April 3rd, 2009 "In truth you cannot read too much in Scriptures; and what you read you cannot read too carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well." -Martin Luther, WA 53, 218 April 8th, 2009 I am almost finished with school! I will be officially done on April 16th, then I will have 1 exam (guitar jury) on the following Wednesday after I get back from the Gospel Coalition Conference in Chicago. I am pretty stoked about going and am ready to learn a lot. I can't wait! April 10th, 2009 A hymn by John Kent (1766-1843): 1. 'Twixt Jesus and the Chosen Race Subsists a bond of sov'reign grace, That hell, with its infernal train, Shall ne'er dissolve, or rend in twain. 2. This sacred bond shall never break, Though earth should to her center shake; Rest, doubting saint, assured of this, For God has pledged His holiness. 3. He swore but once the deed was done; 'Twas settled by the great Three One; Christ was appointed to redeem All that the Father loved in Him. 4. Hail, sacred union, firm and strong How great thy grace, how sweet the song, That rebel worms should ever be One with incarnate Deity! 5. One in the tomb, one when He rose, One when he triumphed o'er His foes One when in heav'n He took His seat, While seraphs sung at hell's defeat. 6. Blessed by the wisdom and the grace, Th' eternal love and faithfulness, That's in the gospel scheme revealed, And is by God the Spirit sealed. April 12th, 2009 Make no mistake: if he rose at all It was as His body; If the cell's dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit, The amino acids rekindle, The Church will fall. It was not as the flowers, Each soft spring recurrent; It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the Eleven apostles; It was as His flesh; ours. The same hinged thumbs and toes The same valved heart That--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then regathered Out of enduring Might New strength to enclose. Let us not mock God with metaphor, Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence, Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded Credulity of earlier ages: Let us walk through the door. The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache, Not a stone in a story, But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of Time will eclipse for each of us The wide light of day. And if we have an angel at the tomb, Make it a real angel, Weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in The dawn light, robed in real linen Spun on a definite loom. Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty, Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed By the miracle, And crushed by remonstrance. Updike: Seven Stanzas at Easter April 20th, 2009 Well I am officially done with class, just one exam next week. For now, I am off to the Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago first thing bright and early tomorrow morning for 3 days. I am so excited!