no dream interested me as greatly, however, as being a rock & roll musician. Sure, stardom carries its own allures which many people have desired. I never desired the stardom as much as I dreamt of the possibility of making music for a living. Yes, that future inevitably included hanging out with Paul McCartney, Bono, and probably a supermodel or two. But I can honestly say that the most important part of that dream for me was making the music, recording it, hearing it on the radio, and playing it before crowds of at least mildly interested fans.
but God has enabled me to adequately accompany our praises and joyful noises. Recently, something wonderful has happened. The Spirit has worked through me...not to help me play as well as George Harrison or Scotty Moore or Eric Clapton...but to bring a particular tiny group of the Body of Christ into moments of true worship, not only with a real experience of the presence of God but far more importantly a sense that our praise is real, authentic, sincere and welcomed.
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,'Save us,"When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, 'Who is this?'
Son of David!
Blessed is he
who comes
in the name
of the Lord!
Save us to the
highest heaven!'
that temptation. These are the church's stories. They are not yours to dismiss because they are inconvenient and invade the time concerns you have. When you entered the covenant of ordained as deacons and elders or when you signed your paperwork as a local pastor or pastor from another denomination, you affirmed that you were persuaded 'that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain all things necessary for salvation' and you promised loyalty to The United Methodist Church, 'accepting its order, liturgy, doctrine and discipline . . .' (United Methodist Book of Worship, 689, 695). Therefore, read the entirety of these readings out of your persuasion and your acceptance of the liturgy, trusting the Spirit of God to do what God wants to do in the hearts of the people."
plays the devil as a hermit who seems almost an "everyman" figure. He is polite, soft-spoken, and seemingly kind...which makes this performance absolutely terrifying.
Sunday in worship, a congregation received a rather large family as visitors.
Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi,With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom."
This wonderful verse 
is crucial in Atonement theology, yet it is often, in my view, mistranslated and misunderstood. This can lead to some views of the Atonement which are not Wesleyan and, perhaps, not even Biblical.
The misunderstood word is the Hebrew word "musar". This is a word that traditionally has meant "correction", "chastisement", "instruction", "suffering", "rebuke", or "discipline", as from a loving father. In fact, "musar" is used 50 times in the Old Testament, and the King James Version always utilizes one of these English words. The ASV followed suit, as did the RSV about 50 years later.
According to Isaiah 53:5, then, and assuming a messianic perspective, Jesus suffered for us. The verse does not teach that Jesus was punished for us; "punishment" comes from an entirely different Hebrew word which is not used in reference to atonement.
This is an important distinction, because punishment and forgiveness are not synonomous, and salvation hinges on forgiveness in Wesleyan theology. 
When a person is found guilty of a crime, they are sent to prison, the imprisonment being their punishment. Let us assume that they have been sentenced to two years in prison. At the conclusion of those two years, they are freed from their cell, having served out their punishment.
It would be inappropriate for a judge to then say, "You have been in prison for two years; now, you are forgiven." The criminal was not forgiven; he took his punishment. The same would be true if a person received a fine for a parking violation. If they pay the fine, they have received their punishment, they have paid their debt.
Conversely, if a judge were to say to the criminal, "You don't need to serve two years; you are forgiven", or to the parking violator, "You don't need to pay the fine; you are forgiven", then there would be no punishment. Punishment and forgiveness are not the same thing.
In the 1970s, the Good News Bible (also known as "Today's English Version") appeared, translated quite loosely, a style known as "dynamic equivalence" (as opposed to the more literal KJV and RSV). In this translation, "musar" was rendered in Isaiah 53:5 as "punishment". Still, this can be forgiven, since the Good News translation itself was fairly paraphrastic and not really intended for academic or theological use.
The New International Version (NIV) emerged in 1978 as a legitimate translation alternative to the KJV and RSV. This wonderful translation made the mistake of translating "musar" as "punishment". Why?
Calvinists have held to a particular view of Atonement theology which states that Jesus, on the Cross, received our punishment. Thus, the demands of divine justice were satisfied by the death of Christ. The NIV was translated primarily by Calvinist scholars, so it is only natural that Isaiah 53:5 reflects their theological bias, even if translating "musar" as "punishment" was truly innovative, and without real precedent in the history of the English Bible. Surprisingly, the NRSV followed the NIV upon its release a decade later, as did the HCSB in 2004. I am grateful for the ESV (2001), which renders "musar" as the more traditional "chastisement".
Wesleyans should not forget the actual meaning of the verse. 
Jesus suffered for us, thus reminding us of the importance of suffering and the terrible pain inflicted upon our loving Lord...not that any debts would be paid through punishment, but rather that we might be truly forgiven. Jesus' suffering was substitutionary in that his suffering, "...became a substitute for something else that would otherwise occur" (in the words of the late J. Kenneth Grider). In other words, Jesus' suffering served as a substitute for our punishment.
In the words of Gordon Olson, "The sufferings and especially the death of Christ were sacrificial, were not the punishment of the law but were equivalent in meaning to it, were representative of it and substituted for it. The demands of the law were not satisfied by it, but the honor of the law was promoted by it as much as this honor would have been promoted by inflicting the legal penalty upon all sinners. The distributive (or vindictive) justice of God was not satisfied by it, but His general (or justice for the public good) as a responsible Moral Governor was perfectly satisfied."
This is more than simply a "moral influence", intended to show God's love and break our hearts, as much of traditional Protestant Liberalism maintains. Jesus suffered and died for a reason...to uphold God's moral sovereignty and to make real forgiveness possible, that we might know salvation. This is truly good news. We can know real forgiveness! Without question, due to our sinfulness, we deserve punishment - but are forgiven, because of the faithful suffering of Our Lord.
I urge my Wesleyan sisters and brothers to ponder this perspective as we approach the darkness of Good Friday and the glories of Easter Sunday.
This is my favorite passage in all of Scripture, and it is absolutely loaded with Christological claims...
If God were to appear to us in all of his glory, how could we survive? So, Jesus emptied himself of God's glory, while remaining fully God. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in stanza 2 of his "Oration 37" speaks of it as a "...reduction and lessening of his glory".
then he could not have been fully human. Imagine the baby in the Bethlehem manger. Now, picture that same baby as knowing everything, as being absolutely all powerful. He'd simply be playing human...toying with Mary and Joseph. This beautiful image can become very frightening, if the "baby" in the manger isn't really a "baby" in any sense that we would recognize; he's really quite monstrous.
Love divine, what hast thou done!
and partake the gospel feast,is crucial in Atonement theology, yet it is often, in my view, mistranslated and misunderstood. This can lead to some views of the Atonement which are not Wesleyan and, perhaps, not even Biblical.When a person is found guilty of a crime, they are sent to prison, the imprisonment being their punishment. Let us assume that they have been sentenced to two years in prison. At the conclusion of those two years, they freed from their cell, having served out their punishment. It would be inappropriate for a judge to then s ay, "You have been in prison for two years; now, you are forgiven." The criminal was not forgiven; he took his punishment. The same would be true if a person received a fine for a parking violation. If they pay the fine, they have received their punishment, they have paid their debt. Conversely, if a judge were to say to the criminal, "You don't need to serve two years; you are forgiven", or to the parking violator, "You don't need to pay the fine; you are forgiven", then there would be no punishment. Punishment and forgiveness are not the same thing.
In the 1970s, the Good News Bible (also known as "Today's English Version") appeared, translated quite loosely, a style known as "dynamic equivalence" (as opposed to the more literal KJV and RSV). In this translation, "musar" was rendered in Isaiah 53:5 as "punishment". Still, this can be forgiven, since the Good News translation itself was fairly paraphrastic and not really intended for academic or theological use.
The New International Version (NIV) emerged in 1978 as a legitimate translation alternative to the KJV and RSV. This wonderful translation made the mistake of translating "musar" as "punishment". Why?
Calvinists have held to a particular view of Atonement theology which states that Jesus, on the Cross, received our punishment. Thus, the demands of divine justice were satisfied by the death of Christ. The NIV was translated primarily by Calvinist scholars, so it is only natural that Isaiah 53:5 reflects their theological bias, even if translating "musar" as "punishment" was truly innovative, and without real precedent in the history of the English Bible. Surprisingly, the NRSV followed the NIV upon its release a decade later, as did the HCSB in 2004. I am grateful for the ESV (2001), which renders "musar" as the more traditional "chastisement".
Wesleyans should not forget the actual meaning of the verse. Jesus suffered for us, thus reminding us of the importance of suffering and the terrible pain inflicted upon our loving Lord...not that any debts would be paid through punishment, but rather that we might be truly forgiven. Jesus' suffering was substitutionary in that his suffering, "...became a substitute for something else that would otherwise occur" (in the words of the late J. Kenneth Grider). In other words, Jesus' suffering served as a substitute for our punishment.
In the words of Gordon Olson, "The sufferings and especially the death of Christ were sacrificial, were not the punishment of the law but were equivalent in meaning to it, were representative of it and substituted for it. The demands of the law were not satisfied by it, but the honor of the law was promoted by it as much as this honor would have been promoted by inflicting the legal penalty upon all sinners. The distributive (or vindictive) justice of God was not satisfied by it, but His general (or justice for the public good) as a responsible Moral Governor was perfectly satisfied."
This is more than simply a "moral influence", intended to show God's love and break our hearts, as much of traditional Protestant Liberalism maintains. Jesus suffered and died for a reason...to uphold God's moral sovereignty and to make real forgiveness possible, that we might know salvation. This is truly good news. We can know real forgiveness! Without question, due to our sinfulness, we deserve punishment - but are forgiven, because of the faithful suffering of Our Lord.
I urge my Wesleyan brethren to ponder this perspective as we approach the darkness of Good Friday and the glories of Easter Sunday.
was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body.'
The answer is simple: trust Jesus. Take him at his word, and don't worry about how it all works. Sacrament, after all, is the Latin translation of the Greek word "mystery". We are free to let it remain a mystery. The Eucharist is a sacred meal to be celebrated and enjoyed, not a puzzle to be solved.
I wrote a hymn text on the theme of Our Lord's Last Supper, entitled “Do This; Remember Me!” I've used it in worship every Holy Thursday since then; this will be the first year I've used it at Jefferson church. Other congregations have also used it.
drew near to Jerusalem...the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, 'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!'
particularly in Western PA Conference, is that on Palm Sunday (in just a few days), we view the palms we wave as signs of our excitement, as subversive symbols, reminding us that we have been called not only to make disciples in the communities to which we have been sent, but also to continually light the fires of passion in our Conference, serving the mission of Christ among the poor and the lost as well as among our colleagues in pastoral ministry.
This is my favorite passage in all of Scripture, and it is absolutely loaded with Christological claims...
If God were to appear to us in all of his glory, how could we survive? So, Jesus emptied himself of God's glory, while remaining fully God. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in stanza 2 of his "Oration 37" speaks of it as a "...reduction and lessening of his glory".then he could not have been fully human. Imagine the baby in the Bethlehem manger. Now, picture that same baby as knowing everything, as being absolutely all powerful. He'd simply be playing human...toying with Mary and Joseph. This beautiful image can become very frightening, if the "baby" in the manger isn't really a "baby" in any sense that we would recognize; he's really quite monstrous.
