The Preceder

This post originated from the annual Reformation Day (Oct. 31) celebration the SoCal Presbytery of the OPC holds at Faith OPC in Long Beach, my home town.  There is an organ.  A Mighty Fortress Is Our God resonates in your bones until you fall asleep that night.  It is a great thing.

But I am remembering a man, my father's cousin (making Uncle Mike technically my second cousin), who is a member/officer at a church that sing psalms exclusively.  Their church denomination and several other reformed denom's are invited, and a concession is given to them: we sing one psalm a capella.  Uncle Mike is the preceder, which means he hums the beginning note and then sings only the notes using his voice or a harmonica or something.  He is setting the tune and the pace for the congregants to follow.

Soldiers are singers.

David set a precedence, but Jesus sets the greatest a priori precedence when He sang our lives and the rest of the universe into existence. In fact, He is responsible for the world persisting (Col. 1-2).

Jesus sings as the captain of his troops. He is Yahweh Sabaoth, the LORD of hosts, and His hosts of angels flock to sing His arrival.

Luke 2:14-- Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!

Peace be upon you, O reader. 

Jesus is better than "reciprocity":

3/4/14

"...you'd do the same for me, right, brother?"

So saith the cyclops brother of Percy Jackson in the second film installment of the series, titled "Sea of Monsters." Appropriately, Percy Jackson, the oldest half-man demi-god heir of Poseidon, meets Tyson who turns out to be both his long-lost brother AND a cyclops, one of the notable creatures attributed to Poseidon. Remember Polyphemus and the cave and sheepies and Odysseus and his men? And the burning wood poker, and the burned out eyeball, and "NOBODY blinded me!", and Poseidon's curse upon Odysseus's journey back home?

Yeah. Poseidon has a special place in his heart for the cyclops race.

But back to "Sea of Monsters." Tyson repeats this phrase over and over throughout the film to his brother Percy. The most notable of these quotes is when Tyson takes an arrow for Percy and clutches the edge of a cliff with one hand, and they have this awkward bonding bro moment, even though their captors are LIT'RALLY two steps behind them and one has his hand around Percy's neck.  I suppose they give their captives the moment before kicking Tyson's hand off the cliff, sending him down to certain doom in the river below.

--David Hume on rights and promises.  Philosophy: Rights & Obligations

(I don't remember what analogy I was going to write.  I leave you with my unfinished notes, O reader.)

Conclusion:  Jesus shed GRACE upon us when he made incredible sacrifices for us.  We were neither his family (we Gentiles especially!), nor polite to the point of death to be heroic.  To borrow money terms, my redemption is an investment that remains and builds on itself.  It's not a short-term investment that quickly runs its course and produces dividends and then is bought and sold anew.  Jesus did not love me because "I'd do the same for him" (Fun fact:  I'm kind of a terrible person), as Tyson declared to be the basis of his heroism.  Jesus is a hero through and through. 

Why I quit.

Edit: 03/24/15

I quit writing on my blog for a few reasons.

One, the ideas I wished to flesh out into full-bodied, voluptuous, intelligent, and beautiful posts began to accumulate.  Just the thought of the fattening mound made me sick.  Even now I can feel my pulse in my left temple starting to slow with a sluggish and thickening blood pressure.  As it rises, it falls.

Two, I moved and started working stupidly early (relative to a slow and rewarding 4th year bachelor's student's schedule) and long-stretched hours.  My evenings were spent in planning for the meals and lessons of the days ahead, and my weekends were bogged down with the chores of moving and unpacking and making a home for myself.

Three, I was dating a gal.

Four, my friends in Phoenix rallied around me and I poured out my hours on them.  They are a good bunch.  They love Jesus and encourage me to develop my interests and to learn new things as I grow.  I pray I will grow old with them.

Five, I lost that first job for several reasons.  Many of those reasons were within my control, but many were also not.  God was merciful to me in dissolving that relationship, and within two weeks of searching and interviewing, he sent me to a different school.

Six, odds and ends; miscellaneous life updates.  Tutoring on Saturday mornings, dating, learning to cook, putting SO many miles on my car, a solid two weeks with my Korean family and Calvin & Rachel, singing bass, failing to sing tenor, basketball on Thursdays, Youth Group, college/career group, ASU concerts, potlucks, ultimate frisbee, boba, $1.50 movie night on Tuesdays, prayer, teaching Sunday School, making business phone calls, driving through the flood, Senor Taco, poetry, apartment hunting, hosting friends and parties, fear, iPhone, budgets, student loans, Killian's Irish Red, Four Peaks' Kilt Lifter, evening worship, and In-N-Out parties. 

Jesus is better than a guilty conscience. {Part Two}

Last edit: 01/06/2014

In what became the first half of this post, I worked through the rhetorical questions of Paul's Romans 7-8. In this second half, I'm going to look at another two passages.

Hosea 2: forgetting the names of the Baalim

For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, 
and who lavished on her silver and gold, 
which. 
they.
used. 
for.
Baal.
Therefore I will take back my grain at harvest time, and my new wine in its season.
I will also take away my wool and my flax, given to cover her nakedness...
...
I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she used to burn sacrifices to them
and adorn herself with her earrings and jewelry,
and follow her lovers
so.
that.
she.
forgot.
me, declares the LORD.
Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her.
Then I will give her her vineyards from there
and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope.
And she will sing there as in the days of her youth,
as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

It will come about in that day, declares the LORD, that you will call me Ishi [my husband] and will no longer call me Baali [my lord]. For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, so that they will be mentioned by their names no more. 

My conscience is strong, except when it's not. This much I've learned this year. But Jesus promises to purge these stains, these memories of sins. They will be mentioned by their names no more. Furthermore, the Christian no longer looks up in fear to a terrifying Baal of a God, but to the true and living God, slow to anger and overflowing with love. A husband is a lord, a sir, a master, but he is a master who dies for his bride. Who stands as head and representative and the one who dies when the family fails. A husband toils long hours and works through heavily-weeded gardens and thorns in order to create beautiful things in the sight of God. What is the fertility baal who falls on his face and cannot speak or use his arms or legs? What kind of fertility god cannot create, much less sustain the sexuality of man or the livelihood of livestock or bulls or rain or corn?

More! Jesus ransoms us to rejoice. Redemption from sin is better than redemption from bondage, for who should we fear? Those who kill the body, or the Baal who kills body and soul? Yet God does both! And he is able to redeem my soul through the thrice-executed judgment of Achan, a man under the authority of Joshua the prophet (Joshua 7), who coveted and stole some of the devoted things. He was stoned, burned, and stoned. And so were the possessions he thought he could take to the grave! Even the tragic and wrathful history of such a place can be reversed by the redemption of God.

Though the LORD is grief-stricken and deeply betrayed as a faithful husband catching his beloved bride in the act of adultery, He extends unthinkable grace, an irrational love. The LORD sees his bride pawning off her wedding ring (Hosea 2:8), and yet he woos her and brings her back into the wilderness. He brings her back to the arena of pain, of growth, of death and rebirth. And when her time of affliction has passed, when her judgment is completed, he remembers her and blesses her and makes covenant with her. Why? I don't know. She sure as hell doesn't deserve it.

Joshua had JUST seen this happen. The people had donated all their spoils of war, the bride wealth given to her by the LORD their God who plundered Egypt, towards the crafting of an idol, the golden calf. Moses, trembling with anger, contradicts Joshua: "It is not the sound of the cry of triumph nor it is the sound of the cry of defeat; but the sound of SINGING I hear" (Exodus 32:18). Moses administers the test of adultery to the people, using the golden calf and the leveled primordial-earth reminiscent "surface of the water." And about three thousand people died of the curse, and the Levites, the holy priesthood, became a curse, a scourge of God against Israel.

And this reminds me that my sin is not too heavy to drown me.  Though I would throw millstones around my own neck and cast myself into the sea, behold, you are there, LORD.  If my bed be in the depths of woe, you will hear my voice of lamentation.

"By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.  Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him."