Author: Tim Morgan

Image of the “Crucifixion” panel in the hospital chapel of St. Anthony’s monastery painted by Matthias Grünewald taken from https://www.christiancentury.org/article/crucifixion-matthias-grünewald.

“And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (Matthew 11:6).

Our world is a powerful delusion. Its stories, interests, dynamics, arrangements, aspirations, its whole way of doing things presents itself to us as brute fact, as the unalterable limits of life. Its props can be rearranged, different people can play different roles, but the play is the same. The king of Assyria, used by God to chastise his people, very much saw his role in terms of his world, rather than God’s: “Are not my commanders all kings? Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images” (Isaiah 10:8-11)? All of the accomplishments of his reign, all of the possibilities to expand his kingdom, all of the arrangements of the civilized world, for the king, boiled down to what he had made happen. By all appearances, his defenses were impenetrable; his assaults couldn’t be withstood; his throne was invulnerable. What more could be attained? He had achieved victory. The king’s perspective, however, stood under the judgment of God’s perspective. Isaiah writes, “When the Lord has finished up all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes” (Isaiah 10:12). The power of our world’s delusion is that, when an axe is swung, it’s not liable to realize someone’s swinging it—all the axe knows is its swinging (Isaiah 10:15).

I suspect we aren’t immune to this delusion, in some form or another. We see the axe. We see its power and destruction. Its shadow wraps around us, binding us upon its path. Our world’s projects appear to repel the advance of Christ’s reign. And we ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another” (Matthew 11:2)? Here, in our situation, under the shadow of the axe, surrounded by evils and blinded by iniquities (Psalm 40:12), the psalmist declares, “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you” (Psalm 40:5). Jesus has a similar word: “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them” (Matthew 11:5; see Isaiah 35:5-6). In the current state of affairs, when it looks like we’ve hitched our wagon to the wrong Messiah, the kingdom, Jesus declares, is coming. What God’s doing is happening. As licentiousness and promiscuity lord our generations’ hearts, as greed and pride determine the course of our generations’ lives, as faithlessness and foolishness become our generations’ wisdom, as God is mocked and Christ is trampled underfoot, God’s purposes are being accomplished. The Lord says, “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones” (Isaiah 10:13). Indeed, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23). Truly, “this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). In Christ’s death, the prospect of failure looms over us. We are tested, tempted by “the gloom of utter darkness” (2 Peter 2:17). Like dogs, we’re drawn back to our own vomit (2 Peter 2:22). Our eyes are fixed on the axe. This is the situation we’re in before the coming Christ, where he delivers to us a beatitude: “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (Matthew 11:6).

Today, I’d like you to imprint upon your mind and heart the belief that God is victorious in our apparent defeat, because he “chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 2:23). Let the scroll of that truth unroll before your eyes. Be possessed by it. God’s purposes are not frustrated by our delusions. He is the Lord of our times. In the gloom before daybreak, fix your eyes upon what God has done, so that you can see what God is doing.

Further Reading: Psalm 40; Isaiah 10:5-19; 2 Peter 2:17-22; Matthew 11:2-15

Written by Guest House Theologian, Tim Morgan. These reflections are a complimentary addition to our Advent Blend Coffee Bags. Scan the QR code each day to read the most recent reflection. 

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More Advent reflections can be found here.

“Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest” (Psalm 50:3).

“Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is scorched, and the people are like fuel for the fire; no one spares another” (Isaiah 9:19).

Over these weeks we’ve spent reflecting on Jesus’ coming together, you occasionally may have thought to yourself, “Wow, this guy talks about judgment a lot.” I’ve had the same thought: “Ope, judgment again!” The thing is… the Bible talks about judgment… a lot. (Seriously, read it. It does. A lot.) In fact, it’s pretty much inextricable from the Bible’s message. It’s in the DNA of the world which Scripture says we live in. Judgment is the rest between every heartbeat of creation. Everything all the time is plaited with judgment. I wonder if many of us have adopted a skeptical temperament with regard to judgment; if we’ve lightened the load of its word; if we’ve made judgment roundabout and polite, suave and imperceptibly subtle. I wonder if we’ve domesticated our prophets, censoring God’s word, expunging “woe” and “repent” from our vocabulary. I wonder if many of us have made the good news relatively harmless—controllable and even tactful. The Bible talks about judgment a lot. Why don’t we?

As the psalmist writes, “He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: ‘Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice’” (Psalm 50:4-5). In the birth of Jesus, God enlists all of creation to pronounce the judgment that the world is his. Angels appear (Luke 2:9), heavenly hosts sing praise (Luke 2:13), shepherds are drawn into orbit (Luke 2:15), a star’s voice lingers in the sky (Matthew 2:2), and foreigners gather (Matthew 2:1). Like a donkey speaking God’s word to a prophet (2 Peter 2:15-16), something strange is happening in creation. The world’s ancient foundations tremble in obedience to God’s command: “Prepare for judgment!”

God’s final pronouncement, his universal judgment is the uncompromising demand that we offer “a sacrifice of thanksgiving,” that we perform our “vows to the Most High,” that we call upon God “in the day of trouble” (Psalm 50:14-15). Just as Christ “loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2), just as this characterized his singleness of purpose, the whole course of his life and actions, so too our “sacrifice of thanksgiving” must characterize our singleness of purpose, the whole course of our life and actions (Matthew 3:8). If our gratitude is reducible to words off our lips, then God rebukes us: “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23).

From blasphemy to empty praise, the wrath of God will scorch our world to ash (Isaiah 9:19). He will not look away from injustice (Isaiah 10:1-2). There is no sanctuary from the Lord’s wrath (Isaiah 10:3). We cannot slither away from God’s judgment like snakes when the earth rumbles (Matthew 3:7), for there is nowhere to go. We cannot say, “We have Abraham as our father” (or any substitute for this), for “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). The evils of man cannot negotiate before the absoluteness of God’s judgment, “for all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still” (Isaiah 10:4). God’s rebuke doesn’t tire, because thanksgiving isn’t filling God’s need for attention, but what we’re made for.

Today, I’d ask you to cultivate gratitude to God in your heart. See your life today, in your place with your people, through eyes of gratitude. Dwell with the gifts you stumble across. Express your gratitude in prayer. Thanksgiving is where our ever dry, never resting search for joy—for pleasure beyond pleasure—finds its match. Thanksgiving isn’t just proper manners in the context of prayer, it’s enlisting every fiber of our being, every corner of our heart, every faculty of our soul in the response to God’s pronouncement in the birth of Jesus that the world’s good is that it’s his.

Further Reading: Psalm 50; Isaiah 9:18-10:4; 2 Peter 2:10b-16; Matthew 3:1-12

Written by Guest House Theologian, Tim Morgan. These reflections are a complimentary addition to our Advent Blend Coffee Bags. Scan the QR code each day to read the most recent reflection. 

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More Advent reflections can be found here.

“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71).

The Gospel of Mark opens with John the Baptist’s forerunning ministry described in a hodge-podge of prophetic words: “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” (Mark 1:2-3). Part of this thematic epitome comes from Isaiah 40, where a little context brings the ominous significance of this description into relief. Isaiah (and by inference John the Baptist) prophesies that every mound, hill, and mountain, every hole, pit, and valley will be leveled out, so that everything stands the same, everything bears the same status before the revelation of the Lord’s glory (Isaiah 40:3-5). Everything, absolutely everything is but a moment in time, “all flesh is grass” (Isaiah 40:6), “but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). This is the message which interprets John the Baptist’s ministry to us. His ministry is one of upheaval, of undoing, flattening, and tearing away every alleged companion or competitor to the Lord’s word. Nothing is like it. And, John says, “after me comes he who is mightier than I” (Mark 1:7). Even John’s destructive power is nothing compared to the Lord’s word whose way he prepares.

The coming of the Lord’s word is affliction. The psalmist writes, “I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me” (Psalm 119:75). The Lord’s “word,” “promise,” “law,” “rules from of old,” “statutes,” “name,” “commandments,” and “precepts” (Psalm 119:49-56) are prayer’s center of gravity. They bring into orbit our “hope,” “comfort,” “songs,” and obedience. However, it also brings into our orbit “the cords of the wicked” which ensnare us (Psalm 119:61) and the lies with which “the insolent” smear us (Psalm 119:69). We are afflicted from within and without. The counter-intuitive effect of this is that, while “before I was afflicted I went astray,” now “I keep your word” (Psalm 119:67). Or again and more pointedly, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71). The Lord’s word against the world and against his people is unfaltering (Isaiah 9:8). It demands repentance and completely shuts out duplicity (Isaiah 9:13-16; Mark 1:4). As Isaiah puts it, before the afflicting Jesus, “The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass” (Isaiah 40:7).

However, the coming of the Lord’s word is also preservation. The psalmist writes, “I entreat your favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise” (Psalm 119:58). In the situation we’re in before the Lord’s coming word, where we find ourselves afflicted from every side, the assurance of Noah and Lot can embolden our hope, enliven our prayer, and strengthen our resolve: “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials” (2 Peter 2:8). The affliction amidst which the righteous are preserved (2 Peter 2:5-9) is caused by “the word of God” which formed the earth, brought the great flood upon it, and now stores “the heavens and earth that now exist” up for “judgment and destruction” (2 Peter 3:7; Isaiah 9:8). The word which God speaks claims the world. It doesn’t bargain. It doesn’t compromise. It doesn’t blush. The word which God speaks is the coming Jesus. He is the resounding pronouncement which melts the heavens and floods the earth. The certainty and resolve of that pronouncement protects God’s people, rescues his remnant (2 Peter 2:5, 7), those who “confirm” their “calling and election” by practicing the shape of Christ’s life (2 Peter 1:5-7, 10), from the affliction which his claim causes. As Isaiah writes, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). Those who speak “false words” (2 Peter 2:3) will dissipate before God’s word, but those who “have the prophetic word more fully confirmed” (2 Peter 1:19) will stand with it.

Today, I’d encourage you to dwell on this question: Does God know do what he’s doing? Does he know how to do it? The power of God’s word isn’t that it’s “a good strategy” or that it “makes sense,” but that it is goodness and sense-making as such. It is creation and judgment, preservation and destruction, promise and dissolution. If God knows what he’s doing, and if he knows how to do it, then “what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness” (2 Peter 3:11)?

Further Reading: Psalm 119:49-72; Isaiah 9:8-17; 2 Peter 2:1-10a; Mark 1:1-8

Written by Guest House Theologian, Tim Morgan. These reflections are a complimentary addition to our Advent Blend Coffee Bags. Scan the QR code each day to read the most recent reflection. 

BUY NOW

More Advent reflections can be found here.