Not a Lenten thought

Although this occured during lent, I don't think it qualifies as a "lenten thought" per se.

As you all know I am not very fond of people that I consider heretics posing as orthodox christians, such as Joel Osteen.

I know that many of you probably have a similar disdain for their teaching and so I thought I'd take a short minute to refer you to Dr. Witherington's newest blog post entitled "What's Wrong With Prospering? The Gospel Accroding to Joel Osteen." Witherington does a fine job commenting on the problems with Osteen's theology and I think that he offers a better critique than I have or could at this time.

I don't want to imply that I'm becoming a Witherington disciple, but the man is brilliant and he continues to amaze me. He also has a unquenchable passion for Christ and for the church. Yes, I do disagree with him on some issues, and to be truthful he does come across as arogant sometimes, but I feel that some of his arogance may be passion misconstrued. All that to say, that not only do I find his classes heart warming and his book enlightening, but I also find his blog stimulating and encouraging. Plus it's really fun when fundamentalists comment and he tears them to shreds.

But the main reason I say this is to draw your attention to the Osteen article, but also to encourage you to check it out if you find yourself with some spare time. I found the post previous to the Osteen article to be amazing. I thought the poem was very well written.

The link is over to the right on the bottom of the links section incase you didn't notice.

Peace.

Lenten lesson 101

Ok, so there have been so many things I've wanted to post about since lent started but haven't had the time to sit down and write out a long post. Hopefully I'll post on them later, but I wanted to post this quick thought while it's fresh. I attend St. Athanasius Orthodox Church in Nicholasville, KY on Sundays and find the liturgy to be incredibly meaningful. During lent we are using the Liturgy of St. Basil and in one of the sections there is a place for a different song to be sung each Sunday. This isn't like special music, the whole service is singing except the sermon, this is more like instead of singing "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" at the start of every school year at Houghton they mixed it up once in a while with "And Can it Be." As I stood there yesterday listening to the choir (again not like typical protestant choirs) sing the song I heard these words. I'll try to quote them the best I can.

"The flaming sword of Eden has been extinguished by the wood of the cross...enter in to paradise!"

Isn't that beautiful! The imagery just fills my heart. Only with God could something so paradoxical become a reality. Wood extinguishing fire? Death bringing life in paradise? These are not intuitive things. Truly the cross is foolishness and a stumbling block and yet all the more we proclaim Christ and him crucified! Just as the first Adam's actions removed us from paradise, so the second Adam's actions allow us to reclaim it, or better yet, recieve a new one.

Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

Thoughts on Ash Wednesday

Just some short thoughts from Ash Wednesday.

Today in chapel we had the traditional imposition of ashes. When the ashes were imposed on my forehead in the sign of the cross these words were spoken to me (or at least very close to these) "from dust you came, to dust you will return, now go and live in the shadow of the cross." Wow, such powerful words. Ash Wednesday is about us, about our sin, and about God breaking into history through the incarnation to mend the brokenness and redeem humanity.

One "profound" thing that really struck me today was this. I often forgot I had ashes on my forehead during the day. It was often only when I saw the cross on someone else's forehead that I remembered that I too was living in the reality of being marked by the cross. It seems to me that this experience beautifully symbolizes the body of Christ. Sometimes when things get rough or when life gets hard we forget that we are living lives that are marked by the cross. We forget that we are really the living dead because "those who are baptized are already dead" (JD Walt). Sometimes it takes the community of faith, the great cloud of witnesses, to remind us of the shadow that we live in. Oh that the true cross that we carry was as visible to everyone as the ashes that we wear on our foreheads. We are truly a people marked by the cross, that is what our baptism represents, that is the pinnacle of our existence. We are people of the cross! May that marking permeate all aspects of our lives.