As we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, it is well to remember that every baby born is a blessing and a gift from God (Psalm127:3). Every child, regardlessof of the circumstances of its birth, is God's creation, and has value and purpose in His eyes.
In Venezuela, a licensed health professional may perform an abortion to save the mother's life, with the written permission of the woman, her husband or a legal representative. In emergencies, the approval of a second physician may suffice. Abortions performed by anyone else, for any other reason, merit a prison sentence, ranging from six months to three years, depending on the circumstances. No one in their right mind would want to spend any amount of time in a Venezuelan prison, where prisoners often have to try and catch rats for food.
Nevertheless, non-abortifacient contraceptives are readily available. You can buy condoms off the rack at most pharmacies and supermarkets and obtaining oral contraceptives is not a problem, either. According to the CIA World Fact Book, the annual birth rate in Venezuela today is equal to that of the United States in 1965. That was, of course, when the use of contraceptives, particularly oral contraceptives, had become widespread in the United States, but the Supreme Court had not yet swept away all existing abortion legislation with the Roe vs. Wade decision.
But there is an important difference between Venezuela in 2014 and the United States in 1965:The number of children born out of wedlock to women between 15 and 19 years of age, and sometimes to girls under 15. Venezuela has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Latin American, a region of the world which itself is second only to Africa in its number of teen pregnancies. This serves to perpetuate a cycle of poverty, since 80 percent of these teenage mothers drop out of school. Not only do they fail to gain a basic formal education (we deal with quite a few illiterate adults) or marketable skills, they also lack the parenting skills necessary to raise their children. This is because their mothers, and even their grandmothers, became pregnant as teenagers and never had good role models. Many of the children in our community do not receive nutritionally balanced meals, not just because of their family's limited means, but because the adults who have charge of them do not have basic nutritional knowledge. Nutritionally related health problems are very common. For example, Venezuela has the highest incidence of uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes mellitus in Latin America.
Most of the households in our surrounding community have a single parental figure, usually a woman who is mother or grandmother to the rest. Children often grow up with many brothers and sisters, all of whom have different biological fathers. The lack of responsible males in these homes means the boys do not learn how to be responsible, caring men, which contributes the perpetuation of the cycle of poverty. Consumption of alcohol and other drugs is high, and so is the incidence of emotional, physical and sexual abuse of children.
The availability of contraceptives has not proved a remedy for this situation because those most at risk from early pregnancies do not have the maturity or the motivation to use contraceptives. There is a cultural dynamic that teaches girls that their sexuality is their only means of empowerment; that they only gain worth as individuals by their ability to attract men and bear children. Nor does the availability of contraceptives mean anything to boys who become men without learning respect for women and any sense of responsibility for any children they may bring into the world.
We do not believe the killing of the unborn would solve this problem, either. First of all, the Holy Scriptures teach us that life begins at conception (Isaiah 44:2, 49:1; Jeremiah 1:5). Indeed, we read in Luke1:39-56 that John the Baptist leaped in his mother's womb at the approach of Mary, because of the baby that she bore (""Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of they womb").
But we also interpret the Fifth Commandment to mean not just that we should avoid actively seeking to harm our neighbor, but to help him maintain and improve his life as well. So it is not our objective to advocate the extermination of the poor, but to help them.
In the second place, the legalization of abortion would not break the cycle of poverty,any more than the availability of contraception. It would not give the people the means or the motivation to change their lives. That is what we hope to do, with the help of God, through our mission. To teach them needed skills and pursue continued education, instill Christian values regarding marriage and child-bearing, and above all, by preaching the Gospel of God's love in Christ,to give them the hope and confidence necessary to break free of the oppression of false beliefs as well as poverty. We are pleased that some of the young people involved with our mission have become the first in their families to graduate from high school, and that some adults are learning to read. But we are even more pleased that they have come to believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, and, by His resurrection, gained for them the promise of eternal life.
Simeon's song of praise. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
According to the historic
one-year lectionary, the Song of Simeon is to be read as part of
the Gospel lesson (Luke 2:22-32) for February 2. This is the
celebration of the presentation of our Lord in the Temple. The
reading is meant to bring to a close the Epiphany season in
anticipation of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent (February 13
this year),
Verses 22-26 say this: “And when the
days of her purification according to the law of Moses were
accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the
Lord; (As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that
openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) And to
offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the
Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons. And, behold, there
was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was
just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy
Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost,
that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ.”
All of this was 40 days after Jesus'
birth, in accordance with the Old Testament law set forth in the
book of Leviticus, chapter 12 (Luke notes that Joseph and Mary took the option available to parents who could not afford a young lamb for sacrifice, another indication that this was a family of modest means). The second day of February is the
40th day after Christmas, thus is the date for remembering this
episode in the life of Christ.
Upon entering the Temple, Simeon saw
the baby Jesus, took him in his arms and prayed the prayer that has
become known as the Song of Simeon:
Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant
depart in peace, according to Thy word:
For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,
Which Thou hast prepared before the
face of all people;
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and
the glory of Thy people Israel.
Of course, here we sing a version of
the Song of Simeon every Sunday after the sacrament of the altar.
This is known as the Nunc Dimittis (Latin for “Now you
dismiss...”).We have another reason to remember especially Luke
2:32, the verse that epitomizes the Epiphany theme of Christ as the
Light of the world. On Transfiguration Sunday, January 20, 2013, our
little flock decided to name itself Epiphany Lutheran Mission of La
Caramuca.
Here is the original
Greek text: φως εις αποκαλυψιν εθνων και
δοξαν λαου σου ισραηλ
Transliterating the Greek into the
English alphabet, we get “phos eis apokalypsin ethnon kai doxan
laou sou Israél.”
For a major portion of my life I
recited this as part of the Nunc Dimittis in good King James English:
“A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people
Israel.” That still resonates for me although, nowadays “lighten”
is no longer used very often in the sense of “enlighten” or
“illuminate.” Rather more in the sense of “make less heavy,”
as in, “Here, let me lighten your load.”
The Reina-Valera Bible's Spanish
translation renders it thus: “Luz para revelación a los gentiles,
y gloria de tu pueblo Israel.” Of course, “revelación” is
“revelation” in English. In the English-speaking world, the last
book of the Bible is called “Revelation” or “Revelations” or
sometimes “the Apocalypse of St. John.” In Spanish it is
“Apocalipsis.” The original word is ἀποκάλυψις,or
“apokalupsis.”
People frequently use the word
“apocalypse” as a synonym for the end of the world, because they
are dimly aware that the last book of the Bible talks about the end
of the world. There is even a genre of science fiction movie called
“post-apocalyptic” (about people who survive the end of the
world, at least as we know it). Think “Mad Max: Beyond
Thunderdome.” However, people who use the word, “apocalypse”,
in this way, usually do not understand what “Apocalipsis” says
about the end of the world, or that it does not deal only with the
end of the world. The three main points of the book may be summarized
in this way:
Even as each of us are appointed
to live on this earth for a certain amount of time, the earth itself
will one day meet its end. But if we have faith in Christ, it should
not matter to us whether we face the hour of our own death or the
final day of the entire world. We have the promise of eternal life
with Christ regardless.
No matter what trials and
tribulations we face in this life, even if it seems all is falling
into chaos around us, God is in charge and His will shall prevail.
Even as His angels guard and protect us until whatever purpose that
God has for our lives has been fulfilled, His will keeps the earth
spinning in its orbit, with the sun shining and the rain falling on
the just and unjust alike, until the appointed hour of Christ's
return.
Those who refuse baptismal grace
will find themselves without excuse or further opportunity to repent
before the victorious Christ enthroned in judgment. Fair warning has
been given.
The Greek word, apokalupsis, actually
means “an unveiling”, as in “to uncover” or “to lay bare.”
In New T.estament language, it means a. a disclosure of truth, or
instruction concerning divine things before unknown, especially those
relating to the Christian salvation, given to the soul by God
Himself, especially through the operation of the Holy Spirit. There
are only 18 occurrences of this word, in various forms, in the New
Testament. Because it implies that which was hidden has been made
visible to all the phrase in Luke 2:32 may be rendered, “a light
to lighten the Gentiles,” “a light to appear to the Gentiles”
or “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.”
The word, ἔθνος or “ethnos”
is the Greek root word from which we derive “ethnic” or
“ethnicity” (“etnía or “étnico” in Spanish). It often
used in the New Testament to mean people of non-Jewish background,
even non-Jewish Christians (Romans 11:13, 15:27 16:4 and Galatians
2:12), but sometimes in reference to the Jewish people themselves
(Luke 7:5, 23:2; John 11:48, 50-53, 18.35; Acts 10:22 and 24:2). It
also is translated as “the nations” or “all nations” (Matthew
24:9, 14, 25:32, 28:19; Mark 11:17, 13:10; and Luke 12:30).
On the other hand, λαός or “laos”,
is the word from which we derive “laity” or “laypeople”
(“laicos” in Spanish). It means “people”, but generally is used
in the Bible to mean “the people of God”. In the Septuagint
(first Greek translation of the Old Testament) and at times in the
New Testament it refers to Jews (Matthew 4:23, 13:15; Mark 7:6, Luke
2:10 and John 11.50) and also to the church, the community of
believers in Christ, both Jews and Gentiles (Hebrews 4:9, Revelation
18:4). Sometimes, but rarely, it means simply "the people" or "the crowds."
Like apocalypse, the word, “epiphany”,
these days is often misused. To many people it has come to mean
simply a moment of clarity. Some even speak of a “love
epiphany,” when someone realizes he/she has romantic feelings
for.someone else.
But for us, Epiphany is that moment
when the light of God's love break through the world's darkness in
the form of Christ, and especially when that light was first revealed
to “the nations” with the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem. Our
Lord's missionary charge to His church, “Go, therefore, and make
disciples of all nations....” (Matthew 28:19) is foreshadowed in
the words of Simeon, “A light for revelation to all nations.”
"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities;upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:4-6
In "The Varieties of Religious Experience", William James' pioneering study of the psychology of religion, there is a contrast drawn between people James called the "once-born" and the "twice-born."
The "once-born", who James also described as the "healthy-minded", are people who by temperament are "positive thinkers". They prefer to see the world as a safe, sunny place and would rather not dwell on suffering and evil. Therefore, they think of religion as something that should make you feel good about yourself and others, and offer practical rules for living a well-adjusted life. The "once-born" see whatever problems there are in the world as relatively easy to solve, simply a matter of appealing to reason and good will. Most conflicts can be settled by people sitting down together and really listening to the other side. These people indeed may live productive, well-adjusted lives in a well-ordered and civilized society. But if events should shake their worldly order to its foundations, they have a hard time coping, because they do not understand the extent to which evil exists within themselves and the world, nor its horrifying power.
The "twice-born", on the other hand, are those whom James also called "sick souls." They by instinct sense that there is something profoundly wrong with the world and with themselves, and believe that happiness in this world is fleeting, at best, and can only be achieved at great cost. The "twice-born" can only find direction by being "born again", by which James meant and "experience of deliverance" involving surrender and sacrifice. For the "twice-born", a religion of vague platitudes, moralism and outward rituals can never be sufficient; they want something that will allow them to stare evil in the face. They may handle the encounter with evil better than the "once-born," but their weakness is the tendency to despair of any final victory of light over darkness and simply accept the existence of evil in the world with stoic passivity.
This, of course, is not what the Scriptures mean by being "born again" or "from above" by the Holy Spirit. Our salvation depends not on our feelings or inclinations, but on the objective truths of God's Word. Thus, God' s Word has something to say to persons of both these temperaments. C.S. Lewis once said that the Devil encourages two equal and opposite errors about himself: One being not to believe in his existence, and the other to believe and be terrified. "Once-born" people might be described as people who are inclined to disbelieve in the Devil as well as the depth of their own sinfulness, while James' "twice-born" are those inclined to fear evil, or at least live without the joy and hope that might be theirs.
I bring up this psychological typology only as a way of perhaps explaining the importance of the Lenten season. If the secular world today takes note of Lent at all, it may be as the basis of a "romantic comedy" about a young man abstaining from sex for "40 Days and 40 Nights". But those who are comfortable with the world and their place in it need to consider the words of the prophet Isaiah and the hymn those words inspired, "Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted", English words by Thomas Kelly (1804):
"Ye who think of sin but lightly,
Nor suppose the evil great,
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the Sacrifice appointed!
See Who bears the awful load!
'Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed,
Son of Man, and Son of God."
Christ suffered the punishment the each one of us merited, in order to obtain for us redemption and a new relationship with God.We all need to hear this. The solemn reflections of Lent are not to be forgotten in joy and celebration of Easter. Lent prepares us for Easter.
Especially for those "sick souls", who are all to aware of their own sins and the suffering of the world, must remember, "upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed."
"Here we have a firm foundation,
Here the refuge of the lost.
Christ the Rock of our salvation,
Christ the Name of which we boast.
Lamb of God for sinners wounded!
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on Him their hope have built."
Feliz Pascua to everyone! I could say "Pascua" is Spanish for "Easter", because it is, but it literally means"Passover." In Spanish Bibles, the word used for the Jewish Passover festival is "Pascua", starting with Exodus 12:11 and continuing into the New Testament accounts. However, this is not a peculiarity of Spanish, according to an article by Anthony McRoy, posted on Christianity Today magazine's Christian History blog. In most of the languages of the world, the same word is used for the Jewish feast of Passover and the Christian celebration of Christ's Resurrection. The major exceptions are English and German, which use the words "Easter" and "Ostern" for the Christian holy day.
According to the Venerable Bede, an English monk who lived from 673 to 735 A.D. and who is a major source of information for modern historians about early Anglo-Saxon culture, the month of April was once dedicated to worship of the goddess Eostre. Anglo-Saxon language and culture was closely related to that of the Germanic tribes on the European continent, and 1,000 years after the Venerable Bede, Jakob Grimm (one half of the Brothers Grimm), wrote in his 1835 book, Deutsche Mythologie, that the festival of Ostern was derived from the worship of the goddess Ostara (an Old High German form of Easter).
These claims are often used to bolster the assertion that Christians copied existing pagan customs to accomodate new converts and that the church's liturgy and calendar are not truly Biblical, or even reflect early Christian belief.
One problem with this assertion, at least in the case of Easter, is that there is very little evidence outside of works of the Venerable Bede and Jakob Grimm that anyone ever worshipped a goddess called Eostre or Ostara. But there is an even bigger difficulty. McRoy writes:
"The Nordic/Germanic peoples (including the Anglo-Saxons) were comparative latecomers to Christianity. Pope Gregory I sent a missionary enterprise led by Augustine of Canterbury to the Anglo-Saxons in 596/7. The forcible conversion of the Saxons in Europe began under Charlemagne in 772. Hence, if "Easter" (i.e. the Christian Passover festival) was celebrated prior to those dates, any supposed pagan Anglo-Saxon festival of "Eostre" can have no significance. And there is, in fact, clear evidence that Christians celebrated an Easter/Passover festival by the second century, if not earlier. It follows that the Christian Easter/Passover celebration, which originated in the Mediterranean basin, was not influenced by any Germanic pagan festival."
Likewise, there is a popular notion that Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25 (or January 6 in Eastern Orthodox tradition) because pagans were celebrating the rebirth of the sun-god on that date and converts felt slighted that they did not have anything to celebrate. (The winter solstice, the longest night of the year, generally falls around December 21. Following the solstice, daylight hours gradually increase, thus the sun has been reborn.)
Of course, the Bible does not give a specific date for Christ's birth. Writing for Biblical Archaeology Review, Andrew McGowan notes that Clement of Alexandria in 200 A.D. listed several dates on which different groups of Christians celebrated His birth: March 21; April 15, 20 or 21; or May 20. It was not until 274 A.D. that the Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 a pagan holiday dedicated to worship of the sun (with little evidence that the date had special significance to anyone before the Christian era). By that time Christians in the western half of the Roman Empire had settled on December 25 as the day of Christ's birth, while in the eastern empire, January 6 had become the accepted date.
Why those dates? McGowan writes: "Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover...Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus died was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar. March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation -— the commemoration of Jesus’ conception. Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year."
As for the eastern church: "In the East, too, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the easterners used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar -— April 6 to us. April 6 is, of course, exactly nine months before January 6 -— the eastern date for Christmas."
Some of our holiday customs, such as Christmas trees, Easter eggs (maybe), holly and mistletoe, may have prechristian origins. But McGowan notes that prior to the fourth century A.D., Christians took great pains to distinguish Christian worship from the idolatry that surrounded them. "From the mid-fourth century on, we do find Christians deliberately adapting and Christianizing pagan festivals.
A famous proponent of this practice was Pope Gregory the Great, who, in a letter written in 601 C.E. to a Christian missionary in Britain, recommended that local pagan temples not be destroyed but be converted into churches, and that pagan festivals be celebrated as feasts of Christian martyrs. At this late point, Christmas may well have acquired some pagan trappings."
But the true roots of Christian worship and the church year are in the highly liturgical worship of the Old Testament, with its annual cycle of Scripture readings, sacrifices and sacred meals. This is not the result of human habit or whim.
Our Lord Himself knew exactly what He was doing when He instituted the sacrament of the Lord's Supper during the Passover meal. God Himself commanded the Israelites to observe Passover every year in Exodus 12:1-14, to remember how they were saved from divine wrath in Egypt (the tenth plague which claimed the life of every firstborn son) by the blood of a lamb without blemish. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it...The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt."
Divine judgment falling upon the firstborn son foreshadows the Passion of Christ as does the offering of an unblemished lamb. We also find this foreshadowing in Genesis 22, where God calls upon Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only begotten son. Abraham follows God's command, firm in the hope that at the last moment, God would provide a lamb for the sacrifice in place of Isaac. And so that particular story ends, but the longer-term significance is that the real sacrificial lamb would be One Who was both the only begotten Son of God and a descendant of Abraham.
Jesus knew that after His last supper with His 12 disciples, there would be no more need to sacrifice animals for the atonement of sins. He Himself would atone for the sins of all people once and for all. The old Passover would be replaced by a new one in which God's wrath would "pass over" all who believe because of the "sign" of Jesus' blood.
Thus, "the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). Instead of offering up a lamb from our flocks in hope of placating God's wrath, we receive the body and blood of the Divine Lamb, Who has already redeemed us from our sins. In case anyone misunderstands this part, St. Paul writes in the verses following, "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself." And likewise, in 1 Corinthians 10:16, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?"
The new covenant in Christ's blood was not intended as a negation of the old, but rather a fulfillment and an amplification of it. We no longer sacrifice animals because Christ's sacrifice on the cross is all-sufficient. We do not observe the ritual purity laws of the Old Testament because we may approach God covered in the purity of Christ. We are adopted as members of God's people not through circumcision, but through baptism, also commanded by our Lord (Matthew 28:19-29), foreshadowed by the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and linked to the Lord's Supper.
"I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
In other words, life in Christ means participating in an exodus from slavery with others who have passed through the waters of baptism and who receive the same spiritual food and drink, that is, the body and blood of Christ. We only need to be baptized once, because Christ only needed to die on the cross once. But we continue to receive His body and blood, not just once a year, but as many times as we have the opportunity to partake of it, to sustain us in the wilderness of this world until His return in glory. It is then that we will enter our Promised Land.
But if we may freely approach God in worship and prayer with Christ as our Mediator, we still approach the same holy and righteous God of Abraham, Moses and the patriarchs. "Therefore," St. Paul writes, "my beloved, flee from idolatry." All of the Israelites passed through the Red Sea and were sustained by spiritual food and drink in the wilderness. "Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased...Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day."
This is a reference to the story of the golden calf in Exodus 32. How could the Israelites have fallen into idolatry so quickly after witnessing the miracles that Moses performed in the name of their God, and God Himself leading them in the form of pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night? Because they adopted a form of worship in imitation of the popular religiosity of the day. They made a golden image of the God that brought them out of Egypt as they imagined Him (no pun intended). They worshipped this image in the sensual and emotionally wanton way the pagans worshipped their gods. Soon what could not be distinguished from idolatry became idolatry and sexual immorality. As St. Paul writes, this stands as a lesson for us, that our worship should center on the preaching of the Word of God and the administration of the sacraments, as our Lord Himself commanded, with due reverence for the divine mysteries with which we have been entrusted and respect for the Biblically sound traditions of the church of the ages, not modeled on the idolatry of our time.
Draw nigh and take the body of the Lord
And drink the holy blood for you outpoured.
Offered was He for greatest and for least,
Himself the Victim and Himself the Priest.
He that His saints in this world rules and shields
To all believers life eternal yields,
With heavenly bread makes them that hunger whole,
Gives living waters to the thirsting soul.
Approach ye, then, with faithful hearts sincere
And take the pledges of salvation here.
O Judge of all, our only Savior Thou,
In this Thy feast of love be with us now.
Hymn #307
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Ps. 34:8
Author: Latin author unknown, c. 680
Translated by: John M. Neale, 1851, cento, alt.
Titled: "Sancti, venite, corpus Christi sumite"
Tune: "Old 124th"
1st Published in: Genevan Psalter, 1551
It sounds like a line from a love-song and it is. You probably have it heard it somewhere, sometime. "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" was first recorded by the Weavers in 1951 and later by Jimmie Rodgers, Eddy Arnold, Andy Williams, Jackson Browne and Waylon Jennings, among others. The chorus goes, "Uh, oh, she had kisses sweeter than wine."
The chorus of "This Magic Moment", another classic ballad, features a variation on the phrase. The singer recalls the first kiss with his beloved as being "sweeter than wine, softer than a summer's night." "This Magic Moment" was originally released by the Drifters in 1960 and later by Jay and the Americans, Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, among others.
Who knows whether the writers of these American pop standards were consciously borrowing from the Bible, but it's hard not to hear an echo of the Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon), verse 2: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine." Verse 1 is the book's title: "The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's."
The Song of Songs seemed appropriate to me, even though explaining its message in a simple manner posed a challenge. Franz Delitzsch, a German Lutheran scholar and theologian of Jewish descent, called it "the most obscure book in the Old Testament" and, in some ways it is. This is primarily because the Song of Songs is a lengthy poem consisting almost entirely of dialogue. The problem is that the text offers very few clues as to who is talking and when. It is as if the book of Job started right in with the debate over why the righteous suffer with no framing narrative about who Job was or what kind of predicament he was in, and with no phrases like, "Then Job said..." or "Then Elihu said..." or "Then the Lord spoke..." This has led to an abundance of speculation, much of it rather fanciful, about how many "voices" there are in the poem, who is speaking, and the details of the underlying narrative.
What is clear is that there are at least two speakers, a woman called "the Shulamite" (the Hebrew word appears in no other book of the Old Testament and might be a proper name) and a man, apparently King Solomon. The two express their feelings for each other over the course of a courtship, wedding and marriage, a relationship that is tested at every stage. Ultimately, however, the Song of Songs concludes with a triumphant reaffirmation of marital love and commitment (chapter 8, verses 5 to 7).
The Song of Songs is frankly sensual in its language. The writer is keenly attuned to colors, sounds, smells, textures and tastes. He (the first verse would indicate that Solomon himself wrote it) is deeply appreciative of the beauty of the human form as well as the corresponding beauties of nature and the landscapes of Palestine. Thus the Song of Songs may be read as an affirmation of the goodness of God's creation and of romantic love and marriage, and a corrective to the many Old Testament warnings against the temptations of the flesh.
But there is more to it than that. Since ancient times the Song of Songs has been interpreted a symbolic representation of the relationship between the Lord and His people. The traditional Jewish interpretation is that the Song of Songs is a picture of the history of Israel beginning with the Exodus, which is why to this day the Song of Songs is read in synagogues during Passover. Later Cbristian commentators would see the Shulamite as a symbol of the Church and her kingly bridegroom as Christ.
How is this connection made? The moral of the story in Song of Songs is that commitment plus fidelity equals a lasting relationship characterized by joy, contentment and complete trust in the beloved. This principle may not only be applied to the most intimate of human relationships, but also to relationship between God and His people. Hosea 2:16.20 makes this clear:
“And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband"...and I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD."
And again in Isaiah 54:5
"For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called."
On the negative side, not only does the Old Testament condemn the sexual immorality and perversion of the pagan world, but idolatry in itself is considered adultery. Jeremiah 3:1 says this: "You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you return to me? declares the LORD."
Given this theme of fidelity, it might seem inconsistent to identify the Shulamite's suitor as Solomon, since the historical books of the Old Testament tell of the king's many wives and concubines, and his eventual fall into idolatry. But not if Solomon is seen in a prophetic fashion as prefiguring another son of David who would bring justice and mercy to His people. In fact, Solomon is portrayed as a messianic figure in 2 Samuel 7:12–17, Psalm 72 and also in Matthew 12:42.
In the New Testament, St. Paul writes to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 11:2-3, "I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ."
And in Ephesians 5:22-32, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church."
Finally in Revelation 19:7-9, there is the triumphant vision of Christ, the Lamb of God, His bride, the Church, and the eternal wedding-feast:
"Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready...And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
In conveying these ideas to the youth, it helped to point out how the Song of Solomon was the source of words and images in some of their favorite songs. For example, Song of Songs 2.4 says, "He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love," while in chapter 6, verse 3, we read, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." One of the songs that the children and youth really like to sing is called "Su Bandera sobre mi es amor" (His banner over me is love) and the first stanza is "I am Christ's and Christ is mine; His banner over me is love."
Likewise, in Song of Songs 2:1 we read, "I am the rose of Sharon; I am the lily of the valley." So in the song, "Cristo es la Peña de Horeb" (Christ is the Rock of Horeb), the second stanza goes, "Cristo es el lirio del valle de los flores, la Rosa pura y blanca de Sarón."
After the opening meditation and prayer, Luz Maria led the group in a discussion of what physical changes they could expect as they entered adolescence. and how that might affect their emotional, intellectual and social development. She talked about some of the immediate consequences of early pregnancy and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, as well as the long-term consequences of becoming sexually active too soon and outside the bounds of matrimony.
Luz Maria says that, based on the discussion so far, the youth have inadequate knowledge of basic facts of life, despite having an idea of what condoms and birth control pills are. However, their families have responded favorably and we will have at least one more session.
Recently I received by e-mail my electronic copy of Logia, a journal of Lutheran theology. Logia dedicates each quarterly issue to a central theme and advertises its editorial schedule well in advance. So I had been waiting more than a year for the Epipany 2010 issue on Lutheranism in Latin America.
There was a lot of good stuff in the magazine, but what I would like to note is a comment by Dr. Douglas R. Groll, professor emeritus of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He described Culto Cristiano, the hymnal whose order of service we follow, as "a fine mid-century Lutheran hymnal considered by many non-Lutherans to be the best Spanish language hymnal of the last century." I share his opinion, but I mention this only to praise Culto Cristiano before criticizing it. But it is only a small criticism.
Culto Cristiano (from Concordia Publishing House) was originally published before the revival of interest among Lutherans in the imposition of ashes to mark the start of Lent. The imposition of ashes basically consists of the pastor using ashes to mark the foreheads of the penitent with a cross while repeating a paraphrase of Genesis, chapter 3, verse 19: "Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return." Dust and ashes are often used interchangeably in the Scriptures as images of mortality (as in Genesis 18:27 or Job 30:19). The ashes also signify repentance as the practice of wearing sackcloth and sprinkling oneself with ashes to express sorrow and/or repentance of sin also dates back to Biblical times. Of course, the cross symbolizes the hope of forgiveness and redemption in Christ. Ash Wednesday is named for the rite of imposition of ashes, which seems to have originated in the 12th Century. During the Reformation, Lutherans retained Ash Wednesday as the beginning the 46 days of Lent, but the imposition of ashes ritual fell into disuse, for reasons that are not entirely clear. It certainly is rather odd to celebrate "Ash Wednesday" without the ashes, so perhaps it is not surprising that there has been a revival of the ritual in Lutheran circles, including the Lutheran Church of Venezuela.
But there is no recommended form for this ceremony in Culto Cristiano, so there is no standard practice. For our first Ash Wednesday service in La Caramuca, I led our group in the order of public confession and absolution, followed by the imposition of ashes, then by the order of evening prayer. Fortunately, the lessons provided by the lectionary served very well, for instance, Psalm 51:1-13.
I delivered a brief meditation in which I compared the light of God's holiness to the tropical sun at midday. Standing in that intense light for any length of time without covering might mean death by heat stroke or dehydration, but the light of God's holiness is much more intense than the midday sun. Without the protective covering of Christ's righteousness, it would burn us to ashes. The ashes in the form of a cross remind us that because of Christ's suffering and death on the cross, we may walk in God's pure light, free from the powers of darkness.
With the preschool children, I tried a different approach. I showed them a jar of soil, a jar of ashes left after we burned some leaves and a whole leaf from one of our trees. As long This might take a long time, if the leaf was just covered by other leaves, or a very short time if the leaves were burned. So in some countries, dead bodies are buried in the ground and slowly return to dust, while in other countries the bodies are burned and quickly become ash. Either way it's ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But in Christ we have the promise that one day we all will be restored to life, body and soul. So instead of just dumping human bodies in a landfill, or burning them, we honor the deceased with a burial service that expresses the hope that the body planted in the earth will one day rise again to eternal life.
More news on the Haiti front, or rather the frontier between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Last week Luz Maria and I met with Pastor Sergio Maita, who had just returned to Caracas following a week or two of volunteer service there. Sergio, a young Venezuelan man who was ordained with me in December 2009, traveled with Ted and Rebecca Krey, former missionaries to Venezuela who are now based in the Dominican Republic, to the bordertown of Jimani where they offered what assistance they could in a hospital that had become a refuge for earthquake victims. Sergio told us that he had taken a lot of pictures of trip to the Dominican Republic, but did not feel like sharing everything that he had seen in he hospital, for the suffering was very great.
On occasions like the earthquake in Haiti, there always are those try to draw grand conclusions about the misery. Some want to say that such suffering on a grand scale "proves" there is no God, or at least not a loving and merciful God. The problem for these people is that denying the existence of God does not relieve any of the pain experienced by earthquake victims or others one bit, or bring those that died back to life. Yet without an absolute point of reference, there is no basis for saying the pain and death in Haiti was "unjust" or "excessive" or anything else. The world is what it is, and apart from faith in God, there is little reason to think our efforts to change it will make any difference, that there is any hope for anything better (for even the concept of "better" has no significance) or that there is any point in helping those less fortunate than ourselves. Far from the existence of suffering on a grand scale disproving God's existence, only faith that God will one day provide recompense for those who have suffered unjustly, and judgment for the wicked who have evaded punishment by human courts and the natural consequences of their misdeeds, helps one make any sense at all of the whole business.
On the other hand, there are those who want to see the earthquake as a sign of God's wrath directed specifically at Haiti, perhaps for the worship of voodoo gods. In the same manner, the Maundy Thursday earthquake that devastated Caracas in 1812 was said by some to be a sign of God's displeasure with the Venezuelan War of Independence from Spain. This error, unlike the first, claims belief in the Holy Scriptures, but this is not true.
According to the Bible, certain calamities were indeed signs of God's wrath against the wicked and the disobedient. Old Testament examples include the Great Flood, the Ten Plagues of Egypt. various afflictions suffered by the Israelites in the desert, the destruction of the Assyrian king Sennacherib's army (1 Kings 19:35), and many more. In the New Testament, we have the death of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:21-25) and the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). But the entire book of Job and other passages of the Old Testament are devoted to refuting the idea that bad things only happen to bad people, and that the severity of the disaster reflects the level of God's wrath.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that God makes the sun to rise on both the evil and the good, and sends rain to both the just and unjust (Matthew 5:45). In Luke 21:25, He said the signs of the end-times will include "great earthquakes, and in various places, famines and pestilences," not to mention wars between nations and everywhere persecution of the faithful. These terrible events are not to be interpreted as specific judgments against the wicked, but rather as general signs that the great and final Day of Judgent is approaching.
We understand the significance of certain past events, such as the Great Flood and the Ten Plagues, based on the authority of divinely inspired Scriptures. Outside the Scriptures, there is no such authority and it is presumptuous to second-guess God. We know nothing of His nature and will outside of what He has chosen to reveal to us. The Bible contains all we need to know for our salvation, and there will be no more divine revelations until the glorious fulfillment of God's plan for the world in the second coming of Christ.
Thus we find the final word on this topic in Luke 13. Jesus was asked an event that caused a lot of stir and consternation back in that day. It was the massacre of Galileans in the Temple, ordered by Pontius Pilate (those that think the New Testament portrays Pilate as a fundamentally decent fellow, please note), such that their blood mingled with the blood of their sacrifices to God. Essentially, both questions were put to Jesus. If the Galileans had done nothing to deserve death, where was the just and merciful God during this massacre? And if they had done something especially deserving of God's judgment, what was it?
Jesus responded by reminding them of an even more puzzling event (the apparently senseless deaths of 18 men in the collapse of the tower in Siloam) and answered both questions in this way:
Neither the Galileans or the 18 men in Siloam deserved death any more than anyone else. However, all humans stand equally condemned under God's law, and deserve not simply physical death, but eternal damnation. By God's grace, all who believe will receive forgiveness of sin and eternal life through the blood of Christ, but with few exceptions, no one will escape physical death (the few exceptions being Enoch, Elijah and those still living when the Lord returns). While we may have the promise of eternal life in heaven, none of us are guaranteed one year, 20 years or 80 years on this earth. So the question we must ask ourselves is not why this individual or that group of people had to die at a particular time and in a particular manner, but why we ourselves still are drawing breath. If we still are alive, God still has a purpose for us here. We may not know everything about this purpose, but He has revealed enough in His Word wor us to respond in faith. So, as Jesus said, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by the petty pleasures of the world, but remain alert and watchful for opportunities to serve God and our fellow man.
Mirror images talking to each other Luz Maria and I spent the last week of January in Caracas at a seminar on "the means of grace." Our instructor was Pastor German Novelli. Born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, and confirmed in the Lutheran Church of Venezuela in 1983, German Novelli some years ago left his native country and embarked on on a geographical and spiritual odyssey that led him to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, and finally the Wisconsin Synod seminary in Mequon, Wisconsin. He now is the pastor of a Latino mission on Milwaukee's South Side.
Mequon, Wisconin, by the way, is also the location of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod's Concordia University, Wisconsin and Trinity Luth¡eran Church of Freistadt, the oldest Lutheran congregation in the state (and of which my great-great-grandparents were founding members).
I lived on Milwaukee's South Side from 1986 to 1995, so it was interesting to compare notes with Pastor Novelli on our impressions of Wisconsin and the Milwaukee area in particular. We were like two mirror images talking to each other: the Venezuelan serving as the pastor of a mission in Milwaukee and the former Milwaukeean serving as the pastor of a mission in Venezuela. I shared with him some of my fondest memories; the Lake Michigan shoreline in summertime, the Mitchell Park Conservatory, eating real Mexican food at the Acapulco Restaurant.
Pastor Novelli shared with me the thesis that he wrote for his masters in divinity degree on Wisconsin Synod mission work in Latin America. Active in the region since 1964, the Wisconsin Synod's missionary efforts in the past focused on Mexico, Puerto Rico and Colombia.
Today the Wisconsin Synod supports what it calls its LATTE team. LATTE stands for Latin American Traveling Theological Educators. Latin American because work is done in all of the mission fields in Latin America—Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Brazil. Traveling because visits are made to each field on a rotating basis. Theological Educators because missionaries serve as the seminary professors of the men who desire to be pastors in their national churches. The LATTE program has been functioning since 2003.
The Wisconsin Synod also has been active in Haiti earthquake relief. Evangelical Lutheran Synod missionaries have been active in Chile and Peru for about 40 years. The ELS has established a seminary in Lima, Peru. Thirteen men have graduated and have been ordained and twelve vicars and students continue working with congregations and various groups.
Lutheran alphabet soup
The current-day ELS developed from a remnant of the old Norwegian Synod that refused to merge with other synods in an effort to form one national Lutheran church-body in the United States. The end-result of these mergers is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The philosopher Voltaire once said of the Holy Roman Empire, "It was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire." Much the same could be said of the ELCA, except that it definitely is headquartered in America. In fact, German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg basically said as much:
"Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church."
My great-grandfather, Andrew John (A.J.) Hemmingson, was a member of the old Norwegian Synod, which in fact had declared full pulpit-and-altar fellow with the Missouri in 1872. Pulpit-and-altar fellowship had been established between the Missouri and Wisconsin synods in 1868. From 1872 until the late 1950s, Missouri, Wisconsin and the ELS were partners in the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference. The Synodical Conference was a strong voice for confessional Lutheranism in the United States and has never been entirely replaced. The federation broke up when the Missouri Synod began moving toward closer relation with the more theologically liberal American Lutheran Church (ALC).
Fellowship between the Missouri Synod and the ALC lasted only until 1981, when a majority of Missouri Synod delegates to its national convention voted to dissolve the relation because of a continued drift toward the theological left by the ALC. In 1988 the ALC was absorbed into the ELCA.
May God grant that the remaining confessional Lutheran church-bodies find the basis for doctrinally sound unity and strengthened mission work at home and abroad.
Dexi Yovana Torres Ortega and Yovany Javier Torres Ortega were confirmed as members of our little flock on Reformation Sunday, October 25, 2009. The siblings were baptized together at La Caramuca Lutheran Mission on March 30, 2007. Since 2004 we have had 11 baptisms and seven confirmations here.
This was the first time I presided over the rite of confirmation (prior to my ordination in December 2008, baptisms and confirmations were conducted by visiting pastors when they had the time to travel to La Caramuca).I have attended many confirmation ceremonies in my life (my own was 37 years ago), so I was familiar with the order of service, but it was like looking at it from the other side of the looking-glass, so to speak.
Since it was Reformation Sunday, our hymns included the Spanish versions of "A Mighty Fortress" ("Castillo Fuerte") and "Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Thy Word." ("Sostennos Firmes, Oh Señor"). I do not have recording of our congregation singing "A Mighty Fortress", but I do have one of the members of El Redentor (Redeemer) Lutheran Church in San Antonio de Capayuacuar singing it on Reformation Sunday 2004. Their version sounds a lot like that of La Caramuca Lutheran Mission.
My sermon text was John 8:31-36, which contains the often misinterpreted saying of Jesus: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." In fact, the text itself indicates that Jesus' original listeners misinterpreted His words. They thought he was referring to political liberty. To live as free citizens under a just government is a great blessing from God, as are things like plenty of money in the bank, many friends, a nice house, a happy marriage and children. But the greatest gift from God is the spiritual liberty that we have through justification by faith in Jesus Christ.
Justification by faith alone is the central doctrine that had nevertheless been almost forgotten by the time of Martin Luther. As the epistle reading (Romans 3:21-28) said, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."
This truth frees us from the most profound slavery, the slavery to sin. We may have this spiritual liberty even in the absence of all the blessings mentioned above, including political liberty. As the hymn says, "Take they our life, goods, fame, child or wife, the Kingdom ours remaineth." On the other hand, without this spiritual liberty, we will not find lasting happiness in any of the other blessings of life. In fact, the power of sin will in time destroy them all.
We also gave thanks for Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the moveable-type printing press. During the week I had talked with the preschool children about this in terms that I hope they understood. I told them once upon a time, books were very expensive, about the price of a house or a farm, because every copy of a book had to be written out by hand. So many people did not bother learning to read and they did not have copies of the Bible translated into their own language. Then a man made a machine that could print many copies of books at one time. The first book he copied with his machine was the Bible, because so many people wanted to read the Bible for themselves.
Soon there were many translations of the Bible, and many people were reading it and talking about it. And their faith was greatly strengthened. Soon many other books were being printed and people were reading them. That is why it is a blessing from God that we all have the opportunity to learn to read, and study the Bible and other books for ourselves when people in the olden days could not.
A day of the living, not the dead
The following Sunday was All Saints Day and also in Venezuela, the Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead celebration originated with the ancient indigenous cultures of the Aztecs, Mayas and others who for 3,000 years before the arrival of Christopher Columbus observed rituals in honor of their ancestors. It is a relatively innocuous custom in Venezuela, the day on which people honor the departed by bringing flowers to the cemetery to adorn the graves, which they also take the time to clean. There are no important rituals or feasts associated with the Day of the Dead outside of the privacy of the home.
Remembering friends and family members who are no longer with us is not itself a sin. But, as I explained, in other Latin American countries, like Mexico, where the Day of the Dead involves graveside altars and offerings of food and drink to the ghosts of ancestors, the people have crossed the line from respect for the dead into idolatry. Likewise, the Bible says there is a great gulf between our world and where the souls of the departed await Judgment Day. So it is wrong on the one hand to consult witches and mediums, and on the other, to pray for the souls of departed Christians or to ask them to intercede with God for us, for we cannot help them and they cannot help us.
Also as Christians we need not fear the power of ghosts or fallen angels. Halloween is gaining ground in Venezuela as an "imported" holiday. The custom of "trick or treat" seems harmless, but in its cultural context it is based on a belief that is contrary to the Bible, too. That is, on one night each year, the spirits of the dead and other supernatural beings are able to enter our world and do harm to those who do not offer them food and other gifts.
So why as a church do we celebrate All Saints Day? In part to remember those Christians have gone before us into God's kingdom of glory as examples for us to follow in our own lives. but more to celebrate our own hope for the future. For the word "saint" does not mean someone who is more righteous than anyone else, but all who belong to the Body of Christ through baptism. For us, All Saints Day is a day of those who are living, now and forever, not a day of the dead.
Education for older children
Not only do we have 20 children, ages 2 to 6, in our preschool every morning, every afternoon Luz Maria is tutoring 18 older children (ages 6 to 11). Many in this age-group in our community need remedial classes in reading, writing, arithmetic and other subjects. Most of our confirmed youth (Dexi and Yovany Torres, Noel Marquina and Sandro Perez) are helping Luz Maria with this project.
We are thankful that we have been able to continue the preschool and the tutoring despite that the fact that power outages have continued, plus the community was without a public water supply for 15 days. Because of our water storage system, we were able to weather this storm by conserving our drinking water and pumping water for washing from our well. Fortunately, we were not struck by the double whammy of the electricity being down when we needed to pump water (our pump is electric).
It's "the dog days" of summer for us here. Not that it is much hotter now than other times of the year, the mid-year break for the preschool has slowed the pace of our daily schedule. We had an invitation to organize a vacation Bible school for children in the outlying community of Santa Lucia, but those plans fell through due to circumstances beyond our control. Luz Maria is taking a breather from tutoring children in reading and math. I continue to teach confirmation classes and a course in basic doctrine for those who have been confirmed.
The course is a regular offering from the Juan de Frias Theological Institute. The student's workbook was developed by former missionaries Paul Brink and James Tino. We have workbooks for all four students, but only copy of the textbook, a Spanish translation of Edward Koehler's "Compendium of Christian Doctrine" by Juan Elias Rubio.
But I do not have a lot of events to report. We expect this situation to change next month as we anticipate celebrating the rite of confirmation for Angi Perez.
Unsheathing the sword of the Spirit
According to Martin Luther, the original languages of the Old and New Testaments are "the sheath which hides the sword of the Spirit, they are the chest in which this jewel is enclosed, the goblet holding this draught." I am glad of the opportunity to have studied Spanish before undertaking a serious study of New Testament Greek, because Spanish is more like Greek than is English.
For one thing, both Spanish and Greek rely heavily on accent marks. In Spanish, accent marks tell you which syllable of the word you should stress, which is often important as stressing different syllables can change the meaning of a word. Likewise in New Testament Greek, although, as William D. Mounce explains in "Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar", accent marks in Greek are believed originally to have indicated whether you should raise or lower the pitch of your voice on a particular syllable. Everyday conversation in the golden age of ancient Athens probably was more musical than what we are used to nowadays, but by the first century A.D. the accent marks most likely had come to indicate stress rather than pitch.
Because, of course, the Greek of the New Testament is a peculiar dialect known as "koine" or "common" Greek. As Greek became the universal language of the Mediterranean world, it changed in the process from the elegant, highly nuanced language of the classical playwrights, poets and philosophers to a simplified form used on the waterfronts, and in the streets and marketplaces by people who had to learn Greek as a second language. This is a good thing, because the plain language means that New Testament Greek is easier to learn, and the New Testament easier to translate than many classical Greek texts.
In a similar fashion, Venezuelan Spanish is classified as "Caribbean trade Spanish." It is more closely related to the Spanish spoken in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the other islands and coastal regions of the Caribbean basin (where English, French and Dutch are spoken as well) than the Spanish of either the Mexican or Colombian highlands, for example.
Spanish and Greek also are both highly inflected languages, whereas English is not. Inflection means words change form depending on their use in a sentence and their intended meaning. English has some inflection of words. For example, different pronouns (he, she or it) are used to indicate the gender of the subject, or first, second or third person (I, you, he/she/it), or number (we or they).
But in Spanish, the form of the verb also indicates these things, so often you can dispense with pronouns. To say "Who are you?", you can just say "¿Quien eres?" instead of "¿Quien eres tu?" Likewise, in koine Greek, "su grapheis" and "grapheis" both mean "you write." A sentence in Greek and Spanish does not have to have an expressed subject when the verb form gives you your clue, whereas in English, the construction, "Eat dinner", does not give the reader much information to work with.
Word gender is more important in Spanish and Greek than in English. In English, the word "doctor" may refer to either a male or female physician, but in Spanish a woman physician is always "doctora." But even words for inanimate objects will have gender and the assignment of gender may not follow any apparent rhyme or reason.
For example, in Spanish, the word for a woman's gown, whether a bridal or evening gown, is "el vestido", which is masculine in form. On the other hand, a man's neck-tie is "la corbata", which is feminine. Even for living things, the rules for word gender do not always seem consistent. For example, a male cat is "el gato" while a female is "la gata" but a caballo is always a caballo, unless you know the horse is female. then it is a yegua, a word with no masculine form.
As Mounce points out, the New Testament Greek word for sin is hamartia, always female although this in no way implies sin is an exclusively female, while the word for sinner is hamartalos, always male although this never implies only male humans are sinners.
Why is any of this important? Because to preach the Word of God, one must know the ancient tongues as well as "heart language" of the people to whom you are preaching. Languages are not codes, in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between every word and phrase. Every language has unique ways of expressing certain thoughts which may be difficult to clearly translate into another tongue with additional explanation.
Daniel B. Wallace (in Mounce's book) uses the example of John 1:1. Jehovah's Witnesses try to say (as did the Arians in antiquity) it is acceptable to translate this passage as, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." But the last phrase in Greek is "kai Theos en o Logos." This literally is, "and God was the Word", but the definite article ("the") indicates that "the Word" is the subject of the sentence. That is why the phrase is correctly translated into English as "the Word was God." In Greek, as in Spanish, word order is not critical for correct grammar, but is often used for emphasis. The word order and lack of the definite article before "God" in this verse emphasizes that the Word (who will later be identified as Jesus Christ) shares all the attributes of "God", but also that there is at least one other, distinct person who is also "God." The Trinitarian implication is clearer in the original Greek than in English or Spanish translations. The only way you could get "and the Word was a god" out of this verse would be if were written, "kai o Logos en Theos."
The Reina-Valera Bible tries to make this a little plainer by translating John 1:1 in this way:
"En el principio era el Verbo, y el Verbo era con Dios, y el Verbo era Dios."
Usually the word for "word" in Spanish is "la palabra", as in "la Biblia es la Palabra de Dios" ("The Bible is the Word of God"). "Verbo" normally means the same as the English "verb" (action or state-of-being word), but the Latin root of both is "verbum", which originally meant "word." "Verbal", that is "relating to words" especially the spoken word, means the same in Spanish and English, and the Spanish "verboso" and English "verbose" both mean "wordy."
Why does the Reina-Valera Bible use "verbo" instead of "palabra"? For one thing, "palabra" is feminine while "verbo", like the Greek word, "logos", is masculine. There is more than some concern for grammatical consistency here, because the "Logos" is both identified with God (Who reveals Himself in masculine terms) and with a man, that is, Jesus Christ. The Logos is not just a what, but also a who.
But what is the Logos? is no small question in itself. The term, "logos" signifies much more than "word", as in a combination of letters or sounds. It was a term with long history in Greek philosophy and Hellenistic Judaism. For the Greeks, the Logos was the mediating principle between an entirely transcendent and holy Supreme Being and an impure and imperfect material world. For the Greek-speaking Jews, the Logos was both the first thought or idea engendered in the mind of God before the creation, a perfect reflection or expression of the nature and will of God, and thus also the instrument by which the world was created.
This is why John writes, "All things were made through Him, and without Him, nothing was made that was made." In the first chapter of Genesis, God (the Father) whose Spirit moved over the face of the waters, called all things into existence just by "saying the word." But the Word was not a magic sound, as such, but the direct expression of God's will. So the Word was present in the beginning with the Father and the Spirit and was the instrument by which the world was created. Later the Word made flesh as Jesus Christ would become the only instrument by which sinful human beings might come to know both the Father and the Spirit.
While there are, I believe, more than half a dozen different Spanish translations of the Bible, but our choice in Venezuela usually boils comes down to two: The Reina-Valera Bible, 1960 revision, and "Dios Habla Hoy", a translation in more "contemporary" Spanish, also known as the "Version Popular".
The arguments against using the Reina-Valera Bible are quite similar to those used against the King James Bible. The first argument is that the Spanish of the Reina-Valera is archaic and difficult for the average Latin American to understand. The Reina-Valera Bible, first published in 1569, was the first printed translation of the entire Bible in Spanish. Just to be clear on this point, there were translations of the Bible into Spanish, English and other languages before the Reformation, but "before the Reformation" also means "before the invention of Gutenberg's moveable-type printing press", so copies of these translations were never widely distributed. Only passages from the Vulgate, a fifth-century Latin translation, were used in medieval church liturgies.
The original 1569 edition became known as "the Bible of the Bear" because the frontispiece depicted a bear delving into a honeycomb (the honeycomb being the hidden treasure of the Gospel). Casiodoro de Reina was the primary translator of this Bible. A second edition was published in 1602, with minor revisions by another former monk, Cypriano de Valera. This became the definitive text, thus the translation is known as the Reina-Valera Bible.
The Reina-Valera version has been revised a number of times in an effort to modernize its Spanish, the most recent being in 2004 by Dr. Humberto Gomez. The 1960 revision by the United Bible Societies, at the time the first revision in 51 years, established the Reina-Valera Bible as the most widely distributed and respected version of the Bible in Latin America. So the answer to the first objection is this: 400 years after its first publication, Biblia de Casiodoro de Reinamore than 20 million copies of the Reina-Valera Bible are distributed every year across Latin America.
The second argument against using the Reina-Valera Bible is this: Textual scholarship has moved on since the 1600s. The "first editions" of the inspired books, of course, no longer exist, and they did not exist in the time of the Reformation either. The Greek and Hebrew texts used for Bible translation are the result of comparison and collating of manuscript copies that have been passed down to us.
The Old Testament of the Reina-Valera Bible, like the King James Bible and Luther's German Bible, is based on the first printed version of the Masoretic Text, published by Daniel Bomberg and Jacob ben Chayyin in 1525, which in turn was based on the Aleppo Codex, then believed to be the oldest complete manuscript copy of the Old Testament and still considered the most authoritative.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls between 1947 and 1956 revealed older copies of some Old Testament books, but with only minor variations from the Masoretic Text. Jews to this day consider the Masoretic Text to be the standard for their sacred scriptures.
The New Testament is a more fertile field for discussion, and even controversy. This is because New Testament scholars suffer from an embarrassment of riches. There are thousands of manuscript copies of the New Testament, more than any other ancient work. All of these manuscripts have slight variations in wording and in some cases are not complete.
The translations of the New Testament by Luther, William Tyndale and Reina are based on the Textus Receptus, a redaction by Desiderius Erasmus of a collection of manuscripts dating from as early as the fifth century A.D. and used throughout the Eastern Orthodox, or Byzantine Church. The Textus Receptus was used not only in making the great translations of the Reformation, but also in older translations approved by the Roman Catholic Church, such as the Douay-Rheims English Bible. However, later scholars have argued that Erasmus' work was lacking in some respects (for some parts of the New Testament he did not compare multiple manuscripts and for others did not translate directly from the Greek, but relied on the Latin Vulgate). It is believed that Erasmus, a brilliant scholar, was pressured by his publisher into finishing his revision of the Greek text as quickly as possible in order to take advantage of market demand.
Many additional manuscript copies of the New Testament were discovered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of which date to the second to fourth centuries A.D. Contemporary scholars especially place great store in the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, believed to be the oldest existing manuscript copies of the entire Bible in Greek. Most recent translations of the Bible rely mainly on these older, believed to be more authoritative texts.
However, the textual differences between the existing manuscripts amount to trivial differences in wording that do not alter the meaning of the text in any way. The argument is that the discovery of older, allegedly more authoritative manuscripts may refine our understanding of certain Scripture passages and prevent misinterpretation.
For example, according to the King James Bible, in Luke 2:14, the angels announce to the shepherds, "Peace on earth, good will toward men." Verlyn Verbrugge (in Mounce's book) says this is an acceptable translation according to the manuscripts used to translate the KJV, because they use eudokia ("good will" in the nominative case), whereas the older manuscripts use eudokias ("good will" in the genitive case). Contemporary translations will render this verse as something like, "Peace on earth toward men of good will" or the also acceptable "Peace on earth toward men on whom God's favor rests."
This is reflected in the Spanish translations as well, for the Reina-Valera translates the phrase as "Y en la tierra paz, buena voluntad para con los hombres," while Dios Habla Hoy reads, "Paz en la tierra entre los hombres que gozan de su favor."
The thought is the first version may be incorrectly understood as the announcement of the end of political strife in our fallen world. Picture a newscaster reporting from some hot spot in the Middle East in early winter, gazing portentously into the camera and saying, "As Christians all over the world prepare to celebrate the birth of one who 2,000 years ago promised peace on earth, the realization of that ideal seems more distant than ever."
The second phrasing perhaps more clearly captures the meaning of the Gospel: Christ will bring peace (reconciliation) with God to those who are willing to believe in Him.
Nevertheless, I have made my crude effort to compare passages from the Reina-Valera and Dios Habla Hoy side-by-side with the Greek New Testament that I have. Which, by the way, is also published by the United Bible Societies (they're everywhere! theyŕe everywhere!) and has notes indicating the more striking differences between the different manuscripts. i have gotten the impression that the Reina-Valera more consistently sticks to a precise translation of the Greek text, whereas the translators of Dios Habla Hoy felt freer to paraphrase. Again, the differences are not world-shaking, not worth telling anyone not to use Dios Habla Hoy, but enough for me to feel more confidence in the Reina-Valera Bible.
Luther's German Bible shaped the development of the modern German language and German literature. The King James Bible had much the same impact on English literature. One can't help but wonder why no contemporary translation of equivalent stature has emerged, despite years of progress in historical and linguistic research. I think one reason is because the translators of the Reformation era did more with the materials that they had, because it was more than an academic exercise to them.
George Bernard Shaw (of all people!) wrote of the King James Bible: "The translation was extraordinarily well done because to the translators what they were translating was not merely a curious collection of ancient books written by different authors in different stages of culture, but the Word of God revealed through His chosen and expressly inspired scribes. In this conviction they carried out their work with boundless reverence and care and achieved a beautifully artistic result."
Much the same could be said of the Reina-Valera Bible, especially when you know the story of its primary translator.
Casiodoro de Reina was born in 1529 in Montemolin, Spain. He studied Latin, Hebrew, Greek and theology at the University of Seville before joining the Order of St. Jerome and entering the monastery of St. Isidoro del Campo near the city of Seville. After reading the works of Martin Luther, he became convinced of the truths of sola Scriptura, sola gratia and sola fides. Many of his brothers in the monastery listened and also believed. For this the Spanish Inquisition labeled Reina not only a heretic, but a "heresiarch", meaning he was on their equivalent of a "Ten Most Wanted" lists.
Reina fled Seville in 1557 and found refuge in Geneva, Switzerland, thanks to followers of John Calvin. At first he associated himself with Calvin's movement, but Reina's understanding of the sacraments was always closer to the Lutheran position.
Also, he made enemies for himself among the Calvinists by speaking out against the burning at stake of his fellow Spaniard, Dr. Michael Servetus (or Miguel Serveto). Servetus, a brilliant physician, was the first European to observe and describe the human circulatory system. He also came to reject the doctrine of the Trinity, for which modern-day Unitarians hail him as a hero. However, the religious viewpoint of Servetus in contemporary terms actually was closer to that of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals and other "non-trinitarian fundamentalists." Servetus not only held to radical ideas, he also had the type of personality that antagonized most people with whom he came in contact. His relationship with John Calvin was particularly rancorous, on a very personal level, and Calvin used his influence with the Geneva city council to have the council condemn Servetus to death.
Reina was much more orthodox than Servetus, but believed that since genuine faith was the work of the Holy Spirit and could not be spread by the sword, the civil government should tolerate differences of religious opinion. He soon left Geneva, but not before beginning the translation of the Bible into Spanish with the help of other former monks from the Spanish monastery who had found refuge there.
From Geneva, Reina traveled to London in 1557. He would move frequently for many years because of continued pursuit by agents of the Inquisition and persecution by his enemies among the Calvinists. While living in London, Reina married Anna, a Dutch widow. In 1562, he was burned in effigy (that is, by proxy) by the Inquisition in Seville, Spain.
In 1563, Reina and his wife moved from London to Amsterdam. In 1564 they moved to Frankfurt, Germany, then in years following to Strasbourg, France, then Basel, Switzerland, then back to Frankfort. During this period, de Reina continued to work on his translation of the Bible, and to serve as the pastor of independent evangelical congregations of expatriate Spaniards, Italians and Frenchmen (for he spoke all three languages). Also, he and Anna had five children.
In 1579, Reina publicly signed his subscription to the Augsburg Confession and was installed as pastor of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, a congregation of French-speaking Lutherans in Amsterdam. He wrote a guide to the Lutheran liturgy in French for this group.
Finally, in 1585, Reina returned to Frankfort with some of his French and Dutch members from Amsterdam to establish a Lutheran congregation for refugees from religisous persecution in France and what is now the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. He served as pastor of this church until his death in 1594. His wife, Anna, died in 1612.
Casiodoro de Reina considered himself a Spaniard until the day he died, although he lived most of his life in exile from his native land. Thanks be to God for blessing his efforts to produce an enduring translation of the Bible for the Spanish-speaking world.
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