A Great article on beauty and architecture. Here's the first bit:

Architecture clearly illustrates the social, environmental, economic, and aesthetic costs of ignoring beauty. We are being torn out of ourselves by the loud gestures of people who want to seize our attention but give nothing in return.

The book of Revelation

From an article by Neal Plantinga,

"John Calvin wrote commentaries on every book of the Bible but one. When he got to the last book of the Bible— the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, the book of whores and dragons and clashing empires—he read it and then put his pen back in his drawer."

Perhaps a reminder for all of us to be a bit more humble as we deal not only with advent, but the second advent.

What is Prosperity?

Deut. 30:9 "The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, 10 when you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul." The Hebrew for abundantly prosperous is one word which means "to remain over". In the Old Testament abundant prosperity is connected with having being full and still having food left over. We see this in Ruth 2.14 "And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until eshe was satisfied, and she had some left over." What a difference between our understanding of abundant prosperity and the picture of the Old Testament. We could bring this idea into the New Testament as well when Paul says, 1Tim. 6:6 Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

Esther 4

The second person in our sitcom is Esther. We find an incompetent king and a beautiful young women whose name is Esther. Again the name is significant, as opposed to an incompetent king we have Esther whose names means either star—which of course carries with it the idea of brightness, a shining light or it could be that Esther is a Hebrew transliteration of Ishtar, the name of the Babylonian goddess of love and war. If Esther does reflect the goddess of love and war in our sitcom, she does it well. Look at chapter 2.17Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. And the king gave a great banquet, Esther's banquet, for all his nobles and officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and distributed gifts with royal liberality. Couldn’t skip the royal thing…. But catch the thing about Esther, in just one night she pleases the king more than any other, she causes him to fall in love with her, she is the goddess of love. But she is also the goddess of war. Check out chapter 9.11The number of those slain in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king that same day. The king said to Queen Esther, "The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman in the citadel of Susa. What have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? Now what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? It will also be granted." "If it pleases the king," Esther answered, "give the Jews in Susa permission to carry out this day's edict tomorrow also, and let Haman's ten sons be hanged on gallows." Esther wants the attack to continue, she wants a second day of destruction and she wants a second day to deal with Haman’s ten sons. She is the goddess of war.

But in all of this, what we see is a sharp contrast between an incompetent king and a bright, alluring, capable young woman who gets her way to protect her people. And it carries a kind of smile to the lips thing, even though at times it is a dark humor.

Unexpected Lyrics

I was listening to the music of 17th century composer Thomas Tomkins and noticed that one of his pieces is entitled: "O Praise the Lord, all ye Heathen". Not exactly the way one speaks of people who don't follow God in the 21st century. We use kinder, gentler language. Heathen sounds quite nasty to our ears for some reason.

But the words of Tomkins (which come from Psalm 117, "Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!") do remind me that the day is coming when all will praise and extol God. Isaiah speaks of the nations streaming to the mountain of the Lord (Isaiah 2) and Paul says of Christ that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father.

In this season of advent, when we prepare for the coming of the Christ child and look to shepherds and magi worshipping him (those who come from God's people and those who come from the nations), one can't help but wonder what the day will look like when every knee finally does bow. Not only so, but the importance of getting the story out that this day will come: as surely as their was a first advent, so shall there be a second.

Helicopters no more?

"10 is the new 2. We're infantilizing our kids into incompetence."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1940395-2,00.html#ixzz0Z1doUWWN

Esther III

A bit more on our incompetent king and the hope of a real king for the people of Israel in exile.

Xerxes is a king who is a buffoon. In all of his failings, however, none is more devastating than his inability to judge character. He keeps listening to Haman, a guy who wants to kill off a significant group of people in his empire, a killing that’s going to cost the empire a lot.

One last, he doesn’t get it. Remember the story in chapter 1. Queen Vashti—a minor character whose name means beautiful woman or beloved by the way—, Queen Vashti was summoned by the king, ...to bring before him Queen Vashti, wearing her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at. ...she is called in so everybody can take a look at her and go, "wow, what a beautiful woman." Her response, she says, "not coming, not going to do the runway thing". Now catch the punishment for this woman who doesn’t want to see the king and his friends, "Therefore, if it pleases the king, let him issue a royal decree and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media, which cannot be repealed, that Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Xerxes. Also let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she. Now let’s just get this straight—Vashti doesn’t want to hang out with the king, doesn’t want to be in his presence, her punishment is to get exactly what she wants. This king just doesn’t get it.

Enough about our incompetent king—as the Jewish people are hearing the story or reading the story they are getting a good laugh. The kind of laugh that tells them that this king who thinks so much of himself is more of a court jester than anything else. But beyond that they see that where there should be a king there is a vacuum, there is no one doing the royal ruling thing. But even as they laugh the thought does start to occur to them that maybe somewhere behind the scenes there is another king, not a buffoon, not a court jester, but a true king, a king who is at work as they are being threatened by the likes of Haman who gets his way because of a king who doesn’t get it. A true king who still cares and loves them and who is guaranteeing their future. In their laughter their minds turn to this true king, and they see possibilities, they taste hope.

Esther part Deux

The book of Esther is a 5th century sitcom, a tragic sitcom, but still a sitcom. So here's the first character of the sitcom: King Xerxes. King Xerxes is the only character that is involved from the very beginning of the book to the very end of the book, he is also the character who is singled out as the greatest fool in the book. He is a buffoon, a laughable leader, a joke.

Let’s check it out. First thing is his name. When you interpret his name into Hebrew just saying the name makes you laugh. So any Jewish person—by the way did you know that Jews were first called Jews while in exile in Babylon, they were named for the home of Judah—anyway, any Jewish person who read the opening sentences would already being doing a chuckle and then he’d go into some really great laughter because when you translate King Xerxes into Hebrew, the name means something like King Headache. We’re already getting some laughter going—like you get in Doonesbury Cartoons that make fun of leaders in subtle ways.

In chapter 1.2 we get more insight into this buffoon of a king. At that time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa… One word in this verse starts setting us up for a kind of silliness. The word is royal—the writer of Esther goes over the top with this whole concept of royal. It is so over the top that it is clear that what the writer is doing is mocking the king’s kingliness, making a joke of it. Kathleen O’Connor summarizes the whole deal for us, “…he serves royal wine and gives royal orders. The king has royal provinces, the royal palace, the royal gate, royal servants, royal laws, royal secretaries, royal governors, royal eunuchs, royal treasuries, a royal crown. He shows royal favor and owns a royal herd. Royal couriers go out on swift royal steeds. Haman (a character we’ll be introduced to in a moment)takes royalty and its trappings over the top. In his hopes to be the man whom the king will honor, he wants to wear the royal robes that the king himself has worn, ride the royal horse the king himself has ridden, and most ridiculously, the royal horse must be wearing a royal crown upon its head. What we see is a court and especially a king who is full of himself, but the truth is he shouldn’t be. After all, he can’t for the life of him make a decision on his own. You’ve seen the type in a sitcom or movie somewhere. The guy at the top who couldn’t make a good decision if his life depended on it. For those of you who remember the movie The Secret of My Success think of the guy at the top of the corporation that Michael J. Fox is taking over—he doesn’t have a clue that he can’t make a decent decision, that his wife is sleeping around, that everything is crumbling around him. We read in Chapter 1.13 Since it was customary for the king to consult experts in matters of law and justice, he spoke with the wise men who understood the times ¹⁴ and were closest to the king-Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena and Memucan, the seven nobles of Persia and Media who had special access to the king and were highest in the kingdom. This sounds like a reasonable thing to do, the queen’s done something he doesn’t like and now he needs some advice on what to do. But when you follow this royal king throughout the book of Esther what you find is that he can’t make a decision for the life of him. He’s always got to have someone else make the decision, always someone else taking the initiative. This guy soon looks like the worst bumbling incompetent one could have ever encountered.

Next time: More on the king