Running to Glory

Pagans believe history is a cycle, an alternating pattern of repetition, light and darkness, good and evil, life and death. No doubt, the Lord built cycles and patterns into creation, but history is not a cycle; it is linear; it has a trajectory. There is a beginning and an end, a purpose (telos), a goal. Suffering precedes salvation. The crown comes before the cross. But there is glory at the end of the story, and the end of this story proves to be only the end of the preface.

The cycles and patterns of repetition happen within the story. They are not the story, only rhythms in the midst of it. Birth and death. Strength and weakness. Joy and sorrow. Health and illness. Prosperity and poverty. Prayer and labor. These are the rhythms that make up our lives, the time signature for the melody. But we are not singing The Song That Never Ends. Some of the parts of this song are difficult, emotional, grievous, but we keep singing because we know the song is going somewhere.

When you find yourself on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, it may seem like the steps will never end. When you are in the blackness of Shelob’s lair, it may seem there is no way out, no light at the end of the tunnel. When evil seems to prevail in the cave on Mt. Doom and hope fails, remember that the bitter comes before the sweet. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

We are not trapped in an endless cycle of repetition, even if our lives may feel that way at times. The sun rises and sets. Man goes to his labor and returns. Man is born, and then he dies. It seems like nothing ever changes, but Christ is the Lord of history, and the Maker’s story has a purpose. It is going somewhere. Our job is to be faithful in the middle parts.

Tomorrow the Church gathers to worship the King. We will be doing the same things we do every Sunday: singing, praying, confessing, listening, communing, and encouraging. The same thing week after week, but all of this has a purpose. Worship is teleological, just like creation and history.

When you feel trapped in the washing machine of life, lift your eyes to Jesus, behold our risen and ascended King. Give thanks to him. Praise his Name. Confess that he is the Lord of history, and that you are not. Come into the Lord’s house with joy in the morning. The rest of the world may feel as if it is running in place, but God’s saints know that we are running to glory. --JME

Christianity is Not a Team-Sport

The Lord’s Day should not be like the pep rally before the big game in which each team gathers in their home gymnasium in order to stir themselves up to fight the rival high school. The Calvinist Cougars prepare to claw the Baptist Bears. The Anglican Eagles soar high above the Lutheran Llamas. The Greek Orthodox insist that all of the other teams are ineligible to play in the league, being schismatics, the Roman Catholics claim their head coach is actually the head coach for all the other teams too, and the Divided Methodists and Lesbyterians show their ecumenical solidarity by joint displays of biodegradable Pride flags while shaking paper, climate-friendly pom-poms.

The fact is, the current state of the Lord’s Church is a mess. The Westminster Confession’s description of “more or less visible” doesn’t tell half the story. When you see what is going on in the Name of Jesus in some of these “churches,” you begin to think maybe the orcs really did descend from elves, as impossible as that seems.

I shared an elevator with a Lutheran this week. It was obvious he was making a pastoral visit, though I suspect he was not actually a pastor but a deacon, staff member, or volunteer. He saw my shirt advertising the Ezra Institute and its mission of “Informing Faith, Reforming Culture.” I saw the large silver cross around his neck. When I asked which synod he was with, he replied his church belonged to the ELCA. If the Lutheran team is the Llamas, the ELCA would be the ones on the roster with neurological disease and equine herpes. (Who knew that llamas could have neurological disease and equine herpes virus? You’re welcome.)

It occurred to me that we were two ministers riding an elevator at Children’s Hospital who have a lot in common and almost nothing in common. Both of us, presumably, have been baptized in the Name of the Triune God; we are covenantally Christian. We identify with Christian symbols and ideas. We visit hospitals in order to minister to the sick and afflicted. But the things that separate us almost seem to nullify all of the above, and I don’t mean our differences on confessional subscription, predestination, and the nature of baptismal regeneration. I’m referring to our almost certain disagreements on things like: the nature of the Triune God, the deity of Christ and his historical resurrection, the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, the historicity of Bible narratives and miracles, the exclusivity of salvation, and the necessity of a biblical ethic. The ELCA, as a general rule, doesn’t affirm any of those things. In fact, in most cases, they explicitly and proudly deny them. I think it is safe to say that I have far more in common with Martin Luther than any Lutheran who remains affiliated today with the ELCA.

The conclusion many fundamentalists and evangelicals reach is that the baptized Lutheran on the elevator is not a Christian. But, of course, he is a Christian, and that is the problem. He has been united to Christ in baptism. The fact that a husband acts like a whore does not mean that he isn’t a husband. It’s worse than that. It would be better if he were not married. But he is. That makes his whoring even more egregious. Fornication outside of marriage is a sin. Fornication inside of and against marriage is an abomination. It would be better to be an unbaptized Hindu on the day of judgment than to be a baptized Christian who insists sodomy is a moral and social good.

The Israelites in the northern kingdom were not Canaanites. They were worse. They were Israelites who acted like Canaanites. They worshiped false gods, persecuted the prophets, and broke covenant with God in every imaginable way, and in a few that Yahweh said even he had not imagined (cf. Jer. 19:5; 32:35, in fairness this was said about Judah!). Eventually the Lord divorced his covenant-breaking people, but he did not utterly forsake them. On the contrary, the promise of the prophets, the hope of the covenant God had made, was that one day Israel would be resurrected and restored, not merely to political existence, but to spiritual and covenantal life with their Lord.

What is the destiny of Christ’s Church? At the moment, she seems to have developed a multiple personality disorder and an addiction to substance abuse and self-harm. Will she continue to divide and devour herself until the Bridegroom returns? Will he come back to find a bride clothed in righteous beauty, or will he bring papers to annul the marriage before the honeymoon is over? The answer, of course, will depend on your eschatology and view of several biblical passages. My purpose is not to exegete or argue those verses here. This is a Lord’s Day devotional, not a speech in a theological debate. But to ask the question is, in some ways, to answer it. Yes, the Church will be winnowed, purified by suffering and trials. No, not every person (or denomination) visibly connected to Christ will remain until the last day. Unfruitful and diseased branches will be cut off and burned. The Lord of the vineyard will clean up his garden and make it healthy and beautiful, and that is the point here.

My sanctification is incomplete. It is easy for me to look down on the mainline Lutherans. Who wants to be a llama anyway? But there are places in my heart that are in even worse shape than their communion, because I have less excuse for my lack of holiness. I belong to a church that teaches the Bible. I know better. The only catechizing some of our mainline brethren have received is from Pastor Wolf in his rainbow colored sheepskin coat. Will the Lord abandon me because of my lingering sinfulness? No, and he will not abandon his Bride either. She needs a new diet, a gym membership, and some strong antibiotics, but she still belongs to him, and he will not allow Rev. Wormtongue and Deacon Grishnakh to have her.

There should be no pride that we are Presbyterians (or Baptists, or fill in the blank) when we gather on the Lord’s Day. If anyone boasts, let him boast in the Lord. I  am grateful for my Reformed identity and heritage, unashamedly so. I am Reformed because I believe it is the best, most faithful, most biblical expression of the religion of Christ. I am happy to discuss, debate, and defend its basic convictions and distinctions as the correct interpretation of Scripture. But there is a big difference between being Reformed because we think it is biblical and being Reformed because we think it is cooler to be a Raptor than a member of the Pentecostal Peanuts team.

The scale of identity and priority ought to be Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, and so on. It should not start with our narrowest distinctives but our broadest ones. We should see ourselves, first and foremost, in relation to Christ as members of his Body. The mainline church down the street may be so compromised as to have lost their lampstand, and Pastor Jezebel is liable to be struck down at any moment, but the baptizands in the pews are still my brothers and sisters, and some of them will be redeemed and sanctified, just as the Lord still promises to do with me and with you.

I am Reformed, paedobaptist, presbyterian, postmillennial, and theonomic, but none of those are merit badges on my robe when we gather to worship. They are not the colors of my “team,” only conclusions I have reached as I continue to study Scripture. Some of those convictions may be wrong. Even if none of those are, it is inevitable that I am in error on something else I confidently believe. But I am not saved by having all of the right answers. I am not saved because I worship in the right church in the right way as I teach and believe the right things. We are saved by Christ and by his grace alone.

When the Church assembles on the Lord’s Day, she does not meet on opposite sides of the playing field, wearing different color jerseys and rooting for sectarian success on gameday. She stands before the Maker’s throne, clothed in white. Her skin is still marred, she’s limping badly, and there are a few tumors that will have to be removed. The Lord is not finished with her yet, but one day he will be, and then we will finally be able to see how beautiful she is and always was in God’s mind. That is the Body that gathers, the Body to which we are connected. That is the Church of the risen Christ and the living God: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, forever. --JME

The Failure of Matriarchy

Ta'Kiya Young was shot and killed by police in the parking lot of a grocery store on August 24th. She was 21 years old, a mother with two kids at home, 6 and 3, and seven months pregnant with a third, due to be born in November. Ta'Kiya was already in the driver’s seat of her car when officers approached the vehicle and ordered her to get out. When she asked why, she was informed that store employees claimed she had stolen items. One officer stood at her window while a second positioned himself in front of the car and drew his service weapon. Ta'Kiya placed the car in drive and began to accelerate forward, driving the officer who was in front of the vehicle backwards. After shouting orders for her to stop, the officer fired one round, striking Ta'Kiya. The car subsequently rolled into the front of the store, at which time officers broke the driver’s side window to gain entry and began administering medical aid, assisted by an emergency physician who was also at the scene. Ta'Kiya was transported to the hospital where she died. 

The bodycam footage of the incident has now been released (HERE).

Ta'Kiya’s grandmother, Nadine, reported that Ta'Kiya was “family-oriented” and loving and told the local news: “It shouldn't have ever, ever, ever happened. She shouldn't be gone. It was just wrong.” Thus far there has been no word from Ta'Kiya’s husband, or father, or any mention of either man.

This is a tragic story, one at which every person who hears of it should lament. The grocery store reported to the police that Ta'Kiya had shoplifted alcohol, but who could believe that a 21 year old mother who was seven months pregnant with her third child would be drinking alcohol at that stage of pregnancy, much less stealing it? No doubt she was frightened when confronted by police, and when they ordered her to get out, Ta'Kiya made an adult decision to deescalate the situation by putting her car in gear and stepping on the accelerator. The officer who chose to stand in front of her car was obviously foolish. Didn't he know that doing so would make it difficult for her to leave the scene? Why didn't he accept the consequences of his bad decision and allowed Ta'Kiya to run him over rather than firing his gun at her?

Now Ta'Kiya is dead. So is her unborn child. The family’s lawyer said in an interview with the AP that Ta'Kiya was “murdered unjustifiably” and insisted: “She is the victim here, and we demand accountability for the loss of two precious lives — Ta'Kiya and her unborn daughter.” It is refreshing to see the unborn child counted as a human life and victim in this particular incident, even if it is in the context of human tragedy.

Where is Ta'Kiya’s husband? Where is the man (or men) who fathered her three children? Where is her father or her grandfather? Did they try to counsel Ta'Kiya? Did they counsel her when she became a teenage mother, twice? Did they talk to her about how to respond to police encounters? Have any of them spoken to Ta'Kiya’s grandmother, who is understandably distraught, and ask her not to speak to the media? Did any of them think to rebuke the family attorney, Sean Walton, or suggest that blame for this tragedy might lie elsewhere: with Ta'Kiya, with her family, and with the men who failed to guide and protect her?

It should not be surprising that this shooting is being referred to as “murder” when we see news footage every week of stores being looted without any visible resistance from employees or public safety authorities. Ta'Kiya’s family and surviving children are not the only ones who will live forever in the shadow of her shooting. So too will the two police officers and their families, so will the store employees who reported her for shoplifting, so will the doctor who tried to save her life in the parking lot and healthcare workers at the hospital who did what they could before she died. Two boys will grow up without a mother. Who will take care of them now? Will it be the same people who raised Ta'Kiya and who are characterizing her as a victim and her death as murder?

Ta'Kiya’s death is tragic on many levels, and it reinforces the fact that family structure, child rearing, and mentorship are matters of life and death. Ta'Kiya was practically a child herself, yet she was already the mother of three. She should have been painting a nursery for her daughter. Instead she was at a store gathering bottles of alcohol. The family attorney says that a witness will testify she put the bottles down inside the store before she left, but if that proves true, it only makes her attempt to flee all the more tragic and unnecessary.

Ta'Kiya did not have to get out of the car. She could have left it in park, turned off the engine, and asked the officers to let her call her dad. I wish her father had been there or her husband. I wish one of them had gone to the store in her place to get whatever alcohol they thought they needed. Ta'Kiya certainly did not need any, nor did her unborn child. I wish she had talked to the officers. I wish she had not tried to hit a police officer with her car. I wish none of the parties involved had to be in that situation or to live with the consequences that they do now.

Where was Ta'Kiya’s husband? Where was her father? Where are the men in the family willing to stand up and take responsibility for what occurred? If they are there, why are they simply standing by? Matriarchy does not strengthen human families; it weakens them. It leaves them vulnerable, exposed to dangers of all kinds, including the dangers of self-deception and self-justification about one’s own righteousness. 

Ta'Kiya did not have to die that day, but it is not the police officer’s fault that she did. He will live the rest of his life regretting that he pulled that trigger, and Ta'Kiya’s family should live the rest of their lives regretting that she pressed the accelerator of her car. Ta'Kiya’s memory is not well-served by a grandmother who makes excuses for her or a lawyer who refers to police officers as her murderers. But if there are no men to lead, to step in and say enough, to protect young women even if it must be from themselves, then this story that will continue to recur. May God have mercy upon Ta'Kiya’s family and those officers, and may America repent of the kind of matriarchy that creates such tragedy. ---JME