Pastor’s Page

This past Sunday’s sermon was on the death of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 27:45-56. As I mentioned, there are things that we cannot fully understand about the death of Jesus, but Matthew even includes those puzzling verses, “The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the holy ones who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (52-53). For more specifics about what Matthew is talking about, you will have to listen to the sermon, but I am convinced that Matthew wants us to compare this episode with an earlier one in his gospel.

In Matthew 8, after Jesus calmed the storm, we read in v. 28: “And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs….” What’s the implication? Before Jesus’ death, the only thing that comes out of tombs are demons, but now, with the death and resurrection of Jesus, saints, holy ones come out of tombs, because death can no longer contain them.

As this imagery settled in, I was immediately reminded of the account in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when Aslan explains to Lucy how he can be alive again. She asks, “But what does it all mean?” “It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Tim dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”

Indeed, and as Matthew would have us to see, because of the death of Jesus, because He willingly yielded up His spirit (27:50), the tombs that once produced demons, now produce saints. “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Matthew is giving us a picture, a foretaste of the greater resurrection yet to come, when all of the holy ones will be raised to enter into the holy city at last.

Matthew 27:45-56 recounts the death of Jesus. Going through the text, Matthew seems to make an intentional use of pairs, whether of words or themes. I am not entirely sure what Matthew’s underlying purpose might be for this, though my first guess is that it acts as a symbolic “double” witness, establishing the veracity of the event. Hard to know for sure, and perhaps further reading will give some other clues, but here it is for the time being. Sadly, some of the pairings get lost in English translations (including the ESV, referenced below), but I’ll do my best to make them clear.

land/earth – ge in Gk. (45, 51)
ninth hour (45, 46)
Jesus cried out with a loud voice (46, 50)
wait,yielded – aphiemi in Gk. (49, 50)
torn/split – σχίζω (v. 51, 2x – veil and rocks)
the earth shook – verb form / the earthquake – noun form (51, 54)
tombs (52, 53)
holy ones (saints)/holy city (52, 53)
raised – verb form /resurrection – noun form (52, 53)
soldiers keeping watch close by (54) versus women looking from afar (55) – different verbs are used.
2 Marys: Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph.
2 Mothers with two sons: Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee (James and John).

One other possible pair could be Jesus crying out in Aramaic/Hebrew, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” followed by the translation in the Greek, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

In preparing for Sunday’s sermon on Matthew 27:27-44, the following structure for the first section of the text emerged:

A. The soldiers took Jesus into the governor's headquarters (27).
 B. Jesus stripped of his garments and clothed in a scarlet robe (28).
 C. Jesus' head crowned with thorns (29a).
 D. The reed given (29b).
 E. The soldiers' mock obeisance: "Hail, King of the Jews!" (29d).
 D'. The reed taken (30b).
 C'. Jesus' head struck with the reed (30c).
 B'. Jesus stripped of the scarlet robe and clothed in his garments (31b,c).
A'. The soldiers led Jesus away to be crucified (31d).

Clearly the mock bowing and declaration of the soldiers is at the center of the text, and ironically declares the truth. The title “King of the Jews” is used three other times in Matthew’s Gospel. In 27:11, Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Placarded over Jesus on the cross was the sign which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (27:37). The other use of the title, interestingly enough, is found on the lips of the visiting Magi in Matthew 2, who arrive in Jerusalem asking, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (2:2). At the beginning and end of Matthew’s Gospel, it is the Gentiles who are declaring Jesus as the “King of the Jews.” Also, whereas the soldiers bow down in mock worship, the Magi bow down in true worship. Further, the word translated “Hail” in 27:29 is the imperative form for the word “rejoice.” The wise men, upon departing from Jerusalem to go Bethlehem, “rejoiced greatly” when they saw the star (2:10). The same verb is used. These thematic and literary ties hint at a chiastic structure for all of Matthew’s Gospel, which others have explored, and certainly evidence the excellent manner in which Matthew, inspired by the Holy Spirit, penned the first gospel. Jesus is “the son of David” (1:1), He is the King of the Jews, even if it takes the Gentiles to proclaim it. And, subtly, Matthew would have us to imitate the Magi, and obey the solders’ command: “Rejoice! The King of the Jews.”

Douglas Jordan came up with the following structure of the Dark Knight Trilogy, and, since he doesn’t have a blog, he gave me permission to reproduce it here. Due to significant formatting issues, I had to insert the chiasm as a JPEG, so my apologies regarding the clarity and the ongoing formatting issues below it. I have also added a few further observations that Doug made as part of an online discussion of his proposed chiasm. Enjoy.

I missed an obvious entry. Between B & C, we have Gordon comforting Bruce after his parents die. Between C’ and B’, we have Batman referring to this event. Even have a flashback.

It’s no coincidence that there’s a prison at the beginning and end of the story, or that Batman’s trapped down a well (we even get a flashback to his childhood). His descent into the underground prison is clearly intended to mirror his ascent to the mountaintop. On the mountain, he learned Al Ghul had a wife. In the underground prison, he learns about Al Ghul’s child, and there’s a flashback to the mountaintop scene where he first learned about the wife. Also, a vision of Al Ghul approaches him in the prison, just like the living Al Ghul visited him in prison in the first film.

The flashback with Gordon putting his coat around Bruce is clearly intentional (in order to comfort Gordon, Batman reminds him of the way that Gordon once comforted him), and the inspiration caused by his parent’s death and Batman’s “death” mirror each other well.
I think it’s also
intentional that in both the first and third movie Wayne Enterprises technology falls into the wrong hands and threatens the city.

In the second movie, the contrast between Dent’s character at the beginning and end of the film is clearly intentional — that’s why in the final sequence Batman repeats the phrase that Dent said in the very early restaurant scene, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” I suspect having the bat signal so near the beginning of the film and the end is also intentional.
The third movie makes it very clear that the turning point of Batman’s career is Rachel’s death.

My chiasm might be a bit too detailed, and probably works better at a higher level. For example, I find the parallel between Falcone’s insanity and Blake’s promotion to be a bit forced. 🙂

Anyway, one of Nolan’s mastered skills is flashbacks (every Nolan movie I’ve ever seen has a number of them), so at the end of his movies he wants us to be remembering what happened at the beginning, and I think he was very deliberate to do it for the trilogy as a whole in the latest film.

Just had another thought about the parallels between the dinner scene and the final scene of The Dark Knight:

Dent: When their enemies were at the gates the Romans would suspend democracy
and appoint one man to protect the city. lt wasn’t considered an honor,
it was a public service.

Rachel: Harvey, the last man that they appointed to protect the republic was named Caesar and he never gave up his power.

Dent: Okay, fine. You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Caesar was one of three members of the First Triumvirate. I wonder if Nolan had this in mind with this exchange near the end of the film:

Batman: You don’t wanna hurt the boy, Harvey.

Dent: lt’s not about what I want, it’s about what’s fair! You thought we could be decent men
in an indecent time. But you were wrong. The world is cruel. And the only morality
in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair. His son’s got the same chance she had. Fifty-fifty.

Batman: What happened to Rachel wasn’t chance. We decided to act. We three.

“We three.” Another Triumvirate.

Today marks the Feast of the Holy Innocents, founded upon the bloody Christmas story recounted in Matthew’s Gospel:

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” (2:13-18 ESV)

As documented in The Christian Almanac, “Virtually every culture in antiquity was stained with the blood of innocent children.” The Romans, Greeks, Persians, Chinese, Ancient Hindus and Arabs, Polynesians, and Primitive Canaanites all had various means and reasons for murdering (aborting) unwanted children. “Because they had been mired by the minions of sin and death it was as instinctive as the autumn harvest for them to summarily sabotage their own heritage. They saw nothing particularly cruel about despoiling the fruit of their wombs. It was woven into the very fabric of their culture. They believed that it was completely justifiable. They believed that it was just and good and right.

“The gospel therefore came into the world as a stern rebuke. God, who is the giver of life (Acts 17:25). the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9), and the defender of life (Psalm 27:1), not only sent us the message of life (Acts 5:20) and the words of life (John 6:68), He sent us the light of life as well (John 8:12). He sent us His only begotten Son – the life of the world (John 6:51) – to break the bonds of sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:54-56). For God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16)” (758).

In Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, Ebeneezer Scrooge visits the Cratchit family with the Second Spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present. Bob Cratchit and his son, Tiny Tim, have just returned from church on Christmas Day, and Mrs. Cratchit asks, “And how did little Tim behave?” “‘As good as gold,’ said Bob, ‘and better. Somehow, he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.’”

To borrow from Tiny Tim, as we think about the children and adults murdered in Newtown, CT last week, it would be good to remember upon Christmas Day the Savior who was born to raise the dead and swallow up death in victory.

From John Calvin’s comments on Matthew 26:56: “While all things are mingled in confusion, and while the devil, by spreading darkness abroad, appears to overturn the whole order of the world, let us know that the providence of God shines above in heaven, to bring at length to order what is confused; and let us, therefore, learn to raise the eyes of faith to that calm sky.”

This Sunday is “Reformation Sunday” in Protestant circles, and one of the primary ways that we will celebrate the Holy Spirit’s work in the Church during this period is by the psalms and hymns that we will sing. Of course, Martin Luther is a central figure, not only for nailing his 95 Theses to the door of The Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, but also for the efforts that he made to reform the liturgy of the church, particularly the music. Famously he wrote “A Mighty Fortress Is our God,” which has become known as the “Battle Hymn of the Reformation.” While we probably think of the Lutheran chorales that emerged as being “slow, solemn, and heavy,” they were originally written “to be lively, energetic tunes, sung in unison with great enthusiasm” (Roff, Let Us Sing, 50). Of course, we’ll be singing the jazzy, rhythmic version of this great hymn.

Musical reformation was also central to the work of John Calvin, particularly in relation to the psalmody of the church. We’ll be singing “I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art,” an original hymn of the Strassburg Psalter which Calvin published in 1539 while ministering to the French refugees in that city. Later, when in Geneva, Switzerland, Louis Bourgeois joined Calvin, and acted as a composer and editor for the Genevan Psalter, which was completed in 1562. One of Bourgeois’ most famous tunes is RENDEZ A DIEU, which we will sing with the text of “Give Thanks unto the Lord, Jehovah” (based on parts of Psalm 118). Claude Goudimel would later add the harmonies to the Genevan Psalter, from which we will be singing Psalm 100, and the latter half of Psalm 68. If “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is the “Battle Hymn of the Reformation,” then Psalm 68 is arguably the “Battle Psalm of the Reformation.” In a sermon on Psalm 68, Pastor Rob Rayburn provides the following context:

There is something to be said for singing this text to the same tune by which it has been known for centuries, for this is a psalm with a past! That, of course, can be said about all the psalms, as we have been making a point of saying week by week in our studies. All of them have their place in the history of Christian life and devotion through the ages. But it is particularly true of this psalm. Even before the Reformation, before anyone had begun to translate the Psalms into metrical verses and years before Matthäus Greiter had written his tune, this 68th psalm was chanted by Savonarola and his fellow Dominicans as they marched to the grand piazza of Florence where they were to meet their trial by fire. The year was 1497. The Italian Reformer’s preaching had been more than the corrupt Roman establishment could bear and they condemned the good man to death. And he met that death with the strength that only faith, and faith sustained by such a psalm as the 68th, can supply.

But, a few decades later, when the Reformation broke over the church the same psalm sustained the legions of Christians who were now exposed to suffering and persecution for advocating the return to a biblical faith. And the 68th played its great role in strengthening their faith as well. As I have told you before, the psalm became known, especially as a result of its use by the French Huguenots, as The Protestant Psalm of Battles. Listen to this from one scholar of the Calvinist Reformation, that is, in particular the Reformation in French and English speaking Europe.

‘The Calvinist Reformers were led by a militant aristocracy and financed by a wealthy bourgeoisie. They put up long and frequently successful battles. Yet the leadership and finance could not have won the day had the individual Calvinists not possessed, to quote Cromwell,‘a conscience of what they were doing.’ In many cases, they won their battles or retrieved those they had lost, not through generalship nor through greater economic power, but because of superior morale. In building up and maintaining this morale, the battle hymns of the Psalter played a conspicuous part.’ [W. Stanford Reid, The Battle Hymns of the Lord: Calvinist Psalmody of the Sixteenth Century, 36]

One of the Camisards, as the persecuted Protestants of the Cevennes (the hill country of southern France) were called, put it this way: ‘We flew when we heard the sound of the psalms, we flew as if with wings. We felt within us an animating ardour, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing that must have been felt to be known. However weary we might be, we thought no more of our fatigue, and grew light as soon as the psalms reached our ear.’ [In Ker, 96]

Well chief among the psalms that had that ennobling and nerving effect on the believers of the time was the 68th. I’ve told you before that the story goes that the authorities were so unnerved by the confident singing of Psalm 68 by the Protestant party that they outlawed it. Public singing has often been a means of carrying a message into the streets and stamping it upon the public consciousness (think of “We Shall Overcome” in the Civil Rights Movement). And so it was in the Reformation (STUDIES IN THE PSALMS No. 14 Psalm 68 April 18, 2004).

The reformation of music would continue, and in the 1600s notable hymn writers and composers such as Johann Cruger and Paul Gerhardt would supply the church with a treasure trove of hymns. Joachim Neander, “called the greatest of all German-Calvinist Reformed hymn writers,” is probably most famous for “Praise Ye the Lord, the Almighty” (101 Hymn Stories, Osbeck, 209). We will be singing “Wondrous King, All-Glorious,” for which he wrote the text and music.

I am looking forward to celebrating the Reformation, particularly through the musical heritage that we have received as a result. Come and join us.

The rake leans against the tree
Waiting for a pair of hands
To sweep fall’s confetti
Of oranges, yellows, and reds;
The sun’s frozen imprints.
Graceful embers tumbling
In the mischievous breeze,
Composing a burnished collage
Of winter’s prelude upon the ground;
Summer’s parade having passed.

Isaiah 65:17-19: For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. ¹⁹ I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

Charles Spurgeon, in a sermon on the above text, stated, “Did you ever regret the absence of the burnt-offering, or the red heifer, or anyone of the sacrifices and rites of the Jews? Did you ever pine for the feast of tabernacle, or the dedications? No, because, though these were like the old heavens and earth to the Jewish believers, they have passed away, and we now live under new heavens and a new earth, so far as the dispensation of divine teaching is concerned. The substance is come, and the shadow has gone: and we do no remember it.”

Last weekend I had the privilege and pleasure of attending Hutchmoot 2012. Putting the experience into words is no small feat, and any attempt on my part to do so would result in certain failure. The previous two Hutchmoots were wonderful in their own right, but I cannot remember being as utterly exhausted in the past as I was this year. (Based on Facebook posts, I wasn’t the only one dragging on Monday, taking catnaps, or falling asleep early that night). A sick two-year old and an eight-month old may have been contributing factors to being more tired going into Hutchmoot this year, but there is also a weariness that can come from trying to soak in so much truth, beauty, and goodness.

The sessions were rich, and though I wished I could have attended others (where’s a time-turner when you need one?), I am not sure how I could have absorbed much more. Having concerts three nights in a row was amazing, and Evie’s cooking was a partaking of her love and God’s love as manifest in the harvest of the earth and the fruit of the vine. But even more, the stories that I heard from fellow brothers and sisters amidst the fellowship shared around tables was, perhaps, the most encouraging aspect of the weekend. I heard of brothers doing a marvelous work for the poor in Modesto, CA. I heard of families seeking to be faithful in the churches where God has placed them, and their desire for their children to grow in their love and knowledge of the Savior. What I heard was testimony after testimony of believers endeavoring to be faithful to Jesus their king. And when I stepped back and thought about how spread out we Hutchmooters are, and how new or small our endeavors may appear to be, I could only be encouraged and conclude: “Aslan is on the move.”

I am teaching a Bible class at The Classical Academy in Franklin, and we are presently engaged in a study of Genesis. The students are keeping reading journals to coincide with their studies, and I encouraged them to look for repetitions of words or phrases; rhythms in the text, or changes in rhythm to the text. A common refrain over the first six days of creation as recorded in Genesis 1 is, “And there was evening and there was morning….” While we typically think of a day as moving from morning to evening, the biblical text (and Hebrew mind) reverses it. This order of evening to morning pictures the movement from darkness to light. This is hardly accidental, signifying the movement from Old Creation to New Creation. Israel was governed by a lunar calendar, which symbolically means the Old Covenant took place “at night.” Since Christ has come, that has changed. Paul mentions in Colossians 2:16-17: Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Jesus is the “light of the world” (Jn. 1:4-5, 9; 8:12); the bright morning star (Rev. 22:16);the sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2), and was resurrected at the dawning of the day. We have moved from darkness to light. Paul exhorts the Thessalonian church, For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation (1 Thess. 5:5-8). As Christians living in the New Covenant we live in “the day.”

Now, back to my original point to my students about refrains and rhythms in the text. When we come to the seventh day of creation, notice what is said and what is not said: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation (Gen. 2:1-3). What is missing in this recounting of the seventh day? The refrain of the previous six days, “And there was evening and there was morning….” There is no mention of evening or darkness. In other words, the seventh day, the Sabbath, is perpetually day. This points forward to the reality that has dawned in Christ, and to the future reality of the fullness of the New Heavens and the New Earth. The writer to the Hebrews instructs, “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (4:9). This Sabbath is the Eternal Day when the glory of God and the Lamb are the source of light, and there will be no night (Rev. 21:23,25). It is when we will see His face, and night will be no more, and and we will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be our light, and we will reign forever and ever (Rev. 22:4-5). In that Day our work will be finished, the fullness of communion with our God and Savior will be realized, and we will enter into the royal rest with our King.