No Other Foundation

For some people, the significance of the saints is that of mediators, those who stand between us and God and through their prayers reconcile us to Him and sanctify us. In this way of thinking, Christians are primarily sinners who need to be saved and sanctified, who need a connection with the holy so that they can go from being guilty and profane to being forgiven and holy. The saints, in this setting, provide just this connection. (We note in passing that this mindset tends to forget such texts as 1 Timothy 2:5 and to confuse a mediator with an intercessor. Any Christian, including a saint, can intercede for someone else; Christ alone reconciles us to God.)

During the tumultuous fourth century when it seemed everyone in the Church was fighting everyone else and Arians and Orthodox (to use modern terms) were going at it hammer and tong, one of the weapons used in those debates was the Bible. All the arguing parties called themselves “orthodox” and “catholics”; all of them said they believed in the Holy Trinity (i.e. all could read Matthew 28:19) and all said they believed in “Christ our God” (since the term had been around since St. Ignatius of Antioch used it in his letters at the beginning of the second century). The question was: what did it mean to describe Christ as “God”? Was He truly divine or just sort of divine by participation? What precisely was the nature of His divinity? All the parties doing the arguing said that the Bible supported their views and not the views of their adversaries.

Odds are that if you began to talk about “kenosis” in a room full of strangers they would assume you were talking about a change in your metabolism. Nope: that’s “ketosis”, not “kenosis”. The term “kenosis” is a theological term used to describe the divine self-emptying that occurred at the Incarnation of the eternal Logos/ Word in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

One question that is often asked of pastors by new converts is “How often should I go to confession?” Closely allied to this query is the one which asks, “Do I need to go to confession each time before receiving Holy Communion?” These are good questions, and because they deal with the human heart, the answers are not simple. It is not like answering a query about the posted speed limit by saying, “It’s forty miles per hour and if you exceed the limit you’re breaking the law and will get a speeding ticket”. Despite the approach and views of the Pharisees with their love of laws and legalism, the matter of salvation and the healing of the heart defies such simple answers. All real pastors know this.

Twenty-five years ago today, on September 11, 2001, many innocent people died in New York City— almost 3000 by one count. Those were the ones trapped in the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center when two airplanes, commandeered by Islamic terrorists, flew into those buildings in order to make a statement and kill as many Americans as possible. Such was the horror and trauma of that day that its date, abbreviated as the number “911”, has ever since become a symbol of terrorist atrocity and heroic American determination to survive and prevail. The trauma and outrage of that day were felt around the world. Like the event in Dallas of November 22, 1963, many people remember exactly where they were when they first heard the news of 911.