Always Reforming

This post is an adaptation of my sermon notes from 12/23. One of life's most fundamental questions, one that we must all ask ourselves is, “Who is Jesus?”   This question has received many answers, and many of them are correct, if incomplete.   Jesus is God.   He is a man.   He is a teacher and a shepherd and our Savior.    The Reformed tradition has long thought it best to view Christ through the lens of His three offices: Prophet, Priest, and King.   Of these three, people like to emphasize His Kingship the least as it is the most repulsive to our human nature (see the Garden of Eden).   Liberal Christianity likes to speak of Christ as our Prophet, Evangelical Christianity likes to speak of Christ as our Priest, but it seems nobody wants to speak of Christ as our King!   The New Testament, however, strongly emphasizes the Kingship of Christ.   In fact, o f the three offices He occupies, His Kingship is perhaps emphasized the most.   The Early Church (and really the Ch

As the Spencer family was driving along one day, a P!NK song came across the radio.  I, being a moderate fan, and it being one of her songs that is kid-friendly, allowed it to continue playing.  When the chorus began, I heard the sound of our eldest, Genesis, singing along from the back row.  I turned to her and said, "You know this song?"  She just sort of shrugged her shoulders and nodded. That was one of the most surreal moments in my life.  A few realizations descended upon me.  First of all, I was amazed that I'm old enough to have a kid that is old enough to sing along intelligently to songs that she hears.  It's one thing to hear your kids mimic the sounds that they hear, but it is an altogether different feeling when they actually begin to sing the lyrics of a song to the actual tune (sort of) of that song.  That's something that sneaks up on you! Secondly, I was reminded just how powerful our influence as parents really is.  The six-year-old's

Millennials.  We're the worst, aren't we? People are always ragging on us.  We're lazy.  We're stupid.  We're spoiled.  We're the scum of the earth and everything that ever happens is our fault. While we can laugh off many of these complaints as the bitter ravings of old people who don't know where else to aim their vitriol, it would do us well to consider their criticism and examine our hearts. One area that is a major weakness for our generation is our obsession with entertainment.  This is certainly not a universal issue, nor is it one upon which our generation has a monopoly.  We are our parents' children. Generally speaking though, we live for entertainment. We worship entertainment.  Even when we worship, we want entertainment. We have more free time than most people in the history of the world, so we exhaust it by entertaining ourselves. We have more money than most people in the history of the world, so we finance multibillion dollar

History contains many noteworthy happenings.  Some catch the eye, some the mind, and some the heart, but others, a select few, grip the soul and refuse to relinquish their hold.  The tale that I am about to relate resides decidedly in the final category. Our story occurred in June of 1946.  Our protagonist, Brookes Whitmore, had finally returned to his home state of West Virginia after participating in Hitler's war.  A young man of 25 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, he was not lucky enough to avoid the draft.  He was, however, lucky enough to come home in one piece.  He had yet to find consistent employment, instead taking odd jobs here and there.  That is where our story gets interesting, or, shall we say, odd. Brookes sat at the bar in the only diner in Philippi, WV, sipping on a cup of below-average joe.  It was still early.  He knew it was sometime between 8 and 10 because Uncle Ed (he was nobody's uncle in particular) was in the corner trying to sober up (after 10 he