Tuesday, January 27, 2009

John Updike RIP

John Updike died today. A little more light has gone out of the world.

According to his publishers, he died of lung cancer. He was 76.

I met John Updike at the annual Kent State Writers’ Conference about 20 years ago. We spoke briefly following one of his mesmerizing talks. He was gracious to this novice fiction writer and also very encouraging. I liked him.

Updike won two Pulitzers, for “Rabbit Is Rich” and “Rabbit at Rest,” and two National Book Awards.

He grew up in the Protestant community of Shillington, Pa., where the Lord's Prayer was recited daily at school. He attended church faithfully and theological themes run through many of his works. He was open about his doubts, which made his writing all the more authentic. In that respect, he reminds me of Wendell Berry.

In a 2006 interview with the Associated Press, Updike said, "I remember the times when I was wrestling with these issues that I would feel crushed. I was crushed by the purely materialistic, atheistic account of the universe."

In honor of John Updike, I'm reposting this comment he made about how books endure:

"By and large, times move with merciful slowness in the old-fashioned world of writing. The 88-year-old Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Elmore Leonard and P.D. James continue, into their 80s, to produce bestselling thrillers. Although books circulate ever more swiftly through the bookstores and back to the publisher again, the rhythms of readers are leisurely. They spread recommendations by word of mouth and 'get around' to titles and authors years after making a mental note of them. A movie has a few weeks to find its audience, and television shows flit by in an hour, but books physically endure, in public and private libraries, for generations."

From "The Writer in Winter" by John Updike, published in AARP, Nov.-Dec. 2008, p. 42.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

C.S. Lewis on Women Priests

Priestesses in the Church?
By C.S. Lewis


I should like Balls infinitely better', said Caroline Bingley, 'if they were carried on in a different manner... It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day.' 'Much more rational, I dare say,' replied her brother, 'but it would not be near so much like a Ball.' We are told that the lady was silenced: yet it could be maintained that Jane Austin has not allowed Bingley to put forward the full strength of his position. He ought to have replied with a distinguo. In one sense conversation is more rational for conversation may exercise the reason alone, dancing does not. But there is nothing irrational in exercising other powers than our reason. On certain occasions and for certain purposes the real irrationality is with those who will not do so. The man who would try to break a horse or write a poem or beget a child by pure syllogizing would be an irrational man; though at the same time syllogizing is in itself a more rational activity than the activities demanded by these achievements. It is rational not to reason, or not to limit oneself to reason, in the wrong place; and the more rational a man is the better he knows this.

These remarks are not intended as a contribution to the criticism of Pride and Prejudice. They came into my head when I heard that the Church of England was being advised to declare women capable of Priests' Orders. I am, indeed, informed that such a proposal is very unlikely to be seriously considered by the authorities. To take such a revolutionary step at the present moment, to cut ourselves off from the Christian past and to widen the divisions between ourselves and other Churches by establishing an order of priestesses in our midst, would be an almost wanton degree of imprudence. And the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds by the operation. My concern with the proposal is of a more theoretical kind. The question involves something even deeper than a revolution in order.

I have every respect for those who wish women to be priestesses. I think they are sincere and pious and sensible people. Indeed, in a way they are too sensible. That is where my dissent from them resembles Bingley's dissent from his sister. I am tempted to say that the proposed arrangement would make us much more rational 'but not near so much like a Church'.

For at first sight all the rationality (in Caroline Bingley's sense) is on the side of the innovators. We are short of priests. We have discovered in one profession after another that women can do very well all sorts of things which were once supposed to be in the power of men alone. No one among those who dislike the proposal is maintaining that women are less capable than men of piety, zeal, learning and whatever else seems necessary for the pastoral office. What, then, except prejudice begotten by tradition, forbids us to draw on the huge reserves which could pour into the priesthood if women were here, as in so many other professions, put on the same footing as men? And against this flood of common sense, the opposers (many of them women) can produce at first nothing but an inarticulate distaste, a sense of discomfort which they themselves find it hard to analyse.

That this reaction does not spring from any contempt for women is, I think, plain from history. The Middle Ages carried their reverence for one Woman to the point at which the charge could be plausibly made that the Blessed Virgin became in their eyes almost 'a fourth Person of the Trinity.' But never, so far as I know, in all those ages was anything remotely resembling a sacerdotal office attributed to her. All salvation depends on the decision which she made in the words Ecce ancilla [Behold the handmaid of the Lord]; she is united in nine months' inconceivable intimacy with the eternal Word; she stands at the foot of the cross. But she is absent both from the Last Supper and from the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. Such is the record of Scripture. Nor can you daff it aside by saying that local and temporary conditions condemned women to silence and private life. There were female preachers. One man had four daughters who all 'prophesied', i.e. preached. There were prophetesses even in the Old Testament times. Prophetesses, not priestesses.

At this point the common sensible reformer is apt to ask why, if women can preach, they cannot do all the rest of a priest's work. This question deepens the discomfort of my side. We begin to feel that what really divides us from our opponents is a difference between the meaning which they and we give to the word 'priest'. The more we speak (and truly speak) about the competence of women in administration, their tact and sympathy as advisers, their national talent for 'visiting', the more we feel that the central thing is being forgotten. To us a priest is primarily a representative, a double representative, who represents us to God and God to us. Our very eyes teach us this in church. Sometimes the priest turns his back on us and faces the East - he speaks to God for us: sometimes he faces us and speaks to us for God. We have no objection to a woman doing the first: the whole difficulty is the second. But why? Why should a woman not in this sense represent God? Certainly not because she is necessarily, or even probably, less holy or less charitable or stupider than a man. In that sense she may be as 'God-like' as a man; and a given woman much more so than a given man. The sense in which she cannot represent God will perhaps be plainer if we look at the thing the other way round.

Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to 'Our Mother which art in heaven' as to 'Our Father'. Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All this, as it seems to me, in involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does.

Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity. Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask 'Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?'

But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.

The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters. As the State grows more like a hive or an ant-hill it needs an increasing number of workers who can be treated as neuters. This may be inevitable for our secular life. But in our Christian life we must return to reality. There we are not homogeneous units, but different and complimentary organs of a mystical body. Lady Nunburnholme has claimed that the equality of men and women is a Christian principle. I do not remember the text in scripture nor the Fathers, nor Hooker, nor the Prayer Book which asserts it; but that is not here my point. The point is that unless 'equal' means 'interchangeable', equality makes nothing of the priesthood for women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures.

This is what common sense will call 'mystical'. Exactly. The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelation. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. If it is true, then we should expect to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call supra-natural. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it - as the facts of sex and sense on the natural level are opaque. And that is the real issue. The Church of England can remain a church only if she retains this opaque element. If we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for the old wraith Natural Religion.

It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforth ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter. That would, of course be eminently sensible, civilized, and enlightened, but, once more, 'not near so much like a Ball'.

And this parallel between the Church and the ball is not so fanciful as some would think. The Church ought to be more like a Ball than it is like a factory or a political party. Or, to speak more strictly, they are at the circumference and the Church at the Centre and the Ball comes in between. The factory and the political party are artificial creations - 'a breath can make them as a breath has made'. In them we are not dealing with human beings in their concrete entirety - only with 'hands' or voters. I am not of course using 'artificial' in any derogatory sense. Such artifices are necessary: but because they are artifices we are free to shuffle, scrap and experiment as we please. But the Ball exists to stylize something which is natural and which concerns human beings in their entirety - namely courtship. We cannot shuffle or tamper so much. With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.

Monday, January 12, 2009

An Appalachian Tale

Mountain Dance
Carla Chandler

Treana looked around at the sparsely furnished mountain house, lit by an oil lamp. In the corner, a shelf of mom’s books stood like children waiting for candy. On the bottom shelf were only three books. One was Treana’s favorite because it was her first book. She wrote it in eighth grade and used the modest monies to buy her momma an electric cook stove from the catalog that mom had on the wish wall for eight years. Momma said it was the prettiest thing she ever saw. It made Treana sad to think how her momma would be gone by the next year. Treana and her older brother David never would taste anything so good as momma’s made-with-love, yummy victuals.

The other two books brought her world fame and a Pulitzer Prize, along with a bank account that would last a life time.

In the other corner was the wood stove that Mom stoked with wood David stocked to the brim in the wood box. Every little thing in the room reminded Treana of Momma and her stories of life in the hills and fantasies of the fun life had to offer anyone willing to take flight of them.

Treana was a slip of a girl, just five feet tall and nearly skinny, with full and thick blonde hair to the waist. She kept it in a long braid that fell over her left shoulder and was tied with the only ribbon she owned; blue like her eyes.

David was opposite to Treana. He was dark haired, dark skinned, and dark eyed. More than this, it seemed that David’s mission in life was to make Treana crazy. She thought that since he was five years older, he would be the breadwinning, responsible person in the house, especially since Mom was departed and they had to fend for themselves in this big old hard world. She didn’t understand him in any form.

Mom used to tell Treana “Jist ya wait ‘n see, daughter. That boy’ll come into hisn’ own one day. Can’t hep it cause you blossomed early in spring time. Neva know, he might jist be a fall bloomin’ boy. Jist wait, he’ll git there. He’ll git there.”

Still dreaming about Momma, Treana heard a thunderous boom then a crash and a clank in the barn.

D-A-V-I-D!! What have you gone and done now?" She screeched as she ran out the door and down the hill in the moonlit dark.

From the barn came more loud crashes and bangs. Her eyes adjusted to the bright lights inside the barn to see David standing there in Papa’s old welding leathers, a fish shaped oven mitt on one hand holding a propane torch, a lighter in the other hand and a bucket labeled chemical fertilizer (danger flammable) with the old furniture, trash, and junk burning in a pile. Just then David threw some black dust on the heap and kaboooooom!

Treana hit the floor and screamed as one boom was followed by a bang and then another boom.

“David! What are you doing? Why in the world...where did you... are you trying to make me insane?” She got up from the cold ground.

David smiled his boyish grin and said, “But, T! Yous told me to clean out the barn and burn anything we don’t need. So I just combine everything into one chore and get ‘er done at one time. That way you’d make me them mashed taters with runny eggs on top, like Momma used to make fer me ‘cause I’s real hungry like. "

David looked around with satisfaction. "Didn’t I do good? The corners all swept clean like you said and nothin’s hid anywheres.” he said.

“I didn’t say burn inside the barn or blow it up either! What is that you were throwing on the fire, and do you know you are burning our fertilizer? you weren’t supposed to burn EVERYTHING! Just what we don’t need or use."

Treana was spewing and her face was tomato red. “What that blowing up?"

David replied, "Just them cans of green beans I found in the dump. I thought I’d be fun to explode them in the fire, and it’s lots a fun, wanna try?”

“NO! you coulda killed yourself and me to boot! Put out this fire and clean this up!” she said through clinched teeth. Then she turned on her heal to leave.

David called after her, “Do I get my mashed taters and runny eggs?”

Treana kept walking pretending not to hear. She sat down in momma’s rocking chair, after a few minutes of rocking a familiar pain began below her stomach. This pain came and went, just like momma's pain in the same place; it sounded the same. Treana could not tell David because the slightest mention of pain made him pace the floor and beat his chest saying, “Yous gonna die like momma! Yous gonna die like momma, and I haven’t found the golden box and you ain’t got one for me.”

Like momma, Treana began to sweat, her heart beat quickly, her lips turned white, and the room began to spin. The rocker stopped, Treana leaned back in the chair and waited for it all to pass. Then, quick as a flash, Auntie Jill flew in the side door with a mop, boom, bucket, and a bin of cleaners and rags in hand. She wore a threadbare green cotton dress.

“Chile look at this place! Yo mamma would neva let things git like dis! What you do all day? Keep yur nose in dem books, don’cha.”

She didn’t even look at Treana as she chided and cleaned like a woman being chased by rabid animals ready to strike.

“Girl yous best get your nose out them books. Start takin’ care dis house. No man want a girl can’t keep house and with no momma or papa to help. Yous prospects is limit.”

Then the haggard old woman looked at her niece for the first time since walking in the door.

“Oh, Missy! I seen better gills on fishes I’s fried for dinner! Yous sick ain’t ya?” Auntie Jill’s voice now softer and her brow creased with concern.

“OOOH, Auntie I’m okay. It’ll pass soon enough.” Treana dissented weakly.

“Nonsense! I git you a cool rag and a git better dance right away.”

“Auntie, really…” before Treana could object further, the little woman wisped across the floor for a cloth, poured cool water on it along with vanilla and lemon oil. Then she began to sing in a painfully creaky, scratchy voice. It was a song in another language that Treana had not heard since momma sang to her last. As Auntie sang she danced wildly around the room with arms swinging up, down, in, and out like an injured animal. As she neared Treana she shrieked her song louder and danced madly. The light cast shadows behind her which made the dance seem even more uncontrollable. Then without warning everything ceased and the cool rag was gently placed on Treana’s brow.

“There now chile’, rest. You’s be betta in a flash cause the dance will do the work.”

Treana hadn’t the heart to talk back, to disagree or to say that all the dances in the world did not save her mother and wouldn't help her neither and no how.

Auntie Jill began cleaning again.

David came bounding into the house holding a shovel and pick. His shoes were muddy and he smelled of sweat, gasoline, and wet animal.

“Howdy! Auntie. When you git here?”

“B-o-o-y!” ignoring what David was saying to her. “What in the world you been up to? Why you so dirty? Stop! Don’t track my floor.”

“Auntie, I’s been golden box huntin’," David explained. "I think I’s gettin’ closer.”

“I see. Just what you thinks in that there box?” Auntie asked flatly.

“Dunno. But Momma wouldn’ta left it buried for me if’n it weren’t sumpthin’ special like.” David replied.

Just then there was a thump in the sitting room. The pair ran in to find Treana in a heap on the floor.

“TREANA!” David hollered. “Yous gonna die! Yous gonna die like Momma!”

David began pacing and beating his chest.

“Boy! Stop you fussin and hep me git her up now.”

They moved her to the bench with the cushions that Mom had made. Auntie Jill declared, “I musta not danced the right dance, she’s worse now then before.”

“What? Before, before what?" David asked, alarmed. "Ooohhh, yous gonna die, yous…”

“I said STOP!” Auntie ordered. “We gotta git her to the Doc.”

They carried her to Auntie's wagon and the three were off to make the eight-mile ride. All the while, David was repeating under his breath “yous gonna, yous gonna die, I need to find that golden box.”

They arrived at the doctor’s house and quickly carry Treana into the medical room. The middle aged man looked over his horn rimmed glasses and said, “Oh dear! Treana, can you talk to me?”

“Uuggg" was all she could utter.

“Treana, can you tell me what’s been goin’ on?” he asked.

“Dizzz-z-z-y, weeaak, headache, fever, bones hurt, rash, can’t pee.” Treana managed to get out.

“Tell me if this hurts.” Doc said as he pressed her side.

“OUCH! Hurts.” She wailed as the Doctor poked and prodded.

“Looks like her liver function is failing, and she is bleeding internally,” the Doctor said. “We need to git her to the hospital over to Champmansville.”

David began to wail. “Treana, don’t leave me, don’t leave me. I’ll find the golden box fer ya. That’s gotta have the answers. Momma left it fer me. Momma said it was just what we needed. I’ll find it, hang on!”

With that he ran out the door and all the way home. Auntie Jill looked at the Doctor.

“What’s gonna happen to her Doc?”

“Well, the E. H. virus is progressing. She caught it while nursing her mother. I don’t think she’ll be writing anymore books.”

The doctor tired to comfort the old woman, rubbing her bony hands. She started to tremble.

“I told her Ma I’d look after her. I failed…” Tears rolled down Auntie Jill’s face.

“No. Treana had to do her part. She didn’t tell us she was sick. You could do no more than you did. Is there anyone I can call for you?” he asked. “No. These two babies are all I got now. I love dem like they’s my own born.” Auntie cried.

“I’ve given her some medicine to make her comfortable. Now we wait to see.” the Doctor said.

“What can I do?” Auntie Jill asked.

“Pray,” he said, shaking his head, “And you should get the preacher.”

“NOOOO! Lord, we need her here don’t take her…..” Auntie cried.

The kindly Doctor gently put his arm around the sobbing woman. After she began to calm down he asked her again, “Auntie Jill, she needs to make her peace. Who can I call?”

With a shaky hand, Auntie Jill wrote down a few numbers and handed them to the Doctor.

“The rest don’t have no phone, I’s bout to start the holler chain to collect the rest of the folk.”

“The holler chain?” the Doc asked.

“Yep, I forget you’s a city boy. That’s where I tell a couple of folk who tell a few others and fore ya know it the entire mountain knows and anyone who needs to comes on.”

“Well Auntie that’ll take days and we don’t have…”

She interrupted. “Na sir, those that need to know will be here within nigh thirty minutes to ‘bout an hour.” She finished.

"I’ll have to remember that for the future,” the doctor said, tipping his head quizzically.

As the hour passed people came pouring into the Doctor’s white clapboard house clinic. Each person that entered asked, “Where’s David.”

“He’s huntin’ for that golden box his Momma left him to find,” someone would say. The answer was met by disapproving scowls.

“What a disgrace, his sister’s here dying and he’s out there diggin’ like it’s any other time o’ day.”

Treana was now gasping. Delirious, she called out to her Momma, saying, “Oh, Mamma this is beautiful. I missed you.” Then she became quiet.

A deaf relative asked loudly, “Is she gone?”

They all motioned no.

Auntie watched as Treana's chest became still and a death rattle escaped. What she feared had happened. Treana left to be with her Momma in heaven.

The room was filled with crying, wailing, and people talking softly about the stories of the little sunshine girl who wrote stories good enough to be made into books. As quickly as he left, David blazed into the room.

“Why’s everybody cryin’? I found the golden box! You’ll never guess what’s inside! The cure for Treana. Stop lookin’ at the floor! I got it, she’ll be okay!”

No one looked. No one replied. Auntie Jill moved toward David with a loving smile.

“David honey, she’s gone. She talked to your Momma and then went home to meet Jesus and live with your Momma again.” she soothed.

“No, I got the cure. There’s a letter in the box, medicine with a tea, and a bunch of money.” He cried.

“No son, it’s true. May I see the letter?” the Doctor held out his hand.

“Yep.” David handed the letter over. The Doctor read the letter twice, not believing his eyes. “David, Auntie Jill, come here and sit down a minute.” The Doctor asked gently. “This is a letter from your Mother David. Your Momma says that this box was never meant for Treana. It’s for you alone. When your Momma was dying Treana discovered she was sick also. Both women knew the signs of this illness. Since Treana was already too far gone, she decided to save any remedy she might find to save you David.” “But I’s not sick Doc.” David objected. “Maybe not on the outside, but you may be on the inside. This sickness takes a long time to tell you that you are sick. By that time it’s too late. The letter says that the one medicine that heals this illness is in this box and that there was not enough for anyone else but one. Your sister and Momma chose you David. Your Momma also says take the money in the box to live, get a good education, and to see the world,” t the Doctor informed him.

“Okay,” David turning to Auntie, “Will you go with me?”

“No, honey. My place is on this here mountain. You need do this by your lonesome.”

David returned home from his travels to find everything and everyone just the way he had left it. He had seen the world, got his education, and lived well. David still preferred the quite corner on the mountain where Momma and Treana loved him so much. Seeing Auntie who was a little more frail than he left her David asked to see the letter that his Mom had wrote those many years ago. Auntie’s only words were “Doc died from the same sickness ‘bout a year ago.” He could read the words now for himself. This is what it said:

My son, Treana and I love you more than anything. The medicine is for you. Treana caught the sickness here at the last and the medicine I had for her now is for you. Love God and serve him and your country faithfully.

Use the four million dollars to see the world, get your education in doctoring, and be kind to animals and people, live well. Until we see you in Heaven,

I love you. Momma.

David finished reading the letter. Then he painted a sign, gathered hammer, nails, and two lengths of chain. When he finished the job, David stood back to examine his work:

“Doctor’s Office. Free help for all.”

Monday, January 5, 2009

A Very Short Short

Andrew’s Letter
LeAnn Terrell

Mandy pulled her coat tighter as she ran down the steps of her apartment building. The night was cold and the rain continued to pour. She could not shake the chill that was building inside her, a chill that was from more than the cold, damp weather. She knew it came from her very soul. It was her fear, a fear that continuously haunted her and even now made her afraid to open the letter. She clutched the letter close to her as she ran down the street, uncertain of what she should do.

Mandy was the kind of girl that other women envied. Her long chestnut hair framed her ivory face and her blue eyes were framed by long lashes. Her petite and shapely frame turned many heads and men often stole a second glance. None of this mattered to Mandy because when she looked in the mirror she saw a woman who didn’t deserve happiness. She constantly doubted herself and feared the future. She was certain that her life would take a turn for the worst. The anxiety clouded her mind.

She ducked into a small café and slid into an isolated booth by the fireplace. Her hands trembled as she read the return address. After all these months Andrew had finally written. She remembered how he looked that day they met. He was in his military uniform and she had instantly fallen in love.

Their first year together was bliss. They spent every possible moment together and she knew she the he was the man she wanted to marry, but he never asked. He always seemed to hold back. Then Andrew was called to active duty and sent to Iraq. It was as if her world had turned dark.

At first he wrote often, called her and emailed her a work. She could hardly wait to arrive at her office to see if he had sent her a message.

Then he seemed to withdraw emotionally and she couldn’t find a way to reach him. Now months had passed without a word and she was terrified that this letter might be the final goodbye. Probably he had met someone else. Maybe a lady soldier.

Mandy was sure that the letter contained bad news. Her mind considered the possibilities. He was injured. His tour-of-duty was extended. He didn’t love her anymore. He had found someone else. The thought of losing him stirred panic. She felt as if the room were closing in and she wanted to flee.

As Mandy stared at the envelope she knew what she had to do. She was convinced that the news was bad and couldn’t bring herself to read it. She should never have hoped for a future with Andrew. She didn’t serve to be loved.

But she didn’t deserve words that would cut her heart to ribbons either! With fierce determination and tears streaming down her face she rose and tossed the unopened letter into the fire. As she ran out the door, the words “will you marry me” turned to ash in the engulfing flames.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Elizabeth Alexander Inaugural Poet

Elizabeth Alexander has been chosen by President Elect Barack Hussein Obama to deliver the Inaugural Poem. She teaches in the Department of African American Studies at Yale University.

Alexander began as a formalist poet, but has developed a more intuitive approach. Describing her writing process, she says, “A lot of it is just making space for the mysterious ‘What’s next?’ You can prepare for the poems, but you can’t wrestle them into existence. A whole, in its roughly hewn parameters, makes itself known to me. Then there’s tinkering, revising, perfecting, which is in fact the majority of what I do.”

Here is a sample of her work:

The End
Elizabeth Alexander

The last thing of you is a doll, velveteen and spangle,
Silk douponi trousers, Ali Baba slippers that curl up at the toes,
Tinsel moustache, a doll we had made in your image
For our wedding with one of me which you have.
They sat atop our coconut cake. We cut it
Into snowy squares and fed each other, while God watched.

All other things are gone now: the letters boxed,
pajama-sized shirts bagged for Goodwill, odd utensils
farmed to graduating students starting first apartments
(citrus zester, apple corer, rusting mandoline),
childhood pictures returned to your mother,
trinkets sorted real from fake and molten
to a single bar of gold, untruths parsed,
most things unsnarled, the rest let go

save the doll, which I find in a closet,
examine closely, then set into a hospitable tree
which I drive past daily for weeks and see it still there,
in the rain, in the wind, fading in the sun,
no one will take it, it will not blow away,

in the rain, in the wind,
it holds tight to its branch,
then one day, it is gone.

From American Sublime, copyright 2005 by Elizabeth Alexander. To read more of her poems go here.

Read David Steel's comments on Obama's choice of Alexander here.

Friday, January 2, 2009

God's Fulfillment of the Promise to "the Woman"

Concerning the fulfillment of God's Promise to "the woman" (not yet named Eve) in Genesis 4, Fr John Hunwicke writes:

Once upon a time, a thousand years ago in a church which was probably several hundred times larger than S Thomas's, the great basilica of Blachernae in Constantinople, high up on the ceiling near the Altar, was an enormous picture of a Palestinian teenager, that selfsame Girl who is such a lead-player in the Christmass celebrations. There she stood orans, her hands raised in prayer, and in front of her womb, in a round circle, a painting of her Divine Son - his hand lifted in blessing. That image of Mary was called Platytera tou kosmou, the Woman Wider than the Universe. Mary was Great with Child; her Child was Almighty God. She contained the One whom the heaven of heavens is too narrow to hold. Can a foot be larger than the boot or an oyster greater than the shell? For Christians, apparently, Yes. Mary's slender womb enthroned within it the Maker of the Universe, the God who is greater than all the galaxies that stream across the firmament. The tummy of a Girl was wider than creation.

Then on the crisp night air came the squeal of the newly born baby. It came from the cave that was both a stable and a birth-place. That stable in Bethlehem, as C S Lewis memorably explains in The Last Battle, 'had something in it that was bigger than our entire world'. The stable, like Mary, was great with child; very great, for that Child is God. And what is true of the womb of the Mother of God, and what is true of that stable at Bethlehem, is true also of what we are about here this Christmass. Bread becomes God Almighty; little round disks of unleavened bread are recreated by the Maker of the World to be Himself. As Mary's Baby was bigger than all creation, than all the stars and clouds and mass of it, so the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is bigger than the Kosmos.


As you make your Christmass communion, glorious and loving Infinity comes to make His dwelling in your poor body; so that, as you walk or drive home for the rest of Christmass, you are platyteroi tou Kosmou: broader than the Universe.

(From Fr John Hunwicke’s Christmass sermon at St Thomas’ Oxford)

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Spurgeon's 1885 New Year's Sermon

"And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new."—Revelation 21:5.

HOW pleased we are with that which is new! Our children's eyes sparkle when we talk of giving them a toy or a book which is called new; for our short-lived human nature loves that which has lately come, and is therefore like our own fleeting selves. In this respect, we are all children, for we eagerly demand the news of the day, and are all too apt to rush after the "many inventions" of the hour. The Athenians, who spent their time in telling and hearing some new thing, were by no means singular persons: novelty still fascinates the crowd. As the world's poet says—

"All with one consent praise new-born gawds."

I should not wonder, therefore, if the mere words of my text should sound like a pleasant song in your ears; but I am thankful that their deeper meaning is even more joyful. The newness which Jesus brings is bright, clear, heavenly, enduring. We are at this moment specially ready for a new year. The most of men have grown weary with the old cry of depression of trade and hard times; we are glad to escape from what has been to many a twelve-months of great trial. The last year had become wheezy, croaking, and decrepit, in its old age; and we lay it asleep with a psalm of judgment and mercy. We hope that this newborn year will not be worse than its predecessor, and we pray that it may be a great deal better. At any rate, it is new, and we are encouraged to couple with it the idea of happiness, as we say one to another, "I wish you a happy New Year."

"Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true."

We ought not, as men in Christ Jesus, to be carried away by a childish love of novelty, for we worship a God who is ever the same, and of whose years there is no end. In some matters "the old is better." There are certain things which are already so truly new, that to change them for anything else would be to lose old gold for new dross. The old, old gospel is the newest thing in the world; in its very essence it is for ever good news. In the things of God the old is ever new, and if any man brings forward that which seems to be new doctrine and new truth, it is soon perceived that the new dogma is only worn-out heresy dexterously repaired, and the discovery in theology is the digging up of a carcase of error which had better have been left to rot in oblivion. In the great matter of truth and godliness, we may safely say, "There is nothing new under the sun."

Yet, as I have already said, there has been so much evil about ourselves and our old nature, so much sin about our life and the old past, so much mischief about our surroundings and the old temptations, that we are not distressed by the belief that old things are passing away. Hope springs up at the first sound of such words as these from the lips of our risen and reigning Lord: "Behold, I make all things new." It is fit that things so outworn and defiled should be laid aside, and better things fill their places.

This is the first day of a new year, and therefore a solemnly joyous day. Though there is no real difference between it and any other day, yet in our mind and thought it is a marked period, which we regard as one of the milestones set up on the highway of our life. It is only in imagination that there is any close of one year and beginning of another; and yet it has most fitly all the force of a great fact. When men "cross the line," they find no visible mark: the sea bears no trace of an equatorial belt; and yet mariners know whereabouts they are, and they take notice thereof, so that a man can hardly cross the line for the first time without remembering it to the day of his death. We are crossing the line now. We have sailed into the year of grace 1885; therefore, let us keep a feast unto the Lord. If Jesus has not made us new already, let the new year cause us to think about the great and needful change of conversion; and if our Lord has begun to make us new, and we have somewhat entered into the new world wherein dwelleth righteousness, let us be persuaded by the season to press forward into the center of his new creation, that we may feel to the full all the power of his grace.

The words he speaks to us to-night are truly divine. Listen,—"Behold, I make." Who is the great I? Who but the eternal Son of God? "Behold, I make." Who can make but God, the Maker of heaven and earth? It is his high prerogative to make and to destroy. "Behold, I make all things." What a range of creating power is here! Nothing stands outside of that all-surrounding circle. "Behold, I make all things new." What a splendor of almighty goodness shines out upon our souls! Lord, let us enter into this new universe of thine. Let us be new-created with the "all things." In us also may men behold the marvels of thy renewing love.

Let us now, at the portal of the new year, sing a hymn to Jesus, as we hear these encouraging words which he speaks from his throne. O Lord, we would rejoice and be glad for ever in that which thou dost create. The former troubles are forgotten, and are hid from our eyes because of thine ancient promise,—"Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." (Isaiah 65:17).

I am going to talk tonight for a little upon the great transformation spoken of in the text, "I make all things new;" and then upon the earnest call in the text to consider that transformation: "He that sat upon the throne said, 'Behold': attend, consider, look to it!" "Behold, I make all things new." Oh for a bedewing of the Holy Spirit while entering upon this theme! I would that our fleece might now be so wet as never to become dry throughout the whole year. Oh for a horn of oil to be poured on the head of the young year, anointing it for the constant service of the Lord!

I. Briefly, then, here is one of the grandest truths that ever fell even from the lips of Jesus:—"Behold, I make all things new." Let us gaze upon THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION.

This renewing work has been in our Lord's hands from of old. We were under the old covenant, and our first father and federal head, Adam, had broken that covenant, and we were ruined by his fatal breach. The substance of the old covenant was on this wise,—"If thou wilt keep my command thou shalt live, and thy posterity shall live; but if thou shalt eat of the tree which I have forbidden thee, dying, thou shalt die, and all thy posterity in thee." This is where we were found, broken in pieces, sore wounded, and even slain by the tremendous fall which destroyed both our Paradise and ourselves. We died in Adam as to spiritual life, and our death revealed itself in an inward tendency to evil which reigned in our members. We were like Ezekiel's deserted infant unswaddled and unwashed, left in our pollution to die; but the Son of God passed by and saw us in the greatness of our ruin. In his wondrous love our Lord Jesus put us under a new covenant, a covenant of which he became the second Adam, a covenant which ran on this wise,—"If thou shalt render perfect obedience and vindicate my justice, then those who are in thee shall not perish, but they shall live because thou livest." Now, our Lord Jesus, our Surety and Covenant Head, has fulfilled his portion of the covenant engagement, and the compact stands as a bond of pure promise without condition or risk. Those who are participants in that covenant cannot invalidate it, for it never did depend upon them, but only upon him who was and is their federal head and representative before God. Of Jesus the demand was made and he met it. By him man's side of the covenant was undertaken and fulfilled, and now no condition remains; it is solely made up of promises which are unconditional and sure to all the seed. To-day believers are not under the covenant of "If thou doest this thou shalt live," but under that new covenant which says, "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." It is not now "Do and live," but "Live and do;" we think not of merit and reward, but of free grace producing holy practice as the result of gratitude. What law could not do, grace has accomplished.

We ought never to forget this bottom of everything, this making of all things new by the fashioning of a new covenant, so that we have come out from under the bondage of the law and the ruin of the fall, and we have entered upon the liberty of Christ, into acceptance with God, and into the boundless joy of being saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, so that we "shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end." You young people, as soon as ever you know the Lord, I exhort you to study well that word "covenant." It is a key-word opening the treasures of revelation. He that rightly understands the difference between the two covenants has the foundation of sound theology laid in his mind. This is the clue of many a maze, the open sesame of many a mystery. "I make all things new," begins with the bringing in of a better hope by virtue of a better covenant.

The foundation being made new, the Lord Jesus Christ has set before us a new way of life, which grows out of that covenant. The old way of life was, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." There they are, perfect, and holy, and just, and good; but, alas, dear friends, you and I have broken the commandments. We dare not say that we have kept the ten commands from our youth up; on the contrary, we are compelled by our consciences to confess that in spirit and in heart, if not in act, we have continually broken the law of God; and we are therefore under sin and condemnation, and there is no hope for us by the works of the law. For this reason the gospel sets before us another way, and says, "It is of faith, that it might be by grace." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Hence we read of being "justified by faith," and being made acceptable to God by faith. To be "justified" means being made really just: though we were guilty in ourselves we are regarded as just by virtue of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. Thus we fell into condemnation through another, and we rise into justification through another. It is written, "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities"; and this scripture is fulfilled in all those who believe in the Lord Jesus unto eternal life. Our path to eternal glory is the road of faith,—"The just shall live by faith." We are "accepted in the Beloved" when we believe in him whom God has set forth to be our righteousness. "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight"; but we are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."What a blessing it is for you and for me that Jesus has made all things new in that respect! I am glad that I have not to stand here and say, "My dear hearers, do this and do that, and you will be saved": because you would not do as you were commanded; for your nature is weak and wicked. But I have to bid you—

"Lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus' feet;
Stand in him, in him alone, gloriously complete."

I trust you will accept this most gracious and suitable way of salvation. It is most glorious to God and safe to you: do not neglect so great salvation. After you have believed unto life you will go and do all manner of holy deeds as the result of your new life; but do not attempt them with the view of earning life. Prompted no longer by the servile and selfish motive of saving yourself, but by gratitude for the fact that you are saved, you will rise to virtue and true holiness. Faith has brought us into the possession of an indefeasible salvation; and now for the love we bear our Savior, we must obey him and become "zealous for good works."

By grace every believer is brought into a new relationship with God. Let us rejoice in this: "Thou art no more a servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." Oh you who are now children, you were servants a little while ago! Some of you, my hearers, are servants now, and as servants I would bid you expect your wages. Alas, your service has been no service, but a rebellion; and if you get no more wages than you deserve you will be cast away for ever. You ought to be thankful to God that he has not yet recompensed you—that he has not dealt with you after your sins, nor rewarded you according to your iniquities. Do you not also know, you servants, what is likely to happen to you as servants? What do you yourself do with a bad servant? You say to him, "There are your wages: go." "A servant abideth not in the house for ever." You, too, will be driven out of your religious profession and your period of probation, and where will you go? The wilderness of destruction lies before you. Oh that you may not be left to wander with Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman!

"Behold, I make all things new," says Jesus, and then he makes his people into sons. When we are made sons do we work for wages? We have no desire for any present payment, for our Father says to us, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine"; and, moreover, we have the inheritance in reversion, entailed by the covenant. We cannot demand the servile wage because we have already all that our Father possesses. He has given us himself and his all-sufficiency for our everlasting portion; what more can we desire? He will never drive us from his house. Never has our great Father disowned one of his sons. It cannot be; his loving heart is too much bound up in his own adopted ones. That near and dear relationship which is manifested in adoption and regeneration, binds the child of God to the great Father's heart in such a way that he will never cast him off, nor suffer him to perish. I rejoice in the fact that we are no longer bond-slaves but sons. "Behold," says Christ, "I make all things new."

There has also been wrought in us by the work of the Holy Spirit a new life, with all the new feelings, and new desires, and new works which go therewith. The tree is made new, and the fruits are new in consequence. That same Spirit of God who taught us that we were ruined in our old estate, led us gently by the hand till we came to the New Covenant promise and looked to Jesus, and saw in him the full atonement for sin. Happy discovery for us; it was the kindling of new life in us. From the moment that we trusted in Jesus, a new life darted into our spirit. I am not going to say which is first, the new birth, or faith, or repentance. Nobody can tell which spoke of a wheel moves first; it moves as a whole. The moment the divine life comes into the heart we believe: the moment we believe the eternal life is there. We repent because we believe, and believe while we repent. The life that we live in the flesh is no longer according to the lusts of the world, but we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. Our spiritual life is a new-born thing, the creation of the Spirit of life. We have, of course, that natural life which is sustained by food, and evidenced by our breath; but there is another life within which is not seen of men, nor fed by the provisions of earth. We are conscious of having been quickened, for we were dead once, and we know it; but now we have passed from death into life, and we know it quite as certainly. A new and higher motive sways us now; for we seek not self but God. Another hand grasps the tiller and steers our ship in a new course. New desires are felt to which we were strangers in our former state. New fears are mighty within us,—holy fears which once we should have ridiculed. New hopes are in us, bright and sure, such as we did not even desire to know when we lived a mere carnal life. We are not what we were: we are new, and have begun a new career. We are not what we shall be, but assuredly we are not what we used to be. As for myself, my consciousness of being a new man in Christ Jesus is often as sharp and crisp as my consciousness of being in existence. I know I am not only and solely what I was by my first birth; I feel within myself another life—a second and a higher vitality which has often to contend with my lower self, and by that very contention makes me conscious of its existence. This new principle is, from day to day, gathering strength, and winning the victory. It has its hand upon the throat of the old sinful nature, and it shall eventually trample it like dust beneath its feet. I feel this within me: do not you? [A loud voice, "Ay! Ay!"] Since you feel this, I know you can say to-night that Jesus Christ, who sits on the throne, makes all things new. Blessed be his name. [Several voices, "Amen."] It needed the Lord himself to make such as we are new. None but a Savior on the throne could accomplish it; and therefore let him have the glory of it.

I believe that Jesus Christ has in some of you not only made you new, but made everything new to you. "Ah," said one, when she was converted, "either the world is greatly altered, or else I am." Why, either you and I are turned upside down in nature, or the world is. We used to think it a wise world once, but how foolish we think it now! We used to think it a brave gay world that showed us real happiness, but we are no longer deceived, we have seen Madame Bubble's painted face in its true deformity. "The world is crucified unto me," said Paul; and many of you can say the same. It is like a gibbeted criminal hung up to die. Meanwhile, there is no love lost, for the world thinks much the same of us, and therein we can sympathize with Paul when he said, "I am crucified unto the world." What a transformation grace makes in all things within our little world! In our heart there is a new heaven and a new earth. What a change in our joys! Ah, we blush to think what our joys used to be; but they are heavenly now. We are equally ashamed of our hates and our prejudices: but these have vanished once for all. Why, now we love the very things we once despised, and our heart flies as with wings after that which once it detested. What a different Bible we have now! Blessed book; it is just the same, but oh, how differently do we read it. The mercy-seat, what a different place it is now! Our wretched, formal prayers, if we did offer them—what a mockery they were! But now we draw near to God and speak with our Father with delight. We have access to him by the new and living way. The house of God, how different it is from what it used to be! We love to be found within its walls, and we feel delighted to join in the praises of the Lord. I do not know that I admire brethren for calling out in the service as our friends did just now; but I certainly do not blame them. A person shook hands with me one day this week who does not often hear me preach, and he expressed to me his unbounded delight in listening to the doctrine of the grace of God, and he added, "Surely your people must be made of stone." "Why?" said I. "Why!" he replied, "if they were not they would all get up and shout 'Hallelujah' when you are preaching such a glorious gospel. I wanted to shout badly on Sunday morning; but as everybody else was quiet, I held my tongue." For which I thought he was a wise man: but yet I do not wonder if men who have tasted of the grace of God, and feel that the Lord has done great things for them, whereof they are glad, do feel like crying out for joy. Let us have a little indulgence to-night. Now, you that feel that you must cry aloud for joy, join with me and cry "Hallelujah" [A great number of voices cried, "Hallelujah!"] Hallelujah, glory be to our Redeemer's name. Why should we not lift up our voices in his praise? We will. He has put a new song into our mouths, and we must sing it. The mountains and the hills break forth before us into singing, and we cannot be dumb. Praise is our ever new delight; let us baptize the new year into a sea of it. In praise we will vie with angels and archangels, for they are not so indebted to grace as we are.

"Never did angels taste above
Redeeming grace and dying love."

But we have tasted these precious things, and unto God we will lift up our loudest song for ever and for ever.

The process which we have roughly described as taking place in ourselves is in other forms going on in the world. The whole creation is travailing, all time is groaning, providence is working, grace is striving, and all for one end,—the bringing forth of the new and better age. It is coming. It is coming. Not in vain did John write, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful." What a prospect does all this open up to the believer! Our future is glorious; let not our present be gloomy.

II. But now, in the text there is AN EARNEST CALL for us to consider this work of our Lord. He that sitteth on the throne saith, "Behold, I make all things new." Why should he call upon us to behold it? All his works deserve study: "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." Whatsoever the Lord doeth is full of wisdom, and the wise will search into it. But when the Lord himself sets up a light, and calls us to pause, and look, we cannot help beholding.

I think that the Lord Jesus Christ especially calls us to consider this, that we may, according to our condition, derive profit from it.

First, if the Lord Jesus makes all things new, then a new birth is possible to you, dear friend, though you have come here to-night in a wrong state of heart, with your sins upon you, binding you fast. There is enough of light in your soul for you to know that you are in darkness; and you are saying to yourself, "Oh, that I could reach to better things! I hear how these people of God cry 'Hallelujah!' at what Christ has done for them. Can he do the same for me?" Listen! He that sitteth on the throne says in infinite condescension to you upon the dunghill, "Behold, I make all things new." There is nothing so old that he cannot make it new—nothing so fixed and habitual that he cannot change it. Dost thou not know, dear heart, that the Spirit of God has regenerated men and women quite as far gone as thou art? They have been as deeply sunken in sin, and as hardened by habit as ever thou canst be, and they thought themselves given up to despair, as thou thinkest thyself to be; yet the Spirit of God carried out the will of the Lord Christ, and made them new. Why should he not make thee new? Let every thief know that the dying thief entered heaven by faith in Jesus. Let every one that has been a great transgressor remember how Manasseh received a new heart, and repented of his evil deeds. Let every one who has left the paths of purity remember how the woman that was a sinner loved much, because much had been forgiven her. I cannot doubt of the possibility of your salvation, my dear friend, whenever I think of my own. A more determined, obstinate rebel than I could scarce have been. Child as I was, and under holy restraint as I was, so as to be kept from gross outward sin, I had a powerful inner nature which would not brook control. I strove hard and kicked against the pricks. I labored to win heaven by self-righteousness, and this is as real a rebellion as open sin. But, oh, the grace of God, how it can tame us! How it can turn us! With no bit or bridle, but with a blessed suavity of tenderness, it turns us according to its pleasure. O anxious one, it can turn you! I want, then, to drop into your ear—and may the Spirit of God drop into your heart—this word, you may be born again. The Lord can work a radical change in you. He that sitteth on the throne can do for you what you cannot do for yourself; and, as he made you once, and you became marred by sin, he can new make you; for he saith. "Behold, I make all things new."

Furthermore, you will say to me, "I desire to lead a new life." To do this you must be new yourself; for as the man is, so his life will be. If you leave the fountain foul the streams cannot be pure. Renewal must begin with the heart. Dear friend, the Lord Jesus Christ is able to make your life entirely new. We have seen many transformed into new parents and new children. Friends have said in wonder, "What a change in John! What an alteration in Ellen!" We have seen men become new husbands, and women become new wives. They are the same persons, and yet not the same. Grace works a very deep, striking, and lasting change. Ask those that have had to live with converted people whether the transformation has not been marvellous. Christ makes new servants, new masters, new friends, new brothers, new sisters. The Lord can so change us that we shall scarcely know ourselves: I mean he can thus change you who now despair of yourselves. O dear hearts, there is no absolute necessity that you should always go downward in evil till you descend to hell. There is a hand that can give you a gravitation in the opposite direction. It would be a wonderful thing if Niagara when it is in its full descent should be made to leap upwards, and the St. Lawrence and the sea should begin to climb backward to the lakes. Yet God could do even that; and so he can reverse the course of your fallen nature, and make you act as a new man. He can stay the tide of your raging passion; he can make you, who were like a devil, become as an angel of God; for thus he speaks from the throne of his eternal majesty, "Behold, I make all things new." Come and lay yourself down at his feet, and ask him to make you new; I beseech you, do this at once!"

Well, I am going to mend myself," says one: "I have taken the pledge, and I am going to be honest, and chaste, and religious." This is commendable resolving, but what will come of it? You will break your resolutions, and be nothing bettered by your attempts at reform. I expect that if you go into the business of mending yourself, you will be like the man who had an old gun, and took it to the gunsmith, and the gunsmith said, "Well, this would make a very good gun if it had a new stock, and a new lock, and a new barrel." So you would make a very good man by mending, if you had a new heart, and new life, and were made new all over, so that there was not a bit of the old stuff left. It will be easier, a great deal, depend upon it, even for God to make you new, than to mend you; for the fact is that "the carnal mind is enmity against God," and is not reconciled to God, neither, indeed, can be; so that mending will not answer; you must be made anew. "Ye must be born again." What is wanted is that you should be made a new creature in Christ Jesus. You must be dead and buried with Christ, and risen again in him; and then all will be well, for he will have made all things new. I pray God to bless these feeble words of mine for the helping of some of his chosen out of the darkness of their fears.

But now, beloved, farther than this. There are children of God who need this text, "Behold, I make all things new," whose sigh is that they so soon grow dull and weary in the ways of God, and therefore they need daily renewing. A brother said to me some time ago, "Dear sir, I frequently grow very sleepy in my walk with God. I seem to lose the freshness of it; and especially by about Saturday I get I hardly know where; but," he added, "as for you, whenever I hear you, you seem to be all alive and full of fresh energy." "Ah, my dear brother," I said, "that is because you do not know much about me." That was all I was able to say just then. I thank God for keeping me near himself; but I am as weak, and stale, and unprofitable as any of you. I say this with very great shame—shame for myself, and shame for the brother who led me to make the confession. We are both wrong. With all our fresh springs in God, we ought to be always full of new life. Our love to Christ ought to be every minute as if it were new-born. Our zeal for God ought to be as fresh as if we had just begun to delight in him. "Ay, but it is not," says one; and I am sorry I cannot contradict him. After a few months a vigorous young Christian will begin to cool down; and those who have been long in the ways of God find that final perseverance must be a miracle if ever it is to be accomplished, for naturally they tire and faint.

Well, now, dear friends, why do you and I ever get stale and flat? Why do we sing,

"Dear Lord, and shall we ever live
At this poor dying rate?"
Why do we have to cry—
"In vain we tune our formal songs,
In vain we strive to rise;
Hosannas languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies"?

Why, it is because we get away from him who says, "Behold, I make all things new." The straight way to a perpetual newness and freshness of holy youth is to go to Christ again, just as we did at the first.

A better thing still is never to leave him, but to stand for ever at the cross-foot delighting yourself in his all-sufficient sacrifice. They that are full of the joy of the Lord never find life grow weary. They that walk in the light of his countenance can say of the Lord Jesus, "Thou hast the dew of thy youth"; and that dew falls upon those who dwell with him. Oh, I am sure that if we kept up perpetual communion with him, we should keep up a perpetual stream of delights.

"Immortal joys come streaming down,
Joys, like his griefs, immense, unknown;"

but these joys only come from him. We shall be young if we keep with the ever young and fresh Beloved, whose locks are bushy and black as a raven. He saith, and he performs the saying, "Behold, I make all things new."

He can make that next sermon of yours, my dear brother minister, quite new and interesting. He can make that prayer-meeting no longer a dreary affair, but quite a new thing to you and all the people. My dear sister, next time you go to your class, you may feel as if you had only just begun teaching. You will not be at all tired of your godly work, but love it better than ever. And you, my dear brother, at the corner of the street where you are often interrupted, perhaps, with foul language, you will feel that you are pleased with your position of self-denial. Getting near to Christ, you will partake in his joy, and that joy shall be your strength, your freshness, the newness of your life. God grant us to drink of the eternal founts, that we may for ever overflow.

And, further, dear friends, there may be some dear child of God here who is conscious that he lives on a very low platform of spiritual life, and he knows that the Lord can raise him to a new condition. Numbers of Christians seem to live in the marshes always. If you go through the valleys of Switzerland, you will find yourself get feverish and heavy in spirit, and you will see many idiots, persons with the goitre, and people greatly afflicted. Climb the sides of the hills, ascend into the Alps, and you will not meet with that kind of thing in the pure fresh air. Many Christians are of the sickly-valley breed. Oh that they could get up to the high mountains, and be strong!

I want to say to such, if you have been all your lifetime in bondage, you need not remain there any longer; for there is in Jesus the power to make all things new, and to lift you into new delights. It will seem to be a dead lift to you; but it is within the power of that pierced hand to lift you right out of doubt, and fear, and despondency, and spiritual lethargy, and weakness, and just to make you now, from this day forward, "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might."

Now breathe a silent prayer, dear brother, dear sister, to him who makes all things new. "Lord, make thy poor, spiritually sick child to be strong in spiritual health." Oh, what a blessing it would be for some workers if God would make them strong! All the church would be the better because of the way in which the Lord would help them to do their work. Why should some of you be living at a penny a day and starving yourselves, when your Father would give you to live like princes of the blood royal if you would but trust him? I am persuaded that the most of us are beggars when we might be millionaires in spiritual things. And here is our strength for rising to a nobler state of mind, "Behold I make all things new."

Another application of this truth will be this: "Oh," says one, "I do not know what to make of myself. I have had a weary time of late. Everything seems to have gone wrong with me. My family cause me great anxiety. My business is a thorny maze. My own health is precarious. I dread this year. In fact, I dread everything." We will not go on with that lamentation, but we will hear the cheering word,—"Behold, I make all things new." The Lord, in answer to believing prayer, and especially in answer to a full resignation to his will is able to make all providential surroundings new for you. I have known the Lord on a sudden to turn darkness into light, and take away the sackcloth and the ashes from his dear children, for "he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." Sometimes all this worry is mere discontent; and when the child of God gets right himself these imaginary troubles vanish like the mist of the morning; but when they are real troubles, God can as easily change your condition, dear child of God, as he can turn his hand. He can make your harsh and ungodly husband to become gentle and gracious. He can bring your children to bow at the family altar, and to rejoice with you in Christ. He can cause your business to prosper; or, if he does not do that, he can strengthen your back to bear the burden of your daily cross. Oh, it is wonderful how different a thing becomes when it is taken to God. But you want to make it all new yourself; and you fret and you worry, and you tease, and you trouble, and you make a burden of yourself. Why not leave that off, and in humble prayer take the matter to the Lord, and say, "Lord, appear for me, for thou hast said, 'I make all things new.' Make my circumstances new"? He is certainly able to turn your captivity as he turns the sun when it has reached the southern tropic.

Come, there is one more application, and that is that the Lord can convert those dear friends about whose souls you have been so anxious. The Lord who makes all things new can hear your prayers. One of the first prayers that I heard tonight in the prayer-meeting was by a dear brother that God would save his relatives. Then another with great tenderness prayed for his children. I knew it came from an aching heart. Some of you have heart-breakers at home: the Lord break their hearts. You have grievous trouble because you hear the dearest that you have blaspheming the God you love. You know that they are Sabbath-breakers, and utterly godless, and you tremble for their eternal fate. Certain persons attend this Tabernacle—I do not see them to-night—but I can say of them that I never enter this pulpit without looking to their pews to see whether they are there, and breathing my heart to God for them. I forget a great many of you who are saved; but I always pray for them. And they will be brought in, I feel assured; but, oh, that it may be this year! I liked what a brother said at the church-meeting on Monday night, when his brother was introduced to the church. (Ah, there he sits.) I asked about his brother's conversion, and I said, "I suppose you were surprised to see him converted." He said, "I should have been very much surprised if he had not been." "But why, my dear brother?" I said. "Because I asked the Lord to convert him, and I kept on praying that he might be converted; and I should have been very much surprised if he had not been." That is the right sort of faith. I should be very much surprised if some of you that come here, time after time, are not converted. You shall be: blessed be God. We will give him no rest until he hears us. But come! Are we to be praying for you, and you not praying for yourselves? Do you not agree with our prayers? Oh, I trust you may. But, even if you do not, we shall pray for you; and we were sure that you opposed our intercessions, and were even angry with them, we should pray all the more, for we mean to have you won for Jesus, by the grace of God, and you may as well come soon as late. We are bound to have you in the church confessing your faith in Jesus. We will never let you go, neither will we cease from our importunate prayers until we get an answer from the throne, and see you saved. Oh that you would yield on this first night of the year to him who can make new creatures of you. God grant you may!

The Lord answer our prayer now, for Jesus' sake, for we seek the salvation of every hearer and every reader of this sermon. Amen.

Source: Spurgeon Archives