A Poem for Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday

by Rev. Brian Lee

God in a grave

Creator destroyed

Divinity dead

The Word silent.

Human flesh lifeless

True God True Man True Death

Still. Dark. Cold.

For us.

"If A Puppy Were Born There Would Be Some Little Stir..."

Martin Luther’s has some fine sermons on Christmas, and some of his finest are collected in Martin Luther’s Christmas Book, edited by Roland Bainton.

This passage about the Wise Men coming to Jerusalem jumped out to me this morning, perhaps because we have a new puppy in the house:

When the Wise Men received the divine revelation that the king of the Jews was born, they made straight for Jerusalem, for, of course, they expected to find him at the capital in a lordly castle and a golden chamber. Where else would common sense expect to find a king? But because they were so sure of themselves, the star left them. Then they were sorely tried, and had they relied solely on human wisdom, would surely have said: "Confound it! We have come all this way for nothing. The star has deceived us. The devil has led us by an apparition. If a king had been born, would he not be in the capital and in a palace? But when we come, the star disappears and we find no one who knows anything about him. Can it be that we foreigns should be the first to have news of him in the royal city? Everyone is so cold and unfriendly that no one offers to go with us and show us the child. They do not believe themselves that to them a king is born, and shall we come and find him? How desolate for the birth of a king! If a puppy were born there would be some little stir, and here a king is supposed to be born and everything is so still. One of our shepherds makes more fuss over the birth of a babe, and when a cow calves more people know about it than have heard of this king. Should not the people be singing, capering, lighting lamps and torches, bedecking the streets with roses and mayflowers? What a miserable king we are seeking! What fools we have been to let ourselves start on this quest!"

Nature wants to feel and be certain before believing, but grace will believe before she feels. Faith steps gaily into the darkness, trusting simply in the Word.

—Martin Luther's Christmas Book, p. 50 - 51.

The Old Testament Background to Christmas

Please join us for our 15th Annual Festival of Lessons and Carols
December 12th at 5:00 pm

Since 1918, it has been the tradition to hold a festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Kings College Cambridge, on Christmas Eve.

It is a service of surpassing beauty and power. This is due in part to the setting of Kings College Chapel, an architectural gem with perhaps with the finest stained glass and choral acoustics known to the world. It is due in part to the glorious singing of the choir, which is likewise world-renowned.

But it is finally due to the surpassing power of the service itself, a power that is derived from its simplicity. Nine lessons are read straight from the scriptures, four from the old testament, five from the new, with appropriate carols interspersed, and a simple opening and closing prayer. 

Listen to the classic lines of the opening prayer, which capture the force of the event:

Belovèd in Christ, be it this Christmas Eve our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels: in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, and with the shepherds and the wise men adore the Child lying in his Mother's arms.

Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child; and in company with the whole Church let us make this chapel, dedicated to his pure and lowly Mother, glad with our carols of praise, etc. 

The Nine Lessons are powerful, because they underline the simple truth that the story of Christmas begins in the Old Testament. We understand the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ as Good News — the Gospel — only when we enter into the experience of those longsuffering Jews who had been waiting so many generations for their deliverer, when we hear the message of the angels as Mary heard it, as Zechariah and Elizabeth heard it, as the shepherds heard it. 

When Christmas is untethered from the Old Testament, from the covenantal promises it fulfilled, is when it is most susceptible to the empty, romantic notions that typify the holiday celebration of not only our broader culture, but of far too many Christmas sermons. You know the list of themes that are comfortably conveyed in Christmas cards: Joy, Peace, Love. It is not enough to insist that Jesus is the reason for the season, if all he is merely a symbol of love, peace, and joy. Yet, in a day of great and growing biblical illiteracy, even in the church, this is what we are too often left with.

That the story of Christmas — the Gospel itself — begins in the Old Testament is abundantly clear from each of the Four Gospels, which each present the coming of the Son of God as the fulfillment of the Old Testament in their own, distinctive way.

• John begins his story of the incarnation of the Word “in the beginning,” establishing his roots in the opening verses of Genesis.

• Mark announces “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” by quoting the prophet Isaiah, and describing the ministry of John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord.

• Matthew begins with a genealogy, which causes the eyes of many modern readers to glaze over with the likes of Amminadab, Nahshon, Jeconiah, Shealtiel, and Eliakim. But to the Jew, or the knowing Christian, this genealogy of the Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham conjures in a few quick penstrokes the entire sweep of Old Testament history, and more importantly, the tale of the loving purposes of God as expressed in the covenants made with Abraham, and David, and kept by the Lord through the exile, and through the many generations. Count them, three groups of fourteen, six sevens, with the seventh seven, the sabbath of sabbaths, coming in Christ.

• And likewise, Luke, the researcher, the chronicler, the historian. A gentile convert, Luke’s Gospel leaves little doubt that he was catechized into a thorough understanding of the Old Testament, and that the Apostle Paul, with whom he traveled, proclaimed Jesus as the righteous seed, long ago promised to Abraham.

Luke’s telling of the birth of Christ is both more historical, and more narrative and lyrical. After his prologue, Luke’s opening verse sets the birth of Christ in its historical context, and then immediately introduces us to Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, and her husband Zachariah, a priest who we meet ministering before the altar in the temple of Jerusalem.

Both Elizabeth and Zechariah are of the priestly tribe of Aaron, and both of them, as well as the temple itself play a prominent role in the opening scenes of Luke’s Gospel — one thinks of the prophecy of Malachi, “and the Lord, whome you seek, will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you deligth, behold, he is coming, says the lord of hosts.”

Their names are not insignificant: Elizabeth means “God is an Oath,” and Zechariah means “Yahweh remembers.” Immediately upon being introduced to them, one wonders what it is that Yahweh remembers, what oath has been given that reveals god’s presence with his people. This name, Zechariah, is an extremely common one in the Old Testament, occurring 29 times, and reflecting the same reality we find in Matthew’s geneaology, that generation after generation had celebrated the Lord’s faithfulness to his covenant promises, and looked forward to the day of their fulfillment. 

This post was taken from a sermon by Brian Lee, “Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?”, originally preached on November 30, 2008.

Prayer for Good Friday

Good Friday provides an opportunity to meditate on our need for Easter. When we survey the wondrous cross, we pour contempt on our pride, and come with sharpened hunger to the festal table the risen Christ spreads for us on Easter morn.

If you are in the Washington, DC, area during Holy Week, you are welcome to join us for our Good Friday service, which is usually held at 6:00 pm. Please check our website to confirm service times this year (2021 Good Friday service details here). 

Prayer for Good Friday

Included in the Liturgical Forms and Prayers of the URCNA is a prayer for use in a Good Friday service. Though intended for public worship, this prayer is also commended for personal or family use as well:

Our Father, who so loved the world that You gave Your only begotten Son, we acknowledge and marvel at Your mercy. Even while we were enemies, You reconciled us; even while we were strangers, You made us fellow heirs with Christ of all eternal blessings; even while we stood condemned, You redeemed us; even while we were imprisoned, You delivered us from the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil. On this solemn occasion, we loathe our miserable estate and celebrate Your marvelous grace. Beneath the cross of Christ, we come to know that ours is the guilt, but Yours the forgiveness; ours the condemnation, but Yours the gift of justification; ours the bondage, yet Yours the freedom of adoption and new obedience. Even the faith with which we confess our dear Savior’s sacrifice was won for us by His death. Therefore, we cry out to You in sorrow for our sins and in thanksgiving for Your gift. Give us the grace, we pray, to receive again this word of the cross, which alone can refresh us on our pilgrim way, and send us out again into the world as witnesses to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.

Many American Christians tend to be a bit allergic to written prayers, but they are an important part of the Reformed tradition on the European continent. While such prayers are for voluntary use — our Church Order doesn’t require them — they are a valued resource. While they are suitable to be read in the home or for a service, they can also serve as useful outlines for more extemporaneous prayers.

What follows is a brief commentary on our Good Friday prayer.

Commentary

Our Father, who so loved the world that You gave Your only begotten Son, we acknowledge and marvel at Your mercy. 

Our prayer opens by addressing God as Father, as Jesus instructed us in Matthew 6:9, and acknowledging the great mercy he showed us by sending his Son to die for us on the cross. Our Heidelberg Catechism reminds us that the Creator God “is my God and Father for the sake of Christ his Son.” The death of Jesus secured our adoption as sons and daughters so that we pray to God as our Father. 

Even while we were enemies, You reconciled us; even while we were strangers, You made us fellow heirs with Christ of all eternal blessings; even while we stood condemned, You redeemed us; even while we were imprisoned, You delivered us from the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil. 

The first petition, as it were, is a confession of sorts acknowledging the fallen state we find ourselves in apart from God’s mercy: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God sent Jesus to die for us while we were enemies, strangers, condemned, imprisoned, and under the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil. By beginning our prayer with this humble approach, we acknowledge the magnitude of God’s gift given on Good Friday.

This is always a wonderful way to start our prayers to a holy God, and this form provides an excellent model for us.

On this solemn occasion, we loathe our miserable estate and celebrate Your marvelous grace. Beneath the cross of Christ, we come to know that ours is the guilt, but Yours the forgiveness; ours the condemnation, but Yours the gift of justification; ours the bondage, yet Yours the freedom of adoption and new obedience. Even the faith with which we confess our dear Savior’s sacrifice was won for us by His death. 

Next, the prayer moves to the particular occasion for which it is offered, Good Friday.

Good Friday is one of the “evangelical feast days” that celebrate the saving works of our savior. Reformed Christians don’t hold to a church calendar, per se. We desire our worship to be biblical, and we do not believe the New Testament teaches us that keeping a calendar of feast days is a useful pattern for the people of God in the new covenant (Colossians 2:16). Rather, we hold that the weekly rhythm of the Lord’s Day is the most important liturgical rhythm for saints under the new covenant and that Christians should celebrate the resurrection every Sunday. 

And yet, we acknowledge that it is reasonable and permissible to regularly, even annually, acknowledge key anniversaries in the history of redemption. Good Friday is one such “solemn occasion.” We should “preach Christ and him crucified” in every sermon, but on Good Friday we are able to dwell on the weighty message of the cross. Thus, on Good Friday the purpose of the cross of Christ, in particular, is highlighted, namely, our great sin which required such a great sacrifice. 

The special services Reformed Christians mark are called “evangelical feast days” because they are based on the crucial gospel (evangelical) events in our Savior’s life. We believe Christ’s birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the spirit may be celebrated with annual services that focus on Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Reformed Christians preserved these ancient celebrations because they were not man-made or man-focused, unlike the medieval church calendar’s celebration of saints’ days and other feasts.

One of the benefits of marking Good Friday is that it allows for a robust celebration and focus on the resurrection on Easter Sunday. There is no Easter joy without Good Friday sorrow — the story of the cross and the tomb are intertwined. But celebrating both of these radical extremes in a single service can be quite difficult. As a result, Easter in the modern church often skims over the bad news of the cross. We believe there is wisdom and richness in given each moment in Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection its due attention.

Therefore, we cry out to You in sorrow for our sins and in thanksgiving for Your gift. Give us the grace, we pray, to receive again this word of the cross, which alone can refresh us on our pilgrim way, and send us out again into the world as witnesses to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.

Again I say: Good Friday provides an opportunity to meditate on our need for Easter. Confess your sin, pour contempt on your pride, and come with a sharpened hunger for the festal table the risen Christ spreads for you on Easter morn.

We hope you’ll join us for our Good Friday service at Christ Reformed Church.

Calvin on Christmas

It is good to set aside one day out of the year in which we are reminded of all the good that has occurred because of Christ’s birth in the world, and in which we hear the story of his birth retold…

which will be done Sunday.

From John Calvin’s sermon preached on Christmas day 1551 in John Calvin, Sermons on the Book of Micah, trans. Benjamin Wirt Farley (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2003), 302–04. (H/T R. Scott Clark at The Heidelblog).

Top Nine Reasons for Christmas "Lessons & Carols"

You are invited to join us for our
Lessons & Carols service on

Sunday, December 13th

5:00 pm.

In years past I have written about the importance of keeping Christmas in Christianity. For those who don’t aren’t interested in reading the full article at The Federalist, I have distilled below the Top Nine Reasons for celebrating a “Lessons & Carols” service this holiday season, in countdown style à la Letterman.

9. Lessons & Carols reminds us that the story of Jesus is at the center of the Bible.

8. Because due to COVID the public can’t attend Lessons & Carols at Kings College, Cambridge.

7. You can’t understand the Christmas story apart from the Old Testament prophecies of Christ.

6. Where else do you get to sing the fourth stanza of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing”:

Come, Desire of nations, come,
fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display Thy saving power,
ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.

5. The best carols remind us that Jesus was born to die:

Good Christian, fear; for sinners here
the silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear, shall pierce him through;
the cross be borne for me, for you;
hail, hail the Word made flesh,
the babe, the son of Mary.

4. To remind romantics and moralists that Christmas is not about our charity, but God’s work of salvation

3. Eggnog.

(Not technically a part of the Lessons & Carols liturgy.)

2. To brush up on your Latin by singing “Adeste, Fideles.”

And, the Number 1 reason to celebrate “Lessons & Carols” this Christmas:

1. To annoy the puritans among us.

(I’m joking… some of my best friends are puritans.)

A Guide to Thanksgiving Day Prayer

It is good to acknowledge our limits, and all of us have endured a mediocre prayer or two before digging in to our Thanksgiving Day feast.

Of course, the Lord welcomes all faithful prayer, and the Spirit interprets our groanings. But leading a group in public prayer is a skill that is developed through practice, Scripture study, and theological reflection. Not all of us are equally gifted, and it can be nerve-wracking to be called upon to pray when you are unprepared.

 One of the great benefits of being a member of a confessionally Reformed church is the ability to draw on a rich liturgical tradition, including a Book of Forms and Prayers that dates to the sixteenth century reformation. The United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA) have made their book available in full online at www.formsandprayers.com, so a theologically rich prayer is never more than a few screen taps away. These prayers can profitably be read verbatim, or used as a model or guide, providing an outline for a beautiful prayer. 

Our book includes liturgical forms and prayers for the Lord’s Day worship, as well as additional prayers for special services such as Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. There are also prayers for ecclesiastical assemblies and for personal and family use.

Here are a few thoughts on the Thanksgiving Day Prayer:

Our Sovereign God, who created all things for Your pleasure and who gives to all life, breath, and every good thing, we thank You for our creation, our preservation, and all the blessings of this life. 

 The doctrine of creation is the foundation of much biblical thanksgiving. Our prayer opens by reminding us that all things were created for God’s pleasure, and that his work of creation continues in his current work of preservation. All good things come to us from God.

For rain and sunshine, in abundance and in lack, we acknowledge that our times are in Your hands. You supply all of Your creatures with Your good gifts, the just and the unjust alike. 

 We thank God not only for good things and abundance, but for his supervision of our lack. Our comfort in all circumstances comes from the knowledge that “our times are in His hands.”

Nevertheless, we especially give You praise for the surpassing greatness of Your saving grace, which You have shown to us in Christ Jesus our Savior. For our election in Him before the foundation of the world, for our redemption by Him in His life, death, and resurrection, for our effectual calling, justification, sanctification, and all of the blessings of our union with Him, we give You our heartfelt thanks. 

 While creation may be the foundation of our thanksgiving, God’s redeeming work is deserving of special mention. Apart from redemption our hearts would be darkened and we would not be able to truly thank God for anything. This work of redemption started in eternity past, and continues until his return in glory.

Often, at Thanksgiving Day celebrations we find ourselves in mixed company. It is a national, secular holiday. Reading a prayer is a helpful way of articulating a doctrine of redemption in a fashion that might be slightly less personally offensive in mixed company, if it is introduced as a prayer used by the church in thanking God.

Sometimes we also find ourselves praying with extended family who nominally express faith in God but aren’t actively a part of a worshiping community. This prayer enumerates specific blessings of God’s saving work, and we should be prepared to reflect further on them if they become a point of dinnertime conversation.

And we look with great anticipation toward that day when You will raise us to life everlasting, glorified and confirmed in righteousness, so that we may sing Your praises without the defilement of our present weaknesses, distractions, and sins. 

Americans can sometimes slip into the error that the fullness of God’s blessings are known here and now in the U.S. of A. Our prayer reminds us that we look forward in “great anticipation” for God’s greatest blessings, and this confidence in future blessings is perhaps our greatest blessing.

Also, this prayer reminds us of the importance of confessing our sins, even in a prayer of thanksgiving. 

As You have given us these gifts, we ask that You would give us grateful hearts, so that we may serve our neighbors in love. 

Our gratitude is a result of God’s saving work in our hearts, and this saving work results in a grateful response toward God and neighbor. May this thanksgiving holiday serve as a spur and a reminder of how we are called to share God’s blessings with those around us.

This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, who taught us to pray, saying: 

Our Father Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.
Amen.

Closing a prayer with the Lord’s Prayer is a wonderful way to invite all members of your Thanksgiving Day celebration to join their voices together. It is an invitation to pray to God.

Here’s a pro tip: you can give your group advanced warning that you’ll close with the Lord’s Prayer and prepare them to join you. Sometimes it’s worth mentioning whether you go with “debts” or “trespasses” to avoid a brief moment of awkwardness. 

By closing with the Lord’s Prayer, you may give a struggling sinner the opportunity to take their first stumbling steps to calling out to God for forgiveness. 

I still remember a number of years ago when I was praying at an ordinary family dinner. My father was not a churchgoing man, and I don’t think I had ever heard him pray. But when I closed with the Lord’s Prayer, he joined in, for it triggered a deep memory he had from his youth. It was one of the few times I ever heard him pray. 

Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.  

Amen.