Ascension Day

Today Thursday, May 10, is Ascension Day, and this Sunday we’ll be celebrating the ascension.
 

Without the ascension our faith would not be what it is because the ascension of Jesus is his going back to the Father to prepare a place for us. It is his being enthroned as King of kings at the Father’s right hand. The ascension is Jesus’ exaltation above every name that is named. The ascension is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as our eternal High Priest and mediator. The ascension is Jesus’ mandatory leaving so he can send a comforter, the Holy Spirit. The ascension is Jesus’ real absence so that he can be with us to the end of the age. It is paradoxical, it is mind-blowing, it is huge.
 

Similarly, the ascension fuels our mission as a church. We can be fully human precisely because Jesus stands in the presence of the Father elevating our flesh to divine realms, seating us in the heavenly places now. The ascension epitomizes the already-but-not-yet nature of our life in Christ. Join us Sunday as we celebrate the ascension.

- Jay+

Becoming a People

As a guy who preaches and teaches God’s word for a living, it is nice - and necessary for my soul - to be learning things that are just for me, stuff I never share with anyone not because I don’t want to, but because it’s from God to me. I’m going to let you in on a little journey with Moses and Israel, and how it speaks into our process of “becoming St. Bartholomew’s.”

As Lent and Holy Week gave way to Easter, I followed the lectionary through the book of Exodus and have now moved into Numbers. It is fascinating to see the intentional and archetypal correspondences with the Hebrew’s Exodus from Egypt and our Exodus from sin and death by way of Jesus, the passover lamb.

Not only have I been enriched by this resonance, but I’ve noticed some similarities between our church and the people of Israel, especially in our process of becoming St. Bartholomew’s. No, we’re not being delivered from slavery in our transition from parish of All Saints to planted church - far from it. But, like the nation of Israel, we are becoming a people. God is taking  us through different growth experiences and challenges that will form us as the people he’s calling us to be for East Dallas and beyond.

More than these examples, though, I identify with Moses. Put simply, Moses was the spiritual leader of God’s people. And, God has put me in a place of spiritual leadership to serve you all - the people who are becoming St. Bartholomew’s. 

We are being called to take ownership of our budget, our day-to-day and month-to-month expenses, and accounts receivable and payable. Until now, All Saints Dallas has graciously provided these services for us at a high level of competency and with great generosity. And though our contributions in our fiscal year to date have been well ahead of budget, when our new fiscal year begins on July 1 we will have even more financial responsibility.  All Saints Dallas will continue to provide a subsidy for the first half of the new fiscal year as we continue to grow and are able to fully own our monthly expenses. And God will use us to provide the rest. 

We are being called to take ownership of our own governance and leadership. That means a group of St. Bartholomew’s people will oversee our budget, bylaws, financial controls, and other administrative functions of the church. It doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but it means so much to have local people leading our local church. I’m thrilled to see God bring this to pass.

You and I both know how Israel’s wandering in the desert ended - the whole generation that left Egypt did not get enter the promised land because “God was not pleased with them.” They tested him, demanded their cravings be satisfied, and ran after false gods at the worst moments. Even Moses, their venerable, prophetic and godly leader would not be allowed to enter the promised land but only see it from atop Mt. Nebo. 

But along the way, any time they had a need and Moses cried out, God answered. He is so good. Here is another moment from my prayers today, Psalm 9:10: “And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee; for thou, Lord, hast never failed them that seek thee.” 

St. Bartholomew’s is God’s church, it is his vision, and he will provide for it. He is calling us to walk together in this new season as we become St. Bartholomew’s, to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

- Jay+

Leading Out of the Quiet and Calm

Tuesday night I spoke with about 40 men on the topic of being spiritual leaders of their families. Gathered in the taproom at Oak Highlands Brewery, we shared introductions, our own stories, and a pint or two. And I shared with them a lesson I’ve been learning for years that applies to leadership of any kind. More importantly, it applies to our relationship with God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that lesson is cultivating quiet.

I told them, “cultivate quiet because so much of what you do right now - really good stuff - is not quiet. Our culture has us constantly wired, constantly connected, and we desperately need to create space. Quiet and stillness is the birthplace of prayer. And prayer is the vehicle of your relationship to God."

Lately I’ve noticed my own need for space. Yes, we all need our personal space and can feel hemmed-in if it’s transgressed in some way. But we also need mental space, to be alone with our thoughts, to clear our heads. And it’s in these moments, when we calm and quiet ourselves "like a weaned child with its mother,” that a blank canvas is unveiled in our heart and mind and we can hear God speak perhaps more clearly than before. 

The words of Scripture suddenly reverberate without the constrictions of our own expectations. The prayers we utter seem to have laser precision and divine focus. The songs we sang on Sunday suddenly echo in our ears, and we find ourselves singing along. This doesn’t always happen, but abiding in stillness and quiet conditions our souls for the next time and the next time. 

In this season of Easter, don’t forget this discipline of quiet. And may the resurrected Christ, the Good Shepherd whose voice we know, speak powerfully and resurrect those dead places in us.

- Jay+

Fighting Words

“This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.” (Acts 4:11)  Peter proclaims these words to the rulers and elders who have put him on trial for healing a crippled man. These words are audacious. They are brazen. They point the finger straight at the rulers and elders and say you have made a grave mistake. It is not simply that you have killed an innocent man, which would have been egregious enough. No, he says, you have crucified Israel’s Messiah, and God has raised him from the dead. And then Peter really gets going because he says that it is in the name of this crucified Lord and by the power of this risen Christ that the crippled man was healed. Moreover, it is by this Jesus that all are saved. 

Brazen and audacious indeed, but these words are more than that. The phrase, “the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone”, was straight from the Psalms. These are words that these rulers and elders would have been intimately familiar with, and yet they are spoken back to them in way that they never could have imagined on their own. They never could have imagined in all their study and reflection that these words were actually about Jesus. But God has acted definitely in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and everything is changed. Everything must be reinterpreted in light of this world shaping event. And this is what makes Peter’s preaching so revolutionary—he takes something so familiar and makes it unfamiliar; he takes something old and makes it new. And in so doing he lifts up the name of Jesus as the “name given under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). 

In quoting these words, Peter is doing exactly what he learned from Jesus in the days after the resurrection. He is returning to the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, and rereading them all in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus. And though this is how we as Christians ought to approach the scriptures ourselves, there is something more here too. It is not just the Scriptures that have to be reread, re-narrated in light of Christ. Everything must be reread, reimagined in light of the resurrection of Jesus. This is what the Easter season about. It is a time for us to ask ourselves what difference the resurrection makes right now. What difference does the hope of new creation make right now? 

These are especially important questions for us as we continue the process of becoming St. Bartholomew's. God has raised up our community in East Dallas in order to proclaim that the Lord is Risen. There are so many around us who need to hear those words anew or perhaps to hear them for the first time. And as we seek to proclaim those words with the same brazenness and confidence of Peter, we also have to humbly pray and to ask the Lord to show us how he wants to bring resurrection life to the people of East Dallas. 


- Chris+

This Changes Everything

The resurrection of Jesus changes everything. It has reoriented history, the world, the entire created order, and it should change us too. That’s why we take 50 days to celebrate resurrection. That’s why we keep shouting "Alleluia!" That’s why we meet every Sunday, because resurrection has changed everything.

The reality of resurrection must seep into the broadest spheres of our life, the most ‘unrelated’ because, as Chris mentioned Sunday night, resurrection touches everything, even our relationships and possessions. 

Resurrection gives us a picture of being fully human. It is humanity at its fullest potential. Not just resuscitated, not just un-dead, when the resurrected Lord Jesus appeared to his disciples he was glorified, somewhat unrecognizable, could appear out of nowhere, and could eat real food. 

And as we’ll see in this Sunday’s gospel (Luke 24:36-48), when Jesus appears to his disciples he teaches, he opens to them the narrative of the Scriptures - all that was written about him in the "Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (see Luke 24:44). Part of being fully human is seeing the Scriptures - Old and New Testaments - in light of who Jesus is and in light of the full humanity he’s calling us into.

Don’t let your Easter joy wane! Don’t let your “Alleluias!” diminish! Enter into Sunday worship with awe and expectation. Hear his holy word with reverence and humility. Feast at his holy table assured of your participation in his holy mysteries, and your place in his body, the church.  Let us take these Great 50 Days to learn from our Master and Teacher, Jesus, as he opens to us the Scriptures.


- Jay+

Christ is Risen! Now what?

Easter Sunday can be so exhilarating, but the days afterward can, especially for clergy, feel like a let down. We may experience that initial rush of joy, that thrill of hope as we shout our "Alleluias!" We may feel a sense of victory as we sing that our Lord has trampled over death by death, but what happens next? How do we go on living in light of the resurrection? This is the question for us in the great 50 days of the Easter season, and really a question at the heart of our faith. What does it mean to follow Jesus in the time between his resurrection and the time when all will be resurrected unto him? As we seek to answer these questions over the course of the Easter season, we will be hearing readings from the book of Acts. 

Acts is primarily a work of history that traces the movement of the gospel from Jerusalem, all over the Mediterranean, and onto Rome. But at the heart of the book is the preaching and teaching of the Apostles. At the center of Apostolic preaching is the proclamation of Christ crucified and Christ risen from the dead. From Peter's Pentecost sermon onward, the book of Acts documents the Apostolic witness to the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ. And as people hear this message they believe, and as they believe, they are changed. The impact of Apostolic preaching has always been like this. Christ is proclaimed. People believe. People's lives are transformed. 

The reading from Acts 4 this Sunday gives us an especially vivid picture of this dynamic. In these verses Luke tells us that those who believed the Apostles' preaching were of "one heart and soul" and that they shared what they had to meet all the needs in the community (Acts 4:32). What an amazing testimony to the power of resurrection life that it can create a community like that! As we continue the process of becoming St. Bartholomew's, this vision of life together in Christ is so important for us to contemplate and to prayer towards. As we celebrate the whole season of Easter together, I encourage you to do just that, to pray into and live out of the resurrected life of Christ. 

- Chris+

Becoming St. Bartholomew’s

In October Bishop Philip Jones, rector of All Saints Dallas, our sending church, encouraged us to change our church’s name saying it made sense for All Saints East Dallas to have its own identity as we become our own entity. 

After a few months of prayer, discernment, and conversation, Jay recommended the name Saint Bartholomew’s. Presently, we are working through the several moving parts of becoming our own church including clarifying vision and values, incorporating with the State of Texas and federal government, and building out other pieces of organizational infrastructure with a July 1 internal launch, and a September 9 public launch. 

Stay tuned for more developments.

Deeply Devoted

Holy Week is the most important week of the Christian year, and we are in the thick of it. During Holy Week we remember and enter into Jesus’ final days and hours as he walked resolutely toward the cross. If ever you’ve wanted to enter into devotional acts to our Lord and savior, this is the week to do it. If Lent wasn’t working out the way you thought, this is the week to renew your disciplines and self-examination. If ever you wanted to be immersed in something bigger than yourself for the sake of the worship of almighty God, this is the week. 

Below are some things we’ll be doing together as a community as well as a description of the upcoming days.
 

Maundy Thursday, 7 pm

Maundy Thursday has a peculiar name, but the origins are very clear and specific. On this day we remember Jesus’ final evening with the disciples before he is betrayed, arrested, and eventually crucified. In John’s Gospel narrative (John 13), Jesus washes his disciples’ feet and gives them a “new commandment” in a beautiful act of self-giving (see 13:31ff). The Latin phrase for “new commandment” is mandatum novum and is the derivative for the word maundy.

Also on this evening, Jesus celebrates his final meal with his friends, which is the institution of the Lord’s Supper. During this meal he washes his disciples’ feet. Accordingly, on our Maundy Thursday service we will celebrate the last Holy Communion until Easter Day, and will include a time where we can wash each other’s feet. Afterwards the altar will be stripped of its accouterments and a somber foreshadowing of Christ’s suffering and death will be dramatized before us.
 

Good Friday, 12 pm

It is hard to imagine what is “good” about someone being crucified unjustly. But because we know the whole story, we know Good Friday is indeed good because it is God’s Friday. It is the watershed of all history. It is the moment in which he became sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God. To enter into contemplation of Jesus’ supreme and atoning sacrifice, we will meditate on the Stations of the Cross. We will remember 14 scenes of Christ’s walk down the path to Golgotha (called Via Dolorosa, or Way of Suffering) where finally he will be lifted up to draw all men to himself.
 

Holy Saturday (no services at ASED)

This is a day for quiet prayer, reflection, and meditating on God’s word. It’s a final moment of waiting for the victory we know is coming. It’s the day that Jesus laid in the tomb, a day when, for his friends and followers, all hope was lost. Perhaps it was a day he rested from his labors or even a day when the Enemy of God and his people thought he had finally conquered. But we know better. We know the rest of the story.
 

Easter Day, 5 pm

Where can we begin to describe the jubilation and utter celebration that will take place on this the day of resurrection?  Easter Day is the first day of the new creation, the day of our hope and longing and the feast that ends our Lenten and Holy Week fast. Not only this, but Easter Day begins the Great Fifty Days of Easter leading up to Pentecost. In these Fifty Days we remember Jesus’ appearances to his friends after his resurrection, and look forward to the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.  

I hope you’re able to enter into the mysteries of God’s salvation in Christ this week. Join us for these services. Pray, read and meditate on God’s holy word, and let us watch with him these next few days. 

Blessings,

- Jay+