What Webster termed "a tenet...contrary to received opinion, or seemingingly absurd, yet true in fact."
Ever-living God lying cold in a grave.
Justification- perfect in standing before God- joined at the hip with sanctification -working out salvation with fear and trembling.
A single God, in three persons.
Dying to self to truly live.
Finding greatest personal satisfaction outside of our person.
In light of today being Resurrection Sunday I read: "So I will sing praise to thy name forever, that I may daily perform my vows." Ps. 61:8
David rejoicing in praise always in order to complete required ceremonial ritual.
JOY: THE BACKBONE OF DUTY. How seemingly absurd...
But right there in the Psalm, the Hebrew for "sing praise" is zawmar: to celebrate, CELEBRATE with song and music. And the word for "perform" (shawlam) has all the implication of duty: to requite, to pay up, to make good, to make restitution.
Like John Piper said when he tweaked the Westminster Catechism, our chief end is "to glorify God by enjoying Him forever." To celebrate God in order to fulfill our duty. It is our joy -and the fulfilling of our charge -to be:
remembering
recalling
reminding ourselves
this day of that day... one of the most basic orthodoxical and paradoxical moments of our faith.
When Jesus defeated death with death and lived to tell about it. How seemingly absurd...
Have you done your duty by God today by celebrating? Are you a reveller? Has there been delight this holy day?
We have been at home all day, in sweats,
Resurrection Sunday outfits still neatly hung in closets, unused.
One child with a cold,
one with a fever,
one still undiagnosed.
Sickness and sleep, no gathering with the local Body.
Rain, no Easter egg hunt.
Chicken soup, not traditional hamballs and mashed potatoes.
Messy house, no beautifully-set dinner table.
Yet inspite of our best-laid plans being in ruin around our ankles
we have sung and read, remembered and REJOICED. How seemingly absurd...
That is our little, beautiful ORTHODOX PARADOX.
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