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Who’s Herald, and why should we hark him?

by | Dec 24, 2011 | Learning Story

So, the herald was probably scarier than this one and a lot less cute!

Many of us will take some time today to go to church and sing our hearts out in joy and hope, sorrow and longing, as we celebrate again that Christ has come and will come again. Here’s an excerpt of a longer article I wrote about one of my favorites I will sing tonight:

Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Though the first line of “Hark the Herald” (as it so frequently is shortened) isn’t the most fascinating from a theological standpoint, it’s worth mentioning the punctuation and the meaning of the line. “Hark!” is a call for us to listen. Why should we listen? Because the “herald angels sing!” Heralds are messengers, and in Luke 2, where this story begins, the heralds are no English newsboys shouting ‘read all about it,’ but terrifying angels appearing to the most unlikely of recipients – shepherds, that society’s equivalent of a check-out lady at Wal-mart.

The angel heralds proclaim odd news – a baby King has been born. Peace on earth I understand, but “mercy mild”? God’s mercy mild? Intense, passionate, astounding, stunning, but mild? Did Charles Wesley, the great hymnwriter, resort to the word for its alliterative value? I went to the dictionary to discover an obsolete dialectial definition of the word mild to get this one. In Wesley’s day, that word meant “kind or gracious.” Now that makes more sense – we are talking about God’s ‘hesed’ and ‘hen,’ the two key Old Testament words describing God’s covenantal love and gracious favor. This understanding also comes in handy in the otherwise puzzling sentence several verses later, “Mild he lays his glory by.” “Graciously, he set aside his glory to become flesh.” Indeed, God’s mild mercy draws him to mildly lay his glory by and become flesh in order that God and sinners may be reconciled!

Community and the Image of God

by | Dec 19, 2011 | Learning Story

One of the things I love best about my work is studying and preparing to teach. Today I am preparing to teach on gospel-saturated community at First Pres Opelika in February 16-17. I found this excellent thought by Cornelius Plantinga in Engaging God’s World. Since one of the more common pains of Christmas is loneliness, I am thinking today of those who don’t have community and desperately need it.

“…we image God when we live in loving communion with each other. Because God is triune, the image of God is social as well as personal. God lives in the perichoretic glory of a three-person community, radiant with love, joy, power, and beauty. Each person is God only with the other two. Each of the persons is essentially divine by the same pattern of excellences, such as sovereign love and power….

Thinking of his relationship with God the Father, Jesus prays that ‘they may be one, as we are one’ (John 17:22). By ‘they’ Jesus means the community of believers. Jesus’ prayer reveals that when we live in strong unity and harmony with others we are something like God. Perhaps this might be true of a marriage, for example, or of an extraordinarily faithful and intimate friendship. But the one biblically authorized analogy for the Holy Trinity is the church, the new ‘community’ that Jesus prays for and with which he compares his life with the Father.”

The Employment Available to All

by | Dec 16, 2011 | Learning Story

[Continued from yesterday…article on Joy to the World]

Verse 2 continues the theme, telling us the response this great good news calls forth from us: “Let men their songs employ.” Not only do we sing this joy to the world, but we do so by living this joy in this world. If we do not live and proclaim this good news, the rocks, hills and plains will. “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:40). We have a story that heaven and nature will sing, so let us sing our songs of redemption with them.

What is this good news of joy to the world? Again, a call and a pronouncement: “No more let sins and sorrows grow.” How can this be? Because the Lord has come to make His blessings known “far as the curse is found.” As I have said in other articles in this series, despite what TV and media may tout regarding the ‘generous human spirit’ roused by the season, I find the opposite to be true of me. The fact is, the Christmas season can bring out the worst in me, where both sins and sorrows are concerned. When I sing this song during the season, I sing with heartfelt joy the reality that sins and sorrows truly will cease because his blessings flow into the deep crevices of my heart where the curse can still be found.

The hymn closes with a final call – to remember that this world is not all there is, that the small kingdoms we create or live in, whether they be called America or some other nation, are just that – very small. Our rulers can rule with truth and grace in some of their finer moments, but a King has come and will come who not only rules with truth and grace at all times and for all eternity but also “makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness”! Stop and marvel at this. Throughout history, various rulers have tried to make the whole world bow before them and proclaim their glory and righteousness. But their plans have never worked, and more often, they have brought oppression and disaster. Our King, the Lord who has come, will one day make the nations prove the glories of his righteousness because his righteousness does not stop with righteousness but travels on and through the wonders of His love!

Thinking about Joy to the World

by | Dec 15, 2011 | Learning Story

Below is an excerpt of an article I wrote AFTER Christmas 3 years ago…on my favorite hymn for this season and every season: Joy to the World. See below for the words

Some of you may be thinking, ‘’Whew, we did it! Christmas is over!” Some of you may even be thinking, “Good, now we can stop singing all of those infernal Christmas carols in church!” Warning – it’s never too late to sing,”Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” Or, as my friend, Pastor Scotty Smith has taught me, Joy to the World is NOT merely a Christmas song.

Faith Hill did a new album this year centering around Isaac Watts’ famous hymn. It is amazing to think how many voices have joined in singing at least the first line and probably the refrain in the last month. In cars, in stores, in churches, in Christmas programs, people have proclaimed, “Joy to the World, the Lord is come!” Perhaps it is the first four words that our secular society is drawn to – indeed, in what could be called a rather depressing year, isn’t joy what the world needs now? And yet, if that were all the world needed, why aren’t more people singing the Three Dog Night version, “Joy to the world, all the boys and girls…Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me!”

I believe people join to sing these words because whether they know it or not or believe it or not, they are deeply drawn to the good news that the Lord IS COME! As Wikipedia says, ‘is come’ is incorrect modern English usage and we would now say, ‘has come.’ Whichever way you put it, the tense is important – present perfect – meaning, as all of my former English students will recall:), the action is completed (perfect) and the action is happening in the present. God is with us in Jesus. And this really is the best news people in our alienated and isolated world can hear.

The hymn also reflects the intersection of heaven and earth that is essential to understanding what God is up to in the world. (And if you want to understand this intersection more, I highly recommend you take that gift certificate to Amazon and order up a copy of N.T. Wright’s,Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church). “Let earth receive her King” and “Let every heart prepare him room” remind us that both earth and its inhabitants are impacted by our King’s arrival. “Let heaven and nature sing” remind us that in Christ’s birth, the intersection of heaven and earth has begun.

Verse 2 continues the theme, telling us the response this great good news calls forth from us: “Let men their songs employ.” Not only do we sing this joy to the world, but we do so by living this joy in this world. If we do not live and proclaim this good news, the rocks, hills and plains will. “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:40). We have a story that heaven and nature will sing, so let us sing our songs of redemption with them. Article continued…

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.


5 Myths about Christianity

by | Dec 14, 2011 | Learning Story

A Christmas Story, great movie, AND it's a good season to think about what the real Christmas story is all about.

Tullian Tchividjian (say it five times fast and I dare you to spell it without looking:) has written a splendid gospel primer called Jesus Plus Nothing Equals Everything.

Much richness in it, but this caught my eye today. There is something about the difference between being created and redeemed for beauty than for “productivity” that should really stun us. Furthermore, and most importantly, Pastor Tullian goes on to state five important misconceptions about Christianity that I want everyone, believer or not, to know. Since it’s the Christmas season, it’s a good time to think about what that “Christ” in Christmas really means, and whether we just want to settle for a “happy holiday.”

“God created you for beauty – and redeemed you for beauty – so that you and your joy and peace and gratitude for what he’s done for you in Christ would be put on display in a dark, watching world.

“The world isn’t captivated by people trying to give the impression they have it all together. That’s not what draws them. What captures their attention is the sight of humble, desperate, dependent people who acknowledge their sin and who point to their Savior as the only one who can rescue us. The world, in other words, needs our confession, not our competence.”

5 important myths and realities about Christianity

  • “rules and regulations and standards and behavior modification are not the heart of Christianity.”
  • “the gospel is radically different…”
  • “Jesus came first not to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive.”
  • “the primary goal of the gospel is to bring about mortal resurrection, not moral reformation.”
  • “Christianity is not the move from vice to virtue, but rather the move from virtue to grace.”

Think about it. How do you view Christianity? Have you ever thought or been taught  that “keeping rules and regulations” is what makes you a Christian?

What difference does it make in your life today that Jesus came to make “dead people alive”?