Remarks for Friday, February 6, 2009

It's Friday, but Sunday's Coming

Normally, I'll write something here that has to do with my sermon on Sunday morning. However, for this post, I want to write something concerning Sunday night. Our church has small groups available on Sunday nights. Most meet in homes. I encourage folks to participate in these groups. However, we do have an assembly on Sunday evenings at 6 PM at our building. Here I offer a sermon that is more meaty, one more designed for the person who is looking to study scripture from an analytical and intellectual perspective. It would probably be fair to say this is more of a teaching sermon than a proclamation sermon.

Currently on Sunday nights, I am leading us in a study on the tabernacle from Exodus. This week I came across a reference in a commentary that inspired me greatly. It is from Exodus, Saved for God's Glory by Philip Graham Ryken. Ryken calls attention to Zechariah 3 where the prophet was shown the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord. It was not unusual for the high priest to stand before God; he did so once a year on the Day of Atonement.

In Zechariah's account, there was a problem. The high priest was supposed to wear the white tunic represented his righteousness, but Joshua was wearing filthy clothes. The word Zechariah uses for "filthy" cannot be properly translated in polite circles. It is the word for human excrement, and accurately translated it is not a nice one.

What an image! Zachariah offers us an illustration that depicts our sinfulness before God. We are tempted often to downplay it, but God would not allow Zachariah to do so. God desired for us, his people, to see and smell our sin.

Satan was standing at Joshua's right side, the text says, to accuse Joshua. According to Exodus 28, Joshua violated God's holiness by entering into his presence dressed as he was. This act merited death.

Even worse, Joshua represented the people, and they were covered with filth, too. Since Joshua was guilty, they were guilty. If Joshua was dead, then they were dead. In this vision, humanity was lost.

However, Zachariah records that the Lord rebuked Satan. The angel of the Lord ordered the attendants of God to remove the high priest's filthy clothes. Turning to Joshua, the angel said, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you." The attendants then clothed him.

Finally, Zechariah said, "Put a clean turban on his head." Zachariah did this for a purpose. He knew from Exodus 28:38, the words "Holy to the Lord" were written upon the turban. When a clean turban was put on the head of a high priest, it signified that God had removed the sin of the high priest, and, therefore, the sin of the people. Zechariah knew what he was asking, and he received it. God had made the people holy.

I love this account because it anticipates the ministry of Christ. Jesus, the great high Priest, according to Hebrews, stands before God to remove the sins of the people. Because of his work, we can stand in the presence of the Lord holy, acceptable, and pleasing in God's sight.
I have not appreciated the work of Zechariah in the past. Now passages such as these give me chills.

An ode to my wife

My two younger children have the flu this week and are home from school. I spent some time during the days and nights attending to them. Thursday morning I was staying home with them so that my wife, Judy, could teach at her school. The little ones were doing better, and then Judy came home mid-morning with the flu and went straight to bed. She has been there ever since.

I don't know about your household, but my wife is the hub of our household. When she's down, it is like a car and a blowout. Judy is paying a high price to make me greatly appreciate her, but I do most assuredly.

Parents! Parents! Parents!

I am amazed at how poorly so many parents are raising their children these days. Just last week, my son Timothy's kindergarten teacher, Michelle Pardue, told me that Timothy and a girl at school like each other very much. As a matter of fact, Timothy liked her so much that the teachers caught him kissing her on the cheek last Friday. The girl did nothing.

I am shocked that her parents have not taught her better. When I was Timothy's age and in kindergarten, I picked up Lisa Walters in my arms and kissed her. Lisa's parents had taught her well. She did the honorable thing. Lisa Walters slapped me. I never kissed Lisa Walters again. And while Lisa and I dated and went steady, on and off, throughout kindergarten through third grade, I never kissed Lisa again.

I ache for my son because he likes a girl whose parents are not as outstanding as Lisa's. And, of course, I had to step into the middle of this situation so that my boy can remain in school. What I have recommended to him was the old Camp Deer Run rule, grab a stick and hold one end, and let the girl hold the other end. We'll see if that works.

Postscript--Maybe Timothy does not have the flu, maybe he has mononucleosis: "kissing disease"!

Favorite Book on CD of the week

Recently I began listening again to the book First Man by James R. Hansen. I had read it before, but it was so good I wanted to hear it again. The book is about the life of the Neil Armstrong, the first man to step foot on the moon. Hanson does a good job fleshing out the personality of Armstrong. Part of that personality consisted of a man who was and is very quiet by nature.

One of the interesting aspects of Armstrong's life that this book reveals is the tender heart that he had for his daughter, Karen. She died as a child of a brain tumor. The event shattered Armstrong emotionally, and he never fully recovered.

Several years later, after the successful Apollo 11 spaceflight, the mission's astronauts toured the world. While in London England, crowds mobbed the astronauts. At a barrier which separated the astronauts from the people, a little girl found herself pressed against the obstruction. Frightened, she began to cry. Armstrong picked up the girl, hugged her, soothed her emotions with kind words, and kissed her. An enterprising photographer snapped the picture and newspapers around the world ran it.

The press noted that this intimacy was out of character for Armstrong and were puzzled by this display. Hansen writes that it was no coincidence. The girl was the age of Armstrong's daughter when Karen had passed away.

Boredom Ally

This little tidbit may fail to interest you, but it does me. Several weeks ago, I saw a show on the History Channel that discussed quantum physics. I was reminded of that program this week when I read that Albert Einstein resisted the move toward quantum physics that reached full bloom during the 1920s. The irony here is that his earlier work jumpstarted physics to make the move away from Newtonian physics.

During this era, Niels Bohr was a major player in the quantum physics movement. He and Einstein forged a relationship that was personally close but scientifically distant. Einstein would struggle for the rest of his life with quantum physics, mainly due to the emphasis that quantum mechanics placed on random chance. It was in the context of Einstein's debate with Bohr that he'd made his famous statement that God would not play dice. To which Bohr replied, "Stop telling God what to do!"

What fascinates me is how this area of science faces some of the same tensions that theology does, but on a different playing field. As Walter Isaacson has noted, with Einstein, "[R]elativity may have seemed like a radical idea, but at least it preserved rigid cause-and-effect rules." The randomness of quantum physics eliminates the "cause" in Einstein's eyes.

In theology, the tension lies between two poles. On the one hand, you have scholars accentuating the direct involvement of God in this world. On the other hand, you have theologians emphasizing God's distance from his creation.

This tension, which can never be resolved in our lives, plays itself out in many areas. Even people who are not Christians are asking many of the same questions that we ask because of their intuitive yearning for God. When I read of Einstein and Bohr debating, I hear Einstein saying that God must be at work in our world. I hear Bohr saying, "Where is God?"

Virtually every I day, I hear the rank and file members of the human race say the same.