Do This in Remembrance of Me

Thursday would have been Passover for our Lord Jesus.  A time of incredible joy, of looking back at what amazing deliverance God had wrought for His people before.  A time to renew faith and family ties, to rejoice, to remember.

All day I've had this song fragment in my head, from VBS-

"Pass over, pass over; You must pass over me,

for see the stain that's overhead- the crimson stain-

Passover, passover, You must pass over me,

for, see, the lamb has died instead.

And I will live, I will live,

I will live giving glory to the Eternal One.

I will live, I will live,

I will live, because of what He's done."

Something is supposed to be different when someone dies for you.  You can't just go on like your life was never in danger, like no one loved you so amazingly astoundingly much, like no great mercy spared your life in passing you by, yes, Guilty One- you.  We who live must live on-- in remembrance.

I've been thinking about what Jesus must have been thinking all day as He participated in the preparations for Passover, for what He knew would be His Last Meal on earth, His last night with those He loved-- His last night of the bliss of perfect fellowship with the most delightful being in existence:  God the Father.  Did He slit the lamb's throat Himself?  Did He cry as He did it?  Did His gaze linger long on the blood painted on post & lintel?  Did the bitter herbs stick in His mouth as He pondered just how bitter the separation to come would be?  

Surely, there must have been sadness.  Hours later He would be weeping desperately in the Garden.  Yet, even so, Hebrews 12:2 says He went to the Cross for Joy.  Somehow, He looked around at each face in that room (maybe even supernaturally at faces not even yet born?) and He rejoiced that tonight- tonight!- He would bind them to Himself, forever. That tonight, He would seal their- our- eternal perfect Joy and would finish the work that would bring home every lost child.

"But none of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night the Lord passed through
Ere He found His sheep that was lost.
Out in the desert He heard its cry,
Sick and helpless and ready to die.

And all through the mountains, thunder riven
And up from the rocky steep,
There arose a glad cry to the gate of Heaven,
“Rejoice! I have found My sheep!”
And the angels echoed around the throne,
“Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!

 "There were Ninety-and-Nine" (hear my favorite rendition here)

I am struck by the things that our Christ remembered as He put into motion what He asked us to remember-- not just the meal of blood & body itself, but the crucifixion and resurrection it depicts.  He was remembering all of His Father's & His plan, orchestrated throughout history and countless lives, this plan to stomp on the Serpent's head; the plan to be the Truth that would overturn every effort of the Father of Lies; the plan to "get His people back" (as I told my preschoolers every year). The whole of history had been leading up to this night, this night of agony, this night of flawless execution.  And our Lord knew it.  As He reminded His forgetful disciples just a few days later, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." (Luke 22:24-27)

I am amazed that somehow, He thought it was worth it.  Yet I know, that because God had bound Himself to it -sworn by His very own name- that His honor would have to be upheld, and that THAT would be worth it.

Lord, help me to remember, not just with my mind and affirming nods as the story is read, but with beating heart and caught breath and flushed cheeks.  Let me live with that memory burning behind my eyes, spurring me to both action and restraint, shaping my will and actions and even my tastes.  Let Your Body and Blood define me.  May we never forget.

Post-Palm Sunday Monday

My more liturgically-inclined friends know it as "Holy Monday," and we Baptists think of it as "oh yeah, Easter is next Sunday!"  Regardless of what you call it, Easter --the most celebrated day of the Christian calendar-- will be upon us in 7 days.  One of my goals for this year was to immerse myself more deeply in the Christian calendar, not because it's mandated or prescribed, but because I know it will help me to enjoy far more deeply each season and holiday.  Holiday meant, originally, "holy day," and to be truly 'holy,' a day must be "set apart."  It's hard for me to set apart a day for anything without preparing for it, both physically and mentally.  Especially spiritually.  Christian holy-days are set apart for concentrated, intentional worship.  All the trappings are meant to enhance that central focus, not detract from it!

I've pretty much failed this year at observing Lent.  Somehow it just snuck up on me.  I could blame my non-liturgical church (which doesn't even nod at Palm Sunday-- I'm always a little surprised when they even have a Good Friday service, lol)... but it was really just me being focused elsewhere.  Thankfully, I "randomly" (as in, the Lord prompted me to) decided to listen to a sermon while making a meal today, and turned to Grace Church in Greenville, SC's sermon library.  Lo and behold, my old youth pastor (still a favorite preacher to listen to) had preached yesterday, and the sermon was up.  I clicked the title, "When God Draws Near," and found the sermon to be very encouraging.  It also reminded me that I'd missed Palm Sunday (drat). But at least now I won't miss the rest of Holy Week!!

I'm going to be reading the events of Christ's Passion Week in the Gospels this week, and will try to post a thought or link or quote -SOMETHING- each day to point us all forward to Easter, the day on which Christians around the world say "Halleluiah!! He is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!!"  (But I won't say that yet-- the early church wouldn't say 'halleluiah' for all of Lent excepting Sundays, just so it would rip forth with extra joy on the Anniversary of our Savior's Victory!)

Here's my Holy Monday link:  the sermon "When God Draws Near" by Bill White, preached April 17th, 2011.  You can download or stream it there.

Prescription v. Description

In America, we hear a lot about things being "Bible-based," "Biblical," or "God's way," whether it's child-rearing, gender roles, diets, education, preaching style, church government, taboos, or guy-girl interaction.  It can be overwhelming!  Many use this as sort of a trump card, and it's hard to argue with it.  "If it's in the Bible, well, I guess I HAVE to do it?"  I mean, how can you argue with the Bible?  This post is an attempt to help us remember what is fair use of the term "Biblical" and what isn't.  Some of you might wonder "why in tarnation is she going into this?"  I guess because this is something I've been chewing on in my mind for the past year or so, as I discuss various topics with friends... I'd think "I know that's not quite right...but why?" and think about it some more, talk to Ryan & others... The results of those questions and self-examinations have turned into this little post.

First, what I call "fair trade usage." =D  Ok... how about just fair.  We can call something Biblical when it's an issue clearly addressed in Scripture.  Many (most even) aspects of morality, church government, familial structure, and gender roles aren't vaguely mentioned in Scripture.  They are clearly explained, with examples given of those who followed wisely, and those who followed foolishly.  There are clear commands, clear expressions of God's opinions on the topic, rewards promised and punishment or discipline warned about.  We call passages like that "prescriptive."  Like a prescription a doctor writes, which says "Take this much of this drug for this problem for this long," there isn't too much interpretation needed.  Saying that the Biblical position on stealing is that it's wrong is obvious.  So is saying that God's way for children to be raised is in loving families, not state-run daycares.  The Biblical position on human life is that it's sacred because humans are made in God's Image.  It's also clear in Scripture that life begins at conception.  Therefore, murder is wrong... even if that murder occurs in the womb (abortion).  Now, there are differences among Christians about how to interpret Biblical teaching or even what the words mean, but the face-value is pretty clear.  For example, we might disagree on what baptism means, but we all agree that Christians are supposed to be baptized!

OK...  That was the easy part.  There's a very incorrect way to interpret Scripture, and that is to take all as prescription when some is description. According to Princeton's online dictionary, description is "a statement that represents something in words."  I describe something to you when I tell you what I ate today, or what sort of houses I saw on my drive.  The Bible is full of these sorts of things. When I tell you I saw a family outside their two-storey brick, am I implying that you should buy one?  Not unless I start talking about how it's better than any other home, or explicitly tell you to buy one-- then it's prescriptive, not descriptive.  (You might be thinking "duh," but hear me out.)  I've heard so many people go from saying "this is described in the Bible" to saying "thus, we should all do it."  Let me give three somewhat "duh" examples, just to make my point.  The Bible talks about houses with roofs, as well as living in tents.  We don't imply that the "godliest" forms of houses are roofed or are goat-hair Beduin tents.  In the Bible, most of the children have Hebraic names. Does that mean that you are more "in line with God's way" if you name your kids Hebrew-derived names?  Well, no.  Isaiah 25 refers to a shroud being used in funerals.  Does that mean we HAVE to be buried in a shroud in order to be "biblical?"  No. 

Why does this matter?  Because there are some really serious weights that can be laid on people, and I want us to be able to spot them and then steer clear of them. For one, there's the idea that the "betrothal" method of "dating" (where couples are formally betrothed before beginning a relationship at all) is "most Biblical" because it is the only method mentioned in Scripture.*   I'm not saying there couldn't be valid reasons to choose a betrothal model of relationship if you're in a situation where that'd work for you.  I am saying that doing it "because it's the only model in the Bible" is a bad reason.  As a last "case study," I'll give a concrete example, from this article.  I almost don't want to link to it, it's so awful, but... otherwise you might think I was making it up.

The article says that the only way to be a godly, Bible-keeping mother is by not only breastfeeding, but by nursing on-demand all night long. In short, I found the article to be one of the saddest excuses of exegesis I've ever seen.**  What's wrong with this article?  Every Biblical text is ripped from its context (most aren't even full verses), but most importantly, none of them are texts mandating any mother-child relationship at all! They aren't prescriptive texts!!  Every one of those statements assumes something about the mother already, so they could very well be cultural expectations.  I think there's something to be said for inferring from oblique references, but we have to be very careful to not turn these into hard and fast rules, which this article does.  We can't turn description automatically into prescription.  Doing that places a burden on people that Scripture doesn't place. 


* This post isn't meant to deal with dating in-depth.  I think the Word of God DOES clearly give principles for guy-girl (and all human) interactions, and personally espouse the "courtship" model (a la Joshua Harris). The betrothal model can work in some (rather unique) situations, I've seen it with my own eyes, but I don't think it's any better because it happened to be the cultural norm 2000 years ago (in a very different society).  Scripture doesn't ever condone or promote it.

**Superseded in horror only by one video on the text "them that pisseth against the wall" (totally not kidding, sadly), and closely followed by an article on why women should wear head coverings:  as a badge against Satan's angels who like to come and rape women who don't wear headcoverings... again, not kidding!