Forensic Justification

Some of us do not want to emphasize forensic justification.  "Oh, there's so much more to it than that.  That's an old-fashioned model.  Let's get beyond that."

But as we heard in Bible class last week, there's courtroom talk all through John and Paul:
witnessing
testimony
testifying
truth
paying the penalty.

That's sounds pretty forensic to me.

Cilantro

Fresh cilantro.  Mmmmm.  Maybe that's what heaven will smell like. 

Biblical Numbers

They may be cool, but are they important? 

They must be.  Between Jesus' ascension and Pentecost, the apostles decided they needed to replace Judas.  WHY?

For some reason, these guys knew that eleven wasn't an okay number.  There were supposed to be twelve.  (Okay, so they didn't get it that there was a twelfth, and God would send Paul along in due time.  That's irrelevant for the moment.)  Regardless of who the twelfth would be, they knew that something about the twelveness was important. 

I'm betting that there are other numbers that are more important than I can understand too.

This Is Serious Stuff

So, is fussiness a bad thing?  I've often noticed the particular care my pastor takes with the items on the altar after communion.  He sets the vessels in just the right place.  He makes sure the veil is neat and straight and the corners are folded just so. 

Some people might find that to be too picky.  But it sends a message (although I'm pretty sure that's not why he does it).  It sends a message that these things matter.  That this is serious stuff.  That this is not to be rushed through.  That something precious and important is happening here.

An article in Touchstone (hat tip: Rick Stuckwisch) illustrated the difference between the pastor and the soldiers at a military funeral.  The pastor was a little casual.  The soldiers were precise in executing their military rites. 

At the late service on Good Friday, the final distribution hymn ended a big fat minute or two (or three?) before Pastor was done at the altar.  Silence.  We waited.  We watched.  The silence continued.  He was taking his usual pains with making sure everything was just so.  More silence.

Earlier in the evening, we'd heard the Passion According to St John.  At the very end of the story, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus' body in linen and laid Him in the tomb.  And there was Pastor, ever-so-carefully draping the linen over the vessels where Jesus' body and blood had been minutes before. 

I was not the only one who had to brush away a tear.

Did it matter?  Would Jesus have been any less there, any less forgiving, had Pastor been hastier and more casual?  No. 

But it still matters.
The careful attention-to-detail confesses something about what's happening there, in that place, at that time, through that bread and that wine.  It confesses something about what that bread and wine IS.

And what do we confess when we hurry through and are okay with sloppiness?

Prom

School Tour

Kids tour colleges they're considering, right?  It's not as common to tour high schools, largely because most people don't consider the options and then make a choice.  Well, Maggie and I toured our local public high school yesterday.

There are a lot of nice things about it.  Most of the classrooms have many huge windows!  I also like the block scheduling they use: instead of 8 classes per day, taken all year, kids take 4 classes per day and finish the whole course in a semester.

There is a policeman who spends his days at the school.  I have mixed feelings about that.  It's creepy that it's considered necessary.  And yet, if it is necessary, I guess it's good he's right there.

The guidance counselor has worked with homeschoolers before.  He's worked with special-needs kids before.  He's never worked with a special-needs homeschooler transferring in.  So if we do this, we're breaking new ground.  He also reminded me that Maggie could take one class at the high school if we preferred that over full-time enrollment.  That's something to consider, although the transportation would probably be a problem. 

The hallways are full of posters promoting environmentalism.  (And no, I ought not be surprised.  My logical head knew it would be that way.  But I was still surprised by how many posters!)

There's no microwave in the school cafeteria for nuking lunches.  Either buy lunch there (which doesn't look like a good plan, from what we saw on the menus) or take a cold lunch.

Classes start at 7:25.  In the morning!  The school bus picks up at 6:30.  This would mean Maggie should be hitting the hay around 8:00 if she goes to school next year.  Yikes!

The hallways and the classrooms seemed bright and cheery.  But not in the special-ed area of the school.  No windows in those classrooms.  Small rooms.  Darker rooms.  Drearier hallway.  That seems wrong.

Maggie and I are both finding ourselves in this weird Land of Unknowing.  On the one hand, we're talking about next year as if she's going to school -- what classes she'll take, what to do about lunch, how she'll figure out her locker combination, etc.  And yet we're also assuming that we'll go on with homeschooling -- looking forward to APT next fall, considering which curricula we'll use for various subjects, thinking about fieldtrips and volunteering at the library, etc.  It's strange to be expecting both mutually-exclusive things to happen.  Hopefully we'll know a lot more after next week's big meeting.

Can You Punish AND Forgive?

Somehow I always had the idea that forgiveness meant that you wouldn't be punished.  "I forgive you" meant that you wouldn't have to stay after school, or wouldn't have to pay for the broken window, or wouldn't have to go to jail.

I don't think I'm the only one with that idea.

After all, look at the judicial system.  Listen to the media.  The criminal is really really sorry for what he did.  Because he's sorry, that means he should be forgiven.  And of course, "forgiveness" means that he won't have to be incarcerated.  Right?  Wrong.

We tend to do the same thing with kids.  How often have you heard parents say, "But I can't spank him now.  He said he was sorry, and I forgave him!" 

First problem with that is that you'll raise a brat who learns to lie about Being Sorry. 

Second problem is that a kid learns that punishment means he's not forgiven.  Oooh.  Ick.  Do we want to teach that lesson?  Heck, no.  But when we [as a society or as parents or as teachers] do refrain from punishing a kid who's truly sorry, what happens to that same kid when punishments come later, at another time?  Does that mean Daddy doesn't forgive me this time? 

And worse, do we conclude that when bad stuff happens, it means that God doesn't forgive?

Certainty

Luther's always talking about "certainty."  Again and again, he says that thus-and-such cannot be true, because if it were true we would have no certainty.

I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why "but then we would have no certainty" meant X-ing out an argument without further consideration.  Wasn't that just wishful thinking?  "Hey, I want to be certain of my salvation.  I want to be certain that I am God's child.  And if we can't hang onto our certainty, then let's just ditch that idea!  After all, we can't let it mess up my certainty."

So I finally asked.  "Where does the Bible tell us that God wants us to be certain?  I don't see a passage like that anywhere."

And the answer?  "I have called you by name; you are Mine.  Does that sound iffy to you?  I forgive you all your sins.  Is that conditional?  As far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your transgressions from you.  That sounds like God really means it, like He's certain.  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Any chance there might be some condemnation for you?  No?  Well, that sounds pretty certain to me."  As the Bible verses poured forth, it became clear.

If God tells the truth, then, by-gum, we can be certain.

Murder and Lies

Jesus told the Pharisees, You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.  He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  (John 8:44)

If God's word is truth,
and if God's word gives life,

then Satan's lies about doctrine
is how he murders.




His murder "from the beginning" was what he said to Eve: "Did God really say ...?"

Update

This is the Weekend Of The Crazy.  Andrew's done with spring semester except for one final on Monday.  Prom is this weekend, so that means Maggie & Andrew at a party last night, Bryce here for the weekend, and Andrew at the dance tonight.

Katie and family moved this week, and I have done nothing to help.  Well, ... other than watch the girls on Thursday.  That was a fun day.

Maggie worked at the fish fry at church last night, attended the concert, spent the night with Olivia, and helped with church's clean-up day this morning.

Gary substitute preaches at one church tonight and at a different church tomorrow (both a 40-minute drive away).

It's museum-swap weekend, which means we can get in free to a museum we want to visit but don't have a museum membership for.  We really should go.  I really want to go.  But I don't function well when I try to squeeze in too many activities.

Monday Maggie and I are set up to visit the local high school, just to get a feel for it, in case we find their IEP* offer sounds like it would be necessary.

I need to go dig in the garden so the tomatoes can get started on their growing.  (But there's schoolwork, and housecleaning, and goofing off on the computer....)




*IEP = Individualized Educational Program

Interactions with the School

So I've been trying to ask for a few years what the special-ed program at our local public school is like.  They wouldn't talk to me until we had Maggie evaluated.  Okay, so when I tried to make an appointment this spring for an evaluation, they first told me they couldn't even evaluate her until I enrolled her.  After my spending hours of reading statues and regulations and preparing to show them what their legal duty was, they figured it out on their own that I was right.  So we began to set up the evaluation.

Now I know why there are legal time limits on how soon the school is required to get this finished. 

It was weeks before I heard back after they mailed the letter saying there would be an evaluation.  I had to call them several times, asking why I hadn't heard from them.  (And if you know me, you know that I always wait too long, always give people the benefit of the doubt for their pokey response-times.)  Now I'm trying to make an appointment for a tour of the school.  And nobody is responding to my phone calls. 

If this is the kind of response (or lack of response!) I'm getting as a school-shopper, what kind of response will I get once we've decided to enroll a kid?  Don't salesmen usually put on their best behavior, their quickest response times, their nicest charms, when they're trying to gain a customer?

Lars and the Real Girl

Upon the recommendations of several people, we put Lars and the Real Girl onto our Netflix queue.  Because of the plot description, however, we kept bumping it further down the queue.  We'd watch movies, and over time, Lars would climb back to the top of the list.  Then we'd send it back down to #50 or so.  That happened several times.

Last week the movie arrived in the mailbox.  Oops.  Our list-monitoring slipped through our fingers there for a couple of weeks.  So we went ahead and watched the movie.

Oh. My. Goodness.

It was the best thing I've seen in ages.  It is NOT what you expect, given the premise.  I want so badly to muse upon the story here, but it's the kind of movie that I don't want to ruin for anyone.  (How often do you watch a movie that you honestly have no idea where they're going to go with it?)

It's a movie about love.  It's a movie about mental illness.  It's a movie about family.  One person described it as warm and funny and yet painful.  Yes.  It's sweet in so many ways!

Devotional Materials versus The Bible

Maybe you've heard it too.  In my past, authorities would often say that we should focus on the Bible.  They didn't say it was wrong to use devotional writings, but that the Bible was what was important.   And they've certainly got a point.

But if Jesus says that it's important not only that He suffer, die, and rise again, but also that this be preached (Luke 24), maybe that's part of the point of devotional writings.   For example, there are sections of Luther in his Galatians commentary, or pages of Day by Day, which are sweet as can be!  And these passages take Scripture and expound upon it, driving home the "for you" nature of what's in the Bible. 

These writings aren't "versus" Bible-reading, no matter what that Sunday School teacher told me way-back-when.

Stuffed Brain

Writing helps me think.  Writing helps me solve problems.  Writing helps me wind down. Writing helps keep me sane.  (Or at least helps me fake sanity.)

My blogging recently has been shallow.  There are all sorts of topics I want to write about, but they would take time.  It doesn't take long to write, but it does take time to think things through before writing them.  And I don't have time to think these days.  (No time to think?  Gasp!)  And then ideas sit in my mind, piling up, befuddling me, being jumbled with other piles-of-ideas.  And it all leaves my blog in a boring state, t'boot.

Y'know how you feel so much better after you've cleared the kitchen counters, or cleaned the bedroom, or organized that closet?  Getting rid of clutter feels great!  Well, I could use a week with no responsibilities except for straightening out my brain. After all, clutter there needs to be thinned and put in order too.

Sheer Hosiery

Remember "tights"?  Winter tights were like thick socks that little girls wore, but they went all the way up to your tummy instead of just up to your knees.  Summer tights were much thinner than winter tights, but still much thicker than the nylons that Grown-Ups (tm) wore. 

In recent years I've been noticing "sheer" on the labels of panty hose.  Sheer, huh?  Aren't they ALL sheer?  Apparently not.  I finally figured out one of the reasons for the opaque hose: they hide tattoos.  (Boy, the things I've learned in the last year.) 

How to Keep the Law

So there's the active obedience of Christ.  He followed rules.  He did what He was supposed to do.  And there's the passive obedience of Christ.  He took the punishment that the law demanded. 

You want to make God happy with how you obey the law?  You can try and try and try.  You can do your darnedest to follow the rules.  You might even do a bang-up job of it!  But you're not going to do it absolutely totally perfectly, every single day of your life.  After all, there was that naughtiness one day when you were learning to crawl, which you might not remember, but your mom will.  And what does the law demand for that?  Yup, "the wages of sin is death." 

So the only way to keep the law would be to spend eternity in hell, if only in payment for those occasional slip-ups.  If you don't suffer eternally, then you didn't do what the law demanded, did you?  But if you have to spend eternity in hell to fulfill the law's demands, then you can't enjoy God's company in heaven, because you're in hell, and .... oh ... phooey, ... there's just no way to do it!

Exactly.

That's just how STUCK we are when we want to earn heaven.  It's an impossibility, an inescapable conundrum.   

But with God, all things are possible.   Who will set me free from this body of death?  Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ! 



Keeping the law. 
It's not just about doing everything right. 
It's mainly about living through the punishment.

A Quick Run-down of Recent Events

My sister's baby was born.  He was a few weeks early and spent time in NICU because he just can't seem to stay warm.

Gary's mom was hospitalized the same week Matthew was born.

I'm subbing at work again this week, third week out of four.  Next week I think I'm back to a more manageable number of hours.

Lots of rain.  Garden is still on hold for the sake of mud.

Katie and Nathan and girls are moving to a new apartment later this month.

Maggie has testing next week at the public school.  We have an IEP meeting planned for the end of the month.  Then we have to decide what to do with their recommendations.

Andrew finishes his spring semester at the end of next week.  Then he and Olivia are going to prom that weekend.

I'm finishing up two different editing projects. 

Gary had some interviews regarding a different position with the company he works for.

And a lot of other stuff that is important, but not so succinct ....

"But I Heard What You Said"

I'm trying not to be paranoid.

There are people who are nice to me.  At least, they're nice to my face.  But I hear them talk behind other people's backs ... and be nice to their face.

So why should I think they're not talking about me behind my back?

It makes me want to clam up and hide in self-defense, so as not to give them any more ammunition.

Strawberries

I guess we'll be buying them this year instead of eating delectable homegrown ones.  

After that warm spell in early March, the weather seemed to go into refrigeration mode.  My strawberry plants didn't know what to make of it.  After lots of pruning away last year, they needed to replenish themselves, but haven't been able to.  When I checked the patch today, I saw that the plants were already blooming and quite a few of the strawberry flowers had black middles, which I suspect means they were killed by one of the recent frosts.

The small cherry tree suffered the same fate.  It looks pitiful.  The larger, older cherry tree blooms later and will probably bear a little.  Luckily, the apples haven't bloomed yet.

Y'know, this isn't the solution I was wanting for carpal-tunnel problems that result from hulling strawberries and pitting cherries.

Since Jesus Crossed What River?

Death's flood has lost its chill
since Jesus crossed the river.
Lover of souls, from ill
my passing soul deliver.  (LSB 482)

A choir director or a pastor or somebody told me once that this was an allusion to the river Styx.  Greek mythology.  The place of the dead.  Charon ferrying the dead person across.

Really?

But this year it crossed my mind that many aspects of mythology have roots in the truth.  Sure, the truth was twisted, sometimes almost beyond recognition.  In this case, the truth is that Canaan was the Promised Land to which God was leading the children of Israel.  And Canaan is a type of the promised land.   As the Israelites were baptized in the crossing of the Red Sea and then spent decades on their pilgrimage, so we are baptized into Christ and then spend our lives on a pilgrimage.  They crossed the Jordan River into the promised land.  We cross from our earthly pilgrim life into the promised land of heaven.  Maybe the Jordan is where the myth of the Styx came from.

So maybe the hymn isn't alluding to the Styx, but maybe the story of the Styx found its beginning in God's story.