Losing at the religion game

You know, when you are with a group of people - all set to play a danger game - it is not easy to opt out. It is difficult to cope with how you will feel unless, before you opt out of the game, you are really prepared – prepared with what you will say – with a reason you will give for not playing along. And it will be difficult for you unless you are prepared for the ridicule you may get from that group. It is not easy, particularly for young people, when something like that happens.

I wonder how prepared we are for the word that we proclaim to be denounced as folly by those who are perishing. How prepared are we for the rejection of our religious position by those who are prepared to dismiss us as foolish or worse for holding to the historic Christian Gospel and faith?

St. Paul certainly seemed to have prepared himself mentally and in every way for the inevitable negative reception that his religious views would receive by some, if not many of the very people whom he was trying to reach with the saving message about Jesus Christ.

But you might say, I don’t need to concern myself about that for either or both of two reasons: You may say, “people won’t be showing disrespect for my religious beliefs because people just don’t do that nowadays” or you may say, “I won’t get any flack for my religious beliefs because, as a matter of principle, I never discuss them (outside of the church)”.

Well, the first of those statements is naïve and the second is unacceptable – so there – your opinions have been denounced and by your own pastor to boot!

But seriously, as your pastor, I cannot overlook unrealistic or unacceptable opinions on the subject of speaking about Christ, any more than the apostles themselves could. Would I be a loving pastor if I stood idly by while people played “Russian roulette” with human souls?

But you say, “Things are different today”. In our permissive age, the rules of the game have changed. Now people won’t condemn your opinions on religion or anything else. People today will all politely nod in approval and positively affirm whatever position you have as being valid for you”.

Perhaps that is the fashion today, but it only holds true to a point. As soon as you state an opinion that you hold to be true, not just yourself, but for everyone, then you have violated the rules of the game and will soon find that the polite affirmations you expected are replaced by condemnation.

Yes, what has happened is that religion has been reduced from a serious life and death matter to a kind of listening game. I listen to you, you listen to me, but nobody really hears anything.

And, according to the rules of this listening game, you are not allowed to believe in error as well as truth. You are allowed to only speak of what is true for you – how you personally feel etc. nothing beyond that.

As soon as you state that you also believe in error or that some people are wrong, then you are out of the game and the very people who were, at first, willing to listen to you, now will not hesitate to cover their ears because the game is over and, since you have forfeited the game, they no longer have to play along and listen.

People were doing this in Jesus’ day. They were listening but not hearing. And they were treating religion like a game in which they called the shots and they made the rules. To them Jesus said, 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
16 "But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,
17 "'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'

Don’t be surprised when those who claimed to be so tolerant, suddenly show the limits of their toleration. Paradoxically, they will demonstrate that can tolerate everything but intolerance condemning you as intolerant for believing in the existence of error as well as truth.

Yes, the rules have changed. The new rule is this: People will affirm your religious opinions – as long as you abide by the further rule that you won’t assert that your beliefs actually apply to anyone but yourself. You may speak for yourself, but that’s it. Don’t claim to have access to absolute or universal truth. If you do claim to have the objective truth, then what was politely received from you initially will be denounced as foolish, if not psychopathological.

This is the new “wisdom of the wise” in today’s age of disposable world-views and “drive-by religion”. Yet, however attractive they may seem on the surface, the new rules of religious debate make it even less likely that people who listen to what you have to say about your religious faith will believe it to be true for them, as well as for you, and even less likely to share with you a saving faith in Christ.

For that reason – for the sake of the eternal destiny of human souls - the “wisdom of the wise” , that foolishly reduces religion to a mere game, must be destroyed or at least replaced by the wisdom of God. This is why the apostle Paul tells us,
19 … it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
21 for since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom; it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

For this reason, you and I must, just as the church herself must preach and unchanging message in the midst of a changing world. Only a changeless Christ can truly serve a changing world. We must proclaim the word of God, Incarnate, the Wisdom from on high, the truth unchanged, unchanging, the light of our dark sky.

Only this lantern to our footsteps shines on from age to age.

Blind and Backward Science in High Definition

Determined not to pay for television programs as long as there are free ones that can be tuned in with “rabbit ears”, my family recently discovered that there are TV signals that we have never been able to receive until we acquired a high-definition TV.

Among the “new” programs now available to us are nature shows on PBS. In viewing these programs, it didn’t take long to discover that they are permeated with the views of those scientists who insist on ruling out certain scientific facts that seem to point to intelligent design and a Designer.

Blind to how they jeopardize their own claims to be scientific, these biased programs trot out the same old obsolete, incomplete data, and Darwinist mythology, but presented with more impressive computer-generated graphics and animation.

In one documentary, the presenter sat at his computer designing make-believe alien life as it might exist on other planets, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the designer of the life forms that actually do live on our own planet. What a sad abuse of human creativity! In another TV nature show, the only time “religion” was mentioned was when the church of Galileo’s time was criticized for hindering his scientific work.

The Christian Church has “grown up” a lot since Galileo’s time, and our witness should reflect that fact. Thanks to recent scientific discoveries (that the current proprietors of certain television stations won’t show their viewers), Christians can refer people today to many convincing proofs that the universe has been designed – even if that design has been marred by sin and evil since it was originally created.

So, please, as you and I witness, let’s bear these thoughts in mind:

Christians DO NOT accept the argument that “science” has shown life to be nothing more than the result of matter attracted to matter, with energy added to it. We should know that real science has discovered genetics essential to life, based on code that is full of precise information, pointing to intelligent design. Life = matter + energy + information.

Most people accept the reality of this last discovery. So while we are witnessing, we can ask people to consider the question: where did that information came from? Ask too if it is possible that the designer -- who gave such detailed information to proteins that they could form every cell in our bodies -- couldn’t also give information to you and me, describing Himself and how He loves us and has a plan for our lives.

Christians DO NOT accept the argument that the process of “natural selection” explains all animal life. That process may explain some features in an organism, but not the organism itself. Darwin admitted that his theory would break down if an irreducibly complex creature could be found. Since his time, scientists have acknowledged that all creatures are irreducibly complex at many levels. By definition they would not exist at all unless they were fully functional as they are.

Christians CAN be bold in stating that some who claim to be experts in scientific knowledge are not correct about their scientific conclusions. Many times scientists themselves have been misled, especially in institutions of higher education, and have been kept from the truth by those who promote a “god-free” universe.

Golf course or Battlefield - where are you?

As fans of the award winning television series “House” will be aware, Dr. House, the main character, is a curmudgeonly, blunt, tactless but highly intelligent person and that is part of his appeal - and he always saves the day.

Yet viewers of a recent episode in the current series, built around the issues of rape, abortion and death will see that House is shown to be uncharacteristically at a loss to save the day, unless viewers reckon his “counseling” a frightened rape victim to have an abortion against her conscience was wise.

Singularly unprepared to deal with evil and sin both House and the rape victim (who initially believes in God) talk it out until he confesses that he was also abused in his life and that she should agree with him that all life is meaningless and there is no God (unless he is “unspeakably cruel” ).

People today don’t like to think about sin and evil as though we can delete them just by removing those words from our vocabulary or labeling them as “unenlightened”. We would like to deny they exist. But living in denial of these things only causes more problems than it solves. Sin and evil have to be factored in to the equation or else life does not make sense, or even worse, God (even if you believe in Him) does not make sense.

To illustrate this, let’s say you are on a battlefield, yet you imagine that it is some kind of golf course! You are denying and you are blind to the truth that there is a war going on and you choose instead to see the field before you as provided by a country club. So you go out in your colorful golfing clothes with your bag of clubs and perhaps an electric cart. Just as you are ready to hit your first shot, an incoming mortar shell blasts a big hole right next to you. But still you live in denial and you think this is just how they make those sand traps.

Meanwhile, as you see soldiers running across the field, shouting commands, crying out in pain, guns blazing, you merely curse the inept country club management for allowing such disruptive players on the course.

So you go back to setting up your ball and, just as you take your backswing, you yourself are hit with a bullet. Now you cannot deny that there is a war going on - but it is too late. You are a casualty. Sadly, your last conscious thought will probably be a bitter complaint against whoever made and runs this horrible golf course. What an “unspeakably cruel” golf course manager he must be!

In this way evil and sin destroy people – precisely what the enemy and accuser of humanity wants to happen. For, as God’s word warns us, our enemy, the devil has done this (Matthew 13.24-40). He is roaming around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5.8). As one hymn puts it, “The World Is Very Evil”.

Instead of being ignorant of the facts or even denying the facts, Christians are to be aware of the battlefield we are in as it really is. Ever since sin entered the world through human disobedience, evil has been waging war against us just as the devil, a fallen angel who sinned, has been waging a war against God, invisible to our eyes though that warfare may be.

The world may deny that sin exists, but we Christians should know better than that, lest we be like that foolish man on the battlefield who thought it was a golf course or Dr. House and his unfortunate client, for whom abortion will only add a further burden to her already ravaged life.

Far better to know the full picture as God reveals it. He tells us that sin and evil exist and He warns us of their power in this fallen world. At the same time, by sending his Son Jesus Christ to “take the bullet for us” when He was crucified and died for our sins, God shows us how He loves us and has provided a way by which sin may be faced and forgiven through trust in Christ as Savior.

People would not have to live in denial if they knew that sin, death and the devil had been convincingly conquered by One Who died and rose again from the dead and ascended into Heaven, from whence He came, offering us a share in His victory and everlasting life as well, in an eternity free from evil.

God's language skills

One of the main assumptions of "religious studies" is that God has little or no language skills. With all the contradictory, mutually exclusive religious “truths” and “faith stories” that are part of human experience, if He/she/it exists at all, “God” is not as good as humans are at getting a message across – a profoundly insulting and archaic assessment of the facts.

With the discovery of DNA modern science now knows that amino acids in living things don't organize themselves, but follow the orders given by means of genetic information.

Scientist and Author Dean Kenyon formerly thought in terms of mindless forces of attraction driving amino acids to form protean shapes constructed into the tiny machines we see functioning within living cells. He and all other scientists have now renounced "Chemical Predestination" and now know that the many various types of amino acids are like letters of the alphabet. Their sequences determine communication. Astoundingly, it would take many large volumes to contain that information used by even the simplest one-celled living thing.

An “information-rich system” such as we see in living things suggests both language and the Intelligence that is responsible for language. The evidence literally “speaks for itself”!

Yet many a lecturer in religious studies implies that God doesn’t have the language skills or the interest in human beings to get a clear message to us. Instead God has left human beings, the most complex objects in the universe and His crowning achievement in creation, to fumble about with the cerebral “wiring” to contemplate God, but no reliable information nor anything that is absolutely true.

Would God have made us as we are but failed to tell us the truth about Himself? Is it even logical that God would fail to give us the evidence we need to decide which of the innumerable religious claims out there is really the true one? Is it wrong to assume that a God who claims to love us would actually speak the truth to us?

Some biased scientists may look at DNA and refuse to see Intelligent Design - in fact ceasing to be scientists – but what is the religious studies teacher’s excuse for not seeing that God has spoken in love and revealed His truth to His human creation?

As they “compare” religions, don’t they see the huge “spike” in the data when they come to Judeo-Christianity? How can they see the historical basis of the biblical Faith and then refuse to distinguish it from all the myth-based religions? How can they teach that all religions are human-based and very much the same, when the message of the Bible has features in it which put it in an entirely different category from all other religions?

How can they accuse God of failing to offer His truth distinctly and unmistakably and unambiguously – when they know how unique on the religious horizon Jesus Christ is?

They are either:
A. Ignorant of the unique spike that Christianity makes amid all the religious data they have.
Or
B. They are deliberately concealing the spike in order to spare the feelings of people of other religions with whom they want to live in harmony.

If you are ignorant of the facts, then do your homework and you will see that it is simply inaccurate and wrong to place all religions on the same level of credibility. Myth and history are not interchangeable. Truth and feelings are not the same thing. Also consider that human beings are created with an eternal soul – and the destiny of their souls is at stake.

If you are covering up the truth – sacrificing it on the altar of human feelings – then you should know that you are not doing any favors for the human beings involved. God revealed His truth for a reason. He intervened in human history at great cost to Himself because He loves us and He knows that He must banish from His presence forever, those who do not receive His offer of mercy and forgiveness and are left in their sins, contaminated and condemned.

“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”— NIV John 1:12
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son”. NIV John 3:18

There is far more at stake in religious studies than many are prepared to admit.

'Be holy... Be perfect...' impossible expectation or Gospel promise.

I'm sure I'm not the only Lutheran who has been taught that as we witness to unbelievers we should use Bible verses such as 'Be holy as I the Lord Your God am holy' and 'Be perfect, as Your Father in Heaven is Perfect' as 'law' designed to intimidate people into humility and repentance. (Then we can tell them the Gospel - "so they don't have to work at being holy" ?!).

Yet to take such verses out of context and teach that such statements are made by God just to cripple human spiritual ambition with an impossible standard is to fail to see the real meaning in those words, not to mention missing any real Gospel glory in them.

In His redeeming grace and mercy, God has provided for us to be both holy and perfect and, indeed, such holiness is already the gift of God to those in whom His Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple, surely.

Furthermore, those who teach that such statements are intended to assert the unattainable heights of divine perfection are reducing God to the level of a bully who towers over a small child and flaunts his superior height.

Lets stop using these statements as proof-texts for law, and start showing people the heights of undeserved privilege that God is offering to share with us with the words 'Be holy, as I the Lord your God am Holy'.

They describe the exaltation of those in whom God's Holy Spirit dwells as in a Temple. 'Be perfect, as Your Father in Heaven is Perfect' are words of promise to those who, through faith in Christ, have a righteousness imputed to them that exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees and a standing with God that is variously described as sonship and royal priesthood - a holy nation. *

*See Exodus 19.6, Leviticus 20.26, 1 Corinthians 6.19, 1 Peter 1.14-16 & 2.9,

“What kind of god am I?”

Blame it on "post-modernism" or "relativism", but being your own god is more popular than ever.

My question is, "why are people who insist on making it up as they go along so blind to the absurdity?"

If you could be both the examiner as well as the student, you would have a sure way to pass every test: ‘make up your own answers’. You get to pass every exam! But what kind of an academic exercise would that be?

If you are a musician in an orchestra, but you decide that ‘the right notes are the note I say are right’ you get to play any notes you want! But what kind of harmony would you produce?

If you are a mathematician, but you decide that ‘the right answer is the number I choose’, your equations are never wrong! But would the sums add up?

Despite the absurdity of it – there is a popular school of thought that says, ‘there are no right answers, but the answers I cook up’. Only what is ‘true for me’ is ‘true’. The ultimate judge of ‘right and wrong’ is me. You get to take the place of God! But what kind of god would you be?

Have you fallen into this absurd trap? It is possible to find out. Just ask yourself, “Do I ask ‘what is right’ – or do I ask ‘how am I going to define “right” in this situation’?”

If you are an ‘ethical person’ – a ‘moral person’ – in the classic sense, you would look for the answer in authoritative sources as well as your own conscience.

If you have fallen into the popular trap, adrift, with no anchorage, no absolutes and effectively no God but oneself and no authoritative sources but human opinions and your own conscience, you personalize or privatize ultimate questions and conclude that ‘only what is right to me is right’.

Pontius Pilate’s infamous question was ‘what is truth?’. Have you ended up with Pilate as your role model? Do we ask ‘what is “right”?’ and assume that question has no ultimate answer?

Double incentive for fighting evil

Fighting evil is both defensive as well as offensive.

As someone who is not aggressive by nature, much pious exhortation to 'fight' this or that evil within and without leaves me rather cold. What *will* put the sword in my hand, however is the realization that I should fight, not for the sake of fighting, but to defend the Holy Temple that the Holy Spirit has made of me when He came to dwell in me at my baptism. I need the double incentive of defense as well as offence, if I am to be a real fighter against evil. In this respect I am working in partnership with my guardian angel.

If a Christian gets injured or dies, has their guardian angel failed in his duty? Thoughtless persons may say 'yes', or even deny the existence of such angels. Yet, if one considers that the primary thing being guarded by an angel is not physical but spiritual, the proper perspective is gained. Yes, angels may guard the physical body (and do, lest we “dash our foot against a stone” Psalm 91.12), but just as important as “bearing us up in their hands” physically, an angel guards the Holy Temple that the Christian’s body is from spiritual threats to it. Threats that cause the Holy Spirit’s temple to be desecrated and/or defiled are as serious or more serious than any physical ones.

Evil is ultimately defeated by the forgiveness that is ours through faith in Christ. When a Christian dies in the Faith, even if violently, but enters Heaven through death, then a guardian angel can rejoice that, in that individual’s case, his work has still been a success

"Evil and Good" or "Tension and Relief"?

Socrates was recently quoted by a blogger to say that "good and evil are oddly united, because the pain he felt at having shackles on his feet was turned to pleasure when they were removed". If Socrates really put things in those terms, he was inviting confusion by associating the distinction between tension and relief (shackles and liberation in his case) with the duality of good and evil that are only features of a world fallen into sin.

There is no sin in the duality of tension and relief. What I mean is that, apparently, part of the matrix of *all reality* is this duality.

For example, reconciliation as the resolution of conflict is part of that duality. Easily recognizable as dynamics in both Theodicy and Soteriology, the duality of tension and relief takes on amazing importance as part of the biblical revelation of the person of God Himself. To the extent that God makes tension and relief part of His experience, and that of his incorporeal creation, this duality embraces both the spiritual as well as the material, the eternal as well as the temporal. As such, we are talking about a truly significant dynamic, perhaps unique in the universe for its all-pervasive involvement in everything that exists (including God!).

Tension and relief (T&R) is intrinsic to all of the most useful, creative and pleasurable experiences that exist. T&R is part of the creation of the universe before and after the Fall. Before God could conclude “it was good”, He had to tell us that the material world was “without form and void” (Genesis 1.2). The “tension” of an unfinished canvas or an un-carved block of marble characterized the world before God relieved that tension by forming “out of the ground” every living thing.

Most problematic for some is the fact that T&R always involves “discomfort” followed by “comfort”. Yet this is a rhythm of life for which we can and should praise God. There is discomfort in hunger and thirst, yet what would the gourmet be without both such “discomforts”? Who enjoys the food the most, even at the lamest restaurant, but the diner who hasn’t eaten all day? What is more delightful to look at than the “sight for sore eyes?”

Try enjoying a good night’s sleep when you are not in the least bit tired.

When God allows conflict, crisis, need, and passion it is all for the purpose of making the resolution of those tensions the more sweet and meaningful. Experiencing a T&R cycle can form mental associations that illustrate some of the most transcendent realities in our existence. This is admittedly part of the appeal of various philosophical explorations and interpretations of desire.

But, unlike Buddhism, the biblical solution for “suffering” is not the extinction of all desire, but the satisfaction of it. “and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8.23). The experience of Jesus Christ was shot full of T&R. Without T&R, he would not have cursed a fig tree when it had no fruit for him. Without T&R, Christ would not have “for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross” (Hebrews 12.2).

Will the afterlife include T&R? Apparently so, if we are going to be like Jesus. According to St. John, “now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3.2, emphasis mine).

Life without T&R (at least in this world) would be characterized by solutions without problems, achievements without challenges and products that appear without development or the rigors of the creative process. It would not be life as we know it, nor as we (or God) would want it. It would be like the human race living in harmony with God, but without any choice in the matter. What would be at stake would be more than the cliché “no pain, no gain”, but without T&R, the very realization of free will and the existence of true love would cease to exist.

Still the question may be asked, “Could not the sort of satisfaction we associate with ‘relief’ be enjoyed without the element of ‘tension’?” Yet, that question is like the question of whether we could appreciate the sort of experience we call “color” if we did not have “light”. Remove light and you have a uniform and not unpleasant experience (especially if you are tired), but you do not have color, and you live in darkness. Remove tension and you have a not unpleasant experience, but you have no climactic highs or thrills of achievement, only consistent and predictable sensations that could not be truly described as “satisfactory”, let alone excellent.

Human salvation - God's love demonstrated to angels

Last Sunday I expounded on Job 38 in my sermon, commenting about the verse referring to the angels’ happiness as they witnessed the creation of our world.

Part of Christian faith is recognition of the cosmic scope of GOD'S eternal love. God asked Job the haunting question, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? ...when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (v.7)

To that question we are left breathless. We have no answer because we were not there. But we are told who was there. God tells us who sang for joy to see our world created – it was His heavenly host, the “morning stars”, the “sons of God”, His holy angels!

Those same angels are watching the unfolding of our lives and the working out of God’s plan to save us through the sacrifice of His Son, ever since we were created. St. Peter tells us that “angels long to look into these things” (1 Peter 1.12).

For our salvation is “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the angelic authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:9-11).

Scripture gives us plenty of glimpses of angels worshipping God in Heaven. But how often do we note that the worship which angels render to God is related to, among other things, their knowledge of the history of human salvation? It is ultimately the only salvation they have ever seen, for no salvation was offered to any angel who sinned. Yet, although it is about the rescue from eternal damnation of another species (humanity), human salvation is a tremendous source of delight to the angels. Even the founding of the material universe itself made the angels shout for joy (Job 38.7).

The angels’ joy at the beginning of our world possibly suggests that the whole material universe was made as a demonstration to them of His love. (A “Grand Demonstration”, as Dr.Jay Adams called it).

‘…The Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world’ knew He would have do die to give eternal life to sinners even before the Fall into sin. Knowing before He created the earth that He would have to die, why else did He proceed? The angels may hold the answer to this frequently asked question.

Witnessing human salvation, the angels were able to see, as they could not see in any other way, how the same just God who punished their rebel colleagues is also a merciful God who saves sinful creatures even at the cost of the sacrificial death of His unique Son. Following this reasoning, it is easy to understand why ‘there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents’ (Luke 15.10).

The Pure and Ancient Stream

I am listening to an Internet streaming audio service called "Ancient Faith". It is Eastern Orthodox in origin, and, as I listen to the music I am aware of how alien the melodies often are. Yet, at the same time, I taste the familiar flavours of my own faith. I do not mean the "Lutheran faith", but something much more ancient, yet pure, coming from the pre-reformation faith that goes back to biblical times.

I am sure that is the effect that "Ancient Faith" radio is trying to achieve. But all contrivances aside, it is worth thinking about that we "orthodox" Christians can taste the flavour of the water when we hear it, if there is any trace of it in the stream from which we "drink".

Jesus said, "my sheep hear my voice and they follow me". "they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice" (John 10.5.

There is "worship music" that I will run away from - as anyone who really knows me will attest. (Even at District functions, I blush to admit, I have to leave the room when THAT sort of music comes on). Yet, it is not the fact that such sounds are "not Lutheran" (although often they are not). It is that they do not taste right to me.

If you are thinking that I am giving way to subjectivity here and its really just "a matter of taste", you misunderstand. I do not claim it is objectively demonstrable, yet I insist it is more than mere subjectivism when I say that the water from the pure and ancient stream has a detectable flavour.

Just as pollutants may also be detected occasionally, so the pure thing can also be detected by the soul. So, at the very least, please give me credit for not being biased in favour of only one kind of worship music. Nor should it be said of me that I am trapped in one particular culture or something (i.e. German).

Its just that I can taste it when I am getting the pure stuff or some lame musical counterpart to “junk food”. Bon appetite!

Engelein - "Ach, Herr, lass deine lieben Engelein..."

This weblog gets its name from the original German text of the Lutheran chorale, "Lord, Thee I love with all my heart". The English translations found in various Lutheran hymnals fail to depict the angel as described in the original German.

Of course, the translation, "Lord, let at last Thine angel come, to Abraham's bosom bear me home" is tremendous and fine as far as it goes. But lost is the original German's sweet imagery of a "lieben Engelein", literally a "dear little angel".

As someone who, for some unknown reason, has pictured my guardian angel as both "dear" and "little", I was pleasantly surprised to look at the original German text of my favourite hymn. In those words I could see the vision to which my mind has gone for many years and it is a delightful vision.

Perhaps the original image was thought to be too sentimental with its description of an angel resembling a baroque more than a biblical cherub. I don't know. Ultimately one must admit that the Bible says very little about guardian angels. Yet it does not rule out the vision so dear to me and apparently to Martin Schalling when, in around 1567, he wrote those words, "Ach, Herr, lass dein' lieb' Engelein am lezten End' die Seele mein in Abrahams Schoss tragen!"

My translation? "to where Abraham is - ah! Lord, let your dear little angel finally take my soul..." And there, in Paradise, one will possess what "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Corinthians 2:9.