Flags
On a recent trip I picked up Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers, by Brian Kilmeade. One of the many things I learned was a distinction between flags in warfare. By flags I don’t mean the insignias used to designate various units serving or the ensigns of the countries represented in the conflict.
The flags I’m talking about are the white flag and the black flag (there could be more, I don’t know – these were the ones in the book). At this time (1836) the white flag signaled surrender, as it still does. This I already knew. But a black flag meant that this force in the battle would give no quarter. They would take no prisoners. All who were defeated by the black flag waving soldiers would be executed.
Theologically, when we were born we faced a black flag. “All have sinned…”Romans 3:23. “the wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23. No matter how much these verses would move us to wave the white flag of surrender, we are still doomed. Don’t get me wrong, our surrender is part of the process. Indeed, it is essential. But it’s not good enough. We are still faced with a black flag of destruction.
That’s why the lifted cross is the one true flag we need. We see here what God was willing to do to release us from the sentence of death – He took it as His own. By the Holy Spirit’s work, we not only surrender when we see how far from God we’ve fallen, but we trust God’s promise that through our faith we are welcomed back home.
“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:32. Keep this lifted symbol ever before your eyes!
God's Creative Love
I was working on a sermon and was thinking of using a quote from Dr. Martin Luther regarding the theology of the cross as compared with the theology of glory. This took me to the Heidelberg Disputation, thesis 21. But while I was there I got distracted – as I am wont to do – and just read through all of the theses.
The one I’d like to share with you, today, is one that I ended up placing in this next weekend’s sermon. It’s not about the contrast between the theologies mentioned above. It’s…well, I think I’ll let thesis 28 speak for itself. “The love of God does not find its object but rather creates it. Human love starts with the object.”
It’s not that God loves you because you’re special, which is how we often work with each other. It’s instead the truth that you’re special because God loves you.
Ash Wednesday 2021
While living in Colorado and employing a wood burning stove to heat our home I learned that a damp cloth, or paper towel, wiped through the cool ashes could be used to clean the charred glass of the stove. It worked wonderfully. The ashes had a cleansing quality.
May that be our experience in this Ash Wednesday as the ashes are traced on our foreheads and we are called to repentance with the reminder “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
Here is another reflection for the day. It is from an Ash Wednesday sermon by St. Augustine.
St. Augustine of Hippo: Live always in this fashion, O Christian; if you do not wish to sink into the mire of this earth, do not come down from the cross.