judge the world, those who belong to him will be raised from the dead as well. Then Christ will deliver the kingdom up to God the Father. Before that, Christ will have destroyed all his enemies. The last enemy that will be destroyed before the end comes is death. So before death is destroyed, all Christ’s other enemies  – all other rule and authority and power – will be subdued, will be placed under his feet. Christ is reigning now. God has put all things in subjection under his feet. Before Christ returns, we can expect to see all opposition to Christ cease, as all things, which already belong to Christ, are actually brought under his rule.

“O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”

Red Shift, Hubble’s Law and the Age and Origin of the Universe

The Doppler Effect is the change in frequency observed when a source of a wave and an observer move towards or away from one another. An example of this would be the drop in pitch of the sound of a car horn or the siren on a police car or an ambulance as it passes someone on the pavement. When source is moving towards the observer the frequency is higher, and the pitch goes up; when the source moving away the frequency lower. The same thing happens with light. Atoms of particular elements emit light at characteristic frequencies. The frequencies of light emitted by atoms of an element in a galaxy that is moving away from the Earth have a lower frequency and longer wavelength than those of light emitted by atoms of that same element on earth. This is red shift, so called because the light is shifted towards the red (lower frequency, longer wavelength) end of the visible spectrum. The reverse is true for galaxies approaching the earth: light is shifted towards the blue (shorter wavelength, higher frequency) end of the visible spectrum. Observations have shown that red shift is observed more than blue shift. This is evidence that the universe is expanding.

However, it is also claimed that the predominance of red shift, because it provides some evidence for an expanding universe, consequently provides evidence for the Big Bang theory of the universe – the idea that the universe rapidly expanded from a single point and then cooled and coalesced. This is not necessarily the case. It is quite possible to envisage a situation in which, for example, God created the stars on the fourth day to occupy a particular (rather large) volume, and then caused the universe to expand, perhaps to counteract the effect of gravity bringing everything together. This would also fit the evidence that the universe is expanding. The data don’t tell you what caused the expansion. That explanation depends on your pre-existing beliefs about the origins of the universe.

It is possible to calculate the speed at which a galaxy is moving away from our solar system if the change in the frequency is known. Edwin Hubble observed that further an object was from the Earth, the faster it was travelling. Hubble’s law can be expressed as v = H d where v is the velocity in kilometres per second, H is the Hubble constant, the accepted value of which is 65 kilometres per second per megaparsec, and d is the distance in megaparsecs, a megaparsec being a unit used in astronomy because of the vast distances involved. Nothing can go faster than the speed of light, so the distance when the velocity is the speed of light must be the edge of the universe. The edge of the universe is about 4,600 megaparsecs away. People have used this value to calculate the age of the universe. Light must have travelled the distance of 4,600 megaparsecs since the Big Bang, and using the simple equation distance = speed x time, the time taken for light travel that distance to the edge of the universe can be calculated, which gives the age of the universe. The answer comes out at about fifteen billion years, although this is adjusted downwards because of gravitational attraction acting as the brakes on the expansion. This is far greater than the six thousand years or so you get if you calculate the age of the universe using the genealogies in the early chapters of Genesis. But this old age for the universe is based on the presupposition that the Big Bang theory is true. If the volume of the universe, which God filled with starts on the fourth day, was already large, and it expanded from there, the time taken for the universe to reach its current dimensions would be much shorter and the universe would actually be much younger. The age you calculate for the universe depends on your prior assumptions about how it got there in the first place.

Physics, Music and the Church

“And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.” – Genesis 4.21

One has to do something with verses like this in Scripture. Given that it comes in the context of a litany of who bare whom, who was born unto whom and who begat whom, I think it is meant to be taken as a description of what it looks like for man to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth (Genesis 1.28). Part of ruling the earth involves using its resources to make stringed and wind instruments. This is what we are to do as Christians, for Christ is the New Adam, the one through whom everything is placed in subjection under man’s feet (Hebrews 2.6-9). What are these stringed and wind instruments to be used for? Among other things, the praise of our Triune God:

Praise ye the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.
Praise ye the LORD

- Psalm 150

We are to praise God because of his mighty acts, which in Scripture so often refer to his great deeds of salvation. Because God sent his son to die on the cross in the place of his people, his people are saved from the guilt and power of their sin, and so we are to praise him, and we are to praise him musically, using brass, stringed, wind and percussion instruments.

Now, we could just learn to play musical instruments mechanically – place your fingers here, blow there, pluck that string, and this sound comes out. But people who know how things work are always better at using them than people who just follow instructions out of a book. For example, those who learn a language well – syntax, verb forms, noun endings, vocabulary – are able to communicate much more effectively than those who have learnt a few phrases in from a guidebook, the riches of that language’s heritage are opened up, and proficient linguists are able to teach others. This is why the church needs people who understand how musical instruments work. And that means the church needs people who are trained in physics, people who understand stationary waves on stretched strings and in air in tubes with closed and open ends and how the length of these strings and tubes, speed, wavelength and frequency are connected. The church needs people who know how frequencies and octaves relate, what happens to the sound when you press a string at a particular place against a fretboard, or change the length of a column of vibrating air by so much, and why. The church needs people who are familiar with modes of vibration, fundamentals and harmonics and what that has to do with timbre. This is necessary for redeemed humanity to grow in maturity in exercising dominion over the earth and in praising God for his greatness and his mighty acts.

Five hundred

The number of years since the birth of John Calvin.

The number of years since Brasenose College was founded.

The number of posts on this weblog.