Tolkien's Birthday Wish

Undoubtedly the title is misleading. I have no idea what J.R.R. Tolkien ever wanted for his birthday. But I do know that among the many things he loved - family, language, fairy tales, middle-earth, his pipe and so on - there was one desire that fulfilled all desires. One love that satisfied all needs for love one wish (perhaps on his birthday, if not every day) that he desired above all. I stumbled across this absolutely stunning quotation a week or so ago while reading a letter Tolkien wrote to his son, Michael, on love and human sexuality (March 1941). I imagine that the Blessed Sacrament referred to in Tolkien's letter would have been a very fine birthday wish indeed. And on this day - the day that marks his 120th birthday - I rejoice that Tolkien rests, asleep in Jesus awaiting the resurrection of the dead and the eternal marriage supper of the Lamb. Happy Birthday, Mr. Tolkien. And thank you for the world you have created in writing that so frequently points me to the same joy and desire (found only in Christ) expressed in your pious wisdom here.

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament.....There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yetby the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires.

Sermon for the Circumcision and Name of Jesus: "Savior Is As Savior Does

+ Name and Circumcision of Jesus – January 1^st, 2012 +

Text: Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 2:21

In the Name of the Father and of + the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

That’s no typo. You read the bulletin right. Today the church celebrates the naming and circumcision of Jesus. The what? You’ve gotta be kidding, right? Circumcision? Ew, gross. Seems a bit awkward to talk about in church. What does that have to do with anything?

            Think of Jesus’ circumcision like His Baptism…Jesus doesn’t need to be baptized; He’s perfect, sinless and steps into a sinner’s Baptism to take on our sin, to fulfill all righteousness.

            So too with his circumcision; He’s already a child of the promise (in fact he is the promise!), the Son of God and the bearer of the covenant; blameless before God according to the Law of Moses. And yet for our sakes he is born of a woman, born under the law to redeem us who are under the law.

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise Him, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He had been conceived.  (Luke 2:21)

Only one short verse...probably a world record for a Sunday Gospel reading...but it is one important verse. Here the Lord of all receives circumcision on behalf of all. The mysterious infinite, all powerful YHWH takes on human flesh and takes a human name, Jesus, to place His name upon you. God becomes a child to make you children of God.

           Thus, The Name and Circumcision and Jesus has everything to with your salvation.

            It’s all in the details. Luke the historian loves the God-in-the-flesh details; look at the Christmas story. Joseph and Mary. Taxes, census and Caesar. Quirinius and Syria. Bethlehem and a crowded inn. Shepherds wondering and praising. Angels singing “Glory to God in the highest.” And all of the attention is where it should be – focused on the newborn baby in the manger.

            But if you listen carefully to Luke’s account of Christmas there’s one rather significant detail left out. For seven days, He’s simply Mary’s first-born, a baby boy, lying in a manger. Only Mary and Joseph know the baby’s name – must have driven the relatives crazy.  But, like a good historian, Luke waits to tell us Jesus’ name until it is given at his circumcision on the 8^th day.

            That was the custom: 8 day old Israelite males received their name on the day of circumcision. Kind of like Christians in Luther’s day received the name of the saint whose day they were Baptized on. But before Christ, circumcision was the main event. This was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and his offspring forever pointing to Christ and to Baptism. On the 8^th day God names you and claims you as his own. Not the 7^th or the 9^th day. Not a day of the child’s own choosing or an age of accountability. The 8^th day; just the way God set it up. That’s the way our Lord works. You don’t make Him your Lord; He declares Himself to be your Lord and places His mark of ownership on you.  You don’t choose and claim Him; He chooses and claims you.

            So on the 8^th day, Jesus is circumcised according to the Law of Moses in order to fulfill the Law of Moses. In doing so, God Himself does what we cannot (and will not) do.

            The Law is a brutal task master; it tells us to walk but gives us no legs. And if you’re guilty of one part you’re accountable for all of it (James 2:10). The 10 commandments don’t work like our new year’s resolutions from 2011: “Oh it’s ok, I’ll do better next year.” It’s do or do not. There is no try with the Law.

            That’s why we confess…I a poor miserable sinner, confess until You all my sins and iniquities; what I’ve done and what I’ve left undone. Our sin cuts us off from God. This is why Jesus was born. Why he was circumcised and given the Name Jesus. So that when He goes to the cross He is the one cut off from God so that you are cut off from your sin forever.

            For every sin you have done – for the sinner you are – Christ is not. He is perfect, perfectly good for you. For all that you do or do not do. Christ does, leaving nothing undone. He doesn't wait to get started on saving you. No days off. No breaks. Before Jesus walks, before He talks, before He takes his first step or crawls, before He can even hold his head up by Himself, His blood is shed for you.

            That’s why we celebrate Jesus’ circumcision.  Jesus does the Law perfectly, every commandment; His perfection; it’s yours by grace through faith in Christ. He bears the pain, the suffering, the blood the Law demands of the substitute, the vicarious victim.  And you receive forgiveness, life, and salvation.  You are all sons of the covenant, heirs of life, true offspring of Abraham, all thanks to 8-day-old-YHWH-in-the-flesh.   Or better yet, you could say:  we are all perfect Jews in Jesus, the one perfect Jew who kept the Torah down its smallest mark and letter.

            You are holy because He is holy. You are righteous because He is righteous. You are perfect, because He is perfect.  You are all these things not because you’ve resolved to make yourself a better person, but because God gives them to you through the flesh and blood of Jesus. 

            Jesus is you everything you need. Cut His flesh and He bleeds like you. Betray Him and He weeps like you. A loved one dies and He grieves like you. He carries disease and guilt for you…but greater, this Savior dies for you. And before He goes to the cross, He takes a Name for you and bleeds for you. 

            The circumcision and name of Jesus has everything to do with your salvation.

            It’s true that Jesus is a perfectly ordinary human name. Any carpenter from Nazareth might have been named Jesus. Yet there’s always more to names in the Bible than sentimentality. Jesus is the NT version of Joshua or Isaiah – YHWH saves. Jesus literally does what his name means: YHWH saves.

            But this is no ordinary name. The Name of Jesus also causes controversy, scandal and offense. The Name of Jesus causes thrones of kings to topple and sway. This Name causes the politically correct to be on edge. No other name causes such a ruckus.

            And yet this is the only Name under heaven by which we are saved. This is the Name that is higher than any other name. King of kings. Lord of lords. Name of names. YHWH in human flesh. Jesus. This is the Name that causes devils to flee, the Name by which prayer is heard, the Name by which God in the flesh is known, the name by which we are saved. 

            This is the Name you need. For without the Name of Jesus your only name is sinner. It is precisely for you, that this child is given the Name, Jesus. Mary’s child is named Jesus in order to place his name upon you. God becomes a child to in order to make us children of God.

            You were washed, sanctified (made holy), justified (declared righteous), in the Name of Jesus.  You are gathered here, in the Name of Jesus. From Invocation to Benediction the Name of Jesus is placed into your ears. Sit down and count how many times and in the many various ways God’s name is in the liturgy; you’ll be surprised at how many times our Lord’s name is here to bless you.

           

            You see, the circumcision and naming of Jesus have everything to do with your salvation.

So, on this day when resolutions are made about all the things you want to try &  change, take comfort in this: Your unchanging Savior has resolved, before you were even born, to come into this world, to bleed for you and take a Name for you – to suffer and die for you.

            No matter what happens this New Year, you belong to Jesus. The Law is fulfilled. Your sins are forgiven! You are His child. And that is one resolution that is always kept.

            While the resolutions of men are quickly forgotten, the Father never forgets about Jesus’ blood covering your sins and he never forgets the saving Name he put upon you. 

           

In the Name of the Father and of + the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Christmas Eve Sermon: The Grand Miracle

+ Christmas Eve – December 24^th, 2011 +

Matthew 1:18-25

In the Name of the Father and of + the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Like most fathers, Joseph was clueless as to what was about to happen to him 9 months later. The birth of a child is supposed to bring joy. But before there was joy, there was confusion, unbelief and a scandal…Mary is pregnant. And Joseph is not the father. So Joseph – being a righteous man – quietly plots to save Mary public humiliation, not to mention the threat of stoning for adultery, by resolving to divorce her quietly. Joseph, for all the right reasons, was about to do the wrong thing.

            Joseph needed to hear that Jesus is the first and last word at Christmas. That in the womb of Mary God was doing something unexpected, undeserved and completely new under the sun: a woman is pregnant with God, by God. The one whom the world cannot contain was found in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He who bestows fatherhood upon men is born in their family tree. Miraculous. Marvelous. Mysterious.

            No wonder Joseph needed to hear what the angel had to say: “Joseph, Son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” Tonight – with Joseph – we behold the wonder and the mystery of Christ’s incarnation. Divine defection: God crosses enemy lines, takes on human flesh, to put on our weakness and mortality.

            What began in utter scandal, turned out to be the best Christmas ever for Joseph, for Mary…and for all people. The cross works the same way too: what is an utter scandal to the world turns out to be the very best thing for all people – Christ Crucified.  The Son is born to pay for the sins of all his fathers…indeed, of all people. “You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus’ name and purpose – his work and his identity – go hand in hand. Jesus. Savior. The first and last word at Christmas.

And what about you? You are not Joseph, waiting for God to be born. Christ has come; He was born. And you probably didn’t have any angels visit you last night in strange dreams. But you are like Joseph in this way…you too need to hear that Jesus is the first and last word at Christmas. 

            Who or what gets the first and last word around your home at Christmas?

News of sorrow, illness or death? Arguments with a spiteful tongue? Words of hatred toward the ones we love? Sinful desires that are never satisfied? Or perhaps there’s just silence. There are no words to speak of. God can’t get his word in edgewise because we’re too busy having Christmas our way. You, see whether it’s a good day or a bad year, we’re professional at selective listening; turning a deaf ear to God’s Word, God’s promises God’s life. We, like Joseph, need to hear that Jesus is the first and last word at Christmas.

            This Christmas, leave your grief and sorrow at the manger. Leave behind your anger, hatred, lust and sinful desires. Put your sin and all its sadness not under the tree, but on Christ who has taken all your sin…and placed it on his tree. For the greatest Christmas gift of all is not found under the tree but adorned on it…Jesus crucified for you.

            God comes to do what we cannot – and will not do. His Name is Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. For all that you aren’t; Jesus is. For all that you have failed to do, Jesus has done, everything. And the sin you have committed – the sinner you are – he redeems you too. The cross hangs heavy over the manger. It’s all in Jesus’ name – Yahweh is Savior. You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

            He is all that we are and yet without the one thing that doesn’t belong – Sin. He is like us in every way – bone of our bones, flesh of our flesh, born of woman yet without sin, without Adam’s curse. He is all men, all people, every child of Adam and Eve. His humanity is our humanity; His poverty is our poverty; His weakness is our weakness; His life is our life; His death is our death.

            God has done what we cannot do. God has come to us in the manger. We cannot ascend to God in our thoughts, our prayers, our dreams, or our faith. We cannot reach up to God, but in the clinched arms of infant Jesus, God has extended His holy right Arm to us. He sent His Son into our Flesh. Gone are any pious notions of our seeking God. God has sought us and found us in the Flesh of His Son, conceived in a Virgin Mother and laid to sleep in a manger. There is no other God for us than the One who hangs on a cross and nurses at the breast of His mother.” (Luther)

            This is what separates Christianity from all other religions of the world…take the miracles out of Christianity and you have nothing left. And no other religion makes the kind of claims that Jesus does. That God becomes man. That God takes matters into his own hands, literally, even though it means death. That baby in the manger has the whole world in his hands yet is held in the hands of Mary.

            “The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle…that what is beyond space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again bringing nature up with Him” (C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock).

            You can take away all the tinsel, mistletoe and family parties and endless expectations and have nothing more than two or three poor, miserable sinners huddled around the Word of Christ, and there you will have everything you need at Christmas. The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. God is with us – Immanuel; Jesus come to save you from your sins. And nothing in this world can take that away from you.

            This is what was missing from the Grinch’s Christmas ephiphany…

And the Grinch, with his grinch feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling. "How could it be so?

It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes, or bags!"

He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.

Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!

           

            You want something more in Christmas? Good because that’s all that Jesus ever wants to give you. More of himself. More life. More forgiveness. More salvation from sin and death.

            Warm fuzzies are nice…but they aren’t Christmas and they certainly won’t save you. It is not that we loved God but that He loves us. And sends us Jesus, our a swaddled Savior, our diapered deliverer, our infant Immanuel come to rescue, save and deliver you out of your death into His life. At Christmas – and all year round - Jesus is the first and last word for you.

            It’s all in his name. Immanuel. God with us. God became an 8 pound, 6 ounce squirming child kicking in Mary’s lap. God became a helpless baby to help those who cannot help themselves.

            Think about that next time you see a little baby. God was a blastocyst. God was a zygote. God was an unborn child, a bump in Mary’s belly. God was born. God cried and nursed and dirtied his diapers. God became man. God bled. God died. God rose. Immanuel. God with us in sorrow. In sickness. In death. In life.

            Jesus works the same Christmas miracle for you that He did for Joseph: child like trust in the Child of the Manger. Through His word – by His life and death – Sinners, deader than a lump of coal are made alive. 

            Jesus proclaims his first and last word of forgiveness here for you, where Jesus is making Christmas all year round – God with us in the water. God with us in the Word and absolution. God with us in the bread and wine. Come to Bethlehem and see Christ the Lord swaddled in his house of bread and wine. Immanuel. God with us. God for us.

Christmas is definitely a holy night; however, it’s anything but a silent one. For Christ is born! His name is Jesus and He has saved his people from their sins, from your sins. Jesus is the first and last word over sin and death. Jesus is the first and last word at Christmas for you and for all.

A Blessed and Merry Christmas to you…

In the Name of the Father and of + the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Advent Midweek Sermon: When God Loses, You Win

+ Wednesday of Advent 4 – December 21^st, 2011 +

Text: Genesis 32:22-23

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

            The last time Jacob checked in at the Hard Rock Hotel, he had a dream – angels ascending and descending between the throne of God and earth. No sweet dreams this time. He was afraid. And for good reason. Tomorrow’s the family reunion. But this was nothing like the Waltons. The last time he saw his brother Esau, he had tricked his father, stolen the birthright, and hit the road for fear of his life.

            So there’s Jacob beside the river, all alone in the dark, wondering if the generous gift of animals was enough to appease Esau’s wrath, worrying about the next day being his last…when God comes to pick a fight with Jacob. But this was no dream.

            “A man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak.” It took Jacob fighting all night to figure out what we, the reader, know all along: this man was the Lord.

            But all Jacob knew was that he was in a fight for his life. So, he fought tooth and nail. As darkness turned to daylight, Jacob was still holding his own. “When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob he touched his hip socket and put Jacob’s hip out of place as he wrestled Jacob. The only way the fisticuffs came to an end was when Jacob’s “stranger” played the divinity card. God doesn’t always fight fair.

Here is the remarkable thing:  not that God appeared as a man, not that he picked a fight with Jacob, but that God lost.  The ant bested the elephant.  Jacob whipped the Almighty.  Even after the Lord dislocated Jacob’s hip, he held on like a baby to its favorite toy.  He outhit, outwrestled, outdid God. And here is the even more remarkable thing:  not that Jacob won the fight, but that God delighted in losing. 

            Not so with man…we don’t like to lose. Not on the playground. Not at work. Not our petty arguments around the dinner table. Not our pride at church meetings. Not ever. Losing is weakness. No one wants a loser on their team. And we certainly don’t want a god who can lose either. Strong. Powerful. Mighty. Your wish is my command – now that’s a god I can believe in. So it goes with man.  So it goes not with God.  When it comes to fighting with and for his people, God is the biggest, and the happiest, loser.

For when God loses we win. And when we win; God wins. That’s the way it was for Jacob. “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have fought with God and have prevailed.” Jacob is given a new name – Israel, the God-fighter. It was a fight for his very life. And he won. He saw God face-to-face and lived. A new name. A blessing and even a limp, that in his body he might carry a constant reminder that when God loses His people win.

            God works the same for you. When God loses, you win.

            But you will not you behold the victory until you see God’s power and majesty hidden in weakness and foolish humility.

            You will not find God in the highest heavens…but in lowliness. In a branch shooting forth from the dead stump of Jesse’s tree. In a humble Virgin betrothed to a carpenter. In losing his life from the moment he’s born. For the glory of God in this world is not found in the courts of earthly kings, but in humanity’s deepest abyss. In the manger. In suffering. On the cross.

            That’s what his first Advent is all about. Jesus is the new and greater Israel who’ll lose much more than a wrestling match. He fought and struggled with them year after year, but finally they prevailed.  They would not let him go, but pinned him down, hands, feet, everything.  And when dawn broke after his loss, he stepped forth to proclaim his people’s victory.  Now he crowns you, his people with a new name, a new nature, a new life.  In the crucified and resurrected Jesus, all people see God face to face.

            So, you could very well call the Sacrament of the Altar, your Peniel, for here you see greater things than  Jacob – God face-to-face in the bread and wine; here your life is delivered.

            That is our joy in Advent and Christmas. Christ comes ready to fight for our very lives. And once again it is not only remarkable that God becomes man, that God comes to fight with and for his people, but it is most remarkable of all that God delights in losing. He is not content until He has wrestled away every last sin from you and given you every last blessing of his. Take it all; it’s yours. Strip him of everything He has…God withholds nothing from you: a new name; his blessing and a crucified mark upon your forehead to remind you that when God loses you win.

Unlike Jacob, Jesus is your perfect brother. He gladly gives you his birthright: “All that is mine is now yours. Look at my scars; gaze upon the wounds of hands and feet; I have fought with God for you and prevailed. I have lost my life that you might gain yours.” Unlike Esau, Christ seeks no vengeance; but satisfies all God’s wrath. Unlike Cain, He truly is your brother’s keeper, and more: your brother in human flesh. Before he bore the cross for you; He was given skin and shoulder blades to place a sinful world upon his back. So that he could go to the cross and lose it all for you…to give you everything.

And when the day breaks again…it will be the dawn of the Day without end. The day of victory. The day when you will see God face-to-face in Jesus, your brother. He’ll stand before you with his scarred hands and feet and side and bring you before the Father for the greatest family reunion ever. The fight is over. The night is ended. This is no dream. Welcome home.

           

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

E-nklings Cloud of Witnesses: Cranach Blog and The "God Particle"

Thanks to Gene Veith for posting an excellent little piece on the so-called "God Particle", aka the Higgs boson. It's been in the news again recently as a result of ongoing work on particle acceleration. Anyhow, click here to go to Veith's blog, Cranach, for some high fallutin (but useful scientific) explanation on the physics involved in the process. And how, in the end, the mathematics behind this all actually help strengthen the case for an intelligent Mathematician behind the mathematics.

Christmas and Apologetics: A Very Merry Mithr-Osiri-Saturnalia-Solstice-Mass to You!

Yesterday on the Michael Medved show his guest, David Silverman (president of American Atheists,) began his discussion on why wishing "Merry Christmas" to secular people was intollerant with a rather slippery argument regarding the historical dating of Christmas. Now, there are plenty of good resources to help sort all this out in a well-reasoned manner and with plenty of historical/apologetic related information. Before we get further on to Silverman's argument here they are:

• In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter and the Early Church by Paul L. Maier.
• Christmas is Not Pagan by Dr. Richard P. Bucher; a four part article available at the following links: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.
• Is Christmas Pagan? By Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason, available here.

And now back to our regularly scheduled post. Silverman made the claim that the sole reason Christians celebrated Christmas on December 25th was because of the pagan festivals surrounding the worship of the unquenchable sun-god, that it's all really a copy of pagan myths about virgin births and celebrations of the winter solstice. Therefore, as he argued, the real holiday (a word he ironically used and stuck with) that should be celebrated is the winter solstice because that's the real reason for life on the planet and the ultimate answer to the mystery as to why Christians date Christmas to December 25th, namely, they had co-opted the pagan festivals for their own use.

However, this is only partially true. And even it were, what does it really matter? Two separate historical events can have similar dates, circumstances surrounding their events (assuming the events in question are real and not mythical) and still remain. For example, there are many historical pecularities (of a factual nature) surrounding the life and death of presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (For example, they both had a lazy eye, both died on a Friday before a holiday, both had a child that died during their presidency). And yet no one is claiming that the Lincoln story was plagiarized to create a 20th century mythical American martry named, John F. Kennedy. Nor does it mean that JFK ceases to exist because of similarities (albeit odd and bountiful ones at that) in historical events surrounding these two presidents.

The other mistake so commonly made by skeptics of Christianity when connecting the wild theories of conspiracy with pagany myths is one simple fact. Myth and history are two entirely different things. Hopefully you don't watch Family Guy or Southpark for your nightly news. And you may not even depend on the nightly news these days either. The point being, that the myths of the ancient world were recognized as such. And furthermore, the Gospels do not carry with them this mythic sort of genre about them. Luke 2 does not read like a fairy tale, but a history lesson: places, names, and so forth. Which reminds me of a quote from C.S. Lewis - someone who knew a thing or two about myths and legends:

“When a man tells me that the Gospels are myth, or legend, or romance, I should like to know how many myths, legends, and romances he has read, and how well he is trained in detecting them, for he would seem to lack necessary literary judgment  about the texts he is reading.  I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life.  I know what they are like. And I know that not a single one of them is like the story found in  the Gospels.” 

Now, back to the date of Christmas. Again, even if the early Christians did select the date for Christmas near the celebration of the winter solstice they did so not to co-opt pagan worship practices but to replace them with the celebrations of the true God who actually had taken human flesh and skin and bone and had entered human time and history, unlike the gods of the Roman pantheon. In this way the Christians counteracted (and acted counter-culturally) the pagan celebrations of "light and sun" with the true Light of the World (John 1) and the Sun of Righteousness that whom we confess in the O Antiphon for December 21st, "O Dayspring, splendor of light everlasting: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death." For he dwells not in unapproachable light but in the flesh and blood of the man Jesus that we might "behold his glory" (John 1) and see and touch and bear witness to him (1 John 1).

But this may not be the only reason for the celebration of Christmas on December 25th. In recent years another explanation has come to light (pun intended). In his recent book, Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service, Dr. Arthur Just reports the facts:

"In the ancient world, it was uncommon to for people to know the date they were born. But the day of death was recorded, especially for people of renown. As early as the third century, many Christian communities thought March 25 was the day Christ was crucified, the day of the spring equinox. March 25 was also considered the first day of the new year, for many thought that on this day the creation of the world began. This united the creation and the redemption in their minds. The next logical step was to suggest that Christ died on the day He was conceived, as was the custom in this culture where birthdays were not known but the date of the death of a great person was always celebrated. It seemed natural that the day you left the world was the day you entered by conception. Good Friday, the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus to Mary, and Christmas all belonged together, or at least they did for the ancient world, for this combined Jesus' incarnation, birth and atonement. Thus Christmas falls on December 25, nine months after His conception and His crucifixion." (emphasis added).

It would have been nice for both the host and guest of radio show to have been familiar with the facts before commencing to argue about them in circles for some time. Anyhow, that's all the time we have for today's installment of Christmas and Apologetics. A blessed feast of Christ's mass to you all.

Issues Etc. Interview: Joy in Narnia

When I get around to it - hopefully sometime this week - I'll post the actual article that appeared in the most recent issue of Higher Things Magazine entitled, Joy: The Serious Business of Narnia. This happened to be the occasion that brought me an honored guest appearance on Issues Etc., talk radio for the thinking Christian...Cross-centered, Christ-focused.

Anyhow, click here for the link to the interview. Enjoy.

Under the Mercy...