WEB SITINGS - THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON,

From time to time I like to link you to various blogs and postings that spoke to me as a Christian, a pastor, and one who believes passionately that your life matters to God.  Ash Wednesday and Lent have produced several.  In each case, you will need to click a link to finish reading. - STEVE

The Only Begotten Son: Jesus Epithets Continued

posted by Kristina Robb-Dover | 11:34am Wednesday February 22, 2012

"Sorry, you have the wrong guy." - Jeremy Lin, a graduate student in linguistics at NYU

“No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.” John 1:18

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him might have eternal life.” John 3:16

Yesterday NPR interviewed Jeremy Lin.  The Harvard graduate crossed paths with the basketball player in school, but this Lin, instead of playing on the courts of New York’s Madison Square Garden, is studying linguistics at New York University.  At 5’2″ Jeremy Lin described the comedy of often being mistaken by name over the Internet for the much taller Knicks super star:  he tries to break it to people politely that he is not their guy.

When John’s Gospel describes Jesus as “the only begotten God,” the Gospel writer is saying that there can be no mistaking who Jesus is, because Jesus is the only one of His kind.  Jesus can’t be duplicated to the degree that Jesus is God Himself in the flesh.  The Jesus who has the power to forgive and straighten out all of the rough and bumpy patches in our lives is God alone.  If nobody else can reproduce the “Linsanity” of a basket in the last minutes of a nail-bitingly suspenseful game, no other god can truly embody the inbreaking of God’s reign of love on earth. Only Jesus- the One whom Scripture tells us we find it easy to crucify and mock for His foolhardy message about a Love that has the power to save and redeem all creation, including ourselves- can reveal in His very Self who God is and pour His life into us.  As Henry Ward Beecher put it, “Take from the Bible the Godship of Christ and it would be but a heap of dust.”

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners/2012/02/the-only-begotten-son-jesus-epithets-continued.html#ixzz1n8Bn3nut

Thomas Merton on Ash Wednesday

“Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast.”
In 1958 Thomas Merton wrote an essay titled, “Ash Wednesday,” which offers a reflection on the relationship between penance and joy found in the celebration of the beginning of Lent and the marking of our foreheads with ashes. Instead of me rambling on and on here today, I thought it would be good to share more from Merton himself. You can read the entire essay in Seasons of Celebration (FSG 1965), 113-124.

“Ash Wednesday is for people who know that it means for their soul to be logged with these icy waters: all of us are such people, if only we can realize it.

“There is confidence everywhere in Ash Wednesday, yet that does not mean unmixed and untroubled security. The confidence of the Christian is always a confidence in spite of darkness and risk, in the presence of peril, with every evidence of possible disaster…
“Once again, Lent is not just a time for squaring conscious accounts: but for realizing what we had perhaps not seen before. The light of Lent is given us to help us with this realization.
“Nevertheless, the liturgy of Ash Wednesday is not focussed on the sinfulness of the penitent but on the mercy of God. The question of sinfulness is raised precisely because this is a day of mercy, and the just do not need a savior.” From the blog DATING GOD

Via lifeingrace

“The modern interest in spirituality is a bit like our interest in health.  Our obsession with health is not at all healthy;  in fact, it emphasizes the problems that we have without providing much of a solution to them. So, too, with our concern for spirituality!  Despite the multitude of books on spirituality that can be found in the bookshop, Christians seem to find it harder than ever to practice what they believe.  So many aspire to be spiritual high fliers but never seem to get off the ground for any length of time.  As the failures mount, so does the fascination with what seemingly cannot be achieved.  The only thing we learn is that something is lacking in this part of our lives.  But we end up with no understanding on how to fill the void……If we have problems living the life of faith, if we have challenges in our practice of prayer, the solution is not to be found in what we do, our self-appraisal, or our performance.  The solution to our problems is found in what we receive from God Himself, in His appraisal of us, and in His gifts to us.  Like our physical life and health, our spiritual life is something that is given to us, something that is to be received and enjoyed and celebrated.  Our piety is all a matter of receiving grace upon grace from the fullness of God the Father. “ - John Kleinig  Grace Upon Grace. The blog gives you access to purchasing this book.