December 20: Righteousness Through Faith in Christ
♫ Music:
Day 18 - Wednesday, December 20
Title: Righteousness Through Faith in Christ
Scripture: Philippians 3:1-11
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Poetry:
Winter Scene
By A.R. Ammons
There is now not a single
leaf on the cherry tree:
except when the jay
plummets in, lights, and,
in pure clarity, squalls:
then every branch
quivers and
breaks out in blue leaves.
THE TREE OF LIFE
He who took upon himself our flesh had it cut back off again a mere eight days after He was born, according to the custom and law of Israel. For this was not a struggle of power and flesh in the normal senses of those words; rather, it was a struggle against the powers and against the flesh. And as Pacino di Buonaguida’s The Tree of Life suggests, the whole of Jesus’ life was a cross-shaped struggle against the powers and principalities of this world, against the flesh and its pattern of thinking and living.
A tree, which was dead and the tool of death, becomes the tree of life. The Garden of Eden, from which we were cast out, is the garden onto whose trees we are grafted. Consistently throughout Scripture fleshly, earthy things are to be rejected as the means of salvation, but then used by God, in an ironic twist, as the means of his salvation. Abraham and Sarai use Haggar to fulfill the covenant blessing, but then God opens Sarai’s womb in an ironic miracle. Joseph’s brothers betray him into slavery, but he then saves his whole family from within the land of the enemy. We are not saved by works, but faith is a working thing, such that we are in fact judged by the working of our faith. Jesus is circumcised and His flesh is cut off—but it is by His flesh that we are made whole.
Circumcision, in short, is a key to understanding the Christian life, to understanding Christmas. God takes upon himself human flesh that He might live a fully human life. But this is not a way of power and glory in the traditional sense – for on the eighth day Jesus’ flesh was cut off. The Son took up human flesh that He might cut it off. And this, of course, is a summary of his life: He took up human flesh that He might be cut off, that He might taste death. It is tempting to leave the story at that: the Christian life is one of rejection of the flesh and its evils. But this will not do at all, for the Jesus’ flesh was cut off that He might take it up again in the resurrection: flesh redeemed, incarnate life in the power of the holy spirit. And we, like Him, are called to suffer the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that we might gain Christ and be found in Him, that we may know Him and the power of His resurrection. (Phil. 3:1-11)
What is the goal of the incarnation? As we see in the top right corner of Buonaguida’s The Tree of Life, the goal is the ascension, the path leading to the risen Lord Jesus ruling the kingdom of God. The whole of this history is shaped by the cross, but aimed at the resurrection: a battle against the flesh and its ways, but ultimately for the risen flesh properly ordered in the Kingdom of God. The goal of the Christian life is not the incarnation, but new birth. But for now, we celebrate the first of these, awaiting the second.
Prayer:
Father, apart from you we are a leafless and flowerless tree. Send your Spirit to unite us to your precious Son, that in you, and only in you, we might burst into color and life. We feel alive, but give us life, as you know it; make our happinesses pale in comparison to the joy of your kingdom.
Amen
Adam Johnson
Professor, Torrey Honors Institute
Biola University
About the Artwork:
The Tree of Life, 1310
Circumcision of Jesus (Detail from The Tree of Life)
Pacino di Buonaguida
Tempera and gold leaf on wood panel
Galleria dell' Accademia
Florence, Italy
The very complex tree-shaped cross symbolizing the Tree of Life was originally housed in a convent in Florence, Italy. The central form of the tree represents salvation, which offers gifts to humankind. These gifts are depicted as “fruit” along the twelve branches, which symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve Apostles of Jesus. The scenes in the roundels hanging from the branches represent episodes of Christ’s life. The tree is rooted at the very bottom in the Garden of Eden, where scenes from Genesis about Creation and Adam and Eve’s life are illustrated. Up above in the cusp, angels, saints, and prophets, surround the celestial court of Heaven, where the enthroned Christ and the Virgin Mary are seated. The detail image featured is of Jesus’ circumcision.
About the Artist:
Pacino di Buonaguida (active from 1303 - 1347) was an Italian painter active in Florence, Italy, in the Gothic period. Scholars attribute over 50 works to the painter, but little is known of his biography. Only one work is signed, an altarpiece at the Galleria dell' Accademia in Florence, Italy. Pacino spent his entire career in Florence, where, in addition to altarpieces, he painted miniatures and decorations for illuminated manuscripts. He is now considered the inventor of “miniaturism,” a style distinguished by a clear organization of the painting surface into multiple small-scale scenes.
About the Music:
“A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28: No. 7, Interlude” from the album Britten: A Ceremony of Carols
About the Composer:
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was an English composer and conductor. A central figure of 20th-century British classical music, Britten wrote a wide range of works including opera, vocal compositions, orchestral and chamber music. A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28, is a choral piece scored for three-part treble chorus, solo voices, and harp. Written for Christmas, it consists of eleven movements, with text from The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, edited by Gerald Bullett, and is sung in Middle English. The harp, which accompanies the vocalists throughout the work, is featured alone in the middle “Interlude,” in which it tenderly weaves together themes from other movements, creating a hushed atmosphere of angelic awe. Spanish harpist Marisa Robles (b. 1937) performs here in the 1965 recording made with the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge.
About the Performer:
Marisa Robles (b. 1937) is a Spanish harpist. She was born in Spain where she studied the harp with Luisa Menarguez and attended the Madrid Conservatory, graduating at the age of sixteen in 1953. She made her concert debut at seventeen, performing with flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal. The Concerto for Flute and Harp by Mozart, which they performed together, became the piece for which she is best known. In 1960 she came to live permanently in the UK and in 1971 she became a teacher at the Royal College of Music in South Kensington, London.
About the Poet:
Archie Randolph Ammons (1926 – 2001) was an American poet who won the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1973 and 1993. Ammons wrote about humanity's relationship to nature in alternately comedic and solemn tones. His poetry often addresses religious and philosophical matters and scenes involving nature in a transcendental fashion. Among his major honors are the U.S. National Book Award, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets and a MacArthur Fellowship. Some of Ammons' poems are very short, one or two lines only, a form known as “monostich” while others are hundreds of lines long, and sometimes composed on adding-machine tape or other continuous strips of paper. Ammons taught at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, for thirty-four years.
About the Devotional Writer:
Adam Johnson is a theologian and professor for the Torrey Honors Institute, who focuses on the doctrine of the atonement, exploring the many ways in which the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ effect the reconciliation of all things to God. His most recent book is: The Reconciling Wisdom of God: Reframing the Doctrine of the Atonement.