Vaccines for Children and Aborted Fetal Cells

       This may be a bit startling and disturbing for some of you reading this, but many -- and most -- of the vaccines currently used for children were developed and created by using tissue from quite a number of aborted babies in the 1960's.  My wife and I have known of this disturbing fact for roughly two years now, but despite that fact we are convinced that vaccines --when ethically developed -- are a good and kind gift of God given to us in the slow, painful, joy-filled dominion of Earth by God's image-bearers.  And with that in mind, our hope is that this blessing wouldn't be rejected nonchalantly for any ol' reason.  At the same time though, we're certainly not dogmatic on this point because we do know other godly friends and relatives who have been thoughtful on this as well, and have decided not to have vaccines administered to their children.
       So, what can someone do when ya want them but most are hideously developed using aborted babies? 

Holy Week meditation, no.4

Easter Hymn
Death, and darkness, get you packing;
Nothing now to man is lacking.
All your triumphs now are ended,
And what Adam marred, is mended;
Graves are beds now for the weary,
Death a nap, to wake more merry;
You now, full of pious duty,
Seeks in thee for perfect beauty,
The weak, and aged, tired with length
Of days, from thee look for new strength,
And infants with thy pangs contest
As pleasant, as if with the breast.
Then, unto him, who thus hath thrown
Even to contempt thy kingdom down,
And by his blood did us advance
Unto his own Inheritance,
To him be glory, power, praise,
From this, unto the last of days.

by Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)

Good Friday Meditation

Good Friday, Flying Eastward

The hours which You spent upon the Cross,
Have flown from me; (I fly against the sun).
Morning I have, and evening; all my loss
Is midday.  Just the time, Lord, when You won
The battle for my soul has been undone.
How should I have a portion in the fight
If that grim afternoon were not begun,
The time of darkness overwhelming light?
Where would I be if in Your holy sight
No sacrifice were offered for my sin,
If I should stand before You with no right
But merit of my own?  Let the Earth spin,
And let my daylight hours be short or long,
But save the moment that removes my wrong.

by Philip Rosenbaum, from his collection Holy Week Sonnets (2004)

A Ministry of Mercy to the People of Japan

 If you're looking to help the country of Japan recover from the recent earthquakes and tsunamis, look into donating to CRASH or Christian Relief, Assistance, Support and Hope (CRASH) is a network supporting Christians to do relief work in Japan and around the world. CRASH equips and prepares churches and missions to be there to help their communities when disasters strike and coordinates Christian volunteers to work with local ministries in the event of a disaster.

      I recently contacted Pastor Ralph Smith of the Mitaka Evangelical Church in Tokyo and he recommended supporting CRASH for those who are looking to financially support the relief effort.  It looks solid, and an excellent way to extend mercy to the folks of Japan, Christian or not.

Holy Week meditation, no.2

"I believe that God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulders.  The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on.  Christ has risen, and so we shall rise.  Saint Peter for a few seconds walked on the water; and the day will come when there will be a re-made universe, infinitely obedient to the will of glorified and obedient men, when we can do all things.  To be sure, it feels wintry enough still, but often in the very early spring it feels like that.  Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale.  A man really ought to say, 'The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago' in the same spirit in which he says, 'I saw a crocus yesterday.'  Because we know what is coming behind that crocus.  The spring comes slowly down this way, but the great thing is that the corner has been turned."

- Excerpt from the essay The Grand Miracle by C.S. Lewis

Holy Week and Resurrection Day Scripture Readings

Here's an outline of Bible readings I put together a few years ago to read to my family during the week running up to Resurrection Day.  I've ended up writing it down in one of those back, blank pages of my Bible so I can access it easily each year.

Lordsday ("Palm Sunday"):  Matthew 21.1-17

Monday:  Matthew 26:1-25

Tuesday:  Matthew 26:26-46

Wednesday:  Matthew 26:47-75

Thursday:  Matthew 27:1-26

Friday:  Matthew 27:27-50
Saturday:  Matthew 27:51-66

Resurrection Day:  Matthew 28

Holy Week meditation, no.1

"We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children's games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind.  This is our greatest festival.  Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else.  Take Easter away, and you don't have a New Testament; you don't have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins.  We shouldn't allow the secular world, with its schedules and habits and parareligious events, its cute Easter bunnies, to blow us off course.  This is our greatest day.  We should put the flags out."

-- N.T. Wright,  Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, pg. 256

Sabbath and Endeavoring to Give Rest

      I hold the Lordsday, the Sabbath, in high regard. It is the New Creation day, the day the mighty Logos of Creation drew His first breath of air into His glorified, resurrected body. It is the day when Jesus, the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-49) simultaneously defeated death, and too, raised His heel and brought down the death blow upon the Dragon's head thus fulfilling the earliest prophecy in the Scriptures (Genesis 3:15; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8). The apostles recognized this and revered it by gathering for worship (a convocation in the OT) and to break bread (1 Cor. 16:2; Acts 20:7; John 20:19) on the first day of the week. That is why Christians through all ages have gathered on the first day of week.  It is a day to savor in singing, reflect on Scripture, fellowship with others in eating the Lord's Supper, and to rest.

      Unfortunately it might not be any of those for a wife if a husband is not careful to actively, and with intentionality, lead his wife and perhaps a little flock. The Lordsday, for wives, can still be full of many of the same tasks as Monday through Saturday were. There is still activities that don't stop for the Lordsday: food to make, dishes to clean and babies bottoms to be wiped (among many other things, and not that these are necessarily only for women to do!), so how can a husband step in and intentionally give sabbath to his wife?

Caesar's Net

"A more certain way to attack religion is by favor, by the comforts of life, by the hope of wealth; not by what reminds one of it, but by what makes one forget it; not by what makes one indignant, but by what makes men lukewarm, when other passions act on our souls, and those which religion inspires are silent. In the matter of changing religion, State favors are stronger than penalties.”

    -- Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

Baptism is getting no game time

     Here's a lamentable omission in the world of 21st century English Bibles: no pages to record baptisms.  I own several translations and not one of them has a page to record a baptism, either with water or without water  (i.e. "dedications to the Lord").  They have a "Deaths" page, a  "Marriages" page, a "Births" page, a "Occasions to Remember" page but no baptism page.  Not even my fancy-dancy Cambridge ESV goatskin version has anything more than a "Belongs to" page.  What's up with that?
     Because in my mind, here's how my lifeline is structured:  birth, baptism, marriage, death and resurrection, and I'd like to have a line for each one of these events within the most important book I own so I can write down a date and a place which will enable me, and others after me, to look back with joy and see God's intentional action in my life (yes, even resurrection because we're coming back here one day and I'm gonna find that Bible and write the date in it to God's glory). 

Spring (I think) is here in southwest Idaho

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

by Gerard Hopkins (1918)