Question from Scripture: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” (Isaiah 55:2a ESV)

Connection to Us Today: Most folks are probably enjoying some leave from work, or having family arrive for Christmas holidays, or perhaps you’re the ones traveling to see loved ones. But regardless of who’s coming and going, probably many folks are concerned with stuff and with bills. Spend, spend, spend. We can get so enraptured with stuff and with the buzz of activity and busyness that we eclipse the very name buried within the nomenclature of Christmas. It reminds me of Wordsworth’s poem, “The World Is Too Much With Us”:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Principle: When God speaks through the prophet Isaiah, he’s asking a rhetorical question in order to lead us from folly to wisdom. It’s God way of baby talk to humanity because we tend to spend our energies on the temporal and discount or minimize the ultimate and eternal. The toys we purchase this year will likely be old and taken for granted this time next year. 

When you read the rest of Isaiah 55, you will see what the wise person should be most concerned with. 

Application: It’s vital we do not misunderstand. God does not oppose things, nice things, or even an abundance of nice things. What is a danger, however, is when we worship anything or anyone other than God. So often we can mistake the gifts for the Giver. Behind all good things is the even greater God who is goodness Himself. 

  I discovered this book on a hike in north Georgia in 2023 while on a hike with my wife. When we returned home I ordered the book and have only this week finished it. The delay was not due to any weakness of the book but rather to my work schedule.

  It was a spectacular read, chronicling the author’s hike up the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. Replete with colorful characters, flowers, trees, fires, blisters, hunger, stars, auroras, snow, sweat, and everything in between, it’s a paean to creation and to Shaffer’s love of deep enduring adventure.

I have been under the weather of late, and so have had to take a knee away from fellow soldiers, and surround myself instead with a myriad of medicines to try and kill this latest round of coronavirus. I have had Tess to keep me company, though. I finished it again this evening. Not a fast-paced novel to be sure, but it contains some of the most beautiful nature writing I know of in English. Below is an example:

  The only exericse that Tess took at this time was after dark; and it was then, when out in the woods, that she seemed least solitary. She knew how to hit to a hair’s-breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralise each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind–or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.

  On these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather they became a part of it; for the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were. The midnight airs and gusts, moaning amongst the tightly-wrapped buds and bark of the winter twigs, were formulae of bitter reproach. A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as any other (75).

I differ markedly with Hardy on theological questions about God, but for the revealing of character via imagery and setting, Hardy is stunning. He recognizes beauty; he recognizes the spectacle of creation, but his naturalism occluded his seeing, at least from my view, the author of beauty.

Wisdom from Patton: When I was in a bookstore near Camp Shelby, Mississippi some time back, I picked up another book on Patton. Like a lot of soldiers, I have read shelves of books on military history, of various battles, and myriad campaigns. But the older I get the more I tend to relish biographies. Anyway, in this particular book on Patton, he (Patton) was quoted as saying, “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but by how high he bounces when he hits bottom.” 

Connection: A buzzword today in military chaplaincy, mental health, behavioral health, and other related areas is this: resilience. It’s so often said in my circles, I almost wish the thesaurus was bigger for it to garner some synonyms. But Patton put his finger on it via his one-sentence zinger. 

Like scores of others, I’m certified as a Master Resilience Trainer, trained in Spiritual Wellness, and of course in my own theological background. But the bottom line is this: Resilience relates to the foundation of what it means to be human and how we relate to the transcendent. Otten in our Army literature, the soldier’s wellness measurements are divided into four main areas: 1) Spiritual; 2) Physical; 3) Social; and 4) Emotional. 

I have no issue with that particular division. I would only add that these areas only make sense when we recognize that they exist because they are designed, and design presupposes a designer. To discount, ignore, minimize, or obfuscate the theological reality that pervades every worldview undermines the very resilience we are pursuing. Put plainly, there is always a God of the system in every paradigm for understanding human psychology. The very word psychology literally means the “language” (logos/λόγος) of the “soul” (psuche/Ψυχή). 

Encouragement: Solomon penned, “for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity” (Pr 24:16 ESV). Resilience, bouncing back and continuing on to fight another day, getting back in the fight, etc. has a moral component, in other words, and that moral component is inseparable from the designer of transcendental morals, the one who is goodness himself, the Alpha and Omega (Rev 22:13).

Principle: The Cup of Staggering

Context: Recently I was reading through Isaiah again. It contains perhaps the most beautiful literary excellence in all of Scripture. Many of the psalms, of course, could easily lay claim to the same description. But In Isaiah 51 and 52, for example, God is speaking through his prophet Isaiah about the nation’s spiritual and moral condition:

17 Wake yourself, wake yourself,
    stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord
    the cup of his wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
    the bowl, the cup of staggering.
¹⁸ There is none to guide her
    among all the sons she has borne;
there is none to take her by the hand
    among all the sons she has brought up.
¹⁹ These two things have happened to you—
    who will console you?—
devastation and destruction, famine and sword;
    who will comfort you? (Isaiah 51:17-19 ESV)

The imagery is straightforward enough. The nation is morally wretched. Rotten. The people are in a stupor, as if drunk. They are drunk with sin. They cannot stand upright. Their balance is taken from them due to what’s controlling them. The people tend to think that it’s the other nations who are to blame for their condition. But it’s not other nations’ fault. It’s their own moral corruption, and God is using foreign armies, invasions, and their own state of being conquered as divine judgments for their sin and moral dissoluteness.

That is the power of Scripture; it does not sugarcoat what people and nations are like. It reveals not only what has happened, what will happen, but what always happens. God judges sin. We either bear the penalty ourselves or we flee to the one who has borne it for all who will come: Christ.

Segue and Encouragement: The cup of staggering, you see, was God’s judgment upon people for their sin, but it was designed to lead them to repentance and to a return to the one who ultimately redeems: Christ. Listen to God speak through his prophet Isaiah:

Thus says your Lord, the LORD,
    your God who pleads the cause of his people:
“Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering;
the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more” (Isaiah 51:22 ESV)

You see, God himself would ultimately drink the cup of staggering. It was the cup of God’s wrath against sin. You remember Jesus’s words to Peter, right? “[S]hall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11 ESV) Christ did drink the cup of wrath. It’s called the cross. It’s where justice and mercy meet. It’s the demonstration of the cup of staggering being poured out upon the one who didn’t deserve it but became sin and the sin-bearer for all who will trust in Christ alone for redemption. All of Scripture coheres, you see. It’s telling one unified story of what God has done to both judge sin and offer reconciliation to us sinners.

The Danger: Ever been so familiar with something that you come to believe it’s less dangerous or threatening than it once was over you? The reason I pose the question is because I am trying to teach through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount at our church. It is arguably the most oft-referenced but least-heeded sermon in world history. Just think, for example, of these familiar words from Christ himself: “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet” (Mt 5:13 ESV). A danger, I think, is that we can quote something, reference something, give lip service to a doctrine, etc. but discount or underestimate its power. 

Connection to Our Culture: For the last two weeks, I have not followed the news at all. I have to take a break from it periodically because I invariably end up shaking my head, saying, “There’s no way this is really happening in my country …” and yet, yup, it is happening. The 15 December 2023 video of a Maryland Senator’s staff person and what he did on camera in America’s Senate Hearing Room is surely enough to convince even the most Pollyannaish Americans that some people have clearly abandoned any sort of self-discipline, decency, and decorum. It was like something out of a parable of the absurd. Yet it was reality. It seems that any sense of shame has been abandoned and even scoffed at. 

A Sincere Series of Questions: Here’s what this has to do with Matthew 5:13 that I quoted above. In that verse and in the whole passage of the Sermon on the Mount, Christ warns Christians that if their witness has lost its taste, it’s to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. That is, if one’s testimony undercuts his/her profession, he is actually an enemy of the truth, and is good for nothing but to be tread upon. It’s an image of judgment, of being turned over and abandoned by God. It is, in short, heartbreaking because it’s the wrath of divine abandonment. But that is what Christ taught. 

And now some questions: First, have we come to the place as a culture where there is no fear of God? Second, if we have, do we actually have the temerity to assert that God’s standards change? (Hint: open theism is a longstanding heresy.) Third, what does history teach about the trajectory of nations who abandon God and mock the sacred? Fourth, will we survive to see God raise up faithful prophetic voices to call people back to the foundation of righteousness? 

I have my own views, of course, but I write this with a heavy heart for a nation I, along with thousands of other patriots, serve and love, especially in terms of her (America’s) founding principles and documents, and the call to be a beacon of hope rather than something vastly different. There is danger—quite serious danger—in spitting in the face of all that is good, right, and holy. And I grieve for my country. We are better than this. May God grant us the ability to repent and return, because I fear the alternatives are much costlier. 

Introduction: Carrie Jane closed her door to the car; I closed mine. And the question of whose music we’d listen to commenced. She said, “We need to fill our souls. Let’s listen to the Gettys.” She got no argument from me.

Then Keith Getty’s piano sounds streamed from the speakers, and Kristyn’s angelic voice poured like aural honey from the honeycomb. That is the power of music. I don’t know of a more unifying, powerful instrument to capture the core of a person or group.

Among my loves supreme is language. Scripture, the ultimate book, has much to say about language and the supremacy of the Word incarnate, and also of the power of language: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Pr 25:11 ESV). I’m much more at home with a copy of O’Connor’s short stories or with A Tale of Two Cities than I am most other things, but I concede that there is nothing quite like the power of some music to wield a nearly-divine effect upon our emotions. The first chord–sometimes just the first note–sounds the strings of our souls.

Question: Why do I raise this issue of the power of music? Is it worthy of such augmentation? Yes and amen. Why? Perhaps I can best explain my view via illustration.

Illustration: Today at church, after I had fumbled my way through trying to dive into the first verses of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, I needed to be redeemed. I felt I had totally blown it in terms of teaching on such a magisterial text. I got choked up publicly. So many of my hours of study washed over me as I unpacked words so familiar to me. My years of reading of how Luther wept over his own sin while studying his NT in Greek, then translating it for his fellow Germans, of how he rediscovered the gospel of grace, of how he’d been caught up in Roman Catholicism as an Augustinian monk, of how he had the biblical courage to take on Roman Catholicism’s pomp and popery, overtook me, and the tears came, etc. For all his faults, Luther understood what it meant to be a sinner redeemed by the sufficiency of Christ alone. Any system was man-centered. The gospel was and is God-centered, and on behalf of sinners, and that distinction is at the heart of redemption.

So many hours of reading how Luther and other Reformers wrestled with the text of Scripture itself, and of how they came to understand the text by virute of what it clearly taught: it is God’s unmerited favor towards sinners and Jesus’ vicarious, substitutionary atonement for his people, and of our repentance of our sin and faith in Christ alone, that redeems us. It’s not saints, or Mary, or works, and most certainly not any self-professing vicar of Christ adopting the nomenclature of vicar or substitute or mediator. No, it is Christ alone. He is the only mediator. Popes are sinners; Christ is God made sin on behalf of his people; that difference is crucial and non-negotiable.

Then it happened … Today was so special in the morning service after Sunday school. We weren’t artificially divided by age or demograhic. There wasn’t a ‘traditional’ vs. a ‘contemporary’ service. I entered corporate worship service with saints of all ages, of all skin tones, of all maturity levels, of babes in Christ, and of seasoned saints. And we all sang together.

I was one of many with gray hair who sang adjacent to people much younger. And we lifted our eyes and we followed the talented musicians and singers in front of us. And they, too, were a congregation of called-out ones–men and women, boys and girls, black, white, brown, and yellow. Short and tall, thick or lean, they all sang. Why? Because they were the called-out ones, and they were gathered together in an assembly. That’s what the word denotes: called out and together. Congregation means just that: an assembling together, union, society.

We sang of the God-man, Christ the Lord, who was the promised seed of Jesse who was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. We sang of what it means to have walked in darkness but then to have been granted the ability to see the great light because the Light has shone on them.

We sang, in short, together. As a body. As a diverse body who comprised a congregation. We were not divided like slices of pie into children, youth, young adults, senior adults, etc. No. We were a body of ransomed believers singing to our Redeemer together.

Encouragement: What I am aiming for is surely evident. Songs sung by the body of the redeemed are precious and foundational. Young, old, and all of us in between. Girls, boys, men, and women–sinners all, but redeemed ones, singing of their common Redeemer. This is the biblical congregation–a song embodied.

I was at the kitchen table this morning and looking over my studies in preparation for teaching from Matthew 5, and I saw this handsome fellow browsing out back and chasing a doe.

Introduction: What an honor to be part of today’s event and be surrounded by remarkable patriots, and be reminded visually of the veterans and families who have come before us.

I was honored to place the Army wreath at the ceremony as a way of honoring my branch of service. To my left and right were men from the Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and Space Force.

When I am surrounded by men of this ilk, it still moves me. I relearn why I’d do it all again.

And we were surrounded by wonderful patriots like the Patriot Guard Riders, American Legion, families, and veterans from all the branches of service.

A choir sang Christmas carols. A high school Air Force JROTC color guard posted and retired the U.S. Colors.

CPT Tommy Clack spoke. I’ve heard Tommy speak several times before. Each time, however, his testimony moves me. He lost both legs and one arm to a grenade in Vietnam in 1969. Yet here he is, still serving. Speaking into a microphone held by his one remaining hand, dependent upon his wheelchair to move about, with his Army patches and quotes from John 15 on his gear, Tommy still serves.

Below are a few scenes from the cold morning. Thankful for all those who made it happen again with such honor, power, and selfless service.

Here’s a link to CPT Clack’s ministry:

https://www.afteractionshow.org/tommy-clack

Here’s a link to Wreaths Across America:

https://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsvWrBhC0ARIsAO4E6f8nqvAFdPj7IZ22Q_GqTTxySbz9kPLTQjR70McZLs8R6Q9syuE1vrkaArbMEALw_wcB

A Hymn: I am no different than countless other lovers of great Christian hymns. One of the greatest is “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Its biblical referent comes from Lamentations:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness (Lam 3:22-23 ESV).

Slice of Life from the Airport: Recently I was in the airport to catch another flight, this time to the upper Midwest where I was flying in order to teach fellow soldiers in a curriculum I often use. Plus I was slated to link up with new leadership at a couple of units. I was very glad to be going and doing what I adore doing–ministering to soldiers and their families.

I was in uniform and went through TSA pre-Check quickly and without incident. I stopped at one of the breakfast shops and purchased a breakfast biscuit. I went to a quiet corner and sat down and ate my breakfast bisuit. After I ate, I walked over to the recycle bin and deposited the bag and wrapper from my breakfast there, and walked over to the water fountain to refill my water bottle.

I walked down the corridor to the terminal from which my flight was departing soon. I retrieved the James Sire book I was re-reading from my backpack and resumed reading. I had read no more than a page when a kind lady sitting behind me spoke to me.

“Sir, may I bless you?” and she handed me a red envelope with stickers and tape on it. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said.

I put the envelope inside my backpack and returned to my book. I read for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then began thinking maybe I should open the envelope. I thought she might be offended if I did not open it. So I unzipped the pocket on my backpack and opened the red envelope.

When I did, I was floored. There was a kind message, two gift cards to a coffee shop, a Chick-fil-A gift card, and even some cash.

I am sure that my face showed how touched I was. I tried to gather myself, but I had been deeply touched. I put the contents back in the card, then back in the envelope, then back in my backpack. I folded my hands as if in prayer seemingly automatically, as if just to say, “Lord, thank you for people like this that speak into my life.”

Then the man came on the intercom over at the Delta desk for military members to board. I turned to the woman again as I put on my backpack.

“Ma’am,” I said, “I really appreciate it. Thank you, again.”

“Thank you for your service, sir. Merry Christmas,” she said.

And I boarded the plane, pulled out my book again, tried to read, but inwardly all I was doing was shaking my head in gratitude, thankful for the visible reminders that kindness endures.