Song of the Drunkards

JESUS FACED A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF OPPOSITION FOR HIS HARD WORDS AND UNFLINCHING DEVOTION TO YAHWEH. NO SURPRISE THEN IF WE FIND OUR NAME FESTOONED IN BARROOM BALLADS (CF. PS 69:12).

The Ascended Lord and His Mother

May 12, 2013 in Ascension Sunday, Bible - NT - John, Meditations, Parents, Ten Commandments

John 2:5 (NKJV)
His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
Today is Ascension Sunday. While Ascension Day was actually last Thursday, 40 days from the celebration of Easter, in our congregation we have yet to celebrate on Thursday and delay our celebration until today. On Ascension Sunday we remember the momentous event in the life of our Lord when he ascended up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of the Father, as the exalted Ruler over all creation. On Easter Sunday Jesus was crowned King of All; on Ascension Sunday he entered into his rule. And the fruit of his reign was shortly seen – for next Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate that the ascended Christ poured out His Spirit to empower the Church for witness.
Providentially today is also Mothers’ Day and so I though it would be fitting to remember that our Lord Jesus, the very one who is seated at the right hand of the Father, the ruler over all the Kings of the earth, had a mother and honored his mother.
One of the greatest tests of Jesus’ honor for his mother came at the very beginning of his earthly ministry, at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. We can imagine the temptation that Jesus faced when Mary urged him to assist the bridegroom in supplying wine for his wedding guests. We know that her request was presumptuous – for Jesus felt compelled to correct her. And yet; and yet, Mary is confident that her son will honor her request and so she speaks the words in our text today, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”Mary knew the character of her son and knew that he would do this for her. And Jesus doesn’t disappoint. He turns the water into wine and so begins his public ministry.
There is an important lesson here for children, especially sons, and that principle is this – even when Jesus’ mother asked something that was inappropriate given the circumstances, Jesus honored her and did what she requested. And if our Lord Jesus, He who is the exalted Lord of all, honored his mother by granting her request even when it was untimely, then how much more ought we children to honor our mothers when they make requests of us? In so far as we are able, let us fulfill the requests of our mothers – for Jesus has gone before us.
Too often, however, we are too full of ourselves to sacrifice and die to our own desires on behalf of our mothers. We think of what our mothers are to do for us rather than what we are to do for them. And certainly in this we mimic much of our broader culture. Motherhood, despite the tradition of Mother’s Day, has fallen on hard times. Mothers are despised and neglected, often disrespected. But God calls us to something different.
So today let us confess to God that we have not treasured motherhood and our own mother as we ought. Let us kneel as we confess our sin to the Lord.

Why does praise precede confession?

May 5, 2013 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Confession, Meditations, Thankfulness, Worship

Psalm 95:1–7 (NKJV)
1 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. 3 For the LORD is the great God, And the great King above all gods. 4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. 5 The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. 7 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.
In the Reformed tradition of which we are a part, the service of worship has begun with a psalm or hymn of adoration and praise. We are summoned to worship by the minister and then we begin with worship. Why?
The answer, quite simply, is that God is worthy of all the praise we can give Him. And it is this that the psalmist reminds us:
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
Why should we do this? Why worship and praise Him and enter into His presence with thanksgiving?
For the LORD is the great God, And the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.
Beloved, we enter here today not just into any place; rather today we enter through the blood of Jesus into the very presence of God Himself, into the Holy of Holies; not into the copy and shadow of the heavenly realities but into heaven itself now to appear before our Great God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. Ought we not to worship Him? Is He not worthy of our praise, worthy of our love and adoration?
And so this is why the Ten Commandments begin with worship, with loyalty to the Creator of all. “You shall have no other gods before me.” God is the One whom we have come here to meet.
So is he the One whom you came here to meet? Were you thinking this morning: Oh that I may enter into the courts of the Lord and proclaim his praise? That I may worship my Creator and Redeemer, that I may hear Him speak to me, that I may feast with Him at his table? Or did you awake just going through the motions?
Beware, brothers and sisters, we are here to worship the Lord, to acknowledge that He is the Lord of glory. Let us not enter into his presence lightly – and as we enter, let us confess our sins. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.

The Bombing in Boston and God’s Justice

April 21, 2013 in Bible - OT - Deuteronomy, Bible - OT - Proverbs, Hell, Islam, Judgment, Meditations

Proverbs 20:26 (NKJV)
26 A wise king sifts out the wicked, And brings the threshing wheel over them.
Deuteronomy 19:11–13 (NKJV)
11 “But if anyone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises against him and strikes him mortally, so that he dies, and he flees to [a city of refuge], 12 then the elders of his city shall send and bring him from there, and deliver him over to the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. 13 Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with you.
This past week national attention has been focused upon the tragic bombing in Boston during the marathon. Three killed and hundreds wounded. Two men sought in a city wide manhunt – one killed in a shoot out with the police and the other apprehended later. At such times it is fitting to consider what the Word of God has to say about justice and the punishment of crime.
Shortly after the second bomber was arrested the Boston police tweeted, “CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.” This was indeed good news – and worthy of celebration. But the police department should have known better than to call their arrest the triumph of justice. For as we all are often reminded, the mere arrest of a suspect is far from the accomplishment of justice.
In ancient Israel accused criminals would flee to cities of refuge – the equivalent of our jails – in order to await a fair trial and avoid the blood lust common in such tense times. But confinement to the city of refuge was not justice.  In order for justice to be served the individual must not only be arrested but tried swiftly and, if found guilty, punished in accordance with the severity of his crime. And it is this execution of justice that God declared would “put away the guilt of innocent blood in Israel that it may go well with you.” God’s blessing follows societies that practice justice.
But it is this that proves so difficult in our current legal system. As anyone who has found himself embroiled in our current legal system knows, justice is rarely served. Our legal system is in many respects broken and victims frequently suffer much while criminals escape justice. This is a blight on our national character and a sin for which the Lord on High will hold us accountable as a people.
It is the frustration of dealing with our defunct legal system that has led Senator Lindsey Graham to suggest that the Boston bomber be tried by a special court. Graham knows how frequently justice is foiled in our legal system and so has suggested some alternative. But is this not to confess that the whole system is broken and that we must, as a people, repent of the injustice of our legal system and begin to hold criminals accountable for their actions?
Solomon reminds us today, A wise king sifts out the wicked, And brings the threshing wheel over them. The reason that we are witnessing increasing crime in our streets is because of the failure of our legal system to administer justice. Justice administered quickly deters crime. But our judges have failed us – and, here’s the critical part, they have failed us because we ouselves have failed. We have sought to avoid justice; we have sought and are seeking to avoid accountability for our transgressions.
How often do we and our countrymen complain about God’s justice? We dispute the righteousness of His law; we grumble at his judgments; we take him to task for the judgment of hell; we demand why bad things happen to good people; we fancy ourselves upright and just and that God is the one who must answer for the problems in the world. In all these ways we adjudge ourselves unworthy to receive just decrees from our courts. We don’t want justice and so God has handed us over to unjust courts. And this reminds us that as a people we need to confess our sin to the Lord and seek His forgiveness in Christ petitioning him to restore justice to the land.