The Rambling Disciple

"He must have been ghastly to behold." That quote has stuck with me these last several weeks. I heard it when listening to a series of presentations on the Crucifixion by Fleming Rutledge at a preacher's conference that was taped some years ago. These words struck me and I became somewhat transfixed by them. Jesus, while hanging upon the cross, must have been horrible to look at. He would have been a mangled man, barely recognizable as human. He would have been naked, covered in blood, and displayed in the fullness of shame for all to see. It would have been ghastly to behold. Yet that ghastly visage is the focal point of our faith and salvation. It is when we look upon the mangled man called Jesus that we see the fullness of divinity itself. The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, in all it's shame and horror, is the fullest revelation of God there has ever been. On the cross we see the full love of God on display for all to see. On the cross we see the seriousness of sin i...

"Don't be a doormat!" That's a phrase I think many of us have heard throughout our lives. If not that specific idiom, then we've probably heard something that means the same thing. "Don't let people walk all over you!" "Don't be a push over!" These are all things we hear constantly and is the theme in many of our favorite movies (George McFly in Back to the Future, for example). Over the past several years I've started hearing this sentiment more and more in the context of Bible study. We'll be discussing something about love, grace, sin, or something else about how we should live and it feels like we inevitably end up at "Don't be a doormat!" Many of the books that are out there about leaving behind some admittedly harmful and abusive religious contexts are largely themed around this.  It comes up when discussing how we deal with our culture, deal with those we disagree with, and how we treat people in general. It...

Right now there is a trend of people, mostly but not exclusively younger people, who are rejecting the faith they were brought up in. This trend is usually called "deconstruction" because the people going through it are slowly but surely tearing down the constructs of their faith. This is not necessarily a bad thing. All of us need to "deconstruct" some of the false things we have been taught in order to get at a truer faith in God. Many end up rejecting God or Christianity entirely. What I find interesting is that most who have and are going through this process grew up in more conservative, fundamentalist backgrounds. Often these are places where conservative politics were interwoven with faith to such a degree that Republican politics and Christian discipleship are viewed as the same thing. The views on Scripture presented are often narrow, legalistic, and hostile to discussion. Take, for example, creation. Many fundamentalist churches teach Young Earth Creationi...

At the beginning of last year I preached a sermon, a subsequently posted a blog, about my theme word for the year. Every year I try to have a word or theme to focus on and better understand. Last year's word was grace, and boy was it appropriate. With our society, and sadly many Christians, unable to have meaningful disagreements and conversations anymore it was easy to forget that we need to show people grace and depend upon God's grace and not our own righteousness. This year my word is growth. I want and need to grow. I want to grow closer to Jesus. I want to grow personally in many areas. I want to expand my horizons and push myself to grow as a Christian and as a man. I want my congregation to grow closer to God.  I'm keeping it short this week, but I encourage you to find a theme word for the year. It doesn't mean limiting yourself to just things that directly have to do with that theme, but it does help focus our attention a bit. We can't do everything at onc...

This last Sunday I preached a sermon entitled "Torah, Torah, Torah" which focused on acquiring a new understanding and appreciation for those sections of the Bible we typically call the "Law." A main point that I made was that the word "Law" actually isn't a good translation of the Hebrew word "Torah." Rather the word "Torah" better means "instruction, guidance, or teaching." Now I have written about this before on this blog, so I won't go at length here. Suffice it to say that looking at Leviticus and Deuteronomy through the lens of "instruction" rather than "Law" makes a big difference. It changes our perspective from "Wow, look at all the stuff God made them do" to "Wow, look at all the wisdom God gave his people." It's a change of focus that helps us better approach that part of the Bible. Let's be honest, we say that the whole Bible is inspired and authoritative, but...

This is a sermon I preached on 11/28/2021.   In the beginning God, perfect, almighty, and triune created the cosmos. The universe was a place of beauty and growth, conceived in wisdom and accomplished by divine power. The crown of this new realm was none other than God’s own image, human beings. Given authority to rule as vassals in God’s Kingdom we humans had the responsibility and joy of faithfully cultivating the earth in the name of God. Alas, such perfection did not last. There was a rebellion against the Kingdom of God led by dark, spiritual powers that we human beings, through deception and our own greed, joined. The cosmos, the beautiful tapestry of God’s wisdom and love, was subjected to the futility and pain of Sin. The human race, once the pinnacle of creation, instead of finding some sort of independence from God instead were enslaved by foreign, hostile invaders.              You see, our rebellion resulte...

Right now I am reading a book title The Crucifixion  by Fleming Rutledge and I cannot recommend it enough. One thing that has stood out to me has been the way she unflinchingly stares right into the darkness of sin. I have never read a book that so plainly, thoroughly and expertly examined the true horror of sin.  One of the main quotes she uses is from St. Anselm of Canterbury, who lived from around AD 1033 - 1109. Anselm, in his work Cur Deo Homo  or The God Man , says "You have not yet considered the gravity of sin." It is a work concerning the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. In the book Anselm is writing as if he is having a dialogue with a student named Boso (not a comment on his intelligence but just a name in those days). Boso tends to ask questions which Anselm then answers, and this is his answer to one of Boso's questions concerning why Jesus needed to suffer as he did. I think this is especially true today. We haven't truly considered the gravity of sin. We ar...