Posts Tagged ‘Jethro Tull’

Devotional Podcast #22: “God’s Wrath and the Gospel”

March 16, 2018

This is Part 2 of my reflection on the Bible’s most popular verse, John 3:16. Today I tackle an unpopular subject: God’s wrath. Why does a God of perfect love have wrath? I hope my words help make sense of it. Scripture is Numbers 21:4-9.

Devotional Text: Numbers 21:4-9

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Hi, This is Brent White! It’s Thursday, March 15, and this is devotional podcast number 22.

And it is a jungle out there—at least if this 1974 hit song, written by Ian Anderson and performed by the band Jethro Tull, is true. I recorded this from their album WarChild. “He who made kittens,” Anderson tells us, referring to God, “put snakes in the grass.” And that’s literally true when it comes to today’s scripture in Numbers 21:4-9.

Remember, this is the second podcast related to John 3:16. To hear the first in the series, go back and listen to devotional podcast number 21.

As I said last time, to understand the Bible’s most famous verse, we have to look at this short passage from Numbers 21—because Jesus refers to it in John 3:14-15 when he says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

In Numbers 21, the Israelites are nearing the Promised Land after almost 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. And now, a new generation of Israelites is complaining to Moses about his leadership and God’s providential care. Verse 5: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” And what does God do in response to their ingratitude, their blasphemy, and their lack of faith? He sends poisonous snakes in their midst… to kill them.

Why? Because, as uncomfortable as it makes modern people feel, God has wrath toward sin. God is giving us a small picture of his wrath in Numbers 21. Wrath is God’s justifiable anger toward sin and evil. When we think of the word “wrath,” we probably think of losing one’s temper and being out of control with anger—flying off the handle. Needless to say, I hope, God does not lose his temper, nor is he out of control or flying off the handle. In fact, God’s wrath is a consequence of his love: Because God loves this world, and especially his image-bearing creatures within it, he is angry at all the sin and evil that harm it. I hope that makes sense. Read the rest of this entry »

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Advent Podcast Day 19: “The Light Shines in Darkness”

December 21, 2017

From the first day of Advent until Christmas Day, I’m podcasting a daily devotional. You can listen by clicking on the playhead below.

Devotional Text: John 1:1-5

You can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.

Hi, this is Brent White. It’s December 21, 2017, and this is Day 19 of my series of Advent podcasts. You’re listening to the band Jethro Tull, and a song they wrote and recorded about—well… this very day: December 21, the winter solstice. This song, “Ring Out, Solstice Bells,” comes from the band’s 1977 album Songs from the Wood.

My scripture today is John 1:1-5, which I’ll read now:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Do you remember that scene in Back to the Future when Doc Brown is introducing Marty McFly, Michael J. Fox’s character, to the wonders of his time-traveling DeLorean? Brown shows McFly an LED-based instrument built into the car’s dashboard and explains that you simply enter any date in the past that you want to travel back to and—voila!—that’s where you’ll end up. 

At one point he tells Marty, “We can go back and witness the birth of Jesus Christ.” And then you see Doc Brown punch in the date December 25 of the year “0000.”

And at this point, many people in the audience groaned. For two reasons. First, there wasn’t a year “0.” According to the calendar that the church created, which divides history between the time before Christ and the time after Christ was born, the calendar changed from 1 B.C. to A.D. 1.

And the second reason some people watching Back to the Future groaned is because Jesus wasn’t born on December 25—or I should say, there’s about a 1 in 365 chance that he was born on December 25! If you’ll recall a podcast I did last week, my amateur astronomer friend believed that Jesus was born some time in April.

But the Church chose the date of December 25 to celebrate Christ’s birth for an important reason: Under the old Julian calendar, it marked the winter solstice, the so-called “longest night of the year”—or, put the other way, the day with the least amount of sunlight. Just think: for the next six months, each day will be marked by progressively more daylight.

And in ancient times long before the birth of Christ, people attached religious significance to this day—thanking their god or gods that the solstice marked the “end of gloom and darkness and the victory of the sun and the light over the darkness.”[1] Because of this pagan association with the solstice, even some Christians today have misgivings about celebrating Christmas.

I certainly don’t share these misgivings. Even if under the old calendar December 25 was a pagan holiday, I would say that the day has been redeemed—like so many other things, including our very lives—by Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Read the rest of this entry »

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“To find God, go back to where you lost him”

October 1, 2015

I was in college, my first time around, back in the olden days of the internet—before the web, before blogs, before social media. The only access I had to the internet was through a mainframe terminal in one particular building on campus. I used to rush there in between classes in order to participate in the latest “flame war” that was happening on a couple of Usenet groups I read religiously at the time. Usenet was an early “bulletin board” system, which consisted of newsgroups sorted into thousands of different categories, allowing users to have online conversations with people around the world who shared their interests.

The group on which I was most active was called “rec.music.christian,” dedicated to contemporary Christian music, or “Christian rock.” For at least a few years, between about 1990 and 1994, rec.music.christian was an important part of my life.

This week I was reminded of my participation in this newsgroup. I saw a blog post by a name I recognized from those days—not to mention recognizing his style and wit. I confirmed he was the same person. He was a frequent ally in the flame wars in which I participated. He shared many of my musical tastes, my political opinions, and my anger. Indeed, his blog post this week was a broadside against conservative evangelicals who are more faithful to a political party than to Jesus.

Second verse, same as the first. I thought: “Wasn’t he”—weren’t we—”writing this same stuff 25 years ago?”

To my horror, there’s actually a way to check. Google has archived at least some of these posts. I couldn’t see any posts earlier than 1993, but still… There’s enough evidence there, not only by my erstwhile flame-war ally, but by yours truly, to remind me of two facts: First: I was a pretty good writer, even back then. Second: I was very angry.

Don’t get me wrong: I still struggle with anger, but I’ve been in “recovery” for several years.

Needless to say, in re-reading these old posts, I didn’t like that aspect of the person I had become, even by 1993—and I’d already been nursing anger for a few years by then.

What happened to me back then that made me like that?  Read the rest of this entry »

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God in our image

January 16, 2011

Today’s sermon, which I’ll post later this week, was on the second commandment:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

In the sermon I reflected on the various ways in which we commit idolatry these days. They are legion, even though we don’t literally bow down to them or worship them.

I also tried to reconcile these words regarding jealousy and punishment with the idea that the Ten Commandments are a gift from a loving God. In context, both jealousy—the kind of jealously guarded love that defines a relationship between wives and husbands—and punishment are completely compatible with love. More than that, if God weren’t “jealous” and didn’t punish for sin, God would be less than loving.

I said the following about God’s hatred of sin:

Granted, if we were creating a god in our image, we wouldn’t create the kind of God we have. We would want our god to shrug his shoulders and say, “It’s no big deal. You’re only human. Everyone makes mistakes. Besides, the important thing is that you be true to yourself. Do what you want. I’ll make sure there are no consequences.” But that kind of god would hate us if that were his attitude toward sin.

Creating God in our image… How often do we risk doing this? It doesn’t help that we have this famously beautiful—although theologically troubling—depiction of God’s creating humanity in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting. I’m not sure how this painting doesn’t violate both the letter and spirit of the second (or, if you’re Catholic or Lutheran, first) commandment.

I'm uncomfortable with this image of God as the "old man in the sky." (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

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