Elliott's Muses

Lent provides us an opportunity to re-center our lives…to do some careful examination of what we’re doing in life.   Look carefully at our work, our ways of living, our worship, and ask the questions we need to ask – “Am I purposefully, intentionally living, doing the things I know would please my God, or am I being moved along in life by a spirit of my self-love?”   Self-love occurs when we prioritize our will as the central decision-making of living.   We live in a culture of self-love, and it is easy to get caught up in the wind of what everyone else is also doing.   Lent means I get to step back and make some adjustments to push self-love behind God’s will in life.  Is it easy?  No, by no means, in fact, it’s downright difficult.  The Apostle Paul knew that and wrote to the Romans to explain what this looked like: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do n...

Perhaps the greatest story in the Gospels is the story Jesus told about the Prodigal Son.   There are three main characters in the story – The Prodigal Son, The Father, and the Elder Brother.   The Prodigal Son is outrageous in asking his Father for his share of the inheritance – before his Father’s death. Then he leaves his home and wastes his life living in debauchery until his inheritance is gone.  It is while he has sunk to the lowest levels of his humanity that he says the crucial words that begin his “coming back”. “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants”’ (Luke 15:17-19). Jesus’ words seem intentional to describe what happened.  He came to himself…I will arise and ...

  I sat before the cross and felt the agony of Jesus’ death – for me, for you, for the whole world.   It was the Apostle Paul who wrote, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). Maybe you have thought about this, but the most natural question to this statement seems to be: “What does it mean to boast in the cross?” During Lent, we painfully become aware of our debts, our trespasses, and our sins.  If we’re honest, we all recognize our sinful tendencies and recognize a certain brokenness within – by which I mean, we usually don’t say, “I think I’ll sin now”, but instead, recognize our actions, or thoughts are wrong before God.  Why did I do that?  Why did I say that?  Why did I think that?  If we do any kind of self-examination, we soon realize that we need to be honest about our nature that can not be in line with God’s word, or c...

We come back to the Lenten week, pausing to worship our Resurrected Savior on Sunday.   Previously we looked at the account of the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountaintop.   Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the top of the mountain (probably Mt. Tabor), where he was “ metamorphoō” , “changed”, into the glorious manifestation of his divine being.   The disciples witnessed Jesus as he had been for all eternity, and as he would be after his resurrection and ascension to heaven.   In that encounter, two Old Testament heroes of the faith appeared alongside Jesus. Moses and Elijah represented the Law and the Prophets.  Along with Abraham and King David, no greater figures from the Old Testament can stand equal to their stature.  They were great men of faith whom God used to accomplish His great purposes in the nation of Israel.  Moses was born and raised in Pharaoh’s household, in privilege, with great learning, while the nation of His people was...

It is a Sunday, so we pause in our Lenten Season to Worship Christ, the Resurrected King. One of the more beautiful expressions of the Christian faith comes from a creed entitled “ Te Deum”.   I discovered this ancient poem, also probably a hymn, as well as a Creedal confession, while praying the Divine Hours over the last year.  In the first few centuries of the Church, many Christians would write elegant poems with the sole purpose of glorifying God. Quickly these beautiful poems would be used by Christians in liturgical gatherings and sung in a similar way as the Psalms they chanted. Among these poems was a collection of verses later called the “ Te Deum ” (see below for the complete hymn).  The authorship is generally unknown, though modern scholars point to St. Nicetas of Remesiana as the most likely candidate. He was well known for his compositions in the 4th century and was praised by his friend St. Paulinus of Nola, a bishop who is often credited with the in...

Among the events of Jesus’ life on earth, none was more revealing than his “Transfiguration” on the mountain.   Jesus had returned with all of his disciples from Caesarea Philippi, after the great confession of Peter when he said of who Jesus was – “ You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16).   Back in Israel, he took his disciples to Galilee, and then on to the south of Galilee near Mount Tabor.   I have walked on Mount Tabor which is a small mountain that sticks out of the flat Galilean countryside like a sore thumb.   When they arrived, Jesus told nine of his disciples to stay where they would camp, and he took Peter, James, and John up the mountain.  The three were probably not prepared for what was to happen.  The scripture records the event: “…after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun...

  On this Friday of the second week of Lent, I wanted to follow up on yesterday’s reading on “The Death of Death”, with this one on  “T he Courage of Death”.   What do I mean by Courage of Death?   The writer of Hebrews wanted us to see how Jesus’ humanity did not cause him to shrink from the Father’s will in dying.   His death forever took away the power of death – for those who believe.   Courage is the virtue of holding our fear, without letting it control us.   Courage of death is marked by confidence in eternal life.   Remember what God’s word speaks about this: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall...

We begin the second week of this Lenten Season with some reflection on what Christ Jesus accomplished in His death on the cross – with help from one of the Church’s greatest theologians and Bishops of the Church.   The book of Hebrews has an interesting description of what Christ accomplished, and it addresses one of the most mysterious and difficult things we as humans will ever face – Death.  Here’s a passage from Hebrews 2: “ It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering...

 D uring Lent – now a week old – we are called to look within, learning to examine our ways, our thoughts, and our choices.   The Church continually calls us to Penance – the self-examination that leads to repentance and – at times – restitution.   While modern churchgoers have forsaken the need for confession and penance, the Scriptures did not.   The Apostle Paul writing to the Church in Galatia made the need for self-examination a crucial part of growing up in Christ. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, d...

Among the many Lenten activities, I hope you are setting aside time for daily reflection, prayer, and meditation.  Some people find those things daunting, but they need not be.  Much of these three things can be done simultaneously.  A year ago, my Pastor recommended that I take some time to say the Lord’s prayer “ slowly ”! Therefore, I want you to “present yourself to the Lord”…sit quietly and give thanks and praise to God for His love, mercy, and grace.  Then say the Lord’s prayer…slowly, with thoughtfulness and attention to the words: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts (trespasses), as we also have forgiven our debtors (trespassers). And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:9-13). Praying with all of our being – heart, mind, soul, and spirit is something we exercise, not just do....

Most of us think of Mondays (or Sundays) as the beginning of the week.  The weekend is over and many are back to work, and routines of life.  It’s not very often that we sit quietly and meditate on the beauty that is around us.  There’s a hymn we learned to sing many years ago entitled “ For the Beauty of the Earth”. For the beauty of the earth, For the beauty of the skies, For the love which from our birth Over and around us lies, Lord of all, to thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise. For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind's delight, for the mystic harmony, linking sense to sound and sight; Lord of all, to thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise. For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild; Lord of all, to thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise. For each perfect gift of Thine, to our race so freely given, graces human and divine, flowers ...

The Sundays in Lent do not count as part of the forty days of the Lenten Season, because they celebrate the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.  This reading from Philippians 2 reminds us of His exalted place. “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,  who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11). The phrase " he emptied himself " has a great deal of significance.   Jesus did not step down fr...

 “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12).  “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40). Meditating on these words from both the Law and the Gospel, I invite you to think about them as we read from the 2 nd Century Church father, St. Irenaeus, who wrote “A Treatise Against Heresies ”. “Our Lord, the Word of God, first drew men to God as servants, but later he freed those made subject to him. He himself testified to this:  I do not call you servants any longer, for a serva...

 One of the spiritual exercises that we do in Lent is fasting.  While most of the time it has to do with fasting food, it doesn’t always have to be food.  Yet fasting, whatever is chosen, means we choose to go without something.  Why? In the church’s history, fasting was an exercise that related to penance for sins, as well as recognition of our need for reconciliation with God.  Yet fasting is not a spiritual exercise that is necessarily holy if it is done for the wrong reasons.  For example, in the Gospels, the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus to ask him why they and the Pharisees fast often, but Jesus’ disciples do not fast.  Remember? Matthew 9:14-17 “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?"  And Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken aw...

  Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?"  They answered, "John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Messiah of God." He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised."  Then he said to them all, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. W hat does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Luke 9:18-25   Most of us will do almost anything to ...