Catholicity, Orthodoxy, and Lordship
On this episode, I sit down with someone I’ve known for nine years, my nine-year old son, Ezekiel. We discuss the life of Athanasius following the guidance of a great summary of his life called Athanasius in the Christian Biography for Young Readers by Simonetta Carr. It’s six minutes long. Hope you enjoy and leave a message of encouragement for this young scholar and I will pass it along.
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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 day of rest, on which God rested from all His works (Gen. 2:2).
The Church connects this day with the creation account. On day seven, Yahweh rested and enjoyed the fruit of his creation. Jesus Christ also sabbathed in the rest given to him by the Father and enjoyed the fruits of the New Creation he began at the Crucifixion and is fully brought to light on the next day.
Therefore, 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. Today we remember that the darkness of the grave and the rest of the Son were only temporary for on the third day the risen Lord of glory cannot contain his joy, and so he gives it to us fully.
Prayer: O, Christ, we know that tomorrow will not be the same a previous Easter Sundays. We are saddened that the vast majority of God’s people will not be able to join their jubilant voices in one space. Yet, Easter still comes in all its fullness and we share in that jo
You can watch all three of our Good Friday services on this Holy Day:
Matins
Sext
Vespers
On Monday of Holy Week, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them,
“It is written,
‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’
but you have made it a den of robbers.”
The sin of Israel was to see Jesus as a one-dimensional character in the story, but he is multi-dimensional. When Jesus enters the scene he is communicating a lot more than first meets the eye. Zechariah 9 instructs us that he is a King who is finally come home to set things right. The abuse of his home is over and a now a gracious ruler is here to guard the true religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Our temptation is to treat his coming on the Monday of Holy Week like business as usual. We are tempted to say: “In my home, there is no corruption. I am the right kind of housekeeper. Jesus, there is no need to change the furniture.” But Jesus comes to teach you that there is always cleaning up that needs to take place. When Jesus comes it’s Spring cleaning time.
It’s time to give your sins over to Jesus so He can carry them to the cross where he bled and died. Or, perhaps it’s time to allow Jesus to save you from your current residence! Aren’t you tired of the cycle of sin? Aren’t you tired of apathy? Aren’t you tired of not noticing any spiritual growth in your life in the last 2,5, 10 years? It’s cleaning time! It’s time to allow Jesus to enter and change the make-up of your home as he did in Jerusalem. It’s not going to be comfortable. He’s going to crush some things that you treasure a whole lot, but he’s going to give them back to you in a new way on Easter Sunday!
Prayer: Merciful Lord, you cannot tolerate uncleanness in our hearts and so you call us on this Monday to dine with you at the table of repentance. Keep our eyes on your Holy Passion that we may never cease to worship at your cross through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Here is something I put together for this festive day:
Some things are very normal in the Christian life. One would think that praying would easily fit that category. But for some reason, praying has become a difficult Christian exercise. “I will pray about it” has become synonymous with “Thanks for letting me know,” or “so sorry to hear it.” In fact, in some cases to say you are praying for someone is an easy way out of a conversation. You can separate yourself from the person and the person’s story with one easy sentence. “Ok, I will pray for you. Bye.”
If statistics are right, 14% of Evangelicals pray once a week and 4% of us pray once a month. If you are in the 14%, that means that church is the only time in the week you invest in self-conscious prayer.
The Scriptures provide a buffet of prayer options. But for too many Christians, they come to this buffet and out of the 700 options for feasting, they choose none of them. Imagine if we treated prayer like food. Many of us in the Church would be either unhealthily thin or dead by now. And indeed many suffer from a prayerless life which is incompatible with our call to pray at all times in the Spirit (Eph. 6:18).
Paul tends to combine the gift of prayer with the Spirit. The Spirit is the unifying voice in the Godhead. It’s the Spirit that urges unity, that intercedes for us in our weakness (Rom. 8) and it’s the Spirit who bathes our armor to war well in this world. Thus, it’s clear that to pray is to be invested in spiritual life. To be more precise, prayer is participation in the life of the Spirit. To live a fully Trinitarian life, we need a life of prayer. Perhaps one reason we think so rarely about the role of the Spirit is that we are not continually abiding in the presence of the Spirit in prayer. So, if this is how we participate in the life of the Spirit, it would be wise to be in the Spirit as we walk together to the cross of Jesus these remaining days of Lent.
What does it look like to participate in the life of the Spirit? Paul magnifies God for his depth of wisdom and riches and knowledge (Rom. 11:33-36). To pray in the Spirit is to explore his depth. Therefore, the Spirit would lead us to pray meaningfully. Sometimes we fear anything formal or written, but we all agree that when we think about what to pray and ponder what to say, our prayers become more meaningful. In no way does this imply that using more theological words means more depth. Rather, praying in the Spirit means exploring more the depth of our union with the Spirit. And how does this depth manifest? Sinclair Ferguson put it this way:
You do not become a master musician by playing just as you please, by imagining that learning the scales is sheer legalism and bondage! No, true freedom in any area of life is the consequence of regular discipline. It is no less true of the life of prayer.
We don’t want to practice prayer because we think it’s just something we do, and as a result, we find ourselves unequipped to pray more faithfully. But prayer implies practice. Jesus condemns the vain repetition of the Pharisees, but what about the casual vain repetition we use because we refuse to learn how to be meaningful and intentional in our prayer; to explore the depths and riches of the Spirit?
Perhaps practicing requires intentionality. One strikingly fruitful recommendation is that of Psalm-like prayer. The practice is simple. Write prayers based on psalmic language. Let’s take Psalm 23 as an example. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” How can we write or form prayers based on that inspired truth? My own children came with these examples:
“O, Lord, you watch over me. You teach me to desire your ways and to want your truth. Thank you for watching over me even when I don’t desire your care.”
Let’s take another line: “He leadeth me beside still waters.”
“Lord Jesus, you never lead me astray. Your ways keep me at peace in times of uncertainty. When everything is changing around me, you keep me in perfect peace.”
These are just a couple of examples of how this can be fleshed out. It’s a great practice for long-term maturity in our prayer life and it keeps us constantly in word and prayer in the Spirit who inspired the very words of the Psalms.
Prayer is normal in the Christian life. But like most ordinary things in our Christian lives, we need to nurture this practice. The problem of prayer is a lack of practice. We need an urgency to pray, not just as a necessary duty of words, but an essential duty of godly wisdom. We should not just casually say, “I will pray about it,” but actually be about prayer.
When Jesus comes into Jerusalem, he comes as a Shepherd/King. His triumphal entry hymn is the hymn of David (Ps. 118:26): “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Jesus is the new David coming to Jerusalem to give his life for the sake of his people. He is the true Shepherd of Israel (Ps. 80:1).
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
When the psalmist says, “You shall not want,” it’s not a promise that we shall never lack materially, rather it’s a promise that Israel’s shepherd will give his entire body for the sake of his people. His sacrifice will not be incomplete, rather, Jesus gives himself entirely at the cross, which means that our salvation lacks nothing. We are not as the pagans wanting or in need to atone for ourselves through worthless sacrifices; no. We are true Israel covered and protected by the total Christ. We shall not want.
Prayer: Blessed Christ who gave himself for us on a tree and who atoned for our sins, we praise your name and beseech you in times of trial. Teach us your ways and conquer our hearts daily that we may truly know that we lack nothing. We pray this in the Name of our great Shepherd, Jesus Christ, amen.
You can now read all three of my articles on eschatology as it relates to the Coronavirus:
Part 1: The Eschatology of Covid-19 where I make some introductory comments on the discussion.
Part 2: Where I discuss two important principles to keep in mind when discussing eschatology.
Part 3: Where I discuss a few texts from Matthew 24 generally used to make a case for a future rapture.
For centuries, Christians have debated what happens after you die. Some traditions believe that those souls at death exist in a dormant stage until the resurrection from the dead at the end of history. But the larger biblical story indicates that when our mortal bodies die, our souls immediately enter into the presence of Jesus and the great cloud of witnesses. There, in that heavenly state, the saints of all ages praise the Lamb of God who died and rose again, and eagerly await the day when Jesus will destroy all his enemies and make all things new.
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
To receive power and riches and wisdom,
And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”
Our Lenten hope is that the Cross of Jesus opened paradise and the second our earthly journey is over, our souls will rest in great hope and joy in the presence of God until Jesus returns. Death is not the period for the Christian, but only a comma that leads to an eternal state of glory.
Prayer: Our Father, our days are in your hands. We treasure every part of our lives as gifts from your hands. May we redeem our days and serve you by the power of your Holy Spirit, amen.
