Spirituality Column #806

April 26, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Sparky’s Magic Piano

By Bob Walters

One of my earliest memories – a vivid, before-kindergarten recollection – is of a record album my dad bought for us kids titled “Sparky’s Magic Piano.”

We’re talking circa 1958, when a “record” was one of those flat vinyl discs you put on a “record player.”  Dad – John Walters, 1926-1991 – was a classical music buff and I vividly remember as a little kid when he and mom brought home our new “Hi-Fi” – a “Pilot” brand, tube-based, monaural (not stereo) furniture-grade, dark, square-ish, top-opening floor unit.  It had a matching second speaker Dad placed on the other side of our small living room at 321 Lincoln Blvd., in the Lakeview suburb of Battle Creek, Mich.

Dad had shopped around and was convinced this Pilot was the richest, best sounding home Hi-Fi unit available.  It wasn’t the stereo-TV-radio combo many baby-boomers grew up with. It was just a record player, but a truly magnificent sounding one.

Along with the predictable Bach-Beethoven-Brahms-Mozart-Tchaikovsky recordings that started his soon-to-be-substantial collection, Dad brought home for us kids – just my older sister Linda and I at the time; Joe was a baby and Debbie came along a bit later – a story-and-music boxed album set of “Sparky’s Magic Piano.”

One way you knew, from a practical standpoint, that it was for the kids – the title notwithstanding – was that the three-record set was numbered with Sides 1 and 6 on the first record, then 2 and 5, then 3 and 4.  You could stack them on the changer, listen to Sides 1 through 3, then flip the whole stack and listen to Sides 4 through 6.

On Dad’s multi-platter concert albums, Sides 1 and 2 were on the same disc so you couldn’t stack them on the changer and possibly scratch them when they dropped.

That record player remained part of my life up into my adulthood, but let’s talk about Sparky.  He was a mythical boy with desire but little talent who wanted very much to play great piano.  Alas, Sparky made a deal with the devil, trading his own soul for the talent to be a world-famous concert pianist prodigy.  On Side 6, the devil wants his talent back and leaves Sparky on stage devastated and humiliated, unable to play.

Moral to the story:  You have to work for and earn lasting success and joy.

Satan’s funny that way.  The human condition is rife with desires to be really good at something for the sake of fame and money, rather than the purer and Godly route of putting in the work and love required to bring true joy to one’s endeavors.

Satan always wants his gifts back, because they are worldly, fleeting, and based in pride, greed, and power.  He has no power to create life; death is his only payout.

Beethoven was great at music because he loved it.  Larry Bird loved basketball.  Billy Graham loved Jesus and loved leading people to Christ.  The happiest people I know – probably who any of us know – are the ones whose families, lives, vocations, professions, and hobbies have been shaped by something larger than pedantic earthly measurements of time, sweat, and desire. Like, say, love, service, faith, and God’s gifts.

In this post-Easter period of joy and reflection, one lesson from the Cross of Jesus is that nothing truly worthwhile comes cheaply or easily.  Another is that love and sacrifice, not fame or money, are the life sparks that burn hottest, brightest, and longest.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), whose dad sang tenor in Michigan State’s a cappella men’s choir in the 1940s, figures surely others know of Sparky’s Magic Piano.

Spirituality Column #805

April 19, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Voice of God

By Bob Walters

“Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”– John 8:28 

Jesus was and is the glory of God, and in this passage from the Gospel of John Jesus was calmly telling his listeners that, though his soul was deeply troubled, that the time had come for him to be glorified.  He beseeched God, “Father, glorify your name!”

And John writes: “Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”  The verse goes on to say that some in the crowd thought the voice was thunder; others said an angel had spoken to Jesus.  But Jesus was quick to point out to them that God was speaking for their benefit, not His. 

It was time for the judgment of the world, and time for Jesus to go to work.  The Glory of God – Jesus – would go to the cross as a perfect sacrifice for our sin, and then the Glory of God would leave the grave empty on the day of resurrection. 

But at that moment of thunder or an angel’s voice, no one but Jesus had an inkling what would happen in the ensuing four or five days.  But they would have been dumbfounded by what was happening at that moment: Was that God speaking to them?

This passage is nestled in John’s brief account of Holy Week.  The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke go into several chapters of Jesus’ teaching and activities between “Palm Sunday’s” triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem and the “Maundy Thursday” Last Supper in the Upper Room.  John dedicates less than a chapter to it.

But it includes this event, which would have rocked any Jews who happened to hear it, whether they believed Jesus, hated Jesus, or thought Jesus was a fraud.  This “voice from heaven” … could it possibly be … God?  Speaking directly to them?

It would have been a much bigger deal than scripture lets on.  Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay notes that when Jesus arrived on the scene, any notion of hearing directly from God had all but disappeared from Israel.  There were only notions of bath qol, or “daughter’s voice,” scriptures softly breathed by feminine angels.

God who spoke directly so often in the Old Testament – to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and others like Samuel, Elijah and Eliphaz – had been silent for many centuries.  But in the Old Testament when God spoke, He spoke only to individuals, never to a crowd.  Now, God talks to Jesus and everyone around Him.

Think that didn’t make the Pharisees’ rage, fear, and jealousy burn a bit hotter?

This is the third time in the Gospels we hear the direct voice of God: First at Jesus’s Baptism, and then at the Transfiguration God says basically the same thing, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.  Listen to Him!”  And here, when “the time has come” for God to be glorified in Jesus’s sacrifice, God speaks again. 

It’s another clue the Jewish leaders missed: the voice of God speaks through Jesus, not through them.   It infuriated them, and assures us that when we listen to Jesus, we are listening to not only the Word of God but also to the very voice of God. 

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows that if you won’t listen, your ears can’t hear.

Spirituality Column #804

April 12, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Infinite Possibilities

By Bob Walters

“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did.  Were every one of them to be written, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:25, the final verse of the Fourth Gospel.

During Holy Week our Christian thoughts are focused on the singularly great work of Christ: His death on the Cross.

What did Jesus do?  He died for my sins; He paid the price for my salvation.

And then what happened?  Jesus was resurrected from the tomb – celebrated in Christianity as Easter or Resurrection Day – proving His promise that with faith in Him sins were forgiven, trespasses were covered, that a groaning universe could stop groaning, and that our life eternal in restored relationship with God in Heaven was set.

Jesus survived death for all eternity.  Now, so will we.  Hallelujah!

But … sadly, narrowly, and – let me suggest – joylessly, for far too many souls in the world, including many lightly confessing Christians, that’s where Sunday School adjourns until next year: “Jesus paid the price for my sins. I’m saved.  Now, let’s worry about something else.”  In other words, “I’ll do what I want; it’s paid for.”  Uh … no.

Yes, Jesus provided a Cosmic one-two punch to Satan’s reign of evil on Earth, and even those of the lightest faith in Christ can recite that story.  But that story, big as it is, is often missing true relationship with Jesus and appreciation for His infinite works.

Jesus is Lord of the seen and unseen; nothing was made without Him.  The “seen” we can sense, but the “unseen” is as big as the universe and as small as an atom; it is the unseen component of love, relationship, turmoil, peace, and works of Jesus.  That’s how far “beyond definition” Christ is.  The work of His love can never be contained in a cost equation of some finite “price being paid” for all He did.

John makes it sound like there is a whole lot more to it than that if “the whole world” could not contain the written record of Christ’s work.  Oh my … so much more.

Let’s not minimize the accomplishment of “death and resurrection.” But neither should we limit our Christian attentions to Holy Week’s miraculous but reportable story, nor should we imagine we can quantify anything about the infinite works of Christ.

Paul writes (Romans 5:15-20) that we can gauge and quantify our own trespasses, but we cannot quantify God’s grace or forgiveness (v15): “[God’s] gift is not like the trespass.”  The Bible throughout, in fact, assures that we really cannot fathom many things about God’s Kingdom and Christ, whether it is time (Psalm 90:4, 2 Peter 3:8), money (Matthew 18:24-25), love (Ephesians 3:17-21, esp. v18), grace (Romans 5:15-20, 2 Cor. 12:9), mercy (Ephesian 2:4), patience (2 Peter 3:9), forgiveness (Matthew 7:22), kindness (Ephesians 2:7), or even God’s creativity (Genesis 22:17).

Yes, we can count on God’s love, but there is no way we can do the math.  We benefit when we spend more time searching our hearts and minds for faith and truth in Jesus and less time trying to work out the equation of what Jesus paid for my sins.

Jesus did more than we can imagine, and He did it with infinite love, not money. When our faith connects us to that relationship with Jesus, our possibilities are endless.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays for the peace of God and faith in Christ to be your constant companion during this Holy Week … and always.

Spirituality Column #803

April 5, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I Don’t Buy It

By Bob Walters

“You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” – Paul writing to the church in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

This one clause of this one verse, “you were bought at a price,” has instilled nearly perpetual confusion and guilt into the loving work and passion of Christ.

It’s one of those Bible lines written about something else – sort of like “Do not judge…” (Matthew 7:1) – that on its surface and out of context has launched a thousand sinking ships of misdirected doctrine.  We see Jesus on the Cross and think He’s at the cosmic pay window, evening up the holy account of our sins that must be paid for. The “paid” theme is replete in hymns, prayers, and sermons, but I can’t find a verse in the Bible that says Jesus “paid a price.”  Makes me crazy.

Atonement, redemption, ransom, reconciliation, propitiation, expiation?  Yes.

But “paid”?  No.  And yes, I know I’m practically alone on this one.  But hear me out.

Paul has encountered a Corinthian church that is doing almost everything wrong.  Its fellowship is split and stratified.  Its worship is misfocused.  Its services are chaotic.  Its “Lord’s Supper,” rather than a humble supplication, is a lavish, prideful feast over here and a sparse, demeaning pauper’s ration over there.  The church errantly took its internal fights outside, was skeptical of Paul’s authority, permissive in its behaviors, and itself seemed to be repeating Israel’s long history of prideful and sinful mistakes against God.

But there’s more.  Corinth was a major Greek city and trading crossroads.  Of its twelve varied local temples (including one synagogue), the dominant religion in town was adoration of the Greek love goddess Aphrodite, whose high-on-a-hill temple employed a thousand priestess prostitutes.  The church’s attitude was, “Why not?”  Reminds me of today: “Hey, it’s my body.”

Notice that this “bought at a price” phrase is firmly planted in the section of 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 subtitled, “Sexual Immorality.”  Then chapter 7:1 picks up with “Marriage” and Paul presents the primacy of sexual morality existing in the man-woman, husband-wife marriage bed and nowhere else.  Aphrodite’s prostitutes and sexual sin vs. our bodily and spiritual union with Christ are the issues Paul is addressing. To say, “Bought at a price,” in this context, is accurate and appropriate. 

A Christian life is improved by (1) Not exposing itself to the temptations of satan; (2) Keeping one’s spouse as a mutually exclusive bodily gift from God; and (3) Knowing the ownership of our bodies properly resides with our Creator, God, not ourselves.  Freedom, yes.  Ownership, no.

“Bought” is Paul’s powerful indication of God’s ownership, not payment.  Our understanding of that is critical to our relationship with Jesus, in whom our only salvation exists “without payment” (Revelation 21:6).  To think that Jesus on the Cross is some sort of measurable trade or transaction or purchase is to abrogate the freely obedient love and perfect sacrifice of Jesus.  The Cross is a mystery of God’s love which brings joy, not an earthly quid pro quo to trigger guilt.

I'm adamant against thinking of salvation in Christ as a commodity to be bought, traded, measured, or judged.  As we are forgiven in Christ's power and God's grace, we join the treasure chest of the Kingdom of God.  We are restored as God's divinely beloved, escaping a “What’s in it for me?” station profaned by earthly values of things that rust, pass away, or are defined by fallen human description.  We are infinitely owned by God and I’m thankful – joyous – for it.

The gift of Jesus to us is a life to be lived, a love to be nurtured, a truth to be known, a faith to trust, and hope that solidifies into the joyous reality of divine eternity.  That is how big and un-boxable Jesus is.  Yet humans crave the smaller, familiar metaphor of transaction; it calms our narrow intellect by being consistent with the sodden tradeoffs of virtually all else in fallen human life.

But … did Jesus buy me? Golly, I didn’t “buy” my marriage. My joy and love aren’t in keeping score or auditing a receipt; my joy is an unselfish, shared, and reciprocal love; that’s Jesus.

Salvation is not in a transactional metaphor. God’s pure love wins, and you can’t buy it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) would not find peace if he believed his wife Pam had traded for him.  And as for this Jesus “purchase,” Whom did He pay? Ask instead, “Whom did He love?”  P.S. – Next week or soon, we’ll look at 1 Corinthians 7:23.