The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for March 30, 2021

Moving toward Holy Week worship, I’m wondering why God sent Jesus when He did, not at another time.  

Galatians 4: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son….” It has been said, and I’ve passed it along too, that it was the “fullness of time” because the world was unified under the Roman Empire, one central government, a system of roads, a common language, and so on, but that explanation doesn’t hold up. It eliminates all the other peoples and cultures on the planet in the first century, people groups our western history marginalizes. Further, if we say the first century was a good time for communications, then why didn’t God wait until our digital age? Today Jesus could sit in Nazareth and tweet out the Gospel to the entire globe.  Or why not send Jesus earlier, immediately when Adam and Eve had sinned and fix the problem right away? All this is human, earthbound speculation.  

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). God unfolds His plan for us, not our plan. The fullness of time was after God sending centuries of prophets who decried mankind turned away from the Creator. The fullness was God’s promise to restore creation to the goodness He intended. The fulness was hope centered not on a nation (Rome, Christian America, what have you) but on one person, Jesus of Nazareth. What Jesus did was begin the restoration of all creation, and that began by His incarnation and once and for all taking our rebellion to its logical end, death. The cross was a cosmic turning point but not yet the end. Jesus rose; the sacrifice of our substitute accepted by the Father. Then He ascended and poured out the Holy Spirit, incorporating us into His body, the Church. One day He will come again. Yes, we have been adopted as St. Paul says, but full possession of our inheritance is yet to come. This whole long process is God’s grace so mankind will repent. 

After Holy Week is over, the sinful world will still be very much with us, but Holy Week turns us again to the future. He has been lifted up, on the cross and by His ascension, and His Spirit is still drawing us to God. The best is yet to come. 

The Meyer Minute for March 30, 2021

Moving toward Holy Week worship, I’m wondering why God sent Jesus when He did, not at another time.  

Galatians 4: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son….” It has been said, and I’ve passed it along too, that it was the “fullness of time” because the world was unified under the Roman Empire, one central government, a system of roads, a common language, and so on, but that explanation doesn’t hold up. It eliminates all the other peoples and cultures on the planet in the first century, people groups our western history marginalizes. Further, if we say the first century was a good time for communications, then why didn’t God wait until our digital age? Today Jesus could sit in Nazareth and tweet out the Gospel to the entire globe.  Or why not send Jesus earlier, immediately when Adam and Eve had sinned and fix the problem right away? All this is human, earthbound speculation.  

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). God unfolds His plan for us, not our plan. The fullness of time was after God sending centuries of prophets who decried mankind turned away from the Creator. The fullness was God’s promise to restore creation to the goodness He intended. The fulness was hope centered not on a nation (Rome, Christian America, what have you) but on one person, Jesus of Nazareth. What Jesus did was begin the restoration of all creation, and that began by His incarnation and once and for all taking our rebellion to its logical end, death. The cross was a cosmic turning point but not yet the end. Jesus rose; the sacrifice of our substitute accepted by the Father. Then He ascended and poured out the Holy Spirit, incorporating us into His body, the Church. One day He will come again. Yes, we have been adopted as St. Paul says, but full possession of our inheritance is yet to come. This whole long process is God’s grace so mankind will repent. 

After Holy Week is over, the sinful world will still be very much with us, but Holy Week turns us again to the future. He has been lifted up, on the cross and by His ascension, and His Spirit is still drawing us to God. The best is yet to come. 

The Meyer Minute for March 29, 2021

“My first idea about theological education formed long before I ever took a seminary class. It came from the inscription in the flyleaf of the Bible my parents gave me as a Christmas present when I was in the fifth or sixth grade.” That set me to thinking. The quotation is from Dr. Daniel Aleshire. He and I entered seminary in the same year, though different seminaries in different denominations. We’ve both been pastors, professors, and involved in theological education, he as executive director of the Association of Theological Schools for almost 20 years and I as president of one of the ATS’s 280 member schools.  

He touched a memory close to my heart. 60 years ago, Palm Sunday, March 26, 1961, I was confirmed. For Lutherans, confirmation is not a sacrament but an important rite in which you reaffirm vows made at Baptism. Confirmation is a commitment to lifelong learning from, not simply about, from God and Jesus. Dr. Aleshire continues. “It was a study Bible; my parents had determined that I needed to move from a Bible with pictures to one with notes and cross-references. The inscription in my father’s hand referred to 2 Timothy 2:15, ‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth’ (KJV). I read this Bible all the way through during my high school years.”  

I was given an inscribed King James Bible at confirmation. “The Holy Bible presented to Dale Meyer on your confirmation, 3-26-61. ‘Be faithful unto death.’ Love, Uncle Bob and Aunt Joan.” Dr. Aleshire: “I still have the Bible my parents gave me. The binding is tattered from use when I was in high school.” Mine too. Still have it. Still refer to it.  

The decline of the institutional church is well-documented, and you’ve probably seen the changes in your own congregation’s life. Covid has given the church an opportunity it might not have had, to understand our shared suffering and divisions with the insight and hope that God gives us in the Word of Christ. Remember, not learning simply about God but from God in the Word of Christ. As we slowly begin to gather, I wonder if Bible classes will grow with zealous learners. “Learning informs and, in its most successful moments, transforms… Learning is intrinsic to the Christian faith.” Or will we be content with picture Bibles? (“Beyond Profession,” 12-15).  

The Meyer Minute for March 25, 2021

I preached at our midweek Lenten service yesterday and told the true story of a young man who got into the habit of hanging out at a bar in a dangerous part of metro St. Louis. One night he didn’t come home. He was found in a ditch, murdered. “How can a young man keep his way pure?” Religious people have a snap answer: Don’t go to places where you’re led into temptation and evil can come upon you. True, but Christianity is deeper than moral conduct.  

The sermon text, Psalm 119:9-16, is below, but first, who is “you” in the psalm? Obviously, it’s God, but a truth of Christian interpretation is that we read the Old Testament in light of the New. Aha, “you” in the psalm is God as He comes to us in Jesus. Now we’re getting deeper, uncomfortably deeper for any of us satisfied because we go to church. What way does Jesus teach us? True, we shouldn’t go to dark, disgusting places (“It is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret,” Ephesians 5:12), but Jesus’ way is to go to people who aren’t “our kind of people.” “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10), but oh, did that upset religious people. “Jesus, you’re taking this love of God thing too far!”   

Imagine Jesus as the chairman of the evangelism committee in many of our congregations. How would church people react when He brought “those kinds of people” to worship and fellowship? I went on about that in the sermon, but for now I’ll leave you to read the psalm as a prayer to Jesus.   

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statues! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. 

 

The friend of sinners and tax collectors (Luke 7:34) is indeed the chairman of our Evangelism Committee. His outreach program can get uncomfortable! When it does, we’re getting down into true repentance. 

The Meyer Minute for March 24, 2021

This afternoon Diane and I will go to midweek Lenten worship. The place where we worship is a large, rectangular building. Instead of outer walls, there are columns supporting the roof. Underneath the roof, toward the back of this rectangular structure, are walled rooms. In the largest room is a statue of our god, but only the priests can go there. We common people are out near the front of this rectangular building. That’s where the altar is. On it a fire is burning for the animal sacrifice. Its throat will be slit, blood poured out, the fat burned to rise to heaven for the god to eat, and we churchgoers will enjoy the good parts of the animal. This is our Lenten supper. Diane and I will then return home, passing two other sanctuaries where people are sacrificing to their gods, for there are many gods in our country. 

You wonder if I’m on a hallucinogenic? What I’m on is how much we don’t understand Bible times and, therefore, are satisfied with “Lenten Lite.” What I described above was the normal design of a Greek or Roman temple in New Testament times. Killing animals, people too, was more a part of community life than we can imagine. The horror of 18 people murdered in Atlanta and Boulder intrudes upon our lives which are largely insulated from violent death, unless you live in high crime areas. For most of us, slaughter comes on a screen and we move on, but not back then. Into that brutal world where life was expendable, a message came, a message they could understood, a sacrifice to change forever how we live. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “You were ransomed…with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb with spot and blemish” (1 Peter 1:18-20).    

Jesus “death on the cross explodes the already existing concepts of sacrifice…and did in fact entail something that amounts to the end of all sacrifices. This should lead us to reflect further on what the spiritualization of sacrificial terms…really means. What does it mean to ‘sacrifice’ money, or what does ‘the sacrifice of one’s life’ mean? How far is this metaphor, how far reality?” (Hans-Joseph Klauck, “The Religious Context of Early Christianity,” 42).  Our world needs more from us Christians than “Lenten Lite.” Honestly, I need deep Lent myself. 

The Meyer Minute for March 23, 2021

I have a newspaper photo of a 5-year-old covered with blood and dust from a bombing in the Syrian civil war. How many people have had their businesses closed or jobs lost because of Covid? How many around the world are sick or starving because ruling elites feather their pockets and crush reform? 

The fifth penitential psalm, Psalm 102, is a complaint to God about His ways. “I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink, because of your indignation and anger; for you have taken me up and thrown me down” (verses 9-10). What is God doing about all the injustice in our world? Historically the Church has taught a final judgment and hell, “those who have done evil into eternal fire” (Athanasian Creed), but people object. Would a loving God do that? But the flip side is how could a loving God not condemn those who spurn His ways and cause injustice to others? 

Brooding over injustice, the psalmist came to a hopeful conclusion. “You will arise and have pity on Zion; it is the time to favor her; the appointed time has come” (verse 13). Did that “appointed time” come?  As injustice closed in on Jesus, He prayed, “‘Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ Jesus said, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.’ He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:28, 30-33). 

The cross is where God judges sin. The cross is God’s “no more” to every injustice that people and systems commit upon others. Unlike worldly glory, glitzy and self-serving, God’s Son suffers for injustice and sin so that His Father and our Father can say on Easter, the price has been paid. “Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Far different from worldly glory, the cross is God’s “yes” to all God’s promises that justice will flow like a river” (2 Corinthians 1:20; Amos 5:24).    

“Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord: that he looked down from his holy height; from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die” (Psalm 102:18-20).  

The Meyer Minute for March 22, 2021

Decades ago, I visited Greece with a tour group. Diane didn’t go with, she hates travel, except these days to go see the grandkids. So, half a world away and missing her, I bought a gift so she’d know how much I love her. It was a dress. She never, ever wore it. Well, once she did. About 20 years ago, our daughters were visiting and for some reason the three of them started mocking the dress, that “I miss you so much, I love you so much, I picture you in this Greek dress.” Diane slipped out of the living room and came back wearing the dress. I got the point; it just wasn’t her. 

Bill McClellan’s column reminded me of that dress. Mr. McClellan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and happens to live across the street from the Seminary. Now and then we’d meet when we were walking our dogs. Anyway, Bill wrote about a gift he had given to his fiancé, now his wife of 41 years. “When we were first a couple, I decided to buy her a birthday gift. I gave my new girlfriend a sewing machine. She just looked at it. ‘It’s a sewing machine,’ I said. She stopped looking at the sewing machine and looked at me. ‘I know what it is,’ she said. Eventually, I took it back to my friend.” 

Another of my great gifts to Diane, I think this was for our anniversary, was a weed whacker. Made sense to me; she loves yard work, needed a new one, so I bought it. I thought I had been doing what husbands are supposed to do, listen to our wives. Well, that weed whacker is in second place in our 47 years of marriage, right behind the dress. And there have been extension cords, vacuums, everything the woman needs to take care of me. As Bill wrote, “She knows me very well, but I am not sure how well I know her.”  

Despite my being an oaf, the romantic thing is that Diane kept the dress. The Bible compares the love of Christ and the Church to the love of a bride and groom. If I don’t get earthly gifts right, I wonder if we’re giving our Lord the gifts that please Him, or are we giving what we imagine He wants? And where would you go to find the answer, especially on this side of the final judgment?  

The Meyer Minute for March 18, 2021

One of the sweetest Gospel passages I know is Isaiah 42:3: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.” 

Where’s Jesus when you need him, when you’re about to break and hope is almost gone? Remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. “And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs.” That’s the way of the world, coming at you with power. “What can I do? They’ve got me.” “Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man.” People who want to get you often use deceit, though they will justify it, saying you’re the problem. “One of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.” That was Peter, leading disciple, who was deceived into retaliating with the world’s way of power. Have you ever seen power plays in church meetings? “And they all left him and fled” (Mark 14:43-50). All alone, weak, and powerless, you’re in the garden with Jesus and He’s with you. 

“Put your sword back in its sheath” (John 18:11). The development of the Gospel accounts is not toward glorious victory but to weakness, Jesus criticized, Jesus seized, Jesus beaten, Jesus dying all alone. It’s not that there is no glorious victory, for resurrection and ascension do come, but the weight of the Gospel accounts is on Jesus’ gradual reduction to total loneliness. Peter voiced our natural revulsion, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). I don’t want to be burned-out, broken, in despair, but that’s precisely where the Gospel makes sense.  

“He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecution, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Hard as it is, I need to be emptied of myself so that He can fill me with sure and certain hope. “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).  

The Meyer Minute for March 17, 2021

Is it really St. Patrick’s Day without parades and pubs? To be honest, I don’t do big, tightly packed, sweaty, swigging and sloshing beer crowds, but get together with friends for drinks? Absolutely. One cruel thing about Covid is trying to experience life virtually when God intended life to be experienced bodily. 

St. Patrick’s Day without parades and pubs offers a teachable moment. We have slipped into virtual Christianity. I’m not thinking now of streaming services, online devotions, and the like. Kudos to pastors and churches for providing these resources during the pandemic. What I do mean is that a popular understanding of the word “soul” is cheating us out of what God created us to be. From the King James Version, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). The problem is the last two words, “living soul.” Much popular thinking has been more influenced by the Greek philosopher Plato than by the Bible. Plato taught that our physical life is an illusion, not real. What’s real, he wrote, is spirit, free of the body. So today obituaries talk about being freed of life and the spirit ascending to heaven. And congregations evangelize to get souls into heaven but have little or no social ministry in the community because we imagine that’s just bodily and will pass. The ESV translation of Genesis 2:7 brings us back to God’s design: “and the man became a living creature.” 

Jesus rose from the dead with His physical body, and you’ll be raised one day with your body. When you die, your life is separated from the body and goes to Jesus. “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). That’s not the end of the story. On a day yet to come, “the dead will be raised imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:52). If we believe what we confess in the Creed, “I look for the resurrection of the dead,” then let’s start thinking of fully embodied Christianity now and in the life to come. 

The word “real,” as in “real estate” comes from the Latin word “res.” Its basic meaning is property, matter. Virtual St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the real thing, and neither is virtual church. God didn’t create us to live life virtually, and biblical Christianity is not about disembodied souls. Be safe today, may the pandemic pass, but celebrate every holiday with body, soul, and spirit, especially Easter! 

The Meyer Minute for March 16, 2021

Is Baptism relevant to daily life? I fear the answers, like “it’s a custom,” “it’s nice for children” (like the Easter Bunny), “it’s fire insurance,” and such drivel. Surprisingly, Baptism, not the mere ritual but the real working of God’s Word in our grubby lives, is relevant for a surprising reason. You see suffering in a hopeful way.   

At first reading, the third penitential psalm is from a person who is physically very sick, and the butt of slander and schemes from everyone around him. “There is no soundness in my flesh. There is no health in my bones. My wounds stink and fester. My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague” (Psalm 38:3-5, 11). We identify with the poor guy’s plea, “Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation” (verse 22). 

More reflectively, this psalm is about us. When trouble comes, there seem to be only two ways forward, hope or despair. Despair was not the psalmist’s final word, but hope. “For you, O Lord, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.” (verse 15). We ministers should always encourage hope, but if we don’t analyze suffering, you’re getting pablum instead of the substance you need to get through hard times.   

Whatever your hurt, death is still coming, but when it does, your suffering will be over, and you’ll no longer sin. You won’t be annihilated, cease to exist, but you will come into the full possession of what God has prepared for those who love Him (Romans 8:28). But right now, in bad times? Read Psalm 38 not about some guy long ago, but about you and Jesus. Jesus was rejected, even by His disciples. His soul “was very sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:34). And that prayer, “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath!”? God did reject Jesus so that God will never reject you. Jesus was rejected and died so that your afflictions are momentary (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). “You have borne the pain of all” (Lutheran Service Book, 423:1).  

In the night of hurt, meditate on Who is carrying your awful load with and for you. “You were buried with Christ by baptism into death” (Romans 6:4). Baptism’s mysteriously puts you there, sorrowful to death with Jesus. And Baptism leads you to know Easter is coming, no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain. Joy comes in the morning, you know? (Revelation 21:4; Psalm 30:5).