Back in Dallas

 

Why? To take down Christmas at Ma LSP's. All those glass ornaments, many like old friends. Down they go, to retrain for next year.

While we're at it, you may remember the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan. Surely it should've been the other way around and the Baptizer says as much, "I should be baptized by you." Jesus was, notoriously, without sin. So how are we to make sense of this fulfillment of "all righteousness." Perhaps this helps.

Our Lord, true God and true Man, like in every way as we are yet without sin, took the sins of humanity on his sinless shoulders upon the Cross in obedience to the Father's will. Here we find an analogue to Christ's baptism, and he says as much, referring to his Passion and Crucifixion later on in the Gospel account, "Are you able to be baptized with the baptism I am to be baptized with?"

Jordan River,

God bless,

LSP

Baptism of Christ - Sunday Sermon

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John

would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come

to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to

fulfil all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, he went

up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw

the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from

heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:13-17)

The Baptism of Christ in the Jordan, what an epiphany. God is revealed to us as a Trinity of Persons and Jesus, in the midst of it all, as the Spirit anointed Son of the Father, the Messiah, King of the Jews. You couldn't make it up and certainly wouldn't if you were out to invent a religion, it's too outlandish. That said, why does the sinless Christ go to John to be baptized?

Surely it should be the other way around and the Baptizer says as much, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replies,  “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” There's our clue, righteousness, obedience to God's commandments, and what is the Father commanding his people to do?

To be baptized in the Jordan as a mark of repentance and cleansing in preparation for the coming of the Holy One. And Jesus, the sinless King of the Jews, represents his sinful people to the Father, so he too must be baptized in solidarity with them. This speaks to another baptism, the baptism of his blood on the Cross. (Lk 12:50)

The Father is commanding his Son to die for his people, to take their sins upon his shoulders and offer himself as a sinless sacrifice on the Cross for their forgiveness, only to rise again, victorious over the grave. This, the mighty work of salvation, is prefigured in the Jordan.

Jesus goes down into the water, the Cross, and rises in the power of the Spirit, the Resurrection, and the heavens are opened to him and to his faithful people. Even ourselves, who have been buried with Christ in Baptism and have risen, regenerate in the power of the Spirit to new life, the gates of heaven open to us.

What a powerful message for the new year, full of strength and hope. The world is badly insane and odds on the monkey it'll get worse still, even to the point of catastrophe. And the same holds true in our personal lives, who knows what out of leftfield furies will fall upon us in the next 12 months. 

Regardless, nothing can take away or destroy the life Christ has won for us by his Cross and Resurrection. It's happened, it cannot be taken back, and it's freely given for us to accept. Pray, then, that our union with the Saviour, begun in the waters of baptism, only grows, deepens and increases so that when we stand on the far shore we will hear the Father's voice, "Thou art my beloved son with whom I am well pleased."

God bless you all,

LSP

Skywatchers & Poets

By way of a Sunday Sermon, a former Provost of *x sent this in:

Warned of brigands, we did the last leg up from the Jordan ford at night.
It wasn’t just the star we followed; the trail is marked by past myriad feet
Trudging through history, theirs and ours. To Babylon enchained, the plight
Of captives, they first came to us; we sent most back long years ago. To meet
Again at Zion’s gate their offspring thus seemed strange. ‘We come in peace,’
I said, and our Chaldean speech was close enough. A coin was further grease;

They let us in. ‘What do you seek?’ an elder spokesman asked. ‘We seek a King,” A soldier heard and laughed: ‘They have a ‘king’—Caesar’s joke—proceed this way.”

The palace, unremarkable save for the surly guards, had a courtyard, something
Like a water trough, yet no one offered to stable our camels, even give them hay.
‘King’ Herod professed no knowledge of a royal birth, just arched his brow
And said his priests told him of Bethlehem the prophecy, urged us to go now

And seek the child there, then bear him directions so he could worship too.
We did not tell him all we knew, that long before the mystery star appeared
In our old library one of us had found a scroll, “God saves” by name. Through
Its tattered pages were mentions of a coming Jewish king, less to be feared
Than welcomed, “a light to lighten the Gentiles,” as they call us. Now light
Is what we scholars seek, wisdom, not merely order in the skies at night.

We read the texts and pondered much, and then one night a light arose
Such as we had never seen. Rotating not, it stayed; then grew and glowed
In the Western sky, brighter to our eyes each night. Balthasar proposed
We take it as the portent of a great event, even as their prophet showed
Would come to Israel. After a year to gaze and think we gathered gear, set
Out along the road and came slowly to that backward land. There we met

With such a contradiction, so it seemed, to everything one might expect.
But lo, the star grew brighter still, and once we were along the winding road
To Bethlehem, it slipped down the sky and waited there. You may reject
Our tale, and few would blame you, but hear the rest: the camel load
Of gifts we brought were suitable to a royal babe, but when we found
The very place it was a simple house and shop. We stopped. Around

Was not a single noble dwelling, yet compelled to look within we asked
The carpenter outside if he knew of an unusual birth nearby. He raised
His eyes aloft, and palms upraised spoke words we couldn’t catch,
Then paused as if to hear some far-off distant sound. Somewhat fazed,
We waited till at last he turned to us and softly said,“ The house is small.
I’ll bring Mary and the child outside. It will be better then for all.”

And so she came, her little one beside her, hand in hand; she smiled
But did not speak. “Many have come,” said the carpenter, “but none
So far away as you.” Immediately we were struck by her manner, mild
But assured as one accustomed to a noble state. She sat next her son
While Joseph fetched hay and water for our camels, bid us also rest.
He looked as any other child might look—except his steady gaze, lest

I forget, which made his face seem wiser than his years. After an hour,
With simple food and drink sufficed, we knew without a doubt some power
Was here, deeper than speech. I nodded to Melchior; he brought the sacks
And we than laid before them gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. “Lacks

You may have, but these should help,” I said. Mary was overcome with tears,
Joseph astounded-- grateful. The little child himself then spoke. Our ears

Distinctly heard the word “todah,” and then he smiled. We rose and went
Our way, but in a dream were warned, so bypassed that city on a hill, sent

Eastward by another way. Little was as we expected; much more was lent
In wisdom, grace and gratitude. Something great was coming yet, meant
To save the world, not as we would expect it, but in a mystery deeper far,
The weak and helpless shall achieve it. We were led to see it by a star.

 

We were led to see it by a star.

Ad Astra,

LSP

A Gentle Reflection

 

Well here we are. Twitter's banned the President of the US, the GOP's baying for the blood of the anarchists(?) who got into the Capitol and stole Pelosi's laptop, and the FBI are working round the clock to bring the perps to justice. Election fraud on an industrial scale obviously wasn't worth the time, eh? But where to from here.

Good question, will our cold civil war become hot? It might, given current levels of anger and dehumanization, to say nothing of the fact that everyone's armed to the teeth. No epiphany there, though perhaps the utter lack of spine on the part of the GOP is an eyeopener, or not. 

Regardless, the future beckons and what does it hold? For me, working to build up two Texan country missions, simple as that. One of the Wardens, who used to head up Dallas SWAT, asked, "If they try a lockdown, what'll you do?" I thought for a second, "I'll ignore that order." He looked me right in the eye, "Me too."

Carry on,

LSP

The Baptism of Christ and Other Epiphanies

We celebrate the Baptism of Christ today and find an epiphany, God is a trinity of persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. "This is my beloved son," says the Father as Christ rises from the Jordan and the Spirit, like a dove, rests upon him. But what of the baptism?

Jesus, taking sinful humanity on himself descends into the waters only to rise again to the acclaim of the Father, and the heavens are opened to him and the humanity he has assumed. We will see this again as our Lord descends to the dead from Golgotha and rises from the tomb at Easter. So we find another epiphany, Jesus' baptism at the outset of his ministry describes its salvific action. 

No wonder, then, that the Spirit rests on him like the dove over the waters of creation or Noah's dove flying over the flood to dry land. Jesus is the Spirit anointed Messiah who recreates humanity through his passion, death and resurrection, the dry ground in whom we find entry to paradise.

All well and good, but the epiphanies weren't over. I got back to the Compound to find Christmas decorations being taken down and new decorations being put up. There they were, snowperson statues with owls on every table of the church hall. Gifte Shoppe snowperson centerpieces. But why, for what?

"I don't even like snowpersons," said the exhausted tablepiece decorator responsible for these wintry idols. "Why don't you shoot them then," I suggested, "Do you have a gun? No? Don't worry, I've got plenty, bullets too. You can borrow them." She declined, "But I like doing it, parson!" 

The snowpersons and their owls remain, as does the great mystery  and Feast of the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.

God bless,

LSP

Epiphany

We celebrate the great Feast of the Epiphany today and with it look to the Magi, the Wise Men, who in turn point to Christ and reveal his nature in their gifts. Gold for Kingship, frankincense for divinity and myrrh for embalming and death. The Christ child is our divine king whose throne is the cross. But what of the Magi themselves?

They were astronomers who followed a star, and some argue this was a supernova, a conjunction of planets or something else again, a miraculous event. Perhaps it was all of these, but the Wise Men were more than  astral calculators, they were "wise," they looked for the truth and they found it, Incarnate, lying in a manger.

I was struck by this, from Pope Benedict XVI:

They were "wise." They represent the inner dynamic of religion toward self-transcendence, which involves a search for truth, a search for the true God and hence "philosophy" in the original sense of the word. Wisdom, then, serves to purify the message of "science": the rationality of that message does not remain at the level of intellectual knowledge, but seeks understanding in its fullness, and so raises reason to its loftiest possibilities.

Loftiest possibilities? Heaven itself and the throne of glory, all to be found in the baby lying under a star in a manger.

God bless you all,

LSP

The Baptism of Christ

Listen up, heathen. Today we celebrated the Baptism of Christ and with it an epiphany. What do we see as Christ goes down into the Jordan?

The Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and our minds go to the Spirit hovering over the waters of creation and Noah's dove, finding dry ground. And so he is. In Christ, mankind's recreated and finds dry ground, a new creation over the waters of our fallen deluge. No wonder, he is the Father's only begotten son.

Thou art my son, with thee I am well pleased, speaks the divine voice from glory. Consider the echo from psalm two. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Such is Christ, begotten of the Father in the timeless day of eternity. The poetry of Proverbs speaks:

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.  When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth... when he appointed the foundations of the earth:  Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him...

And St. John puts it with implacable force and simplicity: 

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.

Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, very God of very God, begotten not made. The Word made Flesh. As such he is utterly holy, utterly righteous and infinitely full of the perfection and infinite power of God. Power to save fallen mankind, as foretold by Isaiah:

...a light of the Gentiles; To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

He has power, as God's Son, to redeem. But where is his power exercised, where is the strength of his arm outsretched in might? On Calvary. We see a glimmer of this in Our Lord's baptism.

Christ goes down into the waters of the Jordan to receive John's baptism of repentance. He, who is sinless, does so in humility, love and solidarity with fallen man; humility and love which will take him to Golgotha and the destruction of sin, death and Satan.

As adopted sons of God, we are invited to share in his victory, won on the hard wood of the Cross. Rejoice in that.

By the grace of God,

LSP

Epiphany

You may have missed it in your rush to buy Bitcoin but today's the Feast of the Epiphany and the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. I like this:

THE Magi took the lids from their urns and unfastened their caskets, when they presented the symbols of universal homage to our infant prince. But when a woman came to anoint the king in his royal city, she shattered her alabaster jar, that she might pour the precious spikenard on his head. There was a sympathy between her action and the approaching Passion: the perfume of man’s homage could not be offered to God, without breaking the veined alabaster, the body of the Son of Man. Our incense may rise, like that of the Magi, from unbroken vessels, if we present our bodies a living sacrifice. Yet a living sacrifice is also a sacrifice, and is made so by some participation in the shattering of the vase. Christ, sacrificing himself, joins us with him in sacrificing him; Christ, sacrificing himself, sacrifices us, for he has made us parts of him. We come to offer our homage to Christ, but his star has brought us, and the breaking of his mortal vase has furnished all the perfume of our offering.

                                                                                  The Crown of the Year, Austin Farrer.

Elf

With that in mind, it's only fair to say that several members of this popular information brokerage have also had epiphanies. Viz. Justin Welby is not so much an Archbishop as  a Comedy House Elf. 

There's no need to get into Mantis People, that's a different post.

Quo Vadis,

LSP

Goodbye, Calgary

Bison Head

After a good night under one of Calgary's many highlights, the Bison Head, it was time to head back to Texas and Lonestarism. All too soon in a way, because I like Calgary and the Calgarians a lot. I like Canada too, which now seems to be rather less sovcom than the U.S. Who'd have thought it?

Just a bit of LSP

Reflections on the hideous iniquity of our political class aside, a minor snowstorm was blowing in as I left the Canada's economic engine. I was half hoping my flight would be delayed but it wasn't and US Airlines duly dropped me off in the hellhole that is Phoenix airport before taking me on to DFW.

Modern air travel, like getting a bus to Gloucester from London via Chepstow in the '80s.

Now that I'm back in the country I notice my neighbors have added several goats to their herd of chickens and roosters.

Texas Prepper

Nothing like being prepared for the coming crash. 

Have a blessed Epiphanytide,

LSP