Ruminant Covenant - The Sin & Son Kingdoms
Messianic Advent Messages - 1999

or

Slouching toward sheephood

1 December 1999

The basic tenets of this series are really what I believe to be a Christian adaptation of material presented in a book by Robert Bork called "Slouching toward Gommorah, Modern liberalism and American decline", which is still in print and recommended for your further study or for empirical and other data. The title pretty much illustrates the books consenses in an excellent secular way. Its application deals with the dumbing down of culture and is really applicable to all modern societies, if anything perhaps it is just a little more hidden in America.

On my walk this morning I had the opportunity to observe a woodpecker doing what he was designed to do, peck wood. What a marvelous design for a bird to protect a tree from insect damage and perhaps death, but we are told to believe that this miraculous design just happened by the chances of evolution. This bird's design is well studied and beyond the focus of this message, the point is however, that there are really two different kingdoms that all mankind falls into. Either you live within the kingdom of Sin or kingdom of Son. They both are in many ways religious kingdoms, but they serve a different king.

Some of you who receive this message adhere to the formal church calendar, most of you do not. If the advent of Jesus Christ the Messiah is a religious ritual that is only celebrated for a few weeks each year, then those who don't hold to a formal church calendar have a point. The point being that the advent of Christ into this fallen creation is the greatest miracle this old world has ever seen. The opportunity to preach propitiation, justification, imputed righteousness, law and gospel and a whole host of heavenly topics, needs to continually be preached and taught from the pulpit and in Bible studies.

On the other hand as we approach the Christmas season, as the light in this world slowly disappears toward the winter solstice, what an opportunity it is to look a fresh at the tremendous gift that the advent of Jesus has brought to humanity. The western church celebration taking place on December 25th so that Jesus could be circumcised on January 1th of the new year. During the darkest time of Jewish covenantal history, a babe was born in Bethlehem, which went on to become the bread of life for all who would believe. The kingdom of the Son was forever brought into time, space and matter and set in opposition to the kingdom of Sin so that all its residents will forever be without excuse.

Over these next few weeks we will take a hard technical look at the kingdom of Sin and its consequences as we as a society slouch slowly forward toward a goal we call progress, but is perhaps more appropriate to Bork's title, Gommorah. This week we will only touch on our decline toward our demise, but through this series we will endeavor to present sin in such a way that any old goat, or even more simply, so that perhaps a rocket scientist can understand. Most of this will not be from Biblical sources, which more than likely will lead to criticisms from some persons. My response stated before hand is that I am perhaps one of the most highly religious Bible thumping bigots of all time. So much so that I believe that every Christian, unless otherwise relieved of that requirement by God Almighty Himself, has the obligation to read his Bible from Genesis to Revelation every year. I don't have time, is just a lame excuse. To make it easy there will be posted on the web site, at St. Paul's Mission, a Bible reading calendar for the year 2000. All you have to do is down load it, print it out, read the Word, and check off the days or I will email you a copy.

Before we get any further however, I want to present a rumination point for you to consider as we work through all this material: The sin concept remains a part of all humanity so that the greatness of God's redemption, through Jesus Christ is present in all aspects of creation. That sin roots us to this natural world and helps us tension law and grace. Through out recorded history, including the present, much of the church (or Israel) has believed that its highest goal was to live without or above sin, or fulfill the law in themselves. I was going to mention some examples until it became apparent that this legalism is a natural consequence of our sinful nature and this fake holiness is really not part of the gospel that Paul preached. Paul preached that God saves sinners by the finished work of Jesus Christ alone,without merit on the part of the elect. Sadly, this truth is truly a minority view throughout both the old and the new covenants.

Moving on then, in our study of the Sin and Son kingdoms we will use acrostics for each word. Both set S and N on a continuum with either I or O in the middle. In the kingdom of Sin the acrostic continuum starts with selfishness and continues to narcissism, noticing I am always in the middle. This kingdom is always under the covenant and judgements of the law of God that was brought to natural and spiritual Israel through Moses.

The kingdom of Son is also a continuum with spiritual leading to the natural, with the O standing for openness. For if you are not open to outside prompting from God, the O is replaced quickly with the ever present I. In the kingdom of Son, the Grace of God, through the propitiation of the Son of God, is presented to this world through the openness and vulnerability of love. The kingdom of Son is not however, tick-marks on a line like in the kingdom of Sin. It is not, "this is selfish" and "this is narcissism." The continuum of Son is in tension, like a bow string, or perhaps more appropriately the string on a musical instrument. When played by the master the violin makes beautiful melodies or so goes the old analogy. That openness string being the righteousness of Christ imputed to sinners, tensioned by the Holy Spirit, resonated by the bow moved by God the Father on an instrument, giving praise and worship though us (the strings) to Himself. The scale of this is incomprehensible to mankind, it must remain a mystery, in a way similar to the nature of the Trinity, and also redemption itself.

The focus of the two kingdoms is different. The kingdom of Son lives in the present by drawing from the past and anticipating the future. It knows that all events are ordained by God and that these experiences are all in his perfect will in conforming us to the perfect image of Jesus. The focus of the kingdom of Sin is not the present but the past or the future. The present is a drag that we must endure until we retire to build a bigger barn for our stuff or our life, never even stopping to seriously consider the incredible glorious gift that life really is. Rocket scientist are interested in the past, how much time everything took to get this way. They send rockets into space to get a "understanding" of billions of years of evolutionary time, hoping to get a glimpse of some alien intelligence, so in a way they do not have to stand alone for eternity. Normal people try to enshrine events in the past, to relive bygone glories. "I was not alone then, I will do everything in my power (my own glorious god-hood) to maintain things just as they were then." or "If I did that it would cost me all I worked for all these years!" The Sin kingdom is a reign of self imposed limitations snuffing out all joy in the lonely individual and trying to do so in everyone it comes in contact with. Luckily, for them the world is full of like-minded subjects. Part of the work of the openness that comes with the Son kingdom is to destroy these delusions in the self. First in us and then in others. Only then is there fertile ground for the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

In a very real way these kingdoms can be equilibrated to the "City of God" and the "City of Man" proposed by Augustine. But for sake of discussion let us look at it in a sightly different light. Let us look at the kingdom of Sin being the whole world that includes not only the workings of sinful mankind, but the attributes of sin that are present in creation. Creation bearing also the consequences of sin. From the attributes of the tension of the Son kingdom, the whole world is then a desert, or a wilderness, or even a stage to use a little Shakespeare. Upon that lack of order, or empty space, God positions his sets and his players, or plants in His well designed garden, participants of the kingdom of Son. We are within that God established environment, however we define it, but we must understand the details of the landscape.We must also be open too, and focus upon, the eternal gift of life that we celebrate in the advent of Messiah.

Then the rumination point described earlier comes into a clearer focus: The sin concept remains a part of all humanity so that the greatness of God's redemption, through Jesus Christ is present in all aspects of creation. To put it in another way, when I see constant sin in my life, I must constantly be reminded that in Christ alone is my salvation. I am therefore to the degree limited to my openness, free to pursue the will of God for all creation. If I am not always aware of my sins, then I have no constant need for a savior, and I am able to create my own glory and before long my own salvation.

The tension between the spiritual and the natural is another way to view it. If I think that all things that make me feel good spiritually, must be from God. The corollary must also be true, that if I think bad things, they must be of the devil or the flesh and both must be overcome by my will to do better, or spiritual warfare, or whatever. But really this is a natural way to look at it. I might as well say there is a natural explanation to all things of God and I can develop a series of constructs or perhaps a more sophisticated systematic theology that will explain all of the workings of God. When I do that I am just one step away from being a progressive evolutionist. The openness we enjoy, must not look to self in anyway, but to the cross, to the advent of Messiah into creation two thousand years ago. To look at myself allows me to make man and his wisdom an icon for my life and could threaten to move me from the kingdom of the Son into the kingdom of Sin. But God has ordained to not let that be true, for his adopted family of those chosen from all a mankind. Let us celebrate that adoption as the sun grows cold and the days grow short, knowing full well that God has provided an eternal spring for the sheep of His pasture, His ruminant covenantal community.

PRAYER PLANTS

With the advent of advent, I received my first gift of the season, that being I no longer feel any constraint in leaving my present dwelling abode. In the context of what has just been said. I feel that my part on this particular stage of life has come to an end and I should be open to what lies ahead. This is something that I have wanted to do for a few years but for many reasons I have not been able to do. Over the weekend it became quite apparent that my continued presence here will not allow me to keep the Son kingdom as the center of my life. I do find amazing, especially in light of my writers block last week, was that most of these thoughts presented today and for the next few weeks were forming in my mind and almost immediately an application was presenting itself, to develop a depth of context. This advent gift also occurred just after I put down my deposit to go to Russia in the spring. Just one of those coincidences in life that we as Christians should come to expect but never frivolously. Whether these eventually lead to some ship board adventure or elsewhere I do not know now. It would be nice from my perspective that this whole new beginning would be concluded during this advent season so that I could celebrate Christmas on a new stage with the true freedom to minister to the God that gives life from death, through the advent of the Messiah.

To close this series of messages I would like to leave you with the words of Advent hymns from a hymnal published 87 years ago. One from each of the four Sundays as listed within its pages.

Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from death's slumber!
Christ on thee shall shine,
The daylight, now glowing in rays without number,
Shows mercy divine;
Repose now no longer,
Lest night's dark and danger
Soon come o'er thy soul.
Awake now, arise and be whole!

In earth's vale of sorrows the cold mists enshroud thee,
And tears often flow;
And suffering and grief seem the portion allowed thee
In this life below;
Yet, hear the glad message,
That rescue doth presage,
And pardon and peace
Through Him who doth bring thee release.

In earth's dreary deserts the sharp thorns will wound thee,
And rough is the way;
And often thou longest from ills that surround thee
To hasten away;
Yet, cease now thy sadness,
God's springtime of gladness
Through Christ thou shall see;
Awake, for he calleth thee!

O lift up thine eyes now with hope unto heaven
The daybreak is here;
Thy Lord let all blessing and honor be given,
Go meet him with cheer;
When hearts are convicted
Of sin, and afflicted
His welcome will rise
In anthems of praise to the skies.

To God be all glory, who graciously sendeth
From heaven His light;
The way and the truth and the life my soul findeth,
And peace is my right.
O Christ, shine upon us!
From death Thou hast won us
To follow O Lord,
Thy steps in the light of Thy Word.

M.B. Landstad