the powerless pulpit

Oswald's words the other morning were of great comfort and encouragement when he said,

 

Get back to the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is released. “. . . it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. . . . we preach Christ crucified . . .” (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).

 

Pastors or more than public speakers. Presenting material in an interesting and understandable way may be part of the office of preaching, but it is not the part that makes it unique. Public speakers and presenters of all breeds must be interesring, whinsome, and engaging. At least they must be if they want to make a living at doing it. This is perhaps why so many pulpits are filled with used car salesmen. They are able to talk and to persuade and to rivet. They know the particlar itches of the ears of their hearers. They smell blood in the water like sharks. They congregate and devour whole households for the sake of feeding their own egos and pockets.

 

The power of God is fully expressed in the preaching of His Good News.

 

When an audience gathers and directs their attention toward the pulpit, the pastor's primary concern should be to allow God's power to be made manifest by preaching His Good News. If the pastor is primarly concerned with meeting the audience where they are and entertaining them, the power of God will be traded for the spoils of men's adoration.

 

If pastors are only entertainers, they will survive only as long as they remain worth the price of admission, and the Cross of Christ will become only a means to an end that is easily and readily abandoned if its weekly proclamation sees less and less response.

 

Numbers don't lie, but they do help liars.

 

Over a half-century ago, Donald Grey Barnhouse, pastor of Philadelphia's Tenth Presbyterian Church, gave his CBS radio audience a picture of what it would look like if Satan took control of a town in America. He said that all of the bars and pool halls would be closed, pornography banished, pristine streets and sidewalks would be occupied by tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The kids would answer "Yes, sir," "No, ma'am," and the churches would be full on Sunday ... where Christ is not preached.

~ Modern Reformation Magazine

 

Satan loves moral people who keep Jesus at arm's length.

 

The Bible is a very interesting book with a large catalog of stories from which to draw morals.

 

But the Bible is not about the moral of the story producing merely a moral people.

 

The Bible is about Jesus.

 

His coming.

His dying.

His resurrection.

His ascension.

His return.

FUNerals follow up

I love life. I'm thankful for the one I've been given. I'm thankful for my wife and my children and that God created them, knit them, and formed them.

I am all for celebrating the lives that God has created and giving Him glory for all that He and His creative hands can accomplish.

But when these people die, because of the sin both possessed in their nature and performed by their choices, they are dead. The curse is real and we all will one day bear the weight of our first Father Adam.

It is worth noting that a funeral on behalf of a Christian brother or sister who has fallen asleep is a celebration of Christ and the fact that our loved one is now with Him.

I believe in celebration of life and even the idea of having a celebration of life event. But NOT at the expense of a funeral. My fear is that in performing celebration of life ceremonies the funeral aspect may be lost altogether or replaced.

I guess my primary concern in broaching the subject was to create the categories that would place a celebration of life ceremony and a funeral in different categories with different purposes. As long as both categories are addressed in the context for which they are Biblical, I see no reason to flesh this out any further.

I half-suspect a good deal of the inertia behind celebration of life ceremonies is this idea that Christians ought always be happy and that we aren't Christian if we are depressed, sad, or mourning.

Do not attempt to out-Christian Christ.

FUNerals

I read an article in Modern Reformation magazine some time back that really clarified and crystallized something which had long been a sense inside me without words to express it.

The article marked the contemporary trend of replacing traditional funerals with "celebration of life" ceremonies.

I understand a person's desire to memorialize the loved one who has passed on and the mournful, morbid, dark, and haunting feeling of attending a funeral. A dead body in full view. A body that once was animated and vibrant and given the image of God by which to operate and experience life and influence (for better or for worse) the lives of others.

However, it robs people of their right to grieve. To invite people to a formal gathering in the name of the person now passed and ask them to be joyful is unBiblical and a pervision of the process. For a pastor to insist that the gatherers do not mourn or weep for their loved one is in a better place is an insult to the current pain of loss (especially when this sermon is preached with a broad brush, i.e. everyone's loved ones get cuts in the line to Heaven the moment they are dead).

My purpose here is not to indict unbelievers of their burial practices. They are not concerned with honoring God with their lives, thoughts, practices, or deaths.

Christians should mourn. Not like everyone else, but mourn none the less.

Death is horrible. It is a result of sin. It is the earthly destination of every single one of us born as sons and daugthers of Adam, our first father. Funerals remind us that we will someday die. It is good for us to ponder these deep things. It anchors us in reality. Real reality.

Even the author of Eccelsiastes knew that a funeral and a party are two different things and they have different purposes. There is a time to party and a time to cry.

Celebrations of life blur that difference and rob both of their function in drawing us near to God. I know that God loves joy and singing and dancing and partying. The Scripture is full of these images and a great wedding banquet awaits those saved by grace through faith in Jesus.

I am not worried that we will forget to party if we attend the occassional funeral. My concern is that if we turn funerals into FUNerals we may never mourn or think about all of that which is so deep and accessible primarily through the experience of sadness, reflection, and somberness.

I know we want to put on our church face and be happy Christians who are untouchable in a world of people far too touched by everything and everyone else (Snap!). But Christians are not called to be stoic, statuesque monsters who are absent of any real emotion other than spray on smiles.

Jesus wept. We should too. Not always, but sometimes.