Parade

It's Lion Daze weekend here.

Nanna and Zoe in the shade at the parade:

Katie, Alia, and Gary watching the parade pass by:

Alia's favorite part of the parade was the CANDY:

Enthralled:

Here we come:
Maggie and Olivia are carrying the banner. Our headmaster and A Most Awesome Teacher is the short lady in the middle wearing the white hat. Most of the kids near the front of the group are graduates of the Academy.

Joey and Jake, some of the younger ones, bringing up the rear:

Cake Is Not "Easy as Pie"

The other day Maggie was practicing decorating a cake. I think we may have to find her a teacher that's not me. There are several reasons why we are more likely to eat pie than cake, and one of them is that cake decorating is an artsy kind of job ... and that is not my forte.

WWJD?

What would Jesus do?

He would be called an antinomian.

(See Mt 3:2, Mk 2: 16 & 18, Lk 11, Jn 9:16)

Interesting...

Some a Hundredfold

In the parable of the sower and the seed (Mt 13, Mk 4, Lk 8) Jesus concludes the story by saying that the seed that fell on the good soil yielded fruit: some 100-fold, some 60, and some 30.

Christians want to be in the hundredfold group.

Sometimes Christians even look down on the Christians who are only in the thirty-fold group.





Dirt can't make itself into better dirt. Dirt can't get rid of weed seeds. Dirt can't get rid of its own stoniness. Neither can people make themselves into "good soil" instead of rocky soil or a paved road or a plot of weeds/thistles. Christians believe that, right? We believe that we are dead in our sins, that we have no power to come to God on our own, that He is the one who makes us alive.

And yet, somehow, we get the impression that we can make ourselves into the kind of soil that yields 100-fold instead of 30-fold. I don't know about your gardening experiences, but the way things have worked in my backyard, it is the gardener (not the ground) that adds manure, removes rocks, pulls weeds, waters, and does whatever-gets-done to improve the soil and/or to improve the seeds' yield.

A Quote

Somebody says, "Not everybody is at the same place in his Christian walk. We can't be judgmental if God hasn't brought somebody to the same place of trusting that we are at."

So, is that a judgmental comment?

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Sometimes you notice something that sets you bouncing and squealing with delight. And then you wonder how many gazillion other subtle allusions you walk right past without noticing.


But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear Him,
and His righteousness to children's children,
to such as keep His covenant,
and to those who remember His commandments to do them. (Psalm 103:17-18)


To children's children.

God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father
and we are His true children. (Small Catechism)

To such as keep His covenant.

Drink from it all of you,
for this is My blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
(Matthew 26)

To those who remember His commandments to do them.

Neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ,
or believe in Him and take Him as our Lord,
unless these were first offered to us
and bestowed on our hearts
through the preaching of the Gospel by the Holy Spirit.
The work is finished and completed,
Christ has acquired and won the treasure for us
by His sufferings, death, and resurrection, etc.
But if the work remained hidden and no one knew of it,
it would have been all in vain, all lost.
In order that this treasure might not be buried
but put to use and enjoyed,
God has caused the Word to be published and proclaimed,
in which He has given the Holy Spirit
to offer and apply to us this treasure of salvation.
Therefore to sanctify is nothing else than
to bring us to the Lord Christ to receive this blessing,
which we could not obtain by ourselves.
(Large Catechism, Third Article)

Chariots of Clouds

The Ascension hymn calls us to see the Lord "riding on the clouds His chariot, to His heavenly palace gate." I had always thought that was a reference to the Ascension story in Acts where the disciples looked up into the sky until a cloud hid Him from their sight.

But you know what???
It's more than that!

Look at Psalm 104:3 --
He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters,
who makes the clouds His chariot,
who walks on the wings of the wind.

Christopher Wordsworth was weaving language from the Psalter in amongst his biblical imagery as he was speaking forth lovely doctrinal points too. Now, THAT is the way hymns ought to be!