The age-old curse is breaking
April 25, 2011
An Easter poem by C. S. Lewis, appearing in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950-1963(HarperSan Francisco, 2007), p. 955. The poem is from a June 1958 letter to Francis Turner. It’s not the kind of thing that could stand on its own, but for echoes of Narnia and a vision of the cosmic significance of the resurrection, it’s good Easter reading.
Lords coeval with creation,
Seraph, Cherub, Throne and Power,
Princedom, Virtue, Domination,
Hail the long-awaited hour!
Bruised in head, with broken pinion,
Trembling for his old dominion,
See the ancient dragon cower!
For the Prince of Heaven has risen,
Victor, from his shattered prison.Loudly roaring from the regions
Where no sunbeam e’er was shed,
Rise and dance, ye ransomed legions
Of the cold and countless dead!
Gates of adamant are broken,
Words of conquering power are spoken
Through the God who died and bled:
Hell lies vacant, spoiled and cheated,
By the Lord of life defeated.Bear, behemoth, bustard, camel,
Warthog, wombat, kangaroo,
Insect, reptile, fish and mammal,
Tree, flower, grass, and lichen too,
Rise and romp and ramp, awaking,
For the age-old curse is breaking.
All things shall be made anew;
Nature’s rich rejuvenation
Follows on Man’s liberation.Eve’s and Adam’s son and daughter,
Sinful, weary, twisted, mired,
Pale with terror, thinned with slaughter,
Robbed of all your hearts desired,
Look! Rejoice! One born of woman,
Flesh and blood and bones all human,
One who wept and could be tired,
Risen from vilest death, has given
All who will the hope of Heaven.
Truth
April 25, 2011
Here is the video we showed in the Easter service. A number of folks were asking for it.
Singing orca
March 2, 2010
This is from the blog of Scotty Smith, Pastor for Preaching, Teaching and Worship at Christ Community Church (PCA) in Franklin, Tennessee:
A Prayer About the Day of Singing OrcaThen I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, forever and ever!” Revelation 5:13Dear Lord Jesus, I cannot imagine the horror and trauma of those who witnessed the death of an Orca trainer yesterday at Sea World. We pray, especially for the children who were present… bring your healing hand and loving heart to bear. By whatever means you choose, we pray for your redeeming presence in this tragedy.Jesus, gut-numbing events like this fuel my intense longing for the Day when “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them,” will sing your praise forever in the new heaven and new earth. What Isaiah whispered (Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:17-25) and John envisioned (Revelation 21:1-5), we will enjoy with them—this very world redeemed and restored by you, Lord Jesus—the one who is making all things new.The very fact that Orca are better known as “Killer Whales” just underscores the fact that nothing in this broken world is the way it’s meant to be. Orca were meant to sing and play, not attack and devour. The odious stench of sin, decay and death permeate every sphere of your creation. In fact, it’s far more incomprehensible to realize that over half of the world’s families exist for a whole month on the price of one Sea World ticket. Have mercy, Lord Jesus, have mercy… I know that you have, and I know that you will….Until the Day of the pan-creature praise chorus, give us, give me, all the grace and strength we need to love mercy, do justice and walk humbly with our God. So very Amen, we pray, offering all praise, honor, glory and power, to him who sits on the throne and to you, the Lamb of God.
The Lord is my shepherd…he laid down his life for his sheep.
December 7, 2009
Joseph Randall at Feeding on Christ wrote this meditation on Christ our Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep:
The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. Psalm 23:1
This amazing truth is ultimately fulfilled in the Good Shepherd – the Lord Jesus Christ. Only in Him is this supernatural satisfaction fully realized, and for this realization to happen, Jesus had to lay down His life for the sheep (John 10:11).
Jesus had to lack everything for His sheep.
Contra rest in green pastures, He had no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20)
Contra still waters, He was baptized with the wrath of God (Luke 12:50)
Contra a restored soul, His soul was poured out unto death (Isaiah 53:12)
Contra being led in right paths, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and offered Himself as a propitiation so that God might be proved righteous (Acts 8:32, Romans 3:25-26)
Contra fearing no evil in the dark death valley, He was made evil Who knew no evil and sorrowed unto death as He contemplated the darkness of death that would utterly consume Him (2 Corinthians 5:21, Mark 14:34-36)
Contra having God with him as His comfort, God forsook Him, pouring out His just wrath upon Him (Matthew 27:46)
Contra having a rod and a staff to comfort Him, the rod of the Father was pleased to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10)
Contra having a table spread before Him, He hungered in the wilderness and thirsted unto death (Luke 4:1-2, John 19:28)
Contra having His head anointed with oil, He wore a blood-soaked crown of thorns (Matthew 27:29)
Contra having a cup that overflows, He drank the cup of the wrath of God to the dregs (Isaiah 51:17, Matthew 26:39)
Contra goodness and mercy pursuing Him all His days, wrath and torment pursued Him unto death (Isaiah 53)
Contra dwelling in the house of the LORD, He was banished from the dwelling of the LORD as the unclean and cursed one (Galatians 3:13)
And He did all of this on behalf of stubborn, sinful, hell deserving sheep who rebelled against Him. This is the best news in the world! All who know this Good Shepherd by grace through faith will lack no good thing, for He will provide for them, protect them, comfort them, and satisfy them fully – He will be all and all to them now and forever and ever…
That’s Easter
April 16, 2009
Below are two videos we showed in last Sunday evening’s Changed by Jesus service. They are produced by an Anglican church in London, St. Helen’s Bishopsgate:
Ave atque vale: John Updike
January 29, 2009
American novelist, poet and literary critic John Updike died this week at the age of 76. Here is his “Seven Stanzas at Easter”:
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
Ave atque vale: Drew Blackwell, Sr.
December 4, 2008
Two weeks ago I had the privilege of proclaiming Christ at the funeral service of a friend in Macon, Mississippi. Drew Blackwell, Sr. and his family are precious to me and mine, and his unexpected death at the age of 53 brought us back together to weep and to remind each other that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Drew was a good friend and a worthy deacon in the church there.
This week I sat down to write his wife a note, and I thought about a letter of sympathy in The Life and Letters of James Henley Thornwell, which I had read in 1993. Some echo of that letter rattled around my brain, and I was able to find it rather quickly. For a painfully brief bio of Thornwell, click here.
March 9, 1859
My dear Mrs. Bishop: I have just this moment received the painful intelligence of your husband’s death. Little did I dream, when I left him on Thursday morning, and when he so confidently expected to visit us in May, that my eyes should never more behold his venerated form…I need not say to you how deeply I sympathize with you in your sad bereavement. You have reason to weep. You have lost one who has left few equals on earth. He was a man of God; a man whose heart was in heaven, while his body freely mingled among the sons of men. He was a man of prayer, full of the Holy Ghost, full of zeal in his Master’s cause, and full of charity ot his fellow men. None knew him without loving him; and the more they knew, the more they loved him. I always esteemed his intimacy and friendship as among the richest blessings of my life.
Your loss is great. But in the midst of your sorrow you have much to be thankful for. You should be thankful for the many years you were privileged to enjoy the society, guidance, confidence, and love of such a man. It was a rich boon, and a boon conferred upon very few of your sex. You should be thankful for the precious memories which you are permitted to cherish of his conversation, his charities, and his zeal. You should bless God for the noble legacy he has left you and your children, in a pure example, a treasury of prayers, and a hearty consecration of you all to God. Depend upon it, you have been highly favoured; and you must not forget that, if your affliction is unusually severe, it is only because your blessings have pre-eminently great.
You know, too, that you shall see him again. Those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. He is not dead, but sleepeth; and the Saviour, at the proper time will assuredly wake him; and you shall then see that his death, at this precise juncture, was the for the glory of God. In the meanwhile you are not a widow; for the Lord Jehovah promises to be your husband. Trust in Him, make His promises you portion, and, above all things murmur not against His will. His ways may be in the dark; but infinite wisdom, and goodness, and love, regulate all the dispensations of His providence to His children. What He does, you may not know now, but you shall know hereafter; and when you come to understand it, you will cordially approve it. Trust, therefore, in Him, and commit yourself and your children into His hands. Could your husband speak to you from the skies, this is what he would say to you…
The Lord bless you and keep you, and be the Guardian, Friend, and everlasting portion of you and yours.
Most truly your friend,
J. H. Thornwell
