Category: Religion

Blogs about religion.

Victimae Paschali Laudes

(This is a little note I posted on social media Easter 2011. Without going into the details, 2011 was one of the most difficult years of my life. Only the passing of my dad in 2016 surpasses it for shear grief and struggle. But even in the tough times, God is faithful – He gives hope – and is to be praised.)

I picked up the lamb for Easter yesterday, and I’m going to pull fresh herbs today and start working on the rub for it. I also got some Easter bread from Nabeel’s Market. It came with plastic eggs to put in it, but we’ll be boiling real ones for it. (By the way, yellow onion skins make an amazing and dark red dye for the eggs.) There will be more Easter goodies for Sunday. The family is coming to the house to celebrate. All this is heritage and tradition and celebration, but it’s meaningless without first of all acknowledging the true and resurrected Passover Lamb. Without Him, all else is meaningless.

The hymn Victimae Paschali Laudes, which is almost a thousand years old, presents the simple yet profound faith of believers from the first century to the twenty-first, a faith based on one person, fully man and yet fully God, who was crucified, raised from the dead, and who will one day return to judge both living and dead. Without Him, there is no hope, but through Him, and through Him alone, we have hope – we have access to the Father. To Him be praise forever.

Latin Text:

Victimae paschali laudes
immolent Christiani.
Agnus redemit oves:
Christus innocens Patri
reconciliavit peccatores.
Mors et vita duello
conflixere mirando:
dux vitae mortuus,
regnat vivus.
Dic nobis Maria,
quid vidisti in via?
Sepulcrum Christi viventis,
et gloriam vidi resurgentis:
Angelicos testes,
sudarium, et vestes.
Surrexit Christus spes mea:
praecedet suos in Galilaeam.
Scimus Christum surrexisse
a mortuis vere:
tu nobis, victor Rex,
miserere.
Amen. Alleluia.

English Translation:

May you praise the Paschal Victim,
immolated for Christians.
The Lamb redeemed the sheep:
Christ, the innocent one,
has reconciled sinners to the Father.
A wonderful duel to behold,
as death and life struggle:
The Prince of life dead,
now reigns alive.
Tell us, Mary Magdalen,
what did you see in the way?
I saw the sepulchre of the living Christ,
and I saw the glory of the Resurrected one:
The Angelic witnesses,
the winding cloth, and His garments.
The risen Christ is my hope:
He will go before His own into Galilee.
We know Christ to have risen
truly from the dead:
And thou, victorious King,
have mercy on us.
Amen. Alleluia.

Eternity Began Tonight (from August 16, 2009)

It was so special tonight seeing my babies baptized. Nick was funny. He’d listened to Pastor Rick and my dad about locking one arm with the other hand and holding his nose. He walked up to the baptistery in this position. In fact, we could hardly get him in the water because of the pose. I wanted to roll. Olivia was nervous. She told her mom something about being so nervous that she wasn’t sure she could walk to the baptistery. But they both made it into the water, down, and up again. It was precious and humorous, but it was more than that.

Baring Christ return, at some point we will be separated from each other, but it will be temporary because of Christ death, burial, and resurrection that we were portraying in the baptismal experience. We will never be separated from Christ. He will never leave or forsake us but will go with us all the way.
During praise and worship, somehow it was different tonight. I sensed Christ in such a unique way. He was Savior – from the foundation – for me. I knew I would see Him someday, that I would, indeed, be in His presence. My children had accepted Him as Savior. We would be together in His presence forever. My dad had baptized them. As a family we would enjoy His presence forever. These are things that I knew, and had known, but had never put them in the same context. It wasn’t abstract. It was real. In reality, eternity had begun already.

We sang a Hillsong chorus “Worthy is the Lamb.” There’s a line in it that always moves me, but more so tonight. The Son, very God of very God, eternally existing with and eternally loved by the Father, was the “Darling of Heaven.” He was loved above all by the Father, but He came and the Father allowed Him to be abused and hurt and maligned and so debased that I don’t have the words. He, in the form of sinful man, could have with a whisper ended it all; instead He suffered the pain and indignity for my babies, for my dad, for me, for whosoever will.

How could I not bow and love Him, worshipping at His feet? How could I avoid those eyes of love? Why would I?

God “ain’t” through until He says so.

God “ain’t” through until He says so. Society can tell you that you’re finished. Your family can tell you that you don’t matter. Your body might even tell you, no. But don’t listen to anyone except the One who called you according to His purpose.

Gideon was from the small tribe of Manasseh. His family was poor, and he was the least among them. Yet he became an innovative military leader and delivered Israel.

David’s father didn’t even think enough of him to call him in from the field, yet the prophet could not crown a king of Israel until the least in the family was presented to him.

Joseph’s brothers threw him out, expecting never to see him again. But God exalted him to power and through him saved the family that had discounted and discarded him.

Abraham and Sarah became the parents to the child of promise when they were well beyond the age when their bodies should have allowed them to become parents. But God’s Spirit made alive that which was dead in the flesh and gave them a son and made them the ancestors of Messiah.

Don’t count yourself out when God hasn’t.

I have somewhat against thee.

2:1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; 2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: 3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. 4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. 5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. (Rev 2:1-5, KJV)

I almost began with we, but I should speak only for myself and say I. So…

I can be guilty of doing all the right things, of being orthodox in my beliefs and correct in my values, of even being passionate about doing the right things and “contending for the faith,” but at the same time forget to be passionate, not just about my faith, but about the one who is the “Author and Finisher of my faith.”

Now, since I am passionate about truth, I acknowledge that this passage is addressed to a church, not just an individual believer, so I won’t address the warning of removing the candlestick, whether this can be applied to an individual’s salvation in the same way it can to a corporate body of believers. What I will say is that I am guilty and need to repent, to turn around, and draw closer to the one that has promised to in return draw close to me. Father, forgive me. Holy Spirit, teach me. Savior, help me walk with you daily, whether into battle or beside the still waters. I crave your fellowship. I love you, Lord, my first love.

I know that sometimes public declarations of private passion are saccharin or self-serving. Well, I’m running the risk because confession is good for the soul – my soul.

New Cars

I hate it when the new and shiny wears off. The first dint or ding is the worst. But, after that you quit worrying about the image and focus on what counts, transportation. If it gets you from here to there, it has done its job. Maybe you have to pull through tall grass or mud or even gravel or new asphalt on your journey. If you continued to worry about the smooth shiny surface, you might take the road more traveled by and instead of the one “least traveled by” and would have missed “all the difference.” (My apologies to Mr. Frost for messing with his poem.) So, thank God for dings. It’s His way of saying get beyond the surface and get to traveling. (Proverbs 27:17)

Daddy, why’s this sock in my drawer?

“Daddy, why’s this sock in my drawer”? I love it when they call me Daddy. I’ve learned more about the love of God and how it mediates His righteous anger in the few years since I became a dad than I did in the almost 40 years before. (Yep, I started late.) It’s not that I don’t get angry – and with cause. See, for example, my note about wanting to put them on e-Bay after they filled their room with beanbag pellets. But I took the picture of the room, all the while still very unhappy, to say the least, knowing that eventually love would overcome anger.

Isn’t that what God does for us? He picks us up out of our mess – that we’ve made – and He’s not always happy about it, I’m sure. But He picks us up, knowing His love will overcome His righteous anger and that He’ll clean up the mess, just like I did with the beanbag pellets.

I figure God likes being called “Abba Father” even more than we like saying it, as awesome as that is, for the same reason I love hearing silly, little questions like “Daddy, why’s this sock in my drawer?”

Sometimes I wake up and can’t sleep.

Sometimes I wake up early and can’t sleep. I’m not so holy that I’m compelled to wake up early and pray. I just tend to have insomnia. So, this morning when I work up at 5 a.m., after having slept only about five hours, my mind began to ponder. I thought about the wet and the cold and that silly mimosa tree that had grown up into my neglected flower bed. I thought about one thing and then another. Finally, and I don’t know why, I began to think about Christ as he entered into the Heavenly Tabernacle and presented His own sinless blood on the Mercy Seat before God the Father.

So, let me say to my skeptical friends, yes, I believe this. What human priests did for centuries were merely, as scripture says, a shadow of what Christ finally did “once for all.” This said then, if Christ were “slain from the foundation of the world,” then the Mercy Seat in the Heavenly Tabernacle must have been prepared waiting for eons of eternity past. This raises a question in my sleepy mind: How many times “before iniquity was found” in him did Lucifer walk past it, not sure what it was or its purpose, since until man sinned there was probably not even a hint of its value.

I can imagine him in that time before time walking by, maybe wondering about it periodically, other times not even noticing it. But it was there. And in the Father’s mind, the true significance of it was clear and remained. Had Lucifer asked about it, maybe he could have been warned about his own future fall and possibly kept his pride in check. Probably not. Or, did he look at it and think what a useless piece of furniture God had put in such a prominent place and then question God’s wisdom, after all. More likely. And how often do we do the same thing?

Are there things that God has placed in our lives, maybe even before we were born, that make no sense to us and cause us to wonder at God’s wisdom, though we might not want to admit this to ourselves? Has God put things in MY life that I walk around daily and ignore or treat with contempt? The Heavenly Mercy Seat is one of a kind, placed in Heaven and prepared to receive Christ’s sacrifice “from the foundation of the earth.” Likewise, Lord, show me the unique things in my life that you have ordained but that I ignore or question. Help me not to rearrange the furniture or put in a yard sale those things that you have placed with a purpose. Please don’t let me walk around something for my whole life, thinking You’ve given something a prominent place needlessly. Forgive me my arrogance and help me to “humble [myself] under the mighty hand of God” and just leave the furniture where you’ve placed it and learn its value and purpose.

And now that I think about it, maybe my life-long insomnia could be there for a reason. Maybe I don’t fall asleep right off or wake up not because I’m so holy but because I’m not. Maybe I need to take advantage of the early hours of quiet, leave the TV off, and spend time with my Heavenly Father since His Son’s sacrifice has made it possible for me to cry out “Abba Father.” So that’s what that thing is for. I gotta go. I need to talk to my Father. Maybe there’s something else I’ve been ignoring that I need. In fact, I’m sure there is.

Precious Memories IN THE MORNING

Folks, sometimes life can, well, really suck. (Can I say that?) But for those times, I’ve learned to draw on my memories of better times. For example, I was trading emails with an old college buddy this week. We both marched in the Jacksonville State University Marching Southerners “back in the day.” (You may now be in awe that I was a member of such an auspicious group.) He and I agreed that good memories, especially those of special times in our lives, are a gift and resource from God to sustain us through tough times. In fact, I don’t think it’s wrong to equate this with God’s command to Israel to set up monuments of remembrance for themselves individually as well as nationally to call to mind His blessings of the past. He said more than once something like “when your children ask… tell them.” So, I show my children pictures on Facebook of the Marching Southerners and old college friends. I was truly blessed to be a part of this group and have lifelong friends because of it. And the memories are not just “glory days” reminiscences. Instead, they are reminders in tough times that there were blessings in my life and that there are promises for the future. Now, I’m not about to break into a refrain of “precious memories, how they linger…” But, I might just lean back sing “I’ll fly away IN THE MORNING!” (Sorry folks, inside joke for all my 5,000 plus Southerners alum buddies.)

So, if you’re in a tough place in life, think back over where you’ve been and the good things and family and friends that God has put in your life. And if life is pretty good at the moment, then get off of that silly computer and get out there, live, do something, and make some memories for the future!

Out of the Mouth of Babes

This is from several years ago when my kids were younger and I drove them to school daily. I miss those days, the laughter, and the lessons.

Scripture tells us that out of the mouth of babes comes perfected praise. This is related to the idea that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. I think this because babes just say whatever is in their hearts or minds, unfiltered, without reservation or self-editing. We mature adults, on the other hand, filter our prayers to make us sound better, forgetting that God looks on the heart more than He listens to the words. But, that’s a deep lesson for another day. Now, I’d also like to suggest that out of the mouth of babes God has perfected humor.

I pray with my children at night and everyday on the way to school. Some of the most beautiful and heart-felt prayers have come out of their mouths, which is one reason I like to hear them pray aloud. And sometimes they’re just plain funny, especially my son’s. A few weeks ago our Spanish and Portuguese speaking neighbors to the south along with the home of Calhoun and the seat of Southern rebellion were blessed. Nick was closing his prayer. He typically prays a very encompassing prayer. But he often has a unique twist on the God-bless-everyone approach. In his conclusion he prayed, “And God bless South America and South Carolina.” Today, he was even more encompassing in his prayer. Today, the solar system is blessed, in particular Venus and Mars, as he prayed God’s blessing on this corner of the cosmos. You can’t make this stuff up. You just have to enjoy it when it comes. So I smiled inside and said an amen to his prayer.

As a father, on one hand I want to direct him to focus his prayers and think about specific needs of others, as well as his own. But, on the other hand, you never know when out of the mouth of babes God has perfected praise, or in this case prayer, and just possibly the gravitational pull of one of our neighboring planets was intensified because of his prayer just enough to deflect a killer asteroid from a collision path with earth. I’m not out there in space. But God sees all and in His mysteries could have prompted the prayer to move something more than Dad’s face into a smile.

Jesus said not to forbid the little children from coming to Him. Moreover, we must become like a child to enter the Kingdom. Maybe it could be that as I try to focus my child’s prayer with my mature, adult thinking, instead I should listen and learn and expand my own narrow prayers. So, God bless Mars and Venus.

One for my Pocket

This is a memory from some years ago.

I was doing a little bit of laundry in the morning before anyone else got up. I couldn’t sleep and knew I needed some blue jeans for the day. As I was putting some of my things to wash, I grabbed a few pair of pants belonging to the kids. I learned long ago that many things go in pants pockets that don’t necessarily need to go in a washing machine. As I cleaned out the pockets of Olivia’s shorts, I found three individually wrapped Life Savers that she had taken from the candy bowl in my office.

My colleagues and I keep hard candy of various sorts on our desks at work. It’s there free for students or any other guests who come to the office. Most ask before taking a piece. Some don’t, realizing it’s there for them. My regulars, such as other faculty members or students who have taken a number of classes with me, will with ease lift a piece or two out of the bowl and crunch away as we talk, never hesitating to enjoy what has been freely provided for them. The candy is clearly out there for the taking as a gesture of hospitality.

My children have a different relationship with my candy bowl. I try to monitor their sugar intake because too much sugar is just not healthy. Also, if we’re passing through the office on the way to lunch or something, I don’t want them filling up on empty calories. So, they’ve learned to ask before taking candy from the bowl. But even though they have to ask, there is yet a different relationship that they have with the candy because of the relationship they have with me. That’s Daddy’s candy. And if it’s Daddy’s, then it’s potentially theirs in a different kind of way than it is for anyone else.

Here’s how the candy bowl rules developed. Early on they learned only one piece at a time was all I would allow them. Our exchange would go something like this.

“May I have some candy?”

“Yes, but only one.”

“Please…” and the pleading for additional sugar to rot their teeth would begin. Eventually, they figured out a subtler tactic.  

“Could I have one now and one for my pocket?”

I relented to this request. It became the pattern. They could have one now and one for their pocket, which sometimes turned out to be as many ones as their little pockets could hold. This is how the three pieces ended up in Olivia’s pocket.

I’ve said before I’ve learned more about God since I became a parent than in the years before. Here, too, I see my Heavenly Father. Several things come to mind.

If it’s His, it’s mine. But I do need to ask. He knows better what and when and how I need His blessings, but still I often have not because I ask not.

Second, I don’t have to take just one blessing from the bowl. I can take one, or many, for my pocket. For example, if it’s wisdom I need, James tells me God gives liberally. In fact, in many areas of our Christian walk God has a pocket full of blessings, but we fail to stuff our pockets.

Third, we need to check our spiritual pockets more often. As I said, I found three hard mints in Olivia’s pockets that morning. They were blessing from her Dad’s candy bowl, waiting to be eaten and enjoyed. But she had stuffed them in her little pocket and gone on with her day, forgetting about them at some point. Eventually they ended up in the laundry and in this little blurb.

I looked through my pockets that morning and discovered they were full and running over also. I counted so many wonderful blessings, including two precious kids who were still asleep just down the hall. That’s two pieces of candy right there. I have a Christian heritage of parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents who poured themselves into me. I have a pastor and several mentors in the faith, including some who have now passed to their reward, who also have given of themselves for my spiritual sweet tooth. That’s a pocket full!! And the list could go on of friends and family and colleagues and sunshine and flowers and…. and of the Holy Spirit that will lead me and comfort me and assure me that all of the candy in the bowl is for me, and I have permission to take some for my pocket. I just need to remember to fill my pockets more often and enjoy the blessings He has so richly and freely provided.

Now if I could only find something spiritual about the dehydrated earthworm I found in Nick’s pocket.

Well, enjoy your day and check your pockets. You never know what goodies from God you’ve stuck there and forgotten about.