From the Cross…

I don’t know if you have ever read Psalm 22 in light of Jesus’ crucifixion.  If you haven’t, take a couple of minutes to read through it.  I am providing the text below.  But first, here is the quote from Mark 15:34 where Jesus speaks from the cross:

“And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’—which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

Jesus is pointing to Psalm 22, which reads:

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?

 2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.

3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.

4 In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.

5 They cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by men and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

8 “He trusts in the LORD;
let the LORD rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.”

9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you
even at my mother’s breast.

10 From birth I was cast upon you;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

12 Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

13 Roaring lions tearing their prey
open their mouths wide against me.

14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted away within me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.

16 Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I can count all my bones;
people stare and gloat over me.

18 They divide my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.

19 But you, O LORD, be not far off;
O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

20 Deliver my life from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dogs.

21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

22 I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the congregation I will praise you.

23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

24 For he has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.

26 The poor will eat and be satisfied;
they who seek the LORD will praise him—
may your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,

28 for dominion belongs to the LORD
and he rules over the nations.

29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.

30 Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.

31 They will proclaim his righteousness
to a people yet unborn—
for he has done it.

God be praised! -landon

Get this blog through email!

For those of you who don’t have a blog reader and don’t want the hassle of visiting the site to see if there is a new blog, I have something for you!

I found a site that will allow you to receive the latest blog by sending it to your email account.  If you want to do this, go to Feedblitz.com.  When you get there, type “kesed.wordpress.com” into the subscription box.  It will take you to the next page where you can type in the email address where you would like it to go.  That’s it.  Every time I post a blog, it will send what I write in an email.

If you have any problems, let me know and I will help you set it up.   Have a great day!

Wedding

Becky and I have been busy with wedding planning. Last weekend we were able to work on invitations and engagement pictures. It seems as though the further along we get in this wedding planning, the more little details there are to do… or overlook. And the motivating factor behind all these details is that we don’t want to forget something big that would throw a curve to the big day. We want it to go smoothly.

In prepping for all this, I thought about John 2 where Jesus goes to a wedding in Cana. Proof: everybody loves a good wedding. The problem was that the groom at this wedding was not a wedding planner. One of his big jobs was to provide the liquid entertainment – the wine. And they ran out. What a doof!!! So Jesus’ mom comes up and requests that he get more wine. Now in all likelihood this meant something along the lines of, “Jesus, would you run into town and grab a couple more bottles (skins) of wine?”

Now I always thought that his reply was rather harsh. He says, “Woman, it is not my time (or hour in the Greek).” We read this as, “I am too lazy to go. -or- It is not my time to reveal my God-hood by doing a huge miracle… that Landon will blog about 2000 years from now.” But I think he is really saying, “I am not the groom yet, mom. It is not my responsibility to provide the wine for another dude’s party.” The interesting part is that he does, and it comes out in the rest of the Gospel account where Jesus points to his time/hour as being at the cross and resurrection– where he begins to prepare for his marriage celebration to his bride, the church. What’s more is that if Jesus has the power to create wine from the most abundant resource on the planet, there might just be an implication that the wine at this wedding will never run out. The party/celebration will not end.

This echoes the OT writings that when the Messiah comes, it will be a time where wine flows liberally. Check out Jeremiah 31:12, Hosea 14:7, and Amos 9:13-14.

Two points:

1. Jesus is setting(has set) himself up to be his church’s groom.

2. Given my ability to goof things up, Jesus is getting an invitation to the Ledlow wedding!

GOoD FRIDAY PERSPECTIVE

Holy Week is here and I am psyched. This is my favorite week of the entire year, especially Good Friday. It is a very emotional time for me. In preparation of for the latter part of this week, I walk through the Gospel accounts of the passion. This year I noticed something strange though.

Have you ever considered that maybe the Gospel writers were more concerned with proving that Jesus died than proving that He lived after Good Friday? It seems to me that if I were trying to prove anything from this week in history, I would concentrate on Jesus’ resurrection. Yet the writers put more ink-to-papyrus when it comes to the death account. Why?

Thought: Could it be that there really the question as to whether or not Jesus was living on Easter Sunday and after was the most pressing question? Jesus was there. He ate, drank, and talked with people. What if we looked at it from the angle that the Gospel writers were trying to prove that He died more than the fact that He was living? I am not discounting the resurrection by any means! It is interesting, however, the amount of time spent on the suffering and death of Christ. Would people who had seen Him alive have doubts that He actually died? I haven’t really wrestled with all the implications of this, so I would like to hear your thoughts.

Sidenote: If you aren’t planning on it already, I would like to encourage you to worship on Good Friday.

Peace!

Last First Day

For 23 years I have been in a school of some sort. It began with Lincoln Logs and finger paints, and now it is homiletics and hermeneutics. I realized today that this was my last first day of class. I don’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand I am ready to bust out of this seminary bubble and begin doing what I have been preparing to do for the past 8 years. But on the other hand I realize the world outside academia is largely unknown to me. When I went out on vicarage, I spent the first 4 months adjusting to conversations with people who didn’t have a clue what things like felicitous inconsistencies or hermeneutical principles were. By month 6, I talked like a normal human again (and loved it)… only to be thrust back into the bubble once again.

I think my biggest concern is the permanence of the upcoming move. I haven’t lived in a single place for more than 6 months (barring vicarage) since my senior year of high school, which was 9 years ago. Now I am looking at an open-ended call to a church of God’s choosing and I am feeling the weight. There is a certain level of commitment that comes with the move. Before, if there were tensions or clashes, I would just ride it out until my time was up in that place. (Incidentally, I am feeling like that right now here at the sem) But this is a whole different ballgame.

I almost envy those guys here who have had previous careers. They know what to expect in many ways. They understand mortgages and taxes and escrow and monthly bills… etc. I understand semester fees, tuition, meal plans, dorm life, and community bathrooms. Granted, in four months I will be having the community bathroom situation once again, but I am really looking forward to that one because it also means community bedroom and kitchen and livingroom! Love ya Becks!

I am so excited by all this. There is a part of me that nearly jumps out of my skin when I think of the upcoming changes. Yet the unknown part of it really rocks my world. So much new stuff in such a short period of time. Marriage. Pastor. No Papers. No Tests. Real World… How will I handle the adjustment? Will it be smooth or rough? Where are we going?

CURRENT MOOD: Awkward. Abraham when God told him to get up and go to a new land with a new people. Unknown. Weird. Yet, trusting. Not reluctant, but still thinking about the safe-zone. The beauty of being on this side of history is that I think I would rather take the Abraham route than the Jonah route. I am not up for a swim.

Clever Video

While visiting with family last weekend, my brother-in-law showed me this video. I thought it was quite clever.

-L

Overdue Update

I have slacked off in the past several weeks with the whole blogging. Since the last post there have been some wonderful things going on. First, Becky and I are engaged!!! We have been planning the wedding for the past several weeks and things are really going smoothly… except when we went to the Bridal Show. I was the only dude there, besides the crazy ‘1980’s wants you back’ limo drivers. All in all, everything is coming together nicely.

In other news, I have been interviewing with various Lutheran churches across the country. Speaking with these churches has been encouraging. They are each unique situations. Two of them are wanting to focus on post-modern outreach, one is working with Child and Family ministry, two are campus ministries at major universities, and then there are a few more with various emphases.

Becky and I have been praying for this process. In the Lutheran Church (MS), those coming straight out of the seminary are placed in our first congregation. We have no clue where we are going to be in 5 months, which is torture for a couple of planners like us. But at the same time, this is a great opportunity to fall back into the hands of God and say, “We trust You. Send us where You would have us go.” That’s a really hard prayer to honestly pray when you are thinking about the future of your family.

Sometimes I just want God to lay it all out in front of me so the uncertainty is null and void. Other times I don’t want to know. Right now, as I am typing this, I am having one of those renewed faith moments where a sense of peace comes over me and I am being assured that He will provide.

PRAYER: Gracious Father, where my heart is not set on things You desire for me, break it and turn it so that I may follow You more closely. Reveal Yourself to me today. In Jesus name, Amen.

I Stand Corrected

Wow!!! Last week I posted a blog entitled “Best Political Ad…Ever” and I would like to now retract that assertion. This one is better. I don’t know whether to be shocked at the forwardness, or to be elated that there is someone out there who would stand up for his beliefs with so much at stake.

Do you think this is legit? or is this a way to get press/attention?

Something Stinks…

A few days ago I was talking to a mentor about absolute truth, pure doctrine, etc. I didn’t disagree with his comments on the matter, but I did disagree with his arrogance in presentation. So I commented, “It seems to me as though we have become really arrogant about our theology.” He said that it wasn’t arrogance, but that it was confidence in the truth.

I have a little to say about this. There is a thin line between confidence and arrogance, and most people on the receiving end of the communication model pick up on the latter, especially when their worldview does a head-on with yours. You can be right all day long, but that doesn’t mean you will be listened to.

Last year at the University of Florida there was a street preacher at Turlington (place for these guys) and he would ramble on and on about different stuff. Most of the time, his messages were true to the Word. But his biggest obstacle was that the students would walk right past him because he was yelling at the top of his lungs and his non-verbal skills were among the most abrasive I have ever seen.

These two guys have something in common. They have a message, and they are confident about that message. They are also arrogant about it in their communication. I pose here that this is where the communication breakdown is occurring. It is here that I have seen so many people, myself included, fail miserably in being witnesses to those who have not been touched by the love of Christ.

I was talking to Becky about this and she had a wonderful ‘High School Teacher Analogy’ that I simply must share. She said, “Landon, say I have a student in class who stinks. Really stinks. Everyone knows they stink. There is a one-seat buffer between this student and all the other students. There are a few ways to go about informing this student of his condition. I could announce it in class and really embarrass them with the spotlight. I could pull them aside and do the same. Neither is really a good way because I simply talk about the symptom and not the problem. Now, if I invite the student to come by after school for a meeting, and in that meeting I ask about home life, family conditions, parents jobs, substance abuse, etc. — I might just be able to see where the problem of hygiene is rooted.”

I thought that was very insightful… and applicable to how we talk to people whom the truth has not seemed to touch. Maybe if we dropped the arrogance we all say we don’t have, and begin to develop a more inviting way of talking about faith where people don’t hear, “You stink!” we could actually enter into a relationship with those people that would foster trust. Maybe quiet confidence goes a little further with people than assertive, abrasive confidence that ultimately builds us up (in our own minds) and not the person God has put in front of us. Just a thought. Open to comments.

Gift Review #4

Today’s gag-gift takes the cake as far as I am concerned.

The picture you see here is the back of the gym shorts. Kudos to whoever came up with these!

Comments: For the creativity in the reference alone, I give it an 8.