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Articles

“Tolkien” and Ancient Words

“Tolkien” and Ancient Words

By Bror Erickson

“Remember this and stand firm,/ recall it to mind, you transgressors,/ remember the former things of old;/ for I am God, and there is no other;/I am God, and there is none like me,/ declaring the end from the beginning/ and from ancient times things not yet done,/ saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,/ and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ (Isaiah 46:8-10)

It is not often that an author’s life lives up to the legends he writes, and yet it is perhaps hard to imagine that someone could write a book so steeped in the virtues of friendship, loyalty, love and learning and adventure as “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” if his own life had not also reflected these.  “Tolkien,” the recently released biographical movie, shows how these elements played a role in Tolkien’s life long before he was able to write his most beloved stories. It also shows how his love of language was stoked by a life regulated with the rhythm of liturgical worship steeped in the ancient words of the Ancient of Days. Here, if nowhere else in the movie, the influence of Tolkien’s Christian faith comes to the fore. 

Of course, there have been numerous reviews and spoilers that have come out bemoaning that once again Hollywood has marginalized the Christian faith by downplaying the obvious influence it had on J.R.R. Tolkien and his writing. Well, the movie does not show Tolkien going to church, or evangelizing his classmates. However, in defense of the director, Dome Karukoski, the faith of an individual can be a hard thing to portray in a movie especially when cuts have to be made to move the plot along. The plot of this movie is focused on Tolkien’s friendship, not his Christianity per se.

It is a great movie concerning the value of friendship. I suspect though that perhaps behind all this complaining is an audience that is more shocked that a man of such profound Christian faith could have lived his life and expressed his friendship in such masculine fashion. The friendship which the movie explores begins, as so many boyhood friendships do, with a fight. The Tea Club and Barrovian Society, (TCBS as they most often refer to themselves in the movie) then goes on to do the rest of the things that a Christian movie review website warns parents against, apart from the graphic depictions of war-time violence, there is fighting, drinking, “language” is used including ass and hell, and a couple dares to kiss! Nude paintings by one his friends are briefly displayed and admired by the characters along with sex talk, and let’s not forget drinking, the main character even gets his big Oxford break by becoming spectacularly drunk and waking all the professors. They also play billiards, which begins with b and rhymes with t, which stands for trouble. In other words, Tolkien was spectacularly weak on what American Christianity terms as sanctification, and yet through it all a fantastically faithful Christian and friend.

The problem is not that the movie downplays the role Christianity played in Tolkien’s life, the problem is that his Christian faith is too foreign a flavor for most to comprehend, and has about as much a focus on morality as the life of Samson recorded in Judges. Rather, the focus of his faith was on the word of God, the Ancient of Days, whose promises to us stand even when we fail, declaring from ancient times things not yet done.  

It is a subtle line in the movie, and yet a rather powerful one. Father Francis Morgan, played by Colm Meany, speaks to Tolkien after he recovers from trench fever upon his return from World War I. Fr. Morgan discusses the dilemma he faces in trying to comfort bereaved parents in the wake of the brutal war that claimed so many young men. When Tolkien asks him what he tells the parents Fr. Morgan tells him that words, “modern words don’t offer any comfort, only ancient words can do that, I speak the liturgy to them.”

“Modern words don’t offer any comfort, only ancient words can do that, I speak the liturgy to them.”

Personally, as a life-long Lutheran and a Lutheran pastor today I can relate with what Father Morgan has to say here. I grew up with these ancient words embedded into the structure of worship that characterized Jesus Christ’s own Sabbath experience in the synagogues of Galilee, the divine worship that the church inherited from the Jews as Paul emphasizes in Romans 9: 4. My Sunday mornings were never as exciting as Ozzy Osborne in Milan on a Saturday night, but they were always profoundly more comforting and meaningful than I have ever found worship to be at a Petra concert or other settings. And at death? Nothing is more beautiful than the liturgy at a funeral, to hear again the comforting words of the Ancient of Days, the same words spoken over an infant at baptism, conveying the faith to be received by children, sustaining the Christian through the thick and thin of life, Christ blessing the good times, sanctifying the hardships and bringing life out of death with his resurrection. It was this worship and the use of words that were not only old but spoken by the Ancient One, the Alpha and Omega that shaped Tolkien’s Christian faith and instilled for him the love of language that found resonance in his writings, which to this day still inspire a love of reading, not to mention, a love of friendship and other Christian virtues. 

It was this love of language found on every page of Tolkien, subtle themes of Christianity playing out in the books that made me fall in love with reading when I was thirteen and my parents sent me off to live at the lake cabin in Minnesota for the summer by myself. Tolkien was the only companion I brought with me when I hitched my ride from California. Those were good times relived as I read Tolkien by flashlight with my son evening after evening while camping and digging at Topaz Mt. in Utah, the dragon wind screaming through the desert canyon in the thunderstorm pelting our tent. Love for adventure and the value of friendship stole into our bond. We were looking for treasure and found it in words sourced from ancient springs, the voice of the Ancient one, the Alpha and Omega speaking through Gandalf and Tolkien’s pen. It was fun to watch this movie the themes of Tolkien’s orthodox faith played out in a life every bit as unorthodox as G. K. Chesterton’s. 

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News

Higher Things Magazine for Spring 2019 – Now Available!

This special topical issue “The Simul” has one goal in mind: that by the time you’ve read this magazine cover to cover you will have a solid handle on exactly what simul justus (or iustus) et peccator—simultaneously saint and sinner—is and what its implications are for you as a Christian. Not only that, we hope you’ll be passionately reminded to daily embrace your identity as a baptized child of God and be confident that it is Christ’s work and gifts that will sustain you in your battle weariness this side of Heaven. It is in Him you receive forgiveness in abundance and through His Word you encounter the reality of your true victory in Christ.

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Higher Homilies

Let Your Holy Angel Be With Me

by The Rev. William Weedon

Our Catechism teaches us to pray every morning and every night: “Let Your holy angel be with me that the evil foe may have no power over me.” And then in the morning, we are to go off to work singing a hymn; and in the evening, we are to go to sleep at once and in good cheer.

Where does such a prayer come from? This asking of God to let His holy angels be with us so that our evil foe can have no power over us? It comes from today’s Gospel. In today’s Gospel Jesus is not teaching us about angels. He is teaching the importance of humility. But he throws in – almost as an afterthought – a strange saying towards the very end. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 18:10)

“Their angels.” Theirs? It is not as though the angels belong to them. They are called, after all, the holy angels, and holy means (as it always does) “belonging to God.” When God calls something holy, when He makes it holy, he is simply marking it as His own in some special way. So why are they called “their” angels? Not because they belong to them, but because they have been assigned to them. This is what the Psalmist said: “He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.” Jesus said that goes not just for the spiritually mature and advanced, but above all, it goes for the little ones that the disciples were tempted to overlook as being rather unimportant. Best not be overlooking them, Jesus warns! They are so important that they have an angel assigned to them, every one of them his own assigned angel. The angels, whose joy is to gaze upon the face of the Father, also delight in serving Him by looking out for the little ones.

And so when you see a child in church, you mustn’t think poorly of them – no matter how noisy and squirmy they may be. You must learn to see them as God sees them, as so precious and important to the King of heaven that to each one has been assigned a big, burly heavenly body and soul guard.

But by “little ones” does Jesus mean only children? No. He means those who, becoming as children, enter the kingdom. To become as a child does not mean to become childish. It means to be nothing but given to, a crying need that calls out to be tended and cared for. Such a little one you were made when you were baptized into Jesus. You only received, you had nothing to give. He did all the giving. Baptized, He gave you the forgiveness of all your sins (for a lifetime and more!). Baptized, He gave you His Holy Spirit to live inside of you and fill you with God’s own joy and peace. Baptized, He clothed you in the garment of His own holiness so that the Father sees you as pure and righteous in His sight, for you have been tucked into Christ by your Baptism. And yes, baptized, He assigned to you an angel to watch over you and keep you. Angels are no myth of childhood, but a solid promise of God. All wrapped up in a single word “their.” “Their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.”

And thus your angel is always doing the will of the Father in heaven. That will is above that His holy angel be with you so that the Evil One may have no power over you.

The Evil One wants you to distrust God and His Word and promises even as he does. The Evil One wants you to be drawn into his bitter life of complaining and griping and railing against God and how utterly unfair He is. The Evil One wants you to share his misery not just here in this life, but eternally in hell. And make no mistake about it, the Evil One has set his sights on you, not just people in general, but on you. He hates you with a passion and he wants to bring about your ruin, to destroy your faith. And do you know why? Because he is filled with pride – the pride that thinks himself something special, and who looks down on you-you little pip-squeak – with utter scorn because God thinks you are so important that He would even assign His angels to guard and protect you. The Evil One rages against the very thought that angelic beings should stoop to serve the likes of flesh and blood.

Whatever shall we do against such a foe? Think of how weak we are, how prone to doubt God’s goodness, to question His wisdom, to complain about how He governs our lives and this world! How prideful we can be, despising and looking down on the little ones and forgetting how precious they are to God! Forgetting that we must all become nothing but such little ones, nothing but given to if we are to be saved.

Jesus reveals to us in today’s Gospel that the Father knows our weakness and therefore sends the holy angels to guard and protect us. They seek to keep us from the evil one. They seek to keep us with them, living lives of praise to the Father; living lives of trust in His goodness; living lives of joy in His presence. Their delight is to sing His praises and especially to sing the praises of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus. They delight to stand in amazement before what drives Satan batty! They celebrate the love He showed for us poor creatures of flesh and blood when He took on our flesh and blood in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary and came and lived among us. They delight to remember and rejoice in how He allowed Himself to be taken and crucified, trampling down death by death, out of love for us, and how He rose again to destroy the power of death for all who are joined to Him. His is the story they delight to tell, His the praise they delight to sing, and in Him they have found the cause of endless adoration and joy.

The big job of your holy angel, in keeping you from the evil one, is to keep you rejoicing in your Savior. The big job of your holy angel is to bring to your mind again and again the remembrance of His sufferings for you. To call you to unite with them in their praise that does not cease as you stand with them at the Holy Table, where the One they serve continues to serve you by giving you His body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins.

So when you pray tonight: “Let your holy angel be with me that the evil foe may have no power over me,” remember what you are asking for. You are asking that your angel, assigned to you when you were baptized into Christ, would always guard and keep you so that the evil one does not seduce you into his empty, unbelieving, complaining and prideful ways. But that you be kept by the holy angels in the way of your baptism, being a little one who is nothing but given to, and so has no room for pride, yet a little one who delights in joining with angels and archangels in their endless doxologies to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.

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HT Legacy-cast

Episode 133: April 29th, 2011

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Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Blessed Easter to you from HT-Radio. In this week’s episode, Pr. Borghardt is joined once again by the Rev. Mark Buetow to talk about the Resurrection of Jesus. As they walk through the scripture accounts, they debunk myths claiming Christ did not rise. Pr. Buetow also finds the opportunity to point us to our baptism.

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Current Events

The Holy Cross For You!

by The Rev. Rich Heinz

The need was even more apparent for the FOR YOU conferences: something was needed to give an ecclesial sense – a churchly feel – to the concert hall in Minneapolis and the facility in Asheville.  Something was necessary to transform the space.  The ideal of Higher Things conferences is to have sacred space set aside, not used for plenaries, announcements, and the business of the conference.  Something was desired that would proclaim: “Work and play take place in other settings; this space is for worship.”

What could possibly accomplish this task?  What could transform these rooms (and others at future conferences?)  What simply by its placement would declare that this is a Lutheran space, where we gather around the Lord in Prayer Offices and Divine Services?  A large crucifix!

The Rev. Kantor Richard Resch related that the internet was used for studying options, but nothing seemed quite right.  Then another option surfaced.  The Rev. Mark Mumme has a large workshop for his talent and hobby of woodworking.  Pastor Mumme, who makes many of his own furniture items, made a processional crucifix for Kramer Chapel at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne.

Kantor Resch emailed Pastor Mumme, asking for his ideas.  Pastor Mumme immediately responded: “I want to do this!”

Although a fine craftsman, Pastor Mumme does not carve figures such as a corpus for a crucifix.  This meant a non-budgeted expense.  However, when the choral workshop for FOR YOU was canceled, the original donors from Saint Paul congregation in Fort Wayne graciously gave their consent for the funds to purchase it.

A corpus from Oberammergau, Germany was ordered.  Although such international orders can sometimes be delayed, worries subsided when arrangements were made for faster shipping, and the Christ figure swiftly arrived.

The figure of the body of Jesus was ready, now they needed a cross.  The youth of Zion Lutheran in Hardwick, Minnesota (Pastor Mumme’s parish) raised the funds needed for the lightweight, yet sturdy wood.

As it was finished, Pastor Mumme suggested to Kantor Resch, “I could make a processional cross that matches it.”  And so he did.  They were completed and delivered the Monday before the conference in Minneapolis.

HT Retreat Executive Landon Reed is building boxes for both crucifixes, to transport them easily.  Each corpus needs to be handled and transported carefully, as the figures, especially the fingers of Christ, are very delicate.

Higher Things thanks Pastor Mark Mumme, who donated all of his labor, sharing his talent in these two works of art.

Just as the processional crucifix in Kramer Chapel has become a focal point of great beauty, directing our thoughts toward our Savior, so do the new Higher Things hanging crucifix and processional crucifix.  With the aid of these crucifixes, we witness with our eyes the Gospel that we hear as we Dare to be Lutheran and gather for the Feast, given For You, and gladly respond: Amen

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HT Legacy-cast

Episode 315: Good Friday & Easter – Pr. Borghardt and Jon Kohlmeier

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This week on HT-Radio, Pastor Borghardt and Jon spend the first half of HT-Radio talking about Good Friday and the death of our Lord. In the Second half they switch gears to Easter Sunday and rejoice in the Resurrection of Our Lord.

If you have questions or topics that you’d like discussed on HT-Radio, email them to radio@higherthings.org or send a text to 936-647-3235.

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Life Issues

What is God’s Will for My Life?

by The Rev. Rich Heinz

“What do you want to do when you graduate?” “What career would you like to pursue?” Questions like these are asked of teens and college students all the time. In fact, some start early, and sometimes we even ask children before they enter pre-school! But how do you respond?

Sometimes we attempt to get deep and “spiritual” about it, offering a very pious-sounding answer like, “I just want to do whatever God wills.” However, does that really fit in with what we know of God’s will? Does He have only one vocation that is truly for you? If you chose a different career than the one you once thought God was leading you toward, are you sinning?

Dear friends in Christ, the will of God does not work that way. God’s will can be done whether you end up a nurse or teacher, a homemaker, and mother or a “Geek Squad” manager, a pastor, or mechanic. As long as you are working an honest job for the good of others, and working out of the faith He has given you, God’s will is being done!

How is God’s will done?

God’s will is done when he breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die. This is His good and gracious will.
[Small Catechism: Lord’s Prayer; Third Petition]

God’s will is simply that “[He] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” (1 Timothy 2:4 ESV). The joy that you and I have is this: no matter what career or vocational choices we make in life, we can be His tools in reflecting His love in Christ to those we serve. In this way, through us, He will draw many to Himself “to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

So is it wrong to change vocational choices? Absolutely not! The Lord has given you many talents. Find something you love, do your best as you reflect His love, and you already are doing His will. Will you mess up? Of course – daily! Yet God still wants to use you to touch the lives of others. And so His will is continually to deliver forgiveness to you in His Divine Service, and to renew you to go back out into the world in your vocation, all over again.

For those of you on your third or fourth or even seventh declared major in college, this is especially good news. While your parents and faculty advisors may grow weary of the changes, our loving Master and Teacher know that you can serve Him in any number of ways. You have freedom in Him to choose any of them to live “in faith toward [Him] and in fervent love toward one another.”

“I just want to do whatever God wills,” is an extremely broad statement, for anyone. So remember, dear Christian friends, the choices are many, and all honest vocations can be God-pleasing, abiding in His will. Do not worry about changes in plan, or having one choice that appears to “do His will” more than another. Don’t be fearful and intimidated by choices for your vocation, saying, “I just want to do whatever God wills.” His will is done “when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die.” He will do that no matter what you decide or where you go, so you don’t have to be locked into one vocation in order to be doing God’s will. The Lord will use you wherever you end up in life, to be His tool and His child in that place!

 

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HT Legacy-cast

Episode 341: Joy in the Death and Resurrection of Christ

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This week on HT-Radio, Pr. Borghardt is joined by Jon Kohlmeier. Pr. B and Jon talk about the joy we have as Lutherans – even in Lent! That joy is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If you have questions or comments about HT-Radio, email them to support@higherthings.org or send a text to 936-647-3235.

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News

Reflections for Easter 2019 Now Available

Higher Things® is pleased to provide free daily devotions, called “Reflections,” for youth and their families.  These Reflections are centered in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and are based upon each day’s texts from the weekly readings in the one year lectionary and from Luther’s Small Catechism.

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Higher Things® presents Daily Reflections for Easter, April 21st through June 8th.  Reflections are available as a printable booklet and in a variety of formats.

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Help keep the Higher Things Daily Reflections FREE!  For more than a decade, Higher Things® has provided our readers with free Gospel reflections on our website, by e-mail and downloadable as print-ready PDFs.  We want to continue this service but we need your help!  Please consider making a donation to Higher Things® in the name of the Reflections to help continue this service to our website viewers and the youth in particular.  Help us to keep the reflections free, just like the Gospel!  Consider making a donation online.

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Current Events

Why?

by Rev. William Cwirla

I find myself watching more television than usual these days. Especially in the morning after my early morning walk. I’m looking for some good news — that New Orleans really isn’t all under water after all, that it’s all a very bad dream. I did the same after 9/11. That disaster was caused by bad religion and people who believe it. Hurricane Katrina was caused by a mixture of moisture and air. “Natural causes,” as we like to say. “Acts of God,” as the insurance companies put it when they don’t want to pay up.

“Why?” many will ask. “If God’s in charge, then why? If the universe is so intricately and intelligently designed, then why? Why didn’t God stick His Designer’s hand in front of the whirlwind and make it go back out to sea? Why did He allow a direct hit on a city built below sea level? Why even build a city below sea level?” That’s a question for each other, not for God.

Some are quick to answer the “Why?” question by pointing the finger of blame. Moralists will point to the hedonism and decadence that is New Orleans’ signature: Mardi Gras, “Girls Gone Wild,” or the homosexual “Southern Decadence” festival. Watch out, Las Vegas! Environmentalists will blame global warming. Liberals will blame George Bush. Who really knows? Nature abhors a vacuum. Silence begs to be filled with chatter. And when God’s not talking, we love to fill in the blanks.

The Bible runs lean on the “why” question. When Job asked it out of his suffering, the answer he got from the Lord in the whirlwind was a bunch of questions. “Who shut the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors?” (Job 38:8-9). In other words, “I’m God, you’re not God, and that’s good. Now stop asking questions and start worshipping.”

Some people asked for Jesus’ reaction to a political atrocity, some Galileans who were slaughtered by Pilate while worshipping. Why did it happen? What did Jesus think? He upped the ante with a construction accident — eighteen people killed by the tower of Siloam falling on them. Jesus’ word in response: “Repent, lest you all perish.”

Repent means to have a new mind, to come to a new way of thinking about God and about yourself. Repent of sin? Of course, every day, all of us. Do you think a category five hurricane is bad? It’s a walk in the rain compared to the Last Day! Repent also means to come to new thinking about how God does business, whose ways are not our ways, and whose thoughts are not our thoughts.

Why didn’t God do something? Lots of people prayed on Sunday morning. Unlike earthquakes or tidal waves or tornados, hurricanes give you plenty of time for prayer. They are slow-moving disasters. Plenty of prayers rose up like incense before the throne of grace. So why didn’t God do something to interfere with Katrina?

In the movie Bruce Almighty, Bruce discovers that it isn’t easy being God. He draws the moon in a little closer for a romantic dinner with his girlfriend and causes tidal waves and flooding on the other side of the world. He tries to answer everyone’s e-mailed prayers with a “Yes,” but as God, played by Morgan Freeman, points out, “Saying yes to everyone’s prayers just doesn’t work.” The truth is, you and I wouldn’t want to live in a world under the hand of the Divine Micromanager of All Things. A bride prays for sunshine for her outdoor wedding; the farmer begs for rain for his parched land. What’s a God to do?

God creates in freedom. Clouds, water, air, sea, and dry land, all do what they are designed to do. Usually, everything happens benignly out in the Atlantic somewhere, and the fish go surfing. Occasionally one of God’s free creatures of air and water slams into a populated chunk of land. To put a Divine Hand in the way would do the ultimate harm — withdraw the freedom of air and water and cloud. It’s the equivalent of turning stones to bread.

Why didn’t God do anything about the whirlwind heading toward New Orleans? He did in a way no one would have thought to ask. He dropped dead. He embraced it once and for all in the dark death of Jesus on the cross. “It is finished.” Everything that needed to be done has already been done. In Jesus’ dark death, all the devastations, the deaths, the destructions have been answered for and atoned. The suffering Son suffers along with His creation. He asks the “Why” question for us all: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He absorbs the silence. He dives headlong into its death and brings up from the depths a new creation. Even Noah, bobbing on the water with the animals and his family in the ark was only a temporary fix, a band-aid. It was hardly a new creation that popped out of the ark on Noah’s 601st birthday. Only a sneak preview, picture-type of the coming Jesus attraction. The real lifeboat is the death of Jesus, and that’s already been done one time for all time, once for all people.

Where was God when the winds blew and water rose? Right there in the midst of all of it. The One who “fills all in all” never abandons His creatures or His creation, even when it does some terribly devastating things. He is the Word who made all things and in whom all things hold together. He is with us always, until the end of our days and the end of all the days. He is Calvary-committed to His creation, and in Him, all things are already made new, even as we struggle to clean up the mess of the old.

He works all things together for good to those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. All things — the good, the bad, the ugly, the terrifying, the destroying, the devastating. All things are lifted up in His death. All things. It’s not as though we can load the cosmic dice to come up sevens with our prayers and good works. Instead, every roll of the dice, from snake eyes to box cars, from tidal waves to hurricanes, comes up an eternal winner because the Owner of the cosmic casino insists that it is so, all for crucified Christ’s sake.

Faith clings to the Promise that God is actually reconciled to this world as it is in the death of Jesus and does not count men’s sins against them, and that in Christ He works life in the midst of death, and victory in the middle of a shutout. The world doesn’t need to be micromanaged by a Divine Meddler; it simply needs to be held by the cross-scarred hands of the creative Word Incarnate whose Death swallows up all death once and for all.

Just because it’s all done to death in Jesus, doesn’t mean there isn’t much for all of us to do. Giving, helping, praying, tending our neighbor in need. Each according to his or her vocation and gift. For some, it will mean giving above and beyond the usual. For some, it will mean lending a helping hand. For all of us, it will mean prayer. Jesus is in the midst of that activity too. He is your neighbor in need for you to serve — the man in the ditch who fell among the thieves, and the man whose life has been swept away by the whirlwind named Katrina. “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”

The important thing to remember and trust is that crucified and risen Jesus is always there, right there in the middle of it all, in the eye of the storm, to save you.