A Sacrifice that Costs Me ... What?

Second Samuel 24 has this account of God punishing Israel with a plague after King David ordered a census of the fighting men. Though I have known this story for years, my understanding of what got them into the situation is still not completely clear … because the scriptures are rather vague about that part (read it yourself and you’ll see). I’ve studied it in multiple translations and have heard it preached multiple times. I’ve read and heard a number of opinions that all make sense; but they are all plausible conjecture at best – neither contradicted nor explicitly supported by the text. We’ll pick it up in the GNB where it becomes very clear.

18 That same day Gad went to David and said to him, Go up to Araunah's threshing place and build an altar to the Lord. 19 David obeyed the Lord's command and went as Gad had told him to.
20 Araunah looked down and saw the king and his officials coming up to him. He threw himself on the ground in front of David 21 and asked, Your Majesty, why are you here? David answered, To buy your threshing place and build an altar for the Lord, in order to stop the epidemic.
22 Take it, Your Majesty, Araunah said, and offer to the Lord whatever you wish. Here are these oxen to burn as an offering on the altar; here are their yokes and the threshing boards to use as fuel. 23 Araunah gave it all to the king and said to him, May the Lord your God accept your offering.
24 But the king answered, No, I will pay you for it. I will not offer to the Lord my God sacrifices that have cost me nothing. And he bought the threshing place and the oxen for fifty pieces of silver. 25 Then he built an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. The Lord answered his prayer, and the epidemic in Israel was stopped.

I highlighted the part that has caused this story to stick in my mind for all these years. It’s the basis of the primary thought in my philosophy of Ministry through Music:

The worship of God and the communication of the message of the Gospel are worthy of nothing less than the very best and highest art that we can possibly muster (regardless the “style” definition with which any of it can be tagged).

It is because God is worthy of more than we can possibly give that we devote our time and effort to learning and refining music for the purpose of leading our people in the worship of God and communicating the message of the Gospel. If it’s just about “what I like” or “how it makes me feel,” then showing up just when it’s convenient or when we feel like it is fine. But if it’s about giving God the glory due his name, then it’s worth any cost, any inconvenience. Scripture calls it a “sacrifice of praise” for a reason.

That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Our Lives in Ruins

I’m not dropping this for any desire for big notice, but it is ever on my mind that I will be 50 years old in less than 3 months. I remember when I hit 40. It was on a Sunday, and a certain choir member or two saw to it that it would be a birthday to remember … from the black crepe paper and such hung the choir room all the way to the black rose sitting in the middle of my desk in a Coca-Cola can that had also been spray-painted black. I remember telling Dad that I had always thought that I would feel more “grown-up” by age 40 than I actually did. He replied that we never feel as grown-up as we think we ought to.

To our choir members in their 90s (as of last week we now have 3 ... and they are among our most faithful and spiritually alive):  I admire you and hope to be doing at least as well as you when I am in my 70s.

I hit 40, but it feels like 50 will hit me.  Thinking in that vein, I’ve been meditating on this essay my son Taylor posted on his blog last week:

That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Keeping Christ in ...

During December there were a lot of e-mails and what-not floating around about keeping Christ in Christmas.  We see most of these … or an updated version of the older ones … every year.  And most of them are well-meaning, but (in my opinion) based on an uninformed idea that someone is trying to “EX Christ out of Christmas” by replacing “Christ” with “X”.  I say that this idea is “uninformed” because I don’t want to be uncharitable by using a harsher term.  I will use a harsher term if, after hearing my explanation, people continue to be unnecessarily belligerent when they see  “Xmas” in print.

We need to understand that the word “Christ” in the Greek language starts with the Greek letter CHI, which is the ancient source for the letter X in the Roman alphabet (which is the alphabet that English and most of the other Western languages is written in).  Further, you may be familiar with the acronym IXθΥΣ (Romanized to Ichthus – which means fish in Greek and is the reason Christians have used the fish symbol from the very earliest days of the faith).  IXθΥΣ is an acronym consisting of the first letters of the Greek words translated Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.  The Greek letter CHI (X) has stood for Christ since the first century, and theology students use it as shorthand in note-taking in colleges and seminaries even to this day (just as they use THETA (θ) as shorthand for God).

I saw one in December that I had never seen before, and it bothered me greatly because it took well-meaning ignorance to a nasty conclusion.  It was a music video encouraging people to make a big stink over boycotting businesses that substituted “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas”, and to do so with a curt and not at all kind explanation of why you were leaving and not planning to come back.  I guess the fact that it was a very slick, professional-quality production increased my level of ... disappointment ... that people who claim to follow Christ would encourage such ungracious behavior.  The song encouraged Christians to take offense at something that really shouldn’t be worried about … and to do so in a way that is sure to give offense.  Apparently they were unaware (or chose to ignore) the fact that the word “holiday” has its root in the term “holy day” … a category in which I believe Christmas firmly resides.

A twitter feed I follow clearly stated that there are people who get all bent out of shape about “keeping Christ in Christmas,” but fail to remember to keep Christ in Christian.  To take a cue from the words of Paul in Ephesians 4 … you shouldn’t have learned Christ in this way.

This MUSING may seem a few weeks late (and I guess it is from a certain perspective) … but keeping Christ in Christian is year-round.

That’s enough to think about for now.  The peace of Christ to you.

A New Look at a Not-So-Old Hymn

Occasionally someone will ask me to name my favorite hymn. It’s a question that usually makes me a little uncomfortable because it's usually a loaded question, often coming in a context that implies judgment of my competence as a Worship Pastor on the basis of how I answer the question. My best answer is that it depends on who is singing it, when, and why.

Noted British hymn scholar and theologian Erik Routley asserted that a good hymn must be well written, well chosen, and well sung. In this, the first week of a new year, one hymn that my mind has been singing (praying, perhaps?) is this text by Harry Emerson Fosdick. This is the version of the text that is in the 1991 Baptist Hymnal.

God of Grace and God of Glory

God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power;
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.


Lo! the hosts of evil round us
Scorn Thy Christ, assail His ways!
Fears and doubts too long have bound us,
Free our hearts to work and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the living of these days,
For the living of these days.


Cure Thy children’s warring madness,
Bend our pride to Thy control;
Shame our wanton, selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal.


Set our feet on lofty places,
Gird our lives that they may be
Armored with all Christ-like graces
In the fight to set men free.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
That we fail not man nor Thee!
That we fail not man nor Thee!

As I researched that hymn, I learned that Fosdick wrote it in the summer of 1930 for the opening of the Riverside Church on October 5, 1930. So in the timeline of church music, it is comparatively recent. Well written? Check. Well chosen? Depends on context. Well sung? That’s our job.

BTW: if you’re leading a spoken prayer following that hymn, PLEASE do not begin, “Let us pray …”. To sing that hymn well, one must pray the text while singing. Better, then, to say, “Let us continue in prayer …”.

That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.