Praise

on Holy Saturday: “to death, a sonnet” [a poem]

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

to death, a sonnet

A fear as frank as frankness be
I hold within this frame so dear;
so dear please hold me, till this dark is past
_____— till the darkness passes mine eye.

But to be so engraced I know I must face
_____– and lose-
___________to this spectre this prospect requires.

O this still darkest night, I lie here betwixt
competing rays
__________of glory’s gaze.
One lies ahead; one lies to my face
___both wooing and charming a choice from my hands:

___________to re-seize and be lived,
___________or release and be sieved?

[read my other Holy Week poetry here]

[image by Mark Rothko]

all writings licensed: Creative Commons License

on Good Friday: “Coffee Crucifix” [a poem]

/ Paul Burkhart / 8 Comments

Coffee Crucifix

Crescent ring under porcelain smooth
___stain the wood-stained finish.
______(It is finished.)
___Marked with muddy water;
___mark the merry day; to
___marry the murdered man.

Floral notes in blackened waves
___crash the shore of trembled lips.
Choral bright, in darkest night,
___wake the tone of trebled kiss.

Younger tastes left open-wide; older eyes made
satisfied.

Mark the wood: complex simplicity.
Pierce my heart: storied infinity.

[read my other Holy Week poetry here]

all writings licensed: Creative Commons License

Maundy Thursday, Narrative & Sacrament | Lent {9}

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments


Today is Maundy Thursday which is the time in the Christian Church calendar where we celebrate the institution of the Lord’s Supper; it also initiates the three Holy Days of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.

I was raised as a Southern Baptist in Dallas, Texas. Liturgy, Church calendars, Holy Days, and Prayer books were as foreign to me as R-rated films, alcohol, and dancing. Now, though, as I’m looking for a Church to go to for a Good Friday service, even the Presbyterian church service all my friends are going to doesn’t feel liturgical and structured enough for me. What happened?

In the last few years between going to seminary (and dropping out) and changing churches, I have fallen in love with both liturgy and Sacrament.

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From His Father [GUEST POEM]

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

by Jen Huber

He can easily say what he has lived by:
God and belonging; known from childhood.

He was raised to believe in what was taught
To stand by his father’s belief in his Father
Accept the judgement of another,
The forgiveness of one another
Believing in something unseen

From generation to generation
This belonging to faith has remained
And grasped his life long-lived
And to know that his Father carried
Him throughout his time

He can easily say what he has died for

[image credit: Lauren Chandler]

Free Holy Week Music: Cool Hand Luke’s “Of Man” & Lent Mixtape

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All of us know that one of the things that can affect our mood like no other is music. And so, to that end, I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite albums ever, by my favorite band ever (they’ve had that title since I was in high school, so I promise, I’m not just exaggerating for effect), Cool Hand Luke’s Of Man.

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a Philly Holy Week schedule | Lent 2012

/ Paul Burkhart / 18 Comments

First of all, my church has been raising money to purchase and deliver over 1,000 meals to needy families around the city for Easter. They are delivering these meals on Saturday, and they really need drivers for the deliveries. It would only take 2 or 3 hours of your time, and you can pick which hour you begin. Click here to sign up. Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for this.

Thursday: Maundy Thursday Service
liberti: center city, 17th and sansom, 7pm
This day commemorates Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples and his washing of their feet.

Friday: Good Friday Service(s)
liberti: center city, 17th & Sansom, 6:30pm
On Good Friday, Christians remember Jesus’ death on a cross for the sake of the world. liberti will hold a service of songs, Scripture readings, and darkness

city church, at Woodland Pres Church, 42nd & Pine, 7pm (with meditative prelude at 6:45pm)
A Tenebrae service that mournfully observes the darkness of Jesus’ death and our need for God’s redemption (Tenebrae is Latin for “shadows”). Worship with us as our Lenten focus on God’s deliverance culminates in Jesus’ statement on the cross: “It is finished.”
(This is the Good Friday service I always go to. It’s amazing, and if you’d like to join me, let me know. We can carpool.)
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On Palm Sunday (or, “Oh, the Glory, the Beauty, & the Tragedy of Being Human!”) [REPOST]

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, the Christian holiday that ushers in Holy Week. It celebrates the “triumphal entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem (Mk 11:1-11). Seen with the insight of hindsight, though, this is one of the oddest “triumphal entries” one could imagine. It is the triumphal kick-off for what will be the death of the Son of God.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the common “courtroom” analogy for the Gospel. You’ve surely heard it: You are standing before a judge. You are guilty. The punishment is death. It is a right and just penalty for your crimes. But then Jesus comes in and freely offers to take your punishment for you on your behalf so you can be set free. Will you accept this gracious offer?

Many an atheist has pointed out the logical flaws in this analogy, but I think there are even bigger issues I have with it. Really, it only works if the parties involved in this switch are seen as equals. A pure man for a guilty man — seems like an even trade, right? But how then does the death of this one man absolve the sins of a multitude? How is this even just?

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two of my best (looking) friends are getting married today, so I’m shaving my beard.

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Aren’t they good-looking? (Their dog is even cuter.)

Looks aside, two of my favorite people in my life are getting married in just a few hours. I’ve walked with them (especially the future Mrs.) through a lot and having watched them get there today will be one of the greatest joys of my life. Seriously. Their relationship is a true testimony to the goodness and faithfulness of a God that stays with us and heals us. They encourage me and give me so much hope in God.

Oh! The beard thing. Yes. I almost forgot. They have asked me to play guitar for their wedding. Though I believe they have over-estimated my guitar skills a little, I look forward to being a part of this sacrament of God in such a way.
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The Slain God of Evolution | Lent {6}

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

This Lent, we’ve been going through a series meditating on some of the implications of the fact that we worship a God who was “slain before the foundations of the world”–in eternity past–and therefore has some aspect of “slain-ness” to his very nature.

In the last couple of posts, we’ve been focusing on what this means for the many references in which the Bible says that the world was created “through Jesus”. What might it mean that the world came into being through a suffering and slain Lord? What might it mean for our own suffering?

This got me thinking about Evolution.

Obviously, the main vehicle driving Natural Selection is death and dying. This is one of the biggest hindrances that Christians have to the idea of Evolution. If our usual categories are correct of a “good” creation “falling”, and only then ushering “death” into the world, how does the thoughtful Christian deal with the realities of Evolution?

I think this Lenten idea of God’s “slain-ness” can help.
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Christ’s Heart Breaking in Us | Lent {5}

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

Lent is a season in which God’s people meditate on the slaying of Jesus on the Cross and all that is within them (and outside of them) that made that Cross necessary. So to that end, we’ve been doing a series meditating on the fact that Christ is the Lamb who was “slain before the foundations of the world”. We’ve been thinking through what it might mean that Jesus, in some sense, has been suffering for all time.

[suffering]

We’ve said that the Cross was an in-breaking of the suffering essence of God into our world. Think of it as a volcano that emerges after a millennia of quiet tectonic plate shifts. Eternity and infinity–past, present and future–break into the world at the Cross; eternity is the backdrop against which the death of Christ occurs.

We’ve also said that the world has a certain “slain-ness” to it as well, due to being created “through” a slain and suffering Christ.

Today I want to ask: What might that mean for our own suffering and death?
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more free music for Lent from New York Hymns

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

For anyone that keeps any sort of track of the Church music scene, they will know that it is sort of a fad nowadays to update older hymns with modern music, instrumentation, and melodies. Some of my favorite groups that do this are Indelible Grace, Red Mountain Church, Sojourn Music, and Redemption Hill (my old church in Richmond). I love all these acts, but even they are hit-and-miss in some of their executions.

A newer group (I think) on this scene is New York Hymns.
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some gospel encouragement sitting in a coffee shop…

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

I’m sitting in this coffee shop, and across the room there’s this college-aged girl walking one of her friends (apparently from another country) through the story of the Bible and the gospel.

She seems like a pro. She’s teaching her friend the structure of the Bible, answering her questions, and having her read the Scripture. She’s talking about who wrote the different books and each of their stories. They’re even hanging out in the Old Testament a bunch.

She’s not over-anxious or pushy; she’s just hanging out. The friend seems engaged and they keep laughing, sharing stories, and engaging the Scriptures.

I can’t help but feel I’m watching the Kingdom of God breaking all the more into this world–the future flooding the present.
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Please help me give my money away! [UPDATED]

/ Paul Burkhart / 28 Comments

As I said the other day while introducing Lent this year, the Lenten season has historically been marked by three practices of those that participate in it. Prayer and fasting tend to get most of the attention, but almsgiving is another component of a Lent-historically-done-well. Almsgiving is the ancient term for giving materially of your resources for the purpose of charity, love, and grace.

I have never been good at giving my money away. Tithing has always been difficult for me to practice; giving to the homeless has been hard; and I always have a good excuse why I’m not able to give to some cause greater than myself. Sure, I’ll talk about the organization or even write a blog post in support of it, but it’s hard for me to part ways with my money.

This season, however, I wanted to try an experiment to fight against this and hope and pray that God meets me in it and grows me in deep, lasting ways.

This Lent, I want to give away some of my money everyday. For Monday through Saturday (the Church considers Sundays Lent “mini-breaks”), I want to give some amount of money to a non-profit or charity that can use it to help others.

But I need help.

If you have a non-profit or charity or social justice organization that you particularly like, could you leave a comment below telling me what it is?
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a beautiful quote on our security in the Incarnation (by T.F. Torrance)

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The stark actuality of Christ’s humanity, his flesh and blood and bone, guarantees to us that we have God among us. If that humanity were in any sense unreal, God would be unreal for us in him. The full measure of Christ’s humanity is the full measure of God’s reality for us, God’s actuality to us, in fact the measure of God’s love for us. If Christ is not man, then God has not reached us, but has stopped short of our humanity – then God does not love us to the uttermost, for his love has stopped short of coming all the way to where we are, and becoming one of us in order to save us. But Christ’s humanity means that God’s love is now flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, really one of us and with us.

— T.F. Torrance, Incarnation, 185

A good friend posted this on Facebook, and I just had to post it. It connects very well to a few of the Advent posts I did recently (namely the ones on Evolution, our Fallenness, doubting God’s “liking” of us, and how he makes us most human).

I’ve never actually read Torrance before, but I’ve heard a lot about him from people that were, at the time, reading his work. From what I understand, though, he is a theologian whose mind is brilliant and pen is beautiful–a combination sorely lacking in the Christian world today. I also hear that he is a theologian to which I would feel a certain affinity, so I look forward to reading more of him.

HAPPY ADVENT!! {10}

/ Paul Burkhart / 10 Comments

Well, it’s here. The day we’ve been building up to and meditating upon. This is the day we joyfully celebrate the King who broke into our reality and ushered in His Kingdom and our salvation by coming in the form of a little child.

Even though this time can be tough for some (my grandfather died a year ago tomorrow), I do hope and pray that we are all able to have at least one good laugh this year and see the smile of at least one person we love and that we know loves us. And eat good food. And drink good drink. And listen to bad, cheesy music. (On a side-note: the picture above is a picture of the wall-hanging that went up in my house every year as I grew up. And now I have it. I love it.)

Don’t worry, this isn’t really a whole other post. This Advent season has been an especially fruitful time for my writing (as my Facebook Wall obviously shows). I want to thank everyone that has been telling me how helpful these posts were–or even those that just told me they were reading them in the first place!. I can’t tell you how much it affects me, sticks with me, and encourages me. But anyway, I just wanted to write this post so I could put up all these posts in one place for you easy reading pleasure, should you so desire. Happy Advent!
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