Song Spotlight

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, so we are going to sing a song about prayer! It might be surprising to think of prayer as Trinitarian, probably because we tend to think of prayer as something we do before God. 

The song starts with Jesus and the Holy Spirit pleading to the Father on our behalf. Both of them say “don’t look at their faults, look at us! Look at the righteousness of the Son that clothes them and the life of the Spirit that fills them.” This picture of the Trinity is laid out for us in Romans 8. Jesus, having died and risen from the grave, is now interceding at the right hand of God (v. 34), and the Spirit “intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (v. 26). This isn’t two-against-one, either. The Spirit and Son don’t have to persuade the Father against his will. He gladly hears their cry. After all, he didn’t spare his own Son! Will not he not “graciously give us all things (v. 32)?”

Here’s where this becomes concrete for us. When our sins and our weakness are exposed, Jesus opens his hands and shows his wounds. The Father gladly accepts the Son’s prayer for us, because he gladly accepts the Son that he offered. When we feel lost, homeless, and alone, the Spirit testifies that we have been adopted as God’s children and are now heirs with Jesus. The Father gladly accepts the sons and daughters that he has made his own. When we pray, and maybe even more when we can’t find the words to pray, the Spirit prays over us in the power of the Triune God. That means that even when anxiety, doubt, fear, or just sheer stupidity tie down our hearts and tongues, our little prayers get drawn into the life of the Triune God. And the Father is glad to hear them.

Let Trinity Sunday be a reminder that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit delights in hearing and answering your prayers, and God’s prayers for you are even greater. He delights in giving you every good thing. He delights in the painful soul surgeries that pull the idols out of your heart. He delights in the divine adoption that makes you a co-heir with Christ. He delights in your salvation. When you struggle to remember, or to measure up, look at Jesus and the Spirit pleading for you before the Father. It is enough.

Listen to "Before the Father" Here!

-Justin

Between Ascension and Pentecost

Since Thursday, April 13th, we have been between Ascension and Pentecost. It is normal to think about all the services of Holy Week as “walking in the footsteps of Jesus,” but until this morning, I had never really thought about the fact that we “walk in the footsteps of the disciples” as we move from Ascension to Pentecost. The thought grabbed me, though, that between Ascension and Pentecost is a profound image for much of life.

At the Ascension, Jesus told the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait for the power of the Holy Spirit, who would be given by the Father, so that they could accomplish the task to which they were called (Acts 1:4-8). The image of the disciples receiving a call and yet having to wait in patience for God’s powerful presence fits much of our experience. The disciples didn’t know how long the wait would be and didn’t know what it would be like to receive the presence of the Holy Spirit. They just had to wait in patience and faith.

We, too, oftentimes know that there is something for us to do. Perhaps it is a particular task, job, or goal that we know we are supposed to do. Perhaps it is a new spiritual discipline or a deeper level of pursuing God to which we know that we are called, and yet have not been able to succeed in yet. Perhaps it is a level of contentment and peace in our circumstances that we desire but cannot achieve in our own strength. Perhaps it is reconciliation in a particular relationship. We all have had moments where there is something before us, something from God, that we cannot yet reach. In those moments, we are called, like the disciples, to wait in faith. We are waiting for God to show up, waiting for the strength of the Holy Spirit to do what we are called to do, waiting for the promise to be given.

We don’t get to dictate the length of the wait. We don’t know what it will be like for God to arrive. We don’t know how the calling will be fulfilled. Like the disciples, we are simply called to remain in our particular Jerusalem until God arrives.

As you wait for Pentecost on Sunday, let the fact that we are between Ascension and Pentecost encourage you to keep waiting for the presence of God, who will lead you into the calling he has for you, in his timing!

Steven+

Song Spotlight

For a long time, Christopher Wordsworth’s “See the Conqueror” was a mainstay in Anglican churches on the Sunday after Ascension. By and large it has fallen by the wayside lately, though I’m sure there are still plenty of churches who have sung it every year for generations. It’s a beautiful hymn about Jesus’ triumphant ascension. Having conquered sin, death, and Satan on the cross, the risen Christ rises to take his rightful place in the heavenly throne room. That pronouncement of victory is reason enough for us to sing.

I hope that on Sunday when we sing this together your heart can catch a glimpse of the Ascension’s everyday importance for all of us. When Jesus ascends into the throne room of God, we go with him. That almost sounds like something we shouldn’t be allowed to say out loud, but it’s true! Because we are “in Christ,” bound to him, united with him, in some mysterious way we go where he goes. This is why we can sing with Paul “there we sit in heavenly places” (Eph. 1:20). When Jesus enters into the heavenly holy of holies (Heb. 10:19-20) we stand with him in the presence of God.

It also means that we share in his exaltation. Let that sink in. We have neither earned nor deserved it. We have won none of his cosmic victories. Still, on Sunday we will sing together “thou hast raised our human nature.” We receive the new life and renewed human nature of our risen and ascended Lord. His obedient heart and faithfulness unto death become ours, deserved or not. He offers us his triumph, his Spirit, and his righteousness. “Mighty Lord in Thine ascension, we by faith behold our own.”

Listen to "See the Conqueror" here!

- Justin